Dead Bread interview

DEAD BREAD - interview with Matt

Dead Bread has release their debut demo this year and I must say that “Hatred Slice” turned out to be really cool piece of death metal. The impression is even bigger if you think that everything has been done only by one guy, with help of the session vocalist. So, I decided to make this short interview with Mateusz and ask him few basic question about what, where and how...

I usually don't start or ask about the history of bands, which I interview, but I guess in this case I can make a difference. All in all Dead Bread is completely unknown yet and fact that it is one man project makes it little bit more special. So tell me Matt, when did you start thinking about doing a death metal project? Do you have a musical experience from some other projects or this is your debut? More so, why it is a solo thing, with some guest appearances on the demo, rather than a full band - especially as Poznań has many maniacs and musicians.

I already have a ‘real’ band playing thrash metal – Carnage Inn. Dead Bread is a fun project where I release tracks my bandmates didn’t like or just didn’t fit the band’s style. Oh and the most important – independence. I do what I want and when I want. I don’t have to rearrange songs for someone and I don’t need to be worried if drummer will be able to play it. Besides I always wanted to collaborate with many talented musicians. I started this project for fun some time ago but it turned out quite serious, as I can see.

"Hatred Slice" is the debut demo of Dead Bread. And I am very pleased with the quality of the music; very powerful and brutal, awesome production. Tell me something more about the process of composing and recording of this demo. Janick Klausen did all the vocals on it; he also wrote the lyrics. So I guess he's responsible for the vocal arrangements as well. Did you give him free hand in all his work? Did you meet to record the vocals or he recorded his parts at home and just sent you files on the e-mail?

I always try to give free hand to the vocalists. I do the songs, send them and if they like it they do their vocals. If some vocalist doesn’t like the song then we pick up some other song and previous one is being sent to the next vocalist. On “Hatred Slice” Janick wrote lyrics, arranged and recorded vocals at home. I recorded raw songs – sent him files and if he likes it - few hours later I’ve got vocal version on my mail. He has some sick skills so he works really quickly.

Zombies on the cover will immediately put you in the same category of bands, which flood the scene nowadays - I mean all the old school death metal acts, which share the interest in classic zombie horror. Was it intentional and do you think it is good category for Dead Bread? Do you feel your project has something in common with these bands and old school death metal in general? In my opinion your music has quite strong Swedish "flavour", but not only and I also mentioned band such as Dying Fetus.

I love Swedish music. Entombed, Roxette, Bloodbath etc. (Yeah, and Roxette was the band I really had in my mind hehe... damn you Mateusz – P666) and it’s really nice to hear that someone hear that influence in my music. Anyway I plan to do ‘Swedish’ songs in the future and there also will be some Dying Fetus in Dead Bread. Cover and whole artwork, logos were made by my friend (and Carnage Inn vocalist btw.) Paweł Różycki.  I gave him free hand - he has an AMAZING talent, especially in the zombie acts, so I was sure he will come up with something insane. He spent a lot of time and energy and made this awesome artwork.

And what's your interest in the classic horrors and zombie movies? Do you watch just the old movies or also some newer ones like the famous "Walking Dead" series?

To be honest I’m not that big movie fan, but I really enjoy zombie films, “Halloween” series (except the comedy with Busta Rhymes). I also like first two “Saw” sequels.

Nowadays it is quite easy to spread the name of the band around the world. You just need to contact as many people as possible, do the facebook and bandcamp thing, share the demo in digital format, giving the files to people so they can download it. But personally I am pleased that you also decided to release "Hatred Slice" on physical (CD) format. How limited is the CD and how many copies and where have you already sent it to? Tell me also, what feedback did you get on your music so far, especially from abroad?

I believe that nowadays buying CD is something more than just music approach.  If someone wants to listen to the music they just download it for free from the Internet. It’s more like a showing respect and BIG support.  I ‘released’ only 50 copies. Most of them were sold in Poland and UE, some of them have been sent to USA, Asia etc. Few were sent for reviews and few are left. CD price is quite low, because I don’t even imagine to get refunded at least half of cost I spent on this EP. Some fans (if I can call them this way) donated much more money while buying EP – that means a lot to me. For them it’s just a few bucks… At the moment feedback is very positive and I’m really hoping it won’t change much in the future!

Which way will the music of Dead Bread go in the future? What plans do you have for the next release? Tell me something about your new songs - what are they like from the musical point and also what guest musicians will participate on your demo this time?

Hmmm… I don’t think there will be anything really new. I want to keep it straight – blastbeats, growl, simple riffs. Not much of djent or progressive, technical playing here. I love to collaborate with other musicians. There will be much more various guests (also drummers). Some of them are famous, some of them are just guys I met on the Internet. I plan to release few EPs. I’ve got plenty of songs that I want to share.

I can moan that the new logo, which you chose - one which I call comic books logo hehe - is not good at all and I really prefer the one, simple logo, which you had on "Hatred Slice". Tell me why the hell are you so stubborn to use the new shitty logo hehe???

Haha but I like it!! For me it’s a mix of a typical metal font (“Dead”) and much modern “Bread”. Like an old death metal music with modern production flavour. On the “Hatred Slice” Paweł made a different logo because in his opinion the original one didn’t fit the style of the artwork. I believe he is right hehe.

Eh, I don’t like that new one at all, anyway! Finally I must also ask you about the deathcore thing. You mentioned it being one of your major influences, but personally I cannot hear much of it on "Hatred Slice". And I hope that the future recordings won't get too close to this hated genre he!

There were some responses that was like ‘Dude, it’s not death metal, it’s deathcore!’ but I really don’t give a fuck about that. If you listen to something and you like it does it really makes a difference? I don’t care about the genre. I don’t care if it’s turbovegetariandiscometal while I like it. I’m aware that Janick has more core sounding growl than classic death metal vocalists, so that’s why I mentioned deathcore as a ‘similar sounds’. Just to avoid the discussion about genres… Personally I don’t listen to the deathcore at all, but I know Janick is a deathcore maniac.  I don’t like so much breakdowns, different vocals, 2368423480233 tempos. I heard some cool Whitechapel songs with cool drums and vocals, but nothing that really that stayed in my mind (besides amazing Jason Suecof work). Most of the deathcore bands sound the same to me (sorry…) I don’t hear much differences between them. I don’t know, maybe Dead Bread is one of them haha. 80% of time I don’t even listen to metal music. If I do it’s recently Fleshgod Apocalypse (sick stuff!), old Monstrosity etc. There are vocalists in Dead Bread that have more classic death metal growls (for example Dayton that laid down vocals for “Sattarak).

OK, this is just short interview, but I hope it will give people some idea about Dead Bread and support your music. Anything else you would like to ask to finish to, do it now. Cheers!

I would like to thank everybody for the support. Salut!