DEATHSTARS Frontman On Possible U.S. Breakthrough: 'America Is Mostly Interested In America'

Sauli Vuoti of Imhotep recently conducted an interview with DEATHSTARS frontman Whiplasher. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Imhotep: I think you have a good chance of breaking through to the big markets with your music.

Whiplasher: "I think so too, and Nuclear Blast have understood this as well. They have tried to find new ways to advertise it to find this type of audience, who are into metal and music in general. Even if we come from the metal underground, nowadays we are not so much about metal anymore. It is hard to limit your music to just being metal. And we aren't metal the original way anyways. We come from bands like DISSECTION and SWORDMASTER, so sometimes it is hard for people to understand why we make this type of music. It is just that we wanna do something else now. They determine us as a death metal band since we played in that scene, so the reactions are sometimes strange. They always compare us to what we've done before. With this second album we've got better reactions than ever, so maybe we've found our correct audience now."

Imhotep: I would imagine you might breakthrough in the US as well.

Whiplasher: "That is a huge market, the country is so big. But America is mostly interested in America. American music is definitely different than European, and often the two continents don't understand each other. I don't personally get most U.S. bands."

Imhotep: The lyrics and the whole concept of the band is very interesting. You mix sarcastic self-observations with different descriptions of rapture.

Whiplasher: "We differ from other bands, as most extreme bands today seem to be politically correct, yet they disguise it by sounding aggressive. The lyrics in DEATHSTARS are about the lives we live. DEATHSTARS is not about power, it is about weakness… about our weaknesses as persons. How we find equality in being self-destructive, like using the dark side to grow as a person and expect it. And to live life to its fullest. I write about many matters, but there is definitely a dark aspect to those all. We are very extreme individuals who search for kicks all the time. All the time, man… We get addicted to addictions on every level of life, we do everything to the extreme, and then you evidently become self-destructive. The lyrics are about the frustration it creates, we like criticize ourselves. But we wanna make that self-destructiveness glamorous, there is definitely glamour in decadence. Some have thought we write about politics, but there are no politics there. I write about different values, and sometimes the roots of values are in our culture and politics, but we have absolutely no political aims whatsoever."

Imhotep: You seem to be equally as negative about all organized religions.

Whiplasher: "The song 'Synthetic Generation' is about being stupid no matter what term you use, God or Satan. You cannot judge me, I am what I am, I am everything, God and Satan. I am making fun of stupidity and narrow-mindness. How could I use a word like 'evil' in my lyrics, it is like the most subjective word there is? The lyrics I write are humoristic and cynical, there's a lot of black humor there even if those are dark. For me humor is the base of everything."

Read the entire interview at this location.