1. FIRST OF ALL GIVE US A SHORT BAND BIO BY POINTING OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS OF THE BAND'S HISTORY AND INTRODUCING THE CURRENT LINE UP.

• Hi, this is Arne of BK49. We started out in early '96. At that time, the band consisted of Klaus Kessemeier (guitar), Thomas Marter (Drums), "Lord" Joachim Meyer (Bass), who were previously mainly involved with the Thrashhards of ASSORTED HEAP, who released two albums ("Experience of Horror", 1990, and "Mindwaves", 1992) on One More Flop Records. BK 49-vocals featured Bernd Reiners, a very good longtime friend of mine and brother of Metal who I've been making music with for about ten years now. Him and myself had a Grindcore band going called SPLATTERED REMAINS in the early Nineties and later started a Thrashband called PAIN FOR PLEASURE with our current drummer Marc-Andr?e "M?cke" Dieken, who is also in German Deathmetal veterans OBSCENITY. And, last but hopefully not least, there was me on guitar. We recorded our first demotape ("Boiling Blood") in October '97 and soon after that, Thomas and Lord Meyer left the band. Thomas was soon replaced by Bernd's brother Frank. The replacement on bass took us a little longer but in Spring of  '99, Patrick Feist of KING CARRION came on board to complete the band. The next output was 7-tracker "Zombified" in October of '99. Frank Reiners left the band in April of 2002. The Mighty M?cke took over the drumchair. I've known him for ages, he's a very close friend of mine. So, in June of 2002, we entered Wolkensound Sudios in Aurich to record our first full-length effort "Join the Dead" which has just been released by Canadian GWNrecords.

• I'm really sorry, but I can't tell you! This is the big secret behind the band! To be honest, it doesn't mean a damn thing. It was inspired by too much alcohol, a bad sense of humor and the will to find a name that would not give hints to the music we play. We all agreed that we did not want just another "hell-death-corpse" or whatever name, but something that is easy to remember and to make you curious what's behind it.

• Thanks a lot!!! The music does come out naturally because the styles you mentioned are the ones we worship! This is the music we love and want to play. The composing of the songs on the other hand, that's usually a lot of effort. We always try to create one song as something very special to us, within itself and in comparison to our previous songs. We like each song to have an identity and atmosphere of its own. It's kind of hard to explain but to say it with the songs: "I'll Dig Your Grave" doesn't sound anything like "Assembly of Souls" which doesn't sound much like "Morbid Funeral" and "Buried but not deep enough" is more like a trip or a horror movie Soundtrack with vocals and soloing and, in terms of songwriting, totally beyond any other song on the album. When we put out "Zombified', "I'll Dig your Grave" was already written, so that song is about three and a half years old! So: Yes, THAT is a lot of effort, because we're not the fastest songwriters and we like to create something new and not just follow a formula. Still all that has to happen within the classic songwriting structures that have a memorable chorus, a strong verse and so on because we are dedicated to the Old School. It's that rollercoaster feeling I love about this band. You speed up, build up the tension, reach a peak, go downhill at insane speed, give 'em some rest and then totally wreck their system. It's all about variety and intensity to me. I think it's really sad that songwriting doesn't seem to play an important role anymore. People seem to be more into how deep the vocals are and how fast the drummer is. One out of these two makes a good band for some people, which is nothing but a joke. When it comes to the band's influences, there's really mainly old school Metal to mention. We all love stuff like Morbid Angel, Slayer, Necrophagia, Sadistic Intent, Autopsy, Razor, Dark Angel and many more. Everyone takes their little bits out of those bands, from songwriting and atmosphere to lyrics and, of course, the overall quality of the music.

• 'Join the Dead' was recorded in our hometown Aurich at Wolkensound Studios. The guy who did it is called Locke. Well, it was him and Klaus who did the job. I love the production because it's full of power, very natural. That, however, was a long and winding road. We entered the studio the 3rd of June, had planned to stay two weeks. Now one year has passed and the album came out exactly one year after we entered those gateways to insanity. To make a long story short: we've had our little problems here and there. It was very relaxed in the beginning, maybe a little bit too  relaxed, and then it just turned into stress. The band has had their little problems and the producer himself , that schizo, wasn't really too professional as well, although I still have to give him credit for the awesome sound after all. What counts is: we have a product we're totally happy with and Locke can go on doing three bands at the same time. The Mastering took place at the Soundlodge Studio in Leer, a town nearby. Owner J?rg Uken really saved us all from doing something you usually go to jail for. He definitely knows his job, did a great mastering and put the icing on the cake. The mixing process at Wolkensound took place around Christmas 2002, and that was a time when there wasn't really any communication between us and the studio guy Locke anymore, it was horrible. So what we wanted to achieve was bringing the whole recording to a good end, and to do so J?rg Uken and SOUNDLODGE were the best choice we could have possibly made.

• There you go, it invites you to join the dead! Our bassplayer Dr. Frankenfeist did the cover, meaning he did 'the guy' on the front and the tombstone on the backcover. The actual artwork was done by Tim Kl?cker of Clockwork Wizards, a friend of ours, and it came out really cool. Spooky stuff! As you already said, there's a funny twist to it but it's nothing we planned. It's just Frankenfeist's style. We've had him paint the cover for 'Zombified', too, and some people didn't quite get the humor behind that one. Zombie cheerleaders, come on! The overall artwork in general goes with the music and the lyrics. We're by no means a fun band or anything even close to that, but if you have a at least halfway twisted mind, you might find titles like "Buried but not deep enough" or lines like "Pick up your ashes and smoke 'em like crack" kind of funny. Nobody would consider a movie like 'Day of the Dead' serious (I hope). It's dark, it's brutal and it' funny. AUTOPSY are a good example, too. We just love that horror stuff, that's all.

• The lyrics are referring to horror-, gore- and Zombie-movies. They are just little stories inspired by those films. With music like this, lyrics about bees and lillies just wouldn't fit in. We leave that to Bon Jovi. This music needs something that is just as dark and twisted as the songs to make the picture complete. Then again, it's not always the same lyrical approach for each song, but the lyrics have to fit the atmosphere of the track. Something like "Morbid Funeral" wouldn't work as well with the lyrics of "I'll Dig Your Grave" because the songs live of that atmosphere that consists of the music AND the lyrical content.

• It usually all starts with a bunch of riffs. We've been playing together long enough now to have an instant idea of the role a riff has to play in a song, be it a verse, a bridge, a chorus, a part somewhere in the middle or whatever else. Maybe we'll just jam around before we start to practice and something decent may come out of it. That's how the beginning of  'Morbid Funeral' came to being, for example. Or maybe you play out somewhere and have an idea during the soundcheck. The riffs come spontaneously, we collect them and all listen to them at band-practice. Everyone brings in their ideas and that's the point when we start working on a song. We don't really focus on anything when we write a song. As I said, it really comes spontaneously. Somebody in the band might say "I have an idea that would make this song even sicker" or something like that, and it goes further on from  there. We don't have a concept that says "Ok, let's write a sick bastard", it just happens. Once you start writing a song, it pretty much tells you where it wants to go. In the end, it either sounds good because you listened to what it told you so far, or it sounds like shit because you ignored the feeling that was to it. From my own point of view, I don't think that there's some kind of songwriting law that says "When you feel like hell, go grab a guitar because something good may come out of it". I mean, it might happen, but it doesn't necessarily have to. I don't think the guys in CROWBAR run around with a rope 'round their neck all day, and still they are able to create very emotional, heavy and dark music. Ideas just happen, and I still don't know how.

• This is a bit difficult because we all have important private-life things to do at the moment or in the near future. We try to play as much as possible. There might be a small tour in Canada next year, but nothing is fixed yet. We've played a lot in our hometown area during the last years, but did not get out of here too often, which is a pity. I hope that we'll be able to change that soon.

• I would say "Listen to this or I'll dig your grave!", hahaha! No, seriously, it's often a natural process. You meet people, start talking about music, "I like this and that", "Have you seen those guys live on tour?", "Oh, you play in a band?" "Yeah, listen to this or I'll give you fleshripping horror!", you know, just the way it goes! I'd try to describe our style, Death/Thrash the old school way, fast, dark, such things. I think the most recognizable elements would be  memorable chorusses, classic Thrash drumming and interesting songwriting. I think it's very hard to describe music with words, you  have to actually hear it. The funny thing is that we've been compared with all kinds of bands already, from Voivod to Repulsion over Slayer, Massacre, Possessed to Terrorizer and so on. This can be a trap because people might label you as the band that sounds like 'X' or 'Y' and you won't get out of that anymore. I wouldn't want that to happen to us. We have our little 'stolen goods' here and there, but I think we're heading for our own unique style.

• Ouch, this is a tough one! Hmm, fear, angst, maybe, desperately struggling to get out of some situation you never wanted to be in. A Village People concert? No, Dr. Frankenfeist would love that. Spookier. Maybe back then, when you were a kid, home alone, howling dogs, midnight, silhouettes at the window. That might be true of some of the songs. Other songs are more from another perspective like "HARGH HAGH HARGH, I wanna see you get out of THIS, hippie, a harghharghhargh!!!" This is hard to answer! A painting... A house on a mass grave hill in the depth of a full moon night.

• I would pick "House on Massgrave Hill". Scary things happen here. People dig other people's graves and those laid to rest in a "Morbid Funeral" will be "Buried, but not deep enough". They'll come back and unleash the most "Fleshripping Horror" you've ever seen in a clip. At midnight, there would be an "Assembly of Souls" that wants you to "Join the Dead" because, as we all know, "Death is the Crown of Creation". I love the clip to KING DIAMOND'S "Sleepless Nights", maybe it would have to be a little bit like that one. Filmed in black and white, that's for sure! I love those old movies that work with a lot of atmosphere, light, mimics, gestures and all that. I imagine the clip to feature a guy who's scared to death, running away from something. You'd have to see it in his face. It is, of course, a full moon night, with a lot of clouds that darken the sky every now and then. He reaches that "House on Massgrave Hill". He jumps the fence and gets inside, not knowing that "the villagers avoid this place" for a good reason. And it gets worse from there. It would have to be total subconscious horror.

• I think there's nobody else to blame but us. I mean, not the band, of course (or not yet), but the human race in general. If  things go wrong it's yourself or other people on this planet who are responsible for it. We treat each other and this planet like shit. Of course you might say "Why didn't HE/SHE avoid this, make that a little better...", and what not. I do believe in that Creator you mentioned but I don't think that we were put here to wait for somebody else to fix what we fuck up, we SHOULD be able to do it on our own. Why or if we are (not), that's a totally different question. It's hard to answer this in an e-mail interview, I could probably talk for hours about it.

• A world without music is really hard to imagine. How would you define music? To me, music goes beyond 'classic' instruments, it can also be in the rhythm of some machine or the singing of the birds, to give you two extremes.  So, if all that weren't there... I'd probably try to get a job at a junkyard and demolish cars all day. That might help. Yeah, I could see myself doing that. Or I'd spend the rest of my days in a dojo. That sounds like a much better idea than the junkyard thing. Hmmm, or maybe, a junkyard, yeah, hmmm.

• I'd ask for three more wishes! Those would be: Never a world without music (because I'd have a hell of a time figuring out what to do instead), a world tour with Slayer opening for us. They wouldn't be allowed to play anything older than that "Diabolus" stuff so the audience would crave for some real heavy shit afterwards. My last wish would be: three more wishes. 

• G.G. Allin: (in a Butthead-voice)"Uh-huh-huh, how does it taste, dude? Uu-huh-huh, huh-huh-huh!" Well, I doubt that he was an important personality so I guess this doesn't really count. 
• General von Stauffenberg: "Believe me, he WILL be late! I come from 60 years later and I KNOW you'll fuck up! Would you PLEASE reprogramme the timer?" 
• George W. Bush: "This in an A. This is a B. And this jolly little fellow here, that's a C. Got it?" Randy Rhoads: "Can I have your autograph?"

• "Join the Dead with BK 49".

• I have to thank you, this was a great interview! It was a lot of fun. Thanks for featuring BK49 and giving us a chance to let  people know we exist. Check out our website at www.BK49.de. Cheerz to all you metalheads in Greece!!! Bye, Arne