Jari Laine – Guitars for Torture Killer

1. With so many Death Metal bands out there, why form another one? What makes this project work so well and do you think it offers something maybe that other Death Metal bands don't?

JARI: We don´t think of it like that at all. This is the stuff we want to play and thats it. We are not serving any higher purpose than that and I don´t think bands are formed after analyzing the demand on some specific style. Bands play the music they want to play and like listening to, that´s how it works for us. I´m fan of Death Metal and the more bands i see the better, the good will always stick up and I think there Death Metal is the least overpopulated in all genres. We offer the mid-tempo version of Death Metal where as the most of the bands concentrate on playing the faster style, maybe that´s the difference?

2. How did Chris Barnes get involved?

JARI: After we went for our first European tour in late 2004, we run into collision course with our former vocalist just a few days before. We were still lucky to find a replacement on a such a short notice and able to do that tour, but all the plans we had for the future had to be re-evaluated. We left a news post on our website explaining the situation and that there were no guarantees for the future and Chris picked up the news from the website. He was interested after being asked if he knew there was a band from Finland that call themselves Torture Killer and play this and this kind of music. He looked us up and saw the situation we were at and after feeling honored about the tribute way of this band he just thought it would be a cool idea to help these guys out.

3. What were his ideas for Torture Killer and were they used?

JARI: Actually he had a big role with the final product, we pretty much had all the music written down but the thing we have to struggle with the most are the lyrics. Chris ended up writing more than half of the songs lyric wise and his work on vocal patterns and arrangements were just awesome, we couldn´t be more pleased how those turned out. I think we pretty much are on the same level of thinking how this kind of music should sound and that made our co-operation a lot easier, we both had a big trust between us.

4. Why call the album Swarm?

JARI: It was after Chris came up with the idea of a track title to the so called intro song on the album, he described this image he got after listening to the track and we felt that was the thing we wanted for the cover. So it was pretty natural to pick that as a title since we got the perfect image for it, short and striking name.

5. Do you find there is an over populated Metal scene with Death Metal bands and do you think that all too many sound the same?

JARI: I like the Death Metal sound, obviously I don´t dig all the bands but still I don´t consider them doing anything bad for the Death Metal genre. Most of the bands prefer the blast beat approach to Death Metal and I wouldn't mind having those mid-tempo/juicy riff -bands coming out more but i can´t say the fast bands would do any damage for the whole music style, their just progressing and finding limits within the music. You know, if you don´t like some bands then just choose another one, that´s what I do and I have a hard time understanding why people should be worried about having death metal bands around. Find the ones you like and leave the others alone.

6. If so, then what bands stand out amongst the many and why?

JARI: My fave bands come mainly from the early 90´s to mid 90´s: Monstrosity, Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus, Bolt Thrower, Resurrection, Brutality, Asphyx, Godhate, Demigod, Six Feet Under, Sinister, Carcass, early -Gorefest, Pestilence, Vader, Baphomet, Banished, Malevolent Creation, Death, Vore, Mordicus...out of the newer ones: Misery Index, Covenance, Nile, Severed Savior, Vile. I guess one thing is that most of those bands were not just all about blasting, they all had fucking awesome riffs to their songs and that´s what I like about, having the meat around the bones.

7. What are the similarities between Torture Killer and Six Feet Under given Chris Barnes is involved?

JARI: I guess the basic style is pretty much the same, I guess anyone listening to either one of us will agree on that. That´s how we decided to do it with this band, having Chris on the band naturally give even more of that SFU sound with his vocals.

8. Do you ever play Cannibal Corpse songs from when Chris was with them?

JARI: We know how to play a few, but I think it's a bit too early to plan those live shows yet.

9. What are Torture Killer's plans for the rest of 2006?

JARI: Right now were just waiting to see if people like the album or not, hopefully that will propel us to go on tour at some point although there are quite a few schedules with Chris, SFU and us that have to match but that's definately our next goal . Also writing the 3rd Torture Killer album will start shortly and that's what I'm really looking forward to.

10. Are any other members involved in any other bands or projects?

JARI: I have Adramelech, the drummer plays also in Demigod and Deepred, the other guitar player has Funeral Feast and Deepred and also he plays drums in Archgoat and the bass player is working on some Angel Corpse style of project.

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