1. Please start with introducing your band to the sick readers. What are the most memorable memories would you extract from your early days? It was so difficult at the beginning?

Hey Gort, first of all thanks for the interview and your interrest in AMONGST THE DECEIT.

Well as you know from our Biography we put the Band together in 2008. Our Rhythm Guitarist Johan played in an Black Metal Band called OBSCURE ANACHRONISM and i played in DISCIPLINE-M. We are longtime good Friends and every one of us wanted to do some more brutal furious stuff than the Bands we are playing in so we formed AMONGST THE DECEIT.

Ok one of the most memorable moments were probably the building of our rehearsal room, man that was a lot of shit work but in the end its the best reherasal room ever hahaha. After this we started writing material and look out for a drummer, this exposed as very difficult.

2. It seems like one of the major problems was to find a proper member to take care of the drums, how did you sorted this at the end?

Since we play very fast and brutal shit it was difficult to find a proper drummer who has the technical ability and stamina to play our songs,- and weve went through a lot of them who thought they can handle it (sorry guy´s-- you suck!!!!) . And after a long search we´ve got Tom "Sic" Urbanek to fit in this position and he´s doing an amazing job!!!  Hes an hell of a drummer, the only disadvantage is that he lives about 300 km away from us and is also very busy with his own band DEVASTATING ENEMY, so we only have rehearsals if we play some Live Shows. Its not the best way but it works. 

3. One thing I have noticed into your trajectory is that despite you have 3 years in existence, you never made a demo, instead you go straight with a debut full lenght, Which was the reason for that? And are you totally satisfied with the CD in terms of production? 

We´ve wanted to release a whole Album instead of making demo´s and all that other crap. And start right away with an album that grind´s everything in it´s way.

4. Artworks… how important is this to you? Do you buy a record just because the artwork is great? Could you tell us something about the artist Par olofsson who realized the cover artwork of your debut album? How did you decided to work together?

Artwork is very important to us,- in fact the Artwork is also a reason to buy an Album when looking around in Recordstores trying to find new musick.

Pär Olofsson is an awesome Artist, I love his style and his previous works for bands such as THE FACELESS, IMMOLATION, SEVERED SAVIOUR, BRAINDRILL and many more. I also have some Tattoos of his works on my Body haha. So i get in contact with him and make the deal complete. He is also really fast, from the beginning concept to the finished cover we worked about 2-3 weeks thats cool. So chekk out some of his stuff.

5. On this album you had a guest musicians like Sigurd (ex BELPHEGOR). How did you get them to participate and why did you do it? Do you think it´s a good “selling” point?

As you proubably know Belphegor are from the same region as we are, and they are long time friend´s of us. Between 2003 and 2005 I was also the tour merchandiser for Belphegor. Sigurd is an awesome guitar player too an during the recording session´s we decided to ask him for a guest solo on Inferior Lives and Death walk´s the Earth,- and he did a fucking awesome job!! We don´t care really about the selling point, just because some famous musican is involved in the album with two solo´s doesn´t mean the whole album is great. But our´s is!!!

6. The music on your debut album is what you consider extreme Metal. I can’t disagree with such a description, because I think it´s really extreme. What is it that makes you deliver such insanely brutal music?

All of us in the Band are longtime Metalheads and were listening since the early 90´s to X-treme Musick and love Band´s such as Deicide, Gorgasm, Malevolent Creation, Morbid Angel, Akercocke, Belphegor, Immolation, Incantation, Drawn and Quartered, Origin, Obscura, and dozen´s of more to list. And so it naturally turned out for us to make the musick we like to listen and go nut´s to.

7. Can you explain the method of songwriting employed by AMONGST THE DECEIT? Is the writing process generally collective or does one member often craft the song on his own?

Well as you know we never had a drummer to work songs out together with. On Tribulations Of Man I did 5 Songs and Johan 2. Everyone of us has a different style to work so we write the material on our own. You know write some riffs, put a drumcomputer over it experiment with it and arrange them and then put the vocals over it. It´s great to have an session drummer who doesn´t have limits in playing drums so you can show all of your potential yeahh! 

8. How important do you see the lyrics for your music and as a fan when listening to other bands? What do you think about those Death Metal bands which don't really care that much about the lyrics?

Lyrics are very Important to me and i´m always reading the lyrics when i´m listening to a new album,- it´s kind a way to figure out what the Band is trying to deliver with their Art.

And if you write a song and you consider to write lyrics just to have them, most of the time the Band is not that good either.

9. Now please tell us a bit about your live performances, Any nice or best story from the concerts you would like to share with the readers? 

Yeahh man that was a great experience for all of us. We just deflowered AMONGST THE DECEIT Live on 4 an 5 November 2001. Especially our CD Release Show in Hallein (our hometown) was amazing. We had about 200 maniakks who banged with us through the whole set. We had great recognition and sold a lot of merchandise too. THANKS GUYS YOU RULE!!

We also filmed and recorded the gig so be prepared for some awesome live stuff in the nearest future, I will let you know. The day after we get up with an hangover hahaha and drived to the next show in Graz Austria. It was also a cool gig but not as good as the previous.

We love it to shred our songs live into the crowd, so i hope we get some cool offers for shows in the future.

Maybe in your country too? 

10. Are you in search for a record-deal actually? How does it work out? Have you received any offer after the “Tribulations Of Man” came out? 

Yes we are searching for a record label but in times of downloading and filesharing it is very hard for an unknown Band to get a deal. We´ve shipped about 50 Promo Packages to all relevant Metal Labels. Then We´ve got an offer from Sevared Record´s but somehow it didn´t worked out right, cause after some e-mails the contact got lost, so we decided to release the Album by ourselves, and after we´ve got the Album selfproduced he contacted us again  and then we´ve traded some Album´s with him. That was not the luckiest part but i think a good base to build on for the future. 

11. What would you consider the hardest part about playing in an Underground band? Would you prefer to be a great band in the underground scene or just one average band in the mainstream scene?

The hardest part is to get the recognition, a record deal, proper shows and the media  promotion. And you have to pay for everything by yourself. But we still prefer to be an great underground band instead of beeing an average mainstream band that will disappear in a few years.

12. Are you satisfied with the current Austrian metal scene? Could there be any improvements to the 'scene'? ? Are you getting the gigs and exposure you want? 

There re a lot of wimps in the scene in Austria,- We  organized a lot of concerts in our hometown, let´s say you organize a Concert you will have a hard time just to get the fixed cost´s for the show just because they are to lazy to come to the show. And on the other hand they are complaining about the fact that there are not enough underground shows. If there is soon not a change happening good underground show´s will disappear.

13. The death metal underground is constantly changing. How do you think the underground will be in the..hm..lets see, five years to come? 

Death Metal will always be around just look back when they said Death Metal is dead and it came back in a fury!!! And more brutal than ever!!

Death Metal will never be a Mainstream genre and it might go back to it´s roots where all that Evil started.

14. OK, please define death metal with your own words, and if death metal was a beer, which one would it be?

Death Metal is the best music ever. No other genre has such dynamics in it. It allows you to act from beautiful to the most brutal aspects in music.

And if Death Metal was a beer it surely would be STIEGL GOLDBRÄU hahaha  best beer in the world haha!!!! We devastated countless litres of it!

15. Well...Steve, It was a honour to interview you. I hope you enjoy the interview. Our readers are waiting for your last comments.

Again thanks for your interest in AMONGST THE DECEIT. Chekk out our live gig section we come to your town and blast you away haha!!! and chekk out TRIBULATIONS OF MAN you will love it!