InqInt1

Hail Jochen! In your opinion would it be fair to say that Mirror of Deception have had a distinct lack of exposure outside of mainland Europe? Personally the first time I encountered your good selves was when you played with Solstice and Warning in Bradford.

Well, it’s been pretty silent around us for the past 4 years before “Mirrorsoil” came out due to a number of circumstances. And we’ve never had the chance to play outside Germany or Austria before. A few of our previous releases got exposure in English and American mags too but that’s been ages ago. Anyway - we’ve never been what one would consider famous or well known in mainland Europe either. I guess though most doomheads have at least heard our name before.

I heard recently that the band has been together for 10 years! This is quite a lengthy time before releasing a debut album, could you give us a brief account of the major events in the bands decade of deception?

Me and Michael (2nd guitarist) started the band in September 1990. It took us until summer 1992 to get a proper line-up together. The first, selftitled demo came out in early 1993, the second, “Words Unspoken” in 1994, the “Veil of Lead” demo in 1996. Then the “Veil of Lead” mini-CD (which had only the title and one song in common with the previous tape) in 1997. We started recording “Mirrorsoil” in December 1997, but due to a lot of shit we had to went through it wasn’t finished before August 1999. We were looking for a label until our doom brother Rich Walker stepped in and signed us for Miskatonic Foundation and the album finally saw the light of day in January 2001.

How satisfied are you with “Mirrorsoil” and how old are the songs? Surely you must have enough material over 10 years for a triple LP prog –rock epic!!??

We’re not really fast songwriters and a bit picky as well. But it would have been enough for at least a decent double album. And where’s the prog rock anyway… The oldest track on the album is “Veil of Lead” which was written sometime around 1995. The other songs where written throughout the year before we started recording the album. And yes – we’re definitely still satisfied with the album. Less important for us but still very nice is that most of the reviews have been pretty positive so far.

The first thing that struck me when listening to “Mirrorsoil” was a strange noise in the background that sounded like a Didgeridoo!! This is credited in the CD booklet as being “throat-singing” and I would like to know: how on earth do you make such a noise?! (By the way it sounds cool!)

Well, I’ve seen this TV documentary about nomads in Mongolia once and I’ve been fascinated by their traditonal and archaic way of singing. I bought a CD (the most well.known band in that direction is called Huun Huur Tu, they’ve even worked with Frank Zappa before). Michael shared my fascination and practiced it. It sounded great and added a certain something to our style so he just brought it in. It’s called throat singing makes death grunts sound rather lame and those masters in Mongolia even manage to put some sort of whistling tone on top of that didgeridoo style. Don’t know the technique how to do it though. So as we Germans are still considered the huns we just stick to our guns. ;-))

You mentioned death grunts, were they ever part of your music? It seems to me that your music sounds as if it may have had that more deathly edge at one point. How would you say your music has changed over the years?

No, they've never played any important role in our music. On the very first demo we had two very short passages, but they sucked and were not meant serious anyway. Clean vocals were our main vocal style right from the start. We were influenced by legends like Candlemass, Count Raven, Saint Vitus, Revelation, Trouble and the likes when we started, not by Paradise Lost nor the breed of doomy death metal that followed. They released their debut album around the time when we started out and of course we liked what they did but it didn't make us want us to change in that direction. We always knew that clean vocals offer us a lot more opportunities in our music than plain grunts.

You referred to Rich Walker as a doom brother, can we take this to mean that your alliance with The Miskatonic Foundation is a happy one?

This cooperation is based on a long friendship not on a collaboration of greedy businessmen. We've known each other's bands since around 1994 and have spilled a decent amount of lagers in the name of metal so far and we will carry on to do so. Rich likes our album and stepped in with Miskatonic when we were searching for a label. He gave us his full support and made this release possible after all. We do our part to spread the word about Miskatonic Foundation and we both benefit out of our alliance.

As I've already mentioned, I caught your recent Bradford gig and was most impressed. How do you feel that night went? We have heard so much about the sheer metalness of Germany, so surely England was a bit of a disappointment? While we all know Power Metal (+ Dimmu Borgir) is huge in Germany, is the Doom scene as good?

Well both gigs (Harlow and Bradford) turned out much better than we actually expected. We haven't heard many good things about the state of the current British metal scene before we came over. But as we knew that we were going to play with Warning and Solstice we were hoping for at least a bit of response from their audiences. And it seems as some people really enjoyed what we did. We sold quite a few cds and shirts and people approached us after the shows and told us that they liked it. It's been a killer trip and great experience for us and we hope to return in the future. I'll soon put a collection of indecent photos and an in-depth report about our journey on our website. It should be online when this interview is published.

The doom scene in Germany is definitely existing though deepest underground. But with bands such as Dawn of Winter, Dreaming, Well of Souls, Cold Embrace, Voodooshock, Wytchcraft, Grief of God, December Dawn and ourselves we have a pretty healthy little doom family and we play shows together every now and then.

Do you think it is the lack of an image for the record buying public to identify with that prevents Doom from gaining the popularity of Black or Power metal? ~Or is it perhaps that the slow nature of the music lends itself more to a darkened room and a pair of headphones than a sweaty club?

Some of the most intense and sweaty liveshows I've seen have been doom shows - Saint Vitus, Count Raven, Solitude Aeturnus, The Obsessed, Solstice. So I don't let that count really. On the other hand I don't want doom metal to attract the same crowds as black or power metal. I like doom having the aura of a secret brotherhood. It makes it something special and precious. There's no sell out as in other scenes and no hordes of copycats following a handful of innovators. People into more popular metal styles are looking for something else in their music compared to the dedicated doom head I suppose. Doom is no entertainment, no industry and doesn't need cheap gimmicks such as silly make-up, fancy cat suits, Disney style horror imagery or curly men with moustaches in spandex trousers. All that Doom needs is honesty, dedication, sideburns, monk suits and SG guitars!

You mentioned the exposion of doom/ death in the early 90's, while these bands were mainly doom in sound they were undeniably metal, do you think that doom is definitely metal or does it cross over almost into rock? Bands like Trouble, although very heavy perhaps owed more to blues based rock than metal. Is there a case for separating doom and doom metal as genres? And where in your opinion does the so called "stoner" movement fit into this? Would you say that Mirror of Deception are pure metal?

Doom can draw inspiration from both a rock or a metal background - on one hand you have bands like Trouble, Spirit Caravan or Iron Man which build up on a blues/rock basement and on the other hand you have doom that has its' teeth buried deep in metal like Candlemass, Solstice or Solitude Aeturnus to name a few. I see ourselves definitely on the metallic side of doom and we're obviously a European band as the influences from ancient folk music are present. But after all we don't think in categories as such and don't analyze our music. We play what feels good, comes natural and follow our own rules. After all these years everything we do with this line-up sounds like bloody Mirror of Deception anyway even if we'd perform some bloody German beer tent music. There are almost as many different doom genres as there are bands so seperating the bands into subgenres doesn't make all that much sense really. Stoner rock is an extremely stupid and useless term - and I don't pay much attention to it. Most stuff I've heard which is usually labelled that way lacks the spirit, soul, emotions, depth, heaviness and the melodies that turned me into a doom disciple in the first place.

Could you give us an overview of the lyrical stance of Mirror of Deception? I found the lyrics to be slightly ambiguous, was this deliberate to allow the listener to draw their own interpretation?

After all we don't have any clear message we want to spread. The lyrics are all about personal issues such as experiences, dreams, nightmares, wishes and so on and everyone is free to get out of our lyrics whatever he/ she wants or to completely ignore them. Some might think we just hide our poor English behind incomprehensible phrases and that's right in a way but our German lyrics are just as bleary. That's just the way it fits the music and the things we want to express best. We rather leave battlefield epics, police reports, weather forecasts, kitchen tips and satan worship to the experts.

What is the meaning of "mirrorsoil"? There is the obvious link with the band name but what is the connection with the earth?

"Mirrorsoil" incarnates home, refuge, consolation, strength, hope, wisdom, power, past, present and future of the band. We are firmly rooted in this soil we stand upon which reflects what this band is all about and displays where we came from and who we were when we recorded it. The sky above us is infinite though.

Just how doomy are Mirror of Deception anyway? Are you all tortured souls, hiding from the light and filling your waking hours with moody introspection? Or are you fun loving chaps with a penchant for beer and metal?

Without certain dark and contemplative aspects in all the characters involved we surely wouldn't sound as we sound and without being confident with what we're doing we wouldn't have lasted that long. It's something we have deep inside and we have to express. But that's not all we are. Of course we enjoy having fun, a healthy (and sometimes unhealthy) amount of lagers and some decent metal madness as one can easily recognize on the pictures from our recent England trip which can be found on our website. We take our music serious, but we have fun playing it. We see no need to pretend we're all dark and doomed souls all the way through just because we play Doom Metal. No false image or cartoon characters here, just real people.

So what's next for Mirror of Deception? You've lurked in the underground for ten years, you've just released a class debut album, you've played shows in England as well as mainland Europe, where do you plan to go next? Will you continue your relationship with The Miskatonic Foundation for another record?

We will continue to work with Miskatonic Foundation. Right now we plan to record our second album, which will most likely be entitled "Eigenthÿmlich" (which is an old German expression for weird or strange in a just as strange spelling) around February 2002. I'm careful with release dates though as we've yet experienced enough unexpected troubles with our first album. Other plans are that we'll play our first German tour this autumn and apart from that we just keep things going. Hopefully we can head for foreign shores next year again.

I think that's it (although I may be hit by another burst of inspiration and inquisitiveness), so all that is left is to say thank you for answering my questions and I hope to see Mirror of Deception back on these shores touring a new album as soon as possible. Have you any last words to share with us?

Thanks for the killer interview, Jon. It's been a pleasure answering it and is really appreciated! Well, the message is: go and buy our bloody album and support your local doom command.
D O O M   M E T A L   L I V E S!

More info, madness, music, merch and links into the realm of doom at: www.mirrorofdeception.com.