REFLECTIONS OF DOOM # 2 (Belgium) (Summer 1994) (Jean Mathues interviewed Jochen Fopp) The history of Mirror of Deception was already presented to you in the first issue of Reflections, but here's a quick reminder: the band was formed in 1990. they released two demo tapes so far, their first one in February '93 and its' follow-up the brilliant "Words Unspoken" was recorded in January '94. So here's the promised interview with this upcoming German classic doom metal outfit... IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I LAST SPOKE TO  JOCHEN, SO MY FIRST QUESTION WAS, IF THERE HAVE BEEN ANY LINE-UP CHANGES SINCE THEN? Just one - in August 94 our drummer Ingo left the band and was replaced by Gunnar Drescher, who still plays with his band Beyond the Dark, who are more progressive metal... OKAY THEN, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY ARE MIRROR OF DECEPTION's MOST IMPORTANT MUSICAL INFLUENCES? PERSONALLY I HEAR INFLUENCES FROM THE LIKES OF EARLY COUNT RAVEN AND SOLSTICE. CAN YOU AGREE WITH THIS? Count Raven definitely played an important role for our band. I loved their music since I saw them the first in '90 when they were on tour with Saint Vitus. Solstice is a great band, no doubt about it, but it's more like we have one big influence in common and that's Candlemass. When I first heard "Solitude" I knew that I had found the music I was always looking for. On the other hand we're into Revelation, Trouble and Solitude Aeturnus. Our musical influences range from New Age music to death metal, so we're open for everything that might fit our music. AND WHAT DO THE LYRICS DEAL WITH? WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION FROM? MOVIES, BOOKS, REALITY...? I mainly talk about reality, like failed love stories, ("Chapter X"), barriers in any kind of human relationship, be it family, love, friendship or whatever ("Words unspoken"), the typcial feeling when nothing happens the way it's supposed to be ("Lost"). Sometimes I like to use more abstract lyrics, more like creating images with words. They don't make sense at first, but if you think about them, they carry a deeper meaning within ("Thy Crimson Image" and "Mysterious"). Markus' (vocalist) lyrics deal with the situation of Mother Earth ("Mirror of Deception"), strange dreams ("Within my dreams"). Some of the lyrics are kinda psycho-therapy for me and that way I can better deal with all that stuff. OKAY THEN, AFTER ABOUT 8 MONTHS YOU RECORDED THE DEBUT DEMO. I UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE. DID YOU GET OOD REACTIONS TO THAT DEMO AND DID IT SELL WELL? We sold about 230 copies of it. It was never meant to be sold at first as it was more like a try out or something. We needed a tape to get some local gigs, but some of our friends asked for a copy so we decided to send the tape around to spread our name. The reactions were mainly good, something we never dared to expect. It even gave us the opportunity to play a show with Count Raven. As it wasn't a real studio recording (we did it in 4 hours, live) and we've got a much better tape out now, we decided to stop selling it. WITH WHICH BANDS BESIDES COUNT RAVEN HAVE YOU PLAYED SO FAR? DO YOU ATTRACT A LARGE AUDIENCE? Since December '92 we've played about 16 gigs with the likes of Count Raven, Dawn of Winter, Grief of God and various speed-, death- and progressive metal bands. In general, we've got between 100 and 200 people at our shows. The reactions to these gigs range form getting totally ignored to real enthusiastic crowds. If people don't like us, we punish them. The more they dislike it the slower we play!! The next few gigs will be with Unorthodox. I'm really looking forward that! We'll also do some with Naevus, Dreaming amd Dawn of Winter. I UNDERSTAND YOU'RE GOOD FRIENDS WITH DAWN OF WINTER. ANY OTHER COOL UNDERGROUND BANDS YOU'RE IN TOUCH WITH AND WHAT'S YOUR OPINION ON THE GERMAN DOOM METAL SCENE?    Yes we're close friends with Dawn of Winter. I know them since their Cemetery days and it's always great to play with them. Jörg, the guitarist helped us with some keyboards on our second demo. The doom metal scene here is slightly growing. Meanwhile we have bands such as Dreaming, Naevus, Grief of God and Day of Retribution. Give them a try! Talking about other bands I'm in touch with I would recommed Fear My Solitude, Dark White, Rise and Shine, Serenity and Seer's Tear. I'm sure we'll them find one day on these pages... YOU GUESSED IT MAN, SOME OF THEM ALREADY ARE AND THE OTHERS WILL FOLLOW! ANYWAY, BACK TO GERMANY. IT IS NO SURPIRSE TO ME THAT DOOM SEEMS TO BE DOING SO WELL OVER THERE BECAUSE GERMANY HAS ALWAYS STAYED FAITHFUL TO CLASSIC METAL ACTS. OR HAS DEATH METAL AND GRUNGE TAKEN OVER AS WELL? Of course, it's like almost everywhere. Grunge, crossover and death metal are still more interesting to the majority of people. But I don't care at all. Doom metal seems to be accepted anyway. As there are only a few bands over here that are waving the flag of doom, I hope the underground mags pay more attention to this kind of metal! AT LEAST I DO... ON TO THE 'NEW' DEMO THEN. FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T HEARD IT YET, PLEASE TELL THEM SOMETHING MORE ABOUT THE SONGS ON THE TAPE... The tape features the four following songs: "Words Unspoken", "Chapter X", "Mysterious" and "Mirror of Deception". I've already talked about the lyrics so now something about the music. "Chapter X" was the last song we did for the demo, it was actually finished the evening before we went into the studio. It seems to be the fave song of most of the people who have heard the demo. "Words Unspoken" is based around a simple riff, I think this shows our Count Raven influences pretty well. It's more like a straight song but sometimes a riff needs some time to develop its' feeling. "Mysterious" is our shortest song to date and it's also somewhere inbetween Count Raven, Vitus and Candlemass. One thing I#ve got to mention here is that we never start to work on a song and just say "hey let's do something like...". It just comes up and what I've told you about these bands, now I hear it because I have some distance to the songs now. It's quite important to us to have an own identity, even though our influences are more than obvious from time to time. Anyway, the last song "Mirror of Deception" was already featured on our first demo and it is still one of our heaviest and slowest songs to date. It was actually the first song me and Michael ever did together, IT'S BEEN A WHILE NOW SINCE THE TAPE HAS BEEN OUT. ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THE WAY THINGS TURNED OUT?  Yes, I'm still very satisfied with the demo. Some details could have been done better and there are still some things we've gotta work on, but after all we're very happy with it: The nicest thing several people told me is that they get never bored with the songs. What more can you expect? ARE YOU PLANNING TO SEND SOME COPIES TO RECORD COMPANIES? IF SO, WHICH ONES? We're in touch with several labels like Nuclear Blast, Holy Records, Shiver Records and Hellhound, but we didn't ask for a deal and no one has told us to record an album yet. But they all help us with distributing or sending our stuff to radio shows, gigs and so on. We don't want to rush things. The main aspect is to enjoy the music you're doing. When we'll reach the point when we're good enough to get a deal, tha labels will know it! YOU TOLD ME THAT THE GIG WITH COUNT RAVEN GOT YOU IN TOUCH WITH HELLHOUND. DO YOU THINK THIS MIGHT HELP YOU IN SECURING A DEAL WITH THE LABEL? OR WOULD YOU PREFER A MORE DIVERSE LABEL LIKE CENTURY MEDIA, BLACK MARK OR EVEN ROADRUNNER? As I told you, we haven't put much energy in getting signed and so far I haven't though about which label would be good for us. There are of course some labels which I would prefer for their bands but anyway. The most important thing for a label is that they must be able to offer us enough money to record a decent album, the opportunity to do tours, a good distribution and a loyal support to the band. OKAY, WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE DEMO? The main expecations are that we can attract even more people with the new demo. So far we've sold about 280 tapes and still without spreading flyers. It would be great if we get new contacts with cool bands, loads of gigs and whatever comes up. We can't complain so far. SO WHAT'S UP FOR YOU GUYS IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF MONTHS? ANY CHANCE OF DOING SOME GIGS OUTSIDE OF GERMANY? We're working on some new tunes then we'll try to work out the whole material with our new drummer. The studio shall see our return for the 3rd demo around December and last but not least we'e trying to prepare ourselves for the tour Hellhound offered us to do with Lost Breed in January. The tour will have 17 or 18 dates, maily in Germany but also in surrounding countries like Holland, France, Austria, Switzerland and hopefully Belgium as well. It's not certain yet if we'll be able to do the whole tour, due to working and studying commitments, but we'll take what we can! Be there! In general it would be great to play outside Germany. If someone can offer us the petrol money, a place to sleep, something to eat, some beers and a few bucks we can talk about it.