After the split with Thundermother Guernica Mancini (voc.); Emlee Johansson (dr.) and Mona Lindgren (bass, git.) didn't fall into some kind of depression but used all their emotions, time and energy to focus on a new band called The Gems. With "Phoenix" the Swedish girls released a furious debut album with really cool rock songs and caused quite the sensation in the scene. This of course was the reason enough for me to try and talk with Guernica and find out a little bit more about all that happened and the plans for the future of the band. Enjoy reading and check out the album (read my whole review here).

Michael

Hi Guernica, how are you doing?

I'm good, thank you for having me (laughs).

First of all, congratulations on your fantastic debut album "Phoenix". It has become a ass-kickin' rock album. Are you satisfied with the feedback you got so far?

Yes, I'm incredibly happy with the feedback. Most reviews I have seen are very good and very reasonable (laughs). I mean there are no like 10s but I think that if we would only get the highest score on all the ratings there would be a lot to live up to for our next album actually. I still think we got good rating; I would say like 6 or 7 out of 10 which I think is really great for a debut album.

The Thundermother split was about a year ago now. Did the wounds healed up a little bit since then?

It's a work in progress. I would say some are but I think that in a situation like that, it takes years to heal completely because the girls and I devoted our entire lives to the band and building up the brand and everything. There are always new things coming up but I'm very proud of the progress that we've made so far. We're all in a much better and happy place now and that's the most important thing.

Did you have any contact with them after the split?

No, we've been only communicating with Fillipa through our lawyer. It's been like a really bad divorce.

How hard was it to start as a quasi-new band after that? I mean, you had great supporters with The Scorpions and Whitesnake and then you had to start new.

It sucks but we're all really hard-working and I believe that we accomplished so much in Thundermother while being treated like shit for so many years so I don't see why we wouldn't be able to do the same thing now that we feel really good. But it does suck to have to go back to square one and build up everything again. I think that due to what we have done before, we have a bit of an easier time than other brand-new bands. I am fully aware of that. So certain aspects suck but at the same time, I am so excited for this new beginning. It's very exciting and I think we have done it in a way I'm very proud of.

You released "Phoenix" on Napalm Records. How did you catch their attention?

We've been in contact with Thomas (Caser; M.) the CEO of Napalm since Thundermother. Obviously, we were signed to AFM back then so that wasn't relevant for that time being but we stayed in touch. As soon as the news broke that what happened happened a lot of labels contacted us. So we decided on Napalm because it just felt like the best fit. After all the tumultuous years we felt it was important to be on a label that is stable and has been around for many years. They are professional and know what they're doing. We have huge dreams we want to accomplish and take over the world so you need to have a label that has some kind of manpower. We also want to go back to America because we did very well there on the Scorpions tour and we have a lot of fans from there already. They also have a good office over there, too. So it just felt like the right match for us.

Listening to the music, I find a lot of parallels to some 80s rock bands, is this your main influence so to speak? It is much more sleaze-rock-orientated (GNR, The Almighty, Mc Queen Street, Skid Row) than this AC/DC stuff you did with Thundermother.

None of those bands are our influence (laughs). So it's really funny that you mentioned that because everyone hears what I guess they are listening to themselves. Our influences have been more Van Halen, Queen, Led Zeppelin on this record and I guess there's a mixture of that on the album, I do like Sebastian Bach as a vocalist and Skid Row of course, too. So I guess you could say it's a little bit of Skid Row and Guns n ' Roses mixed into that. Iron Maiden and a lot more stuff…it's a mixture of everything that we love.

What about the lyrics? I don't have them and the music sounds pretty much like a party.

No, only "P.S.Y.C.H.O." is some kind of party song. The rest of the album takes you through the grief that we felt and all the feelings that we went through while dealing with all this heartache we had to deal with. If you have the time and listen to the lyrics you can basically follow through the emotional rollercoaster it was for us. We have some faster songs that we enjoy and we also had in mind while writing the album that we would be able to play them live and we wanted to have a mixture of songs. We have "Force Of Nature", "Queens" and obviously "P.S.Y.C.H.O." that could go under the umbrella of "party songs".

So this is more a "fuck off"-album to cope with the whole situation you experienced?

It's an empowering and not-giving-up album. It's a hopeful record. We go through emotions but there is always a glimpse of hope, empowerment, and self-love which has always been super important for us. It's a message that we believe in and something that we live and breathe and it came out on the album, too.

Apart from The Gems, you have a solo project. How is it currently going on with that?

It's on hold. In 2023 I wrote a lot of songs for it that I was dying to put out but everything that happened has taken a lot of time to rebuild the whole band. So my main focus was just to rebuild and have this new band up and running because I love being part of a band. But my solo career is definitely something I'm gonna work on as soon as I have time and I will keep releasing stuff just kind of randomly, no specific way for now (laughs).

I've read that you worked together with the producer from The Black Eyed Peas in 2014 because you won a song contest.

Yeah, exactly. I won a songwriting contest when I lived in America. I studied in Los Angeles at a school called Musician's Institute and while being there I had a teacher, Robin Randall, who pushed me to do my own songwriting, which I am super grateful for. She really encouraged me to write my own stuff because she saw something in me and I did write a few songs there and ended up winning the showcase and got to record an EP with Darryl Swan. I guess he's mostly famous for working with Macy Gray. He was super cool.

Cool. Did you think about collaborating with any of those bands in the future?

I mean I would love to in the future but you need to be famous enough to get a chance (laughs). I'm open to any collaboration if I like the music. I mean all of us three in The Gems like a lot of different styles of music.

I read that you had some cancer-related surgeries. Is everything fine with you again?

Thank you for asking. I had it twice. 2019 and then it came back in 2021. I was lucky because it was a tumor that was encapsulated so they could take it out. I didn't have to do any chemo or anything like that but I still go on regular checkups. After this summer I'm only gonna go two times a year which is like going towards not going there at all. You have to have a check-up for five years. It was a very tough thing to go through.

And of course just like every band you want to perform your music live – are there any plans for a tour so far? I couldn't find any information about this.

Yes! We are planning a four-week long European tour in the fall which I think we will release in a few weeks. I'm excited about that. We have to update our website, so it's always updated like our Instagram and Facebook which always are updated with the latest info. We have shows in Sweden, and some festivals - we're playing Reload in Germany and some other festivals. I'm excited for all that.

The last words are yours!

We appreciate everyone who is supporting The Gems and who joined us on this new journey, I think it is gonna be a very interesting ride. Follow us on all our social media accounts and if you use Spotify, we would really appreciate it if you would make sure to follow us on there and also subscribe to our YouTube channel because we're trying to build that as well. We've already released some acoustic tracks there, tutorials and all kinds of fun stuff. And finally, I'm excited to see you guys on tour!

German black-thrashers Desaster don't need any big introduction. Always delivering great stuff. I had a very long and nice chat with guitarist Infernal K. about the new album and some things I had read in a German magazine. Out came a very interesting, funny and profound interview. Enjoy reading.

Michael

Hi Markus, my wife is always making fun of me that my first question usually is "how are you"? So this time let me ask you: are you crazy?

Haha, why, are you crazy?

Well, I read that you don't want to do another album any more. What's going on? You cannot mean this serious!

Well, you never know exactly. At the moment we really have come to the point that we felt it quite exhausting to record the album. We worked about nine months on it very intense and once again we had a lot of technical issues, the vocals lines had vanished and had to be recorded completely new so it was a complete disaster, as always. It is always difficult to do a whole album because we don't rehearse that often anymore. We rehearse once in a month or even once in two months and you also have to practice old songs for live gigs. And if you do a new album, you have to do ten more songs at each rehearsal and this is super exhausting. For sure we like the song writing the most but we want to focus more on some temporarily projects such as singles or EPs. My idea right now would be to release a single every time we have finished three songs and when three singles are released to put the songs as a whole on an album. This is something I can imagine but a whole album after four or five years, no let it be (laughs). I was short before a burn-out.

Well, to be honest, I guess releasing some singles and putting them on a full-length afterwards is something that might not be too popular for the fans…

You don't think so? I always thought that our fans are underground and I also like this kind of releases.

Hm, I don't have the best feeling with things like these. But this is my opinion, of course it is possible that everybody else thinks that this is a cool thing.

I think that these days it becomes more and more difficult to keep the people listing to a whole album. I have the feeling that nobody except us old farts nobody does that anymore. The younger people just listen on Spotify some songs, sometimes even just for 15 seconds and then they skip. I doubt that they have the patience listening to a record with a beer and to skip sides in the middle of the album. The listening habits have changed. Of course we wouldn't say that we don't make any more records because of that but it really is a phenomenon of the modern times.

Fair enough but then Hollywood could also say that they don't make any more movies because the kids can't follow the plot after 20 minutes.

To be honest, sometimes I like this thought. I almost watch series only where one episode lasts about 45 minutes. Best is half an hour. After that I cannot focus on it, haha! This "Lord Of The Rings" movie with three hours running time – no, for this I don't have any time and also no mood for that!

Then you have watch it in two sessions.

Yep, when we watch movies, they are split and I always fall asleep.

Yeah, we all don't get younger.

And what comes to all that, I have so much to do. I had with Moontowers, my other band, also a new album in creation process. It isn't released yet although we started earlier with that one and also there a lot of things went wrong. Only catastrophes!

Coming back to Desaster – if you would record some stuff again, what about the idea to re-record "Evil Arschloch" (means "Evil Asshole"in English) from your first demo? I mean, every day you can see so many evil assholes in the news and somewhere else.

Laughs. That's right! Then we could dedicate that song to a lot of politicians and many more, haha! What is going on these days is really strange. Due to that, the album title was created. In the past we had, apart from "Evil Arschloch" songs like "God Is Dead" or "Scream For Mercy". As Venom fans, it was mandatory that we sing about hell, Satan and demons. Of course it was never meant to be that serious. I have to do my outing here. I am actually no Satanist. I am sorry, dear fans! In the past we sang about the hell that is described in the bible which is some sort of fantasy book like "Lord Of The Rings", today we sing about the real hell. This is here. Just turn on the news. It is all around us. Our vocalist is quite pissed-off and lets it all out in his lyrics. All these self-proclaimed idols, all these politicians and religious fanatics that destroy the Earth and who are just led by greed and pull out the money out of the people's pockets to spend a luxury life themselves…it is really terrible what's going on in the world. So our vocalist said that he dedicates the album title to all of that. But everybody can put in his own idol into that. For some also teachers are idols, haha! And I bet that you have also some teacher colleagues about whom you might say that they failed in their profession. But they are put in front of the class as some kind of role models and you don't get rid of them. They are there and you have to suffer them for years. I had the same. I also had some colleagues who were really shitty. Nothing else to say about that.

Yes, sometimes it can be pretty hard, I know what you're talking about. Sometimes you even have to switch your place of work. But you can also have soccer player as idols, for example players from Schalke 04 (Infernals' favorite German soccer club which has a huge rivalry with my soccer club; M.).

Haha!!! I really would like to kill them although the new season is pretty good at the moment.

Yeah, I really hope that they will ascend into the first league again. I am eager for a derby once again. That was way too long this hasn't happened. But coming back to the lyrics and social criticism: "Towards Oblivion" also deals with the topic that we destroy our planet but that our planet is surviving us.

That's right. Our vocalist made some thoughts about that and it goes a little bit into the direction of "Learn To Love The Void" from our last album. It dealt with the fact that there were probably much lesser conflicts between people if there weren't having wars because of religion and to just accept that after death comes nothing. You would not need to argue who has the best religion and the greatest god or where the most beautiful paradise is but if everybody would accept the void, we had much more peace. Into this direction tends "Towards Oblivion" also, everybody can notice what is happening on Earth, all the greed mankind has and we are the worst predator on this planet and we don't only kill each other but take everything we can. I don't want to know how many species we already have become extinct since mankind exists. At a certain point we will extinct ourselves but okay, Earth will survive. I guess there will be some bugs left when mankind has ceased. I wouldn't even say it's social criticism, this is a difficult term but our vocalist is describing. He is describing the state of our world and he also doesn't want to change anything, he just says it is as it is and man is presumptuous and thinks that he is the pride of creation. Since the Age of Enlightenment we think that we are so rational but no. You can see it every day how rational mankind is. Because of that we will destroy ourselves at a certain point. That's just a determination and Desaster are producing the soundtrack to that.

And it seems that you took some natural science books to mind also. "Ash Cloud Ritual" with the volcanic eruption, Earth starts to freeze and become dark….and "Stellar Remnant" might be about something in space that explodes. Don't know exactly, I don't have the lyrics.

Exact. Our vocalist subscribes some scientific magazines which he reads with a lot of passion, especially about some theories that are presented there. So it's about the big bang theory, black holes and I don't know what. That's too high for me (laughs). When I was a kid, I was also interested in astronomy but it was more about knowing the planets (laughs). A black hole goes far beyond my imagination. But our vocalist is interested in these things and puts it into his lyrics. And there are also a lot of personal things in them. He had a period of insomnia lately where "Thrones Of Ecstasy" was created. I still didn't get the connection between sitting on a throne of ecstasy when you cannot sleep but he is processing all this in his lyrics.

Yeah, I can tell you…when I come back from class trips that lasted some days I also feel like having consumed a lot of drugs.

Yes, this state has an influence on you. This can be euphoric but it can make you mad also. He has to take care about his health; also his job is very exhausting. He is the organizer for some events in the association community. They are doing some concerts with cover bands like Deep Purple or Pink Floyd and I guess he underestimated how much work it is. This is a lot of public work and he doesn't like to be in the focus. He also doesn't like to be in the spotlight which you might not guess. He really doesn't like this star hype. "Kill All Idols" is also against this hype around musicians and he doesn't like when people are coming to him and worshipping him because he is the vocalist of Desaster. On the other side he also isn't the guy who would get autographs from other people.

I didn't like your new album that much when I heard it the first times but it took me some time to get used to it. First of all are some doom songs on it and with "Ash Cloud Ritual" you have this war metal song on it. Can you comprehend that some people might have difficulties with it?

I was very surprised that all reviews were great so far. In my private environment was only one person who said it wasn't his cup of tea. But music is personal taste, some things you like instantly, others not, some things you have to find into but of course I accept it when people don't like it. I won't change my song writing because of this and there are a lot of old fans that say we should do something in the vein of our first record with more black metal in it. Others say we should do more thrash metal – Desaster is a mixture of it all. I think we never had so many different things on an album like this time. Of course you can criticize that too because there is no common thread in it (laughs). But despite the fact that we have a punk song with "They Are The Law" and a super fast one with "Great Repulsive Force" you can always hear that it is Desaster.

It's just…when I got the promo and I always copy them on my watch, I wanted to go running but this was quite tough for me to get a good pace with that. Of course there are great songs on it and it is a good album but not easy listening. "They Are The Law" reminded me right from the start of "Iron Fist". Was that intentional?

That's more inspired by The Exploited. They also have a similar song with a bass at the start and we always wanted to do something like that. We all are punk fans and between the two albums we released this punk single with some cover versions ("Here Lies Desaster"; M.) and we always wanted to write a Desaster song in a punk dress.

"Ash Cloud Ritual" kicks off very slow but also has some war metal elements in it. Does it accidentally have anything to do with your other project "Doom Cult Commando"?

Haha, this is the whole time super fast stuff. This is also really great, I love it. There you can let loose and is something totally different. It was a lot of fun to make music with the guys and it can be that it had a little influence. We never had anything like that on a Desaster album before. I mean we had some fast black metal stuff but never such a blunt thrashing with a very simple riff and less melodies as possible. I thought that the song was very doomy in the middle part, even slower than Asphyx, and as a contrast something fast before and after that slow part would be cool and enhances more power to it.

The album cover is the first one after 20 years which was created by Chris Moyen. The last one he did for you is on "Angelwhore". Why did you ask him now once again?

That was more a coincidence it is 20 years now. It all was quite clear concerning the concept which was in our vocalists' brain. He had the title and a clear vision of what should be on the cover. Maybe you have recognized, it is a classic painting made by Caravaccio in the 16th century. He did a biblical scene called "Judith Beheading Holofernes". Holofernes was a general and they had conquered half of Palestine and oppressed the citizens there. Judith ensnared him and they had a nice encounter and the next morning she hit off his head and saved her people. It shall not have anything to do with today's politics, we don't interfere into that, but our vocalist liked this painting and also thought it would match perfect as cover and to the album title.

Well and soon the winter is coming and you move into your model railway basement?

Haha, actually I am quite often there. I have a dartboard there so I let the train drive, play darts and listen to music.

What model railway do you have?

I have a Fleischmann.

Ah, cool. I have a Märklin HO.

Yes, I have also HO. I inherited it from my dad and there is a cool story. My brothers are about 10 years older than me and at that time home births were quite often. One day the doctor came with the midwife to our house because my mother had contractions. So he came in and saw that model railway and was totally flashed. So he played with my dads' model railway and my mom was screaming. She wanted to deliver the baby and they played with the railway first. So I got the railways from my dad who died some years ago. I have it because of nostalgic reasons, I don't play with it every day nor do I work on it too often but I run it sometimes, think of my parents and the old times, this is really nice.

Yes, same here. So I have come to an end with my questions, the last words belong to you!

I want to say thank you to all our fans who in parts are accompanying us since our demo times. I talked to a guy lately who said that he even likes the new album, of course it isn't as good as the demos, haha! Since the demo they became shit, haha! But to be honest, every band has released their best album when they were young. You are fresh, wild and you have ideas and in the past all that was quite new. Today it is quite tricky to do something worldshaking. Even Iron Maiden – the new albums probably aren't bad but they never can reach "Killers" or "Number Of The Beast". We know it too and we know that our best ones were "Hellfire's Dominion" or "Tyrants Of The Netherworld" but still we have a lot of fans from the past and we won't win too many new fans anymore (laughs). But kids who like Midnight or stuff like that sometimes come to our shows and are telling us that they recently discovered us. Cheers to you all and thanks for the long support! We stay alive and even if we won't release a new album anymore there will be new stuff coming from us and also live we will move our old bones and get on stage.