June 1st sees the release of the new Maroon masterpiece "Endorsed by hate". If you have read my review you might have recognized that I like this record quite a lot! So I got in touch with Maroon's bass player Tom who was kind enough to answer my questions in a real extensive way! Thanks brother, you rule!

Hey Tom, how are you doing? Any introduction to start this interview off with?

Tom: Hello, my name is Tom and I play bass in Maroon... this band started in early 1998 and we released a MCD and a full length so far. On June 1st we will release our second album entitled "ENDORSED BY HATE"...

First off, let me tell you that I like "Endorsed by hate" very much! It's really a strong and brutal piece of music! I didn't expect you'd come up with such a strong record, so what made you record such a killer? Was it something like "Hey, Caliban came up with a good record, and Heaven Shall Burn will for sure release another masterpiece, so we have to do a killer record as well?"

Tom: Hmm... I don't think so! We just started writing new songs and it somehow developed in such a direction. Of course you look to other bands, but I think our and HSB's music have nearly no similarities and the same is with CALIBAN (That's not what I wanted to say, I just think that both bands inspired you to come up with a strong record, even though it's musically different - Stefan), though I have to say that I think we have more in common with them than with HSB. But as you said, we just wanted to do a strong and brutal piece of music! the only thing we were sure about was that we didn't want to do the same things again we did on ANTAGONIST, but the rest came just automatically!

"Endorsed by hate" was recorded in Denmark by Tue Madsen at Antfarm Studios. Why did you choose these studios and did you like the whole recording process there? Where did you live during the recording sessions and what did you think of Denmark as a whole?

Tom: We've been thinking about some different producers, but some of them were just too expensive and others had no time. But from the beginning Tue was one of our favorites, because our friends from DESTINY recorded there and they told us that working with him is great and the job he's doing is also great! So, in the end we decided to go to ANTFARM and record there! It was such a great work! Tue is a great guy and he really knows what he's doing! So working with him was very easy and we are very satisfied with what he did! During the recording process we lived in an extra room in the house of Tue, with shower and all you need! The studio was right downstairs, so it was a cool working... but we didn't see a lot from Arhus, so I don't know anything about the city or Denmark at all. We've been downtown a few times and it really looked great, we all love the northern countries, so I think Denmark is worth spend your holidays in...

I'd say "Endorsed..." is a really great mixture of neo Thrash in the vein of bands like The Haunted combined with some tough guy elements (just like in the title track) and some Slayer influences (e.g. the guitar melodies at the beginning of "Watch it all come down"). Would you agree? Are these sounds/bands some personal faves of yours or where does your inspiration come from when it comes to writing songs for Maroon?

Tom: Of course those bands have always inspired us! We all grew up with old Death and Thrash Metal. We got into music as these styles were at the peak, around 1991/ 1992, so the first records we bought back then were stuff like SEPULTURA, DEATH, DISMEMBER or KREATOR... and the bands you listed are all great! We love SLAYER and we think THE HAUNTED is one of the best new bands around. and we always liked AT THE GATES that's why we discovered THE HAUNTED... but in the mid-nineties there were also some great HC bands on the map, like MADBALL or EARTH CRISIS, and those bands had an impact on us too... I think mixing all these kinds of bands you can create very intense and brutal music and that's what we're doing!

As I only have a promo copy for "Endorsed by hate" I don't know what the lyrics are about, so please give me all information on the lyrics: Who writes them, with which topics do they deal etc. In the past I read in some reviews that your lyrics would be dark and apocalyptic, so would you say that's true and did your lyrics change compared to "Antagonist"?

Tom: The lyrics on "ENDORSED BY HATE" are mostly about hate as the title is already saying. Me and Andre write all the lyrics, and it turned out that we both wrote nearly the same stuff this time... the main mood of the lyrics is a dark and angry one. We are fucking sick of this society and our anger is getting bigger day by day! All the ignorance and the destruction of all that surrounds us is making me just angry! And we use this band to let out our aggressions! So yes they are kind of dark and also a bit destructive. We're just trying to illustrate what will happen if we won't change our behaviour towards this world and all that surrounds us! We're digging mother earth's grave! And it makes me sick to talk against walls. People seem to be too ignorant or too stupid to realize what 's happening to this planet. In comparison to ANTAGONIST I would say the lyrics are kind of different. There we mostly wrote about animal liberation. We still do, but in a different form. ENDORSED BY HATE or HUMAN WASTE are both songs about liberation, but now we took another perspective. The new record is more resignated and is all about misanthropy! We realised that the human race is the root of all evil and I'm afraid that the human race is too ignorant to change! But we also try to tell people that there is still hope! It's not much but it's still there. CHOSEN FATE is all about self reliance and self respect! It's for all the vegan straight edge kids, all the punks and the metalheads... take your life in your own hands and live like you want to! Always believe in yourself and don't give up! That is all you need. Stay true and everything is possible!

By the way, why did you drop the Xs from your logo, haha? Hopefully you didn't drop the edge as well... :-)

Tom: We all sold out ha ha... (I knew it! This interview won't be printed, Tom! - Stefan) NO! Of course not! MAROON is still 100% vegan straight edge!! We don't want to be all those other fucking losers who sold out! We just didn't want to do all the same things all over again. We believe that we made a really good record and we wanted people to talk about us because of our music this time, not because of our image like before! We didn't want to do ANTAGONIST 2, so we chose a new logo without X's...

I'm not quite sure about this one, but I guess "At the gates of demise" starts with a sample taken from the movie "Natural born killers". Is that correct? What was the reason you picked that sample? Are you fans of these kinda of movies?

Tom: Yes it's correct, and I have confess that I hadn't seen this film for about 8 years or so... it all was kind of accident. We only had a DVD player in our room in the studio, so we watched METALLICA and IRON MAIDEN DVD'S the whole day (Yeah! - Stefan)! And we already found this film under the bed so we watched it and we realized what a fucking great film this is!! While we watched it we heard this dialogue and thought: We have to use this! So we put it on the CD! there is another NATURAL BORN KILLERS sample on "Chosen fate", it's all about the demon in your soul and it fits perfectly to CHOSEN FATE...

The cover art of "Endorsed by hate" shows a handgun, and some people don't like the cover while other think it fits the music. Your opinion please!

Tom: Of course I like it otherwise it wouldn't be the cover! In the beginning we had a different cover as well as we had another title for the record. But not everyone in the band was 100% satisfied with it and also our label didn't really like it so we told Marc (our guitarist and the album designer) he should try something different... he made this one and we all liked it. We knew from the start that some people will talk about it again, but through the years we learned to deal with it! The whole artwork fits to the music and the lyrics, so it's alright I think! We had some trouble with the factory who's making the inlets. They didn't want to print it because it's too brutal. You have only the promo, so you don't know how the inlet looks like! It's a lot of blood and a lot of dead people in the inside. So they wanted us to proof that these people are not real corpses, so we had some discussions and now we can do it the way we want to... but, you know we play aggressive and brutal music, our lyrics deal with murder, pain death and destruction, so should we put flowers on the cover?

As I said before, bands like Caliban and especially Heaven Shall Burn came up with really strong records in the past, and the latest HSB album "Antigone" is totally great in my eyes. Would you say there's some kind of competition between all those bands (maybe even in a positive way) or do you support each other whenever you can?

Tom: We try as good as we can to destroy each others careers! Ha ha! No, we are all very good friends, especially HSB are close friends. We live in the same area and it's always the best thing to play together. Of course there might be some kind of competition, but as you say more in a positive way. When we play a show with CALIBAN or HSB we always look how we could destroy their shows so that our show seems better ha ha! But honestly we're doing our thing as they do their thing, but we also talk about some stuff and so we can learn from each other...

I'm pretty sure the last song on "Endorsed by hate", "Götterdämmerung" is Maroon's tribute to bands like Sodom who also had German titles on their records in the past haha. What do you think about the German Thrash scene and bands like Kreator (yeah!), Destruction and Sodom in particular?

Tom: Man I see you have a very good taste of music (Thanks, I think you're right, haha - Stefan)! We all love German Thrash Metal and Thrash Metal in general! We grew up with those bands (Me too - Stefan)! We all know records like EXTREME AGGRESSION or AGENT ORANGE inside out! KREATOR and SODOM are one of the best German bands ever and they did such a lot for the German metal scene! Our session guitarist is one of the biggest SODOM/KREATOR fans alive and he still looks like Angelripper in the 80's, he will be on tour with us, cause Marc can't go, so if you come to see us you have to talk to him...

Before "Antagonist" was re-released by Alveran it came out on the US label Catalyst. How come? I mean it's quite unusual for a German band to release its debut on an American label, so does that make you proud?

Tom: Yes we are very proud of this fact, though we are disappointed now with the way it turned out! We met Kurt at Ieper 2000 and he is a really great guy and we are still friends. Then he released ANTAGONIST because he liked what we did. Then we realized that we had different opinions on working. So he made the record, but it was no real development for us and we decided to release it on Alveran again. But the fact that our first full length was released by CATALYST is making me proud. This label meant a lot to us in the past and now we are part of it's history, that's some kind of cool...

Even before your debut album was released you did a European tour, at least that's what the Alveran info says. So did you have a strong following even before your debut album?

Tom: Yes I would say so. We planned this tour a few months, and it should be a tour to promote ANTAGONIST, but then the release was postponed, so we went on tour without the record... and of course we had already a following outside of Germany. I mean we did this tour in 2002, more than 4 years after we formed the band! And, believe it or not (I still can't) "CAPTIVE IN THE ROOM OF THE CONSPIRATOR", our first MCD, got really good responses in Europe and even in the USA and Japan. Don't ask me how people there got this record!

You also did a South American tour in the past. The guys from Heaven Shall Burn told me that their trip to South America had been very special, because everything's pretty different there. What were your impressions concerning the music scene as well as daily life?

Tom: Yes that's for sure, life there is totally different then here. We arrived in Sao Paulo and it was like a shock! Not in a negative way, but it was so different! All the people we met there were so dedicated to our music and music in general! We met people who spent their last money to travel all across the country just to see us! I mean, that's incredible! We had to write autographs, doing photos with fans and all that stuff... people were so crazy and so fucking thankful! It was just awesome and we met a lot of nice people there... also normal life is quite different then in Germany. Sao Paulo is so fucking big! I've never seen to such a city before. The crazy thing there is that very very rich and very very poor is so close together! You walk along a street with big cars and big houses and 2 blocks away you'll find yourself surrounded by homeless people! But Sao Paulo and also Rio de Janeiro are big cities and we didn't really come in contact with the very poor sides of these cities. It's like in Europe or the US, as a 'tourist' you don't see the bad things! But we were there for 2 weeks, so we sometimes could imagine what real poverty means...

I think you're all sXe and vegan, right? So how was it for you in South America, was it a problem for you to get vegan food there?

Tom: Oh no! It was like a fucking paradise! I mean we lived at Marcos' house (the singer of POINT OF NO RETURN) and he showed us places to eat were you can only dream about in Germany! Nearly everyday we went to this awesome ice cream store in the center of Sao Paulo, where they had so much vegan ice cream, with big wafers and a lot of different stuff like fake milk cream and it all tasted so great! We went to a vegan all-you-can-eat restaurant, there you could eat as much as you can for about 4 euros. A great all-you-can-eat-pizza store where there had amazing vegan pizza! We all ate about 20 pieces of pizza for 3 €!! They had vegan whipped cream and all you can imagine...it was fantastic! Way better than in our hometown, were it's hard to find two restaurants that you can eat at least something! But I think it's just like in all big cities. There you can just get everything. I think when you live in the Brazilian countryside it's also hard to get a lot of vegan food...

By the way, how and when did you get into sXe in the first place? I mean I'm sXe, too, so it's always intersting to hear about other people...

Tom: Me, I became straight edge about 9 years ago. Sebastian (guitar) started at the same time and Andre (vocals) is straight edge for over 10 years now... so all in the band are straight edge and vegan for quite a long time now...

I heard you're planning a tour through Japan! What can you tell me about that and what do you expect from Japan?

Tom: Yes, our booking agency is already talking to different promotors in Japan and the tour is planned for November! I think we will be there for about 10 days... I think Japan is even crazier than brazil, I mean they sell girls underwear in vending machines! And Tokyo is so big and bright! We have some good friends in Japan, so it would be nice to see them again... and we got a lot of fan mail from there since the beginning and it seems people there are very dedicated! But gradual I think people are everywhere more dedicated than in Germany and the US...

I saw you live on stage on last year's Pressure Fest, and you were one of the bands that totally kicked ass. Which other bands did you like? The singer of Throwdown said that Hatebreed is the best Hardcore band ever, would you agree? And what about Youth of Today, some people didn't seem to like them, but I was very into their show. What about you?

Tom: I was only present that day we played, so I didn't see all the bands and I really can't remember who else was playing... the best band I saw were NAGLFAR! AMON AMARTH were good as always... who else played on this day? Ah, CALIBAN were ok and a lot of people told me BLEEDING THROUGH and HATEBREED were great (Yep! - Stefan)! And I would definitely agree that HATEBREED is fucking big! I didn't see YOT and I'm happy with it! Are they still all straight edge (Well at least Porcell is for sure and Ken Olden who filled in on bass for that tour is sXe as well - Stefan)? I don't think so! And that would be a fucking shame! Ray and Porcell did a good job with SHELTER, so I don't see the reason for a YOT reunion, except for making money! I heard that they weren't very dedicated, it looked kind of bored, most people told me they were crap (I disagree! I think it was cool to see YOT and they seemed to be nice and the show was energetic - Stefan)!

During the Pressure Fest there were both Hardcore and Metal bands on the same stage, and it's no secret that more and more Metal fans like Hardcore bands and vice versa. What's the reason for this evolution in your eyes and did you grow up with more Metal or Hardcore?

Tom: Most of us grew up with metal! I think it's just because Metal bands were bigger at this time so you got in contact with them earlier. It was easy to find METALLICA stuff but the only HC bands I knew back then were AF, CRO MAGS and SICK OF IT ALL... so I think it's a good development today! Metal and HC have so many similarities, so it was just a matter of time when both will be combined. It's both extreme music and people in both scenes are very dedicated! I still listen mostly to Metal stuff but there are also some good HC bands! And there were always kind of ' Metalcore' bands like D.R.I. or S.O.D., all this fast stuff that mixed Thrash, Punk and Hardcore... there are so many HC kids who grew up with Metal stuff, I think that's why these two styles mix!

I guess we're at the end of this interview. Did you like it and do you have anything to add?

Tom: Thank you very much, it was a pleasure! Check out our website: www.maroonhate.com for all news, shows... There will be an official release show for "ENDORSED BY HATE" on 12.06.2004 in SONDERSHAUSEN! It will be in a mine 700m under earth's surface and it's an awesome location. Other bands who play are HATE SQUAD, HSB, SUFFERING SOULS, THE FALLEN GRACE... so don't miss it!!! www.maroonhate.com/concert.htm Don't forget to buy our new record at 1st of June! Thanxxx! and take care!