Interview with Beaten To Death bassist Mika

Beaten To Death is how you might feel after listening to this new intense metal/grindcore band. This up and coming band from Oslo, Norway is really just getting started and just released their first record Xes And Strokes this past September. Although they all met a few years ago, Beaten To Death really just got started in 2010 and have been hard at work on Xes And Strokes since. The album is what you might expect from a group called Beaten To Death as it’s a hardcore nine song, nineteen minutes long assault on your eardrums that may leave you feeling a little dizzy afterwards. To help spread the word, we recently did a little Q&A session with the band’s bass player Mika to find out a little more about how the group came together.

Beaten To Death is a very cool name for a metal/grindcore band. How did you come up with the band name?
Mika: Let’s just say it has something to do with the faith of a guy who used to live above our former rehearsal-room. Don’t do drugs, kids!

Despite its wickedness, Beaten To Death sounds like a name that another band may have already taken. Did you have to fight to have the right to use this name? Or are you the only Beaten To Death band currently out there?
Mika: As far as we know, we are the only Beaten To Death out there. Maybe all the other melodic grindcore-bands in the world thought of it as too childish a name and decided on something else.

Check out the song “Xes And Stokes”

The members of the band have all been in other bands based in and around Oslo, Norway. How long has the band been together and when did you all meet?
Mika: I guess you could say we met back in 2006, but all we did was meet a couple of times at a rehearsal-room to jam and record some ideas that had been lying around and didn’t really fit in any of the other bands we were in at the time. Then we met again in 2010 when Anders’ name came up as a potential singer. We dug up the least crappiest of the old ideas, hooked up with Anders to jam out both old and new ideas, and then everything just fell into place pretty quickly.

Congratulations on the release of your first record Xes And Strokes this past September. How do you feel about the album now that it’s been out a few months?
Mika: Thanks a lot! Well, we still like it a lot, if that’s what you’re asking. I guess you could say we feel things came together neatly; the songs, the recording-process (everything except vocals was recorded live during one weekend at our rehearsal–room), the mixing of it, the artwork and the way people have reacted to it.

Compared to what your original goals were for how you wanted Xes And Strokes to sound like before you recorded it, would you say that it turned out the way you wanted it to?
Mika: Yes I would. We’ll probably record the next album the same way. If it’s not broken, and so on.

The album is a brief but intense nine songs and about nineteen minutes long. Did you record any extra material that you didn’t include on the record?
Mika: No, this is it. These are the 9 songs we had at the time, played in the same order we did a couple of weeks earlier at our debut concert.

Is there a principle song writer in the group or do you all write together?
Mika: Tommy and Martin write most of the music, and Anders writes most of the lyrics. We all work on song-arrangements. Sometimes one of the guitarists will bring a song that is pretty much finished and ready for the rest of us to learn, and sometimes riffs are thrown around between songs, so that three songs might end up as one, or one song as two.

The production is very raw sounding just like grindcore should be. Did you get anyone to help you with the production?
Mika: No, Tommy mixed the whole thing by himself, at home, checking with the rest of us now and then to see if we were all on the same page. Which we were.

Check out the song: “Pointless Testament”

Do you have any tour dates lined up for the near future?
Mika: No, not yet, but it’s something we’re talking about.

Finally, who in the band can drink the most and hold their liquor the best?
Mika: I would say Anders. He’s a thirsty bastard.