Interview with death metal band from Switzerland - DEFACED.
Answered Thomas Gertsch (vocals), thank you!
Recenze/review - DEFACED - Icon (2026):
Ave DEFACED! Greetings to beautiful Switzerland. Just recently, I was making a map of metal Europe at home over the weekend, and next to your country I wrote down CORONER, HELLHAMMER, CELTIC FROST, MESSIAH, and then I thought about someone "younger." You and REQUIEM were the first to come to mind! Your new album "Icon" is excellent, isn't it? How did the album come about and what direction did you want to take? Why did it take you more than ten years to release a new album?
Hi Jakub! Glad to hear you like our newest release! We wanted to progress from our previous album „Forgin The Sanctuary“ but stick to our roots. Meaning it still was supposed to be a death metal album, but we wanted to add more atmosphere overall. So some songs are just all-in shredding with lots of blast beats while other songs carry more black metal elements and a darker tone. We went through some line up changes and in order to become aligned as a group, that naturally takes time. Besides, we wrote this album as a unit and we spent a lot of time working on details. On top of that we had a lot more material which in the end we weren’t super satisfied with, so there were a few songs written that we then threw out. But also we just had some down time here and there a few years ago. I think we probably needed that back then. We all have our personal lives and jobs to commit to, so all these points combined don’t really help to get a new album written within a short period of time.
The new album is packed to the brim with real, aggressive old-school death metal. Yet it is fresh and interesting. You have your own clear and distinct style, you rely heavily on atmosphere, and you're not afraid of grindcore and black metal elements. Who is the main songwriter and how do you create new songs? The album really cuts to the bone! How did you manage that?
As you would expect, the main drivers are of course our guitarists (Marco and Matze), but everyone gets to bring in his ideas. I believe the result emerged organically from that. Not the most efficient, but it got us here and we kept working on those details until everyone was happy with the songs.
With "old" bands, I always really like how they play with sound. This is especially true for death metal. Individual instruments must stand out, and at the same time, I literally hate the "modern" artificial plastic sound. "Icon" sounds raw, old school, dark, cold. Who is responsible for the mastering and mixing? Where did you record?
Everything was recorded, mixed and mastered at HardBeat Studios. Simon and Roman are former band members who were therefore also involved in the songwriting process and thus new our sound better than anyone else. Their studio is also our „old“ rehearsal room and we didn’t want to pressure us into any deadlines, so our choice to record with our friends was the kind of the obvious one. They did a amazing job in our opinion and we are very happy with the result.
They say that good packaging sells, and the packaging for Icon is great. It was designed by Pär Olofsson. I can't help but feel that it was inspired by old sci-fi books. What exactly is it supposed to express, and how does it relate to the music?
Yes, Pär Olofsson is awesome! The lyrics are a inspired by a mix of Orwell’s famous „1984“ and Huxley’s „Brave new world“. Over time, it created some sort of an own world, in which the people is a product and every individual is shaped into what the „Icon“ needs it to be. We specifically didn’t want the Icon to be a person or anything definite, which is why we wanted to have this modern city in the background. And the mass produced people are striving to go there, into that ominous society, to be part of something they crave while being brainwashed or almost programmed from the very beginning. All the while, since this society can’t think for themselves anymore, they forget what can be of actual value. That’s what the left part of the artwork symbolizes, the untouched beautiful nature which gets forgotten. We wanted the artwork to be a gatefold, so you if you’re holding a digipak, you can only see it on back side. Or of course when you look at the full artwork 😊
Lyrics are a very underrated discipline in many death metal bands. It's also very difficult to write lyrics to music, at least in my opinion. They have to fit the phrasing, be understandable, and express some emotion. Who wrote the lyrics for Icon, and where did they get their inspiration?
Most of the lyrics are from myself, but Matze also came up with some ideas. „Betrayer“, the last track on the record is written mostly by him for example. It’s sometimes hard to tell if the lyrics come across the way they’re intended. It’s clear to me as the writer what I mean by something but could be interpreted in a different matter, something I perhaps hadn’t thought about. On the other hand it’s nice to see that people actually invest time to go through the lyrics. And yes, they are provocative here and there, but that was kind our intention, since we decided to write the songs from a „leader’s“ perspective. Over all however, I wouldn’t want it to be seen as anything political. We’re not a political band and we don’t intend to be one.
I'm going through your discography and I've found that you can be relied upon. You've never released a truly weak album. Each album is a little different, but at the same time you stick to your direction and people recognize you after just a few notes. In today's world of overproduction, that's a great gift and skill. But what are DEFACED like as people? I believe that the chemistry between musicians can be felt in their music. Do you go out for beers together, do you meet outside of concerts? From the photos, you seem like a bunch of nice guys I'd like to invite for a drink :).
Well thank you! The development of the band grew naturally whith new members, us all becoming older and more experienced. We are good bunch of friends who share this hobby with passion and found ourselves to work really well as an unit. I see some of the guys outside the band of course, specially Marco, we live in the same area, go skiing in our free time and also organize local BDM/Slam shows together. But when we’re on the road or in our rehearsel room as a band, we of course take our time to have a beer and just chat about pretty much anything. We all have a good time when we see each other. So yeah, I guess you could say we’re a chilled bunch of guys who enjoy a cold beer when it’s not about making music.
What about DEFACED and concerts? Do you enjoy playing and do you play often? I would love to see you somewhere in a club! Maybe you and MESSIAH, that would be a dream come true!
Of course, we very much enjoy playing live shows! We’ll be going take part of India’s Godless tour in June for example, something I’m very excited about, since we haven’t managed to something like that in the past yet. Also, we’re going to play at IL Fest in CZ in September. I’m looking forward to that one! It’s an underground fest, so no Messiah unfortunately but there are other great bands on that line up. Plus, I love Czech beer and from visiting other Czech Festivals such as Brutal Assault for example, I think the metal scene there is great!
Switzerland has a very good reputation here in the Czech Republic. But we usually just pass through your country when we are going somewhere to the sea or the mountains. What is the death metal scene like in Switzerland, with concerts and fans? What is the Swiss underground like?
Well, the mountains are in the middle of our country and call those our home 😉 We have a rather small, but solid and loyal death metal scene here and we are fortunate to get many tours and shows to choose from, since we’re in the middle of Europe. You rarely go to a show where you don’t know anyone, it’s a very familiar scene you could say. Great friendships have evolved from it and it’s always great to see the people at festivals or club shows. I’d say people very relaxed and easy to talk to, so it’s always a good time.
Which bands influenced DEFACED when you were starting out? Did you have any idols that you worshipped? Please reminisce for us about the band's beginnings and take us through your history.
That’s a bit of a though one actually, we all have our favorites, but they tend be to be quite different from what we play ourselves. We didn’t aim to sound like other specific bands and just play what seems right to us. We barely ever talk about other or better known bands during the song writing process and I actually like it that way. I think if you try to implement elements of already existing songs or bands, that may restrict ones creativity or you perhaps limit yourself in what you actually want to do. Of course we weren’t trying to re-invent the wheel and you’ll always pick up stuff you found cool at some point. I guess everyone is a bit different and for me as the vocalist I can admire all those awesome singers from other bands, whether their underground or in major bands. And of course many different musicians will inspire you over time and may have had some sort of influence on our own songwriting, but it was never about copying anything or trying to do the same. So it’s hard to say which bands, songs, musicians or even genres had more or less influence on our sound as it is today.
When you say death metal, everyone imagines something a little different. What does it mean to you? How do you perceive this music as an author and what do you want to express with it? Is it anger, darkness, coldness? Other emotions?
For me, death metal is actually a very positive thing. Even if none death metal people wouldn’t understand, would they? ;-) But the sound and the energy always put me in a good mood and so naturally it’s something I enjoy. Whenever I’m a bit down for whatever reason, I mostly don’t feel like working on music, or even listen to it. It then doesn’t fit for me. But whenever I hear those distorded guitars, blast beats and nasty vocals, specially live, it puts me in a „fuck yeah“ attitude. Everyone is different of course, but for me, that’s how i could describe it.
What does DEFACED have planned for the coming months? Will we see you on a longer tour sometime? If you have anything you'd like to say to your fans, labels, or promoters, now's your chance...
We have some shows comping up, yes. Specially the mentioned tour with Godless toward the end of June and the show at IL Fest (https://www.facebook.com/ilfestofficial/) are the currently set dates. We hope to be able to play more cool stuff and finally take our new album to the stage, so time will tell.
And of course, massive shout out to all our fans, turning up too our shows – new or old, Simon & Romano for patiently recording, mixing, mastering the record, for being great mates. Kusi, our former drummer who stuck with us for so long, Massacre Records for taking us under their wings, all the magazines, webzines for investing time and showing interest in us and our new album! Thank you all very much. We are excited for what the future may hold and we hope to see you all at one of our shows and share a beer with you!
Thank you very much for the interview, I really appreciate your time. I'm going to do one thing now. I'm going to play "Icon" really loud! It's a really great album that has really gotten under my skin. Thank you very much for that too. I wish it great sales. All the best in your personal life too!
Thank you very much, Jakub! It was a pleasure and I whis you all the best as well!
Cheers
Tom
Recenze/review - DEFACED - Icon (2026):
https://defacedswiss.bandcamp.com/album/icon
http://www.facebook.com/defacedswiss
https://www.instagram.com/defaced_swiss
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5H0fZjVufvjKRWfJT6eiBK
http://www.youtube.com/defacedswitzerland
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