SUICIDE COMMANDO (JOHAN VAN ROY)

HI JOHAN, THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR TIME. ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD THE WGT IN LEIPZIG? Yeah, sure I’m looking forward the festival! YOU WILL PLAY ON FRIDAY EVENING, WILL YOU STAY THE WHOLE WEEKEND, MEETING FRIENDS AND ATTENDING GIGS? Yes, we’ll stay the entire weekend to hook up with friends and catch some shows, mix business & pleasure… will be fun! WHICH OTHER ACTS WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE PERSONALLY? MAYBE MEETING MARCO (NOITEKK) AND THE GUYS FROM FEINDFLUG? I’ll try to catch the shows from AMDUSCIA, COVENANT, KLINIK, TACTICAL SEKT & ASLAN FACTION, FEINDFLUG, KARL BARTOS, INSEKT, SPETSNAZ, DIOXYDE, PLASTIC NOISE EXPERIENCE… well, too much to mention actually. And sure we’ll meet the FEINDFLUG gang for a party! WILL YOUR GERMAN GIRLFRIEND TANJA BE ON STAGE AGAIN ON FRIDAY EVENING? Yes, she’ll join us again on stage this time. AND WHAT ABOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE? COULD WE NOWADAYS DO THIS INTERVIEW IN GERMAN, TOO? (WOULD BE MUCH LESS HEADACHE FOR ME:-) Speaking german wouldn’t be a problem, unfortunately my german writing still is too bad, so I still prefer to write in English. YOUR NEW SINGLE „CAUSE OF DEATH: SUICIDE“ IST OUT – WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO CHOSE THIS SONG FOR YOUR SECOND SINGLE FOM „AXIS OF EVIL“? That wasn’t an easy decision as nearly all songs from “Axis of evil” could have been a good new single, that’s also one of the reasons why we decided to do actually 2 new singles in 1, with “Cause of death:suicide” and “One nation under god”. “Cause of death:suicide” represents the harder side of SUICIDE COMMANDO, while “One nation under god” represents the more softer & danceable side of SC, so for me a perfect mixture. OBVIOUSLY YOU CRITICIZE THE AMERICAN ENGAGEMENT IN IRAQ – WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL OPINION ON THAT TOPIC? AND WHAT ABOUT THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS WITH GRUESOME AND SADISTIC TORTURE? Well, I’ve been against this war from the very first minute as I still think war isn’t a solution. Furthermore I got really pissed from the violent and oppressive approach from the US and more especially their president G. Bush, answering violence with violence, killing thousands of innocent people, putting his own soldiers at risk, even using lies to oppress the rest of the world… and for what ? In the end, what makes him any better then a so called terrorist like S. Hussein ? IS „HUMANITY“ JUST A HOLLOW WORD? ARE WE JUST BEASTS IN TRENDY CLOTHES? OR IS THIS ABOVE ALL A „BUSH-PROBLEM“? I can understand that in a time of war people start to think and act differently, so in a way I’m trying to understand what lead these US soldiers to behave so inhuman… I can understand there’s a lot of pressure, oppression, hate for fellow soldiers died in Iraq… but I still think this doesn’t justify their cruel and inhuman actions! They should at all times stay human and keep their aggression under control… apparently they totally lost control. Unfortunately I think human sometimes are even worse then animals, because animals just kill to survive (food, protection…), people apparently also kill for different reasons which has nothing to do with survival or protection, which has nothing to do anymore with humanity! Sad but true! HAVE YOU FELT PERSONALLY INSULTED WHEN AMERICAN POLITICIANS CALLED BELGIUM A „GRASHOPPER’S COUNTRY“? No, not at all! I don’t care how they call us, for once I was proud to be a Belgian and be against this war! YOU RELEASED A VERY „WORTHY“ SINGLE AND EVEN A DELUXE EDITION, THIS HAS BEEN MUCH WORK TO DO. IT SEEMS AS IF YOU NEVER WOULD DISAPPOINT YOUR FANS WITH CHEAP RELEASES. SO VALUE FOR MONEY IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR YOU, I ASSUME?! Yes, at least I try to give value for money. Of course you’re never sure before, but I put a lot of value in both the packaging and the content, the music! I see it as one piece, a piece of art… With each new release I also try to do better. I would never release anything of which I’m not 100 % satisfied myself. I don’t like it when bands release an album with 2 or 3 good songs, the rest filled with bullshit and left overs just to have an album together. Unfortunately this happens way too often. THERE ARE SOME GREAT REMIXES BY SKILLED COLLEAGUES ON THE SINGLES, I.E. FEINDFLUG, WUMPSCUT, GRENDEL, HOCICO. DID YOU CHOSE THEM PERSONALLY AND EVEN MORE INTERESTING, DO YOU KNOW THEM PERSONALLY? HOW WAS WORK DONE, BY E-MAIL OR DIRECT CONTACT? With most bands I have a regular personal or mail contact, and some can even be considered as close friends, so it wasn’t that difficult to persuade them to do a remix. Some of them still owed me a mix, others I just asked and they all agreed… This time we even had the luxury that we got too many remixes, so a few of them didn’t even make it onto the single, but will for sure end up on some compilations… I first sent them all a request, afterwards I sent out the remixkits so they could get started. So everything was handled by e-mail and post… except for our Mexican friends of HOCICO who put their remix online for download, which is of course one of the advantages of today’s technology. It’s a fast and easy way to send a remix across the world. WHAT DO YOU FEEL WHEN YOU HEAR A REMIX OF ONE OF YOUR SONGS FIRST TIME? I THINK IT MUST BE QUITE INTERESTING TO DISCOVER A WHOLE NEW INTERPRETATION WHICH MAYBE IS HARSHER ODER MORE MINIMAL. It’s a strange feeling indeed! Especially when they make a totally different version of the original one. It’s hard to explain but sometimes it even feels odd to hear a remix as you only know your own version. DO YOU FEEL THAT „AXIS OF EVIL“ HAS BEEN YOUR FINAL BREAKTHROUGH AND THAT YOU CAN’T GET ANY HIGHER NOW? No, not really. Although I still think it’s my best album so far, I still believe I can do better and get even bigger in the scene, the sky is the limit! I know it will be hard to top this album (which for example was 8 weeks Nr 1 in the DAC charts…), but I’ll give it a try! IN RETROSPECTIVE: ARE YOU CONTENT WITH EVERYTHING ON THIS RELEASE? DO YOU ALREADY HAVE NEW IDEAS FOR YOUR NEXT LONGPLAYER? MAYBE USING GUITARS FOR EVEN MORE SONIC HAVOC? Well, about 6 months after the release of “Axis of evil” I’m still pretty satisfied with the result of it, sales are really good considering the current crisis in the CD market… but if I would finish it today it probably would sound different again on some songs. There’s always place for improvement or changes! In the meantime I only worked on the new single and did several remixes for other bands, but now I already feel motivated to start working on the next album. It always takes me some time to get motivated again, but this time it all went pretty fast. After the “Mindstrip” album it took me over a year to get started again on new material, this time I already feel new ideas, passion and inspiration coming up pretty fast… hardly can wait to start working on the next chapter! WHO IS THE „PRIVATE“ JOHAN VAN ROY? WHAT DOES HE LIKE? WHAT DOES HE DO IN THE EVENING? WHICH MUSIC DOES HE ENJOY BESIDES EBM? I guess the “private” Johan is a shy and probably a rather boring human being, going to work like anybody else, watching some TV, catching a movie now & then, just spending some time with his girlfriend… I hardly have any time to do anything else as SUICIDE COMMANDO is taking nearly all my time. Hmm, I must say I hardly listen to anything else then EBM… electronic music is my life, so hardly any space left for anything else, but once in a while I also can listen to more guitar oriented stuff like OOMPH!, RAMMSTEIN, MARILYN MANSON… or it can happen that I just listen to the usual pop shit on the radio for a change, especially at 5.00 in the morning when I drive to work. I HAVE HEARD THAT YOU REALLY LIKE TO GRILL IN THE SUMMER – SO IS THIS YEAR’S „GRILLING SEASON“ ALREADY OPENED? Who told you? Who told you? Well, I guess I have some kind of hate/ love relation with grilling… I like to grill, but it always ends in some kind of eat orgy with all the known consequences… I get way too fat man!!! 🙂 YOU HAD THE HONOUR TO PLAY THE LAST CONCERT IN THE LEGENDARY PC69 IN GERMANY, DID YOU REALIZE THIS SPECIAL MELANCHOLIC FEELING IN THE AIR? It was the second time we played there and I always found it a really nice club, so I think it’s a shame it disappeared! WHICH IS YOU ACTUAL PERSONAL PLAYLIST AS A DJ? ANY INTERESTING NEW TRENDS UND BANDS? I only DJ from time to time, but I like doing it. I always try to spin some new things but it also depends on the crowd, sometimes they’re open minded to new stuff, sometimes they’re not and only want to hear the same old stuff over and over again. It’s strange to see that some people still request songs like “Soylent green” from WUMPSCUT or “Hellraiser” from SUICIDE COMMANDO… New trends or bands ? I have the impression there’s some kind of EBM revival going on at the moment with bands like TACTICAL SEKT, ASLAN FACTION, GRENDEL… which I only can support, being an EBM junkie myself. WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS IN THE NEAR FUTURE AFTER THE WGT? I first will do some more remixes for other bands, prepare a new live set for the other summer festivals coming up… and I will start working on new material, and if time allows me I also hope to work on some side project(s), so be prepared! ANY LAST ELECTRONIC WORDS ? See you in hell! Johan. Suicide Commando.