By Andrew Bansal
German thrash metal band Exumer started out in 1985, released two albums in two years and broke up soon after, but reunited in 2008 and put out their long awaited third album ‘Fire & Damnation’ via Metal Blade Records. They’ve very rarely ventured to play shows in North America in these last three decades, and are about to descend to Los Angeles for a one-off gig at the Avalon in Hollywood on Sunday September 28th with support acts Merciless Death, Sadistic Intent, Morbid Saint, Sakrificer and Social Overload, prior to which Exumer will be doing an in-store meet-n-greet at Dark Realm Records in Downey on the 27th between 5-6 PM, and tickets to the Avalon show will also be sold at the store. I spoke to vocalist Mem V. Stein a few days ago to discuss this LA show, his thoughts on the whole throwback fad, and plans for the next Exumer album. Read the interview below and purchase tickets for the show here.
Mem, it’s good to have you on Metal Assault. I mainly want to talk to you about the LA show that you have coming up. It’s a one-off gig at the Avalon. How did you decide to come down here to do this show?
Basically, after we played Thrasho De Mayo in 2009 we always looked to come down to LA again because the response was so positive and the fans were passionate. We weren’t expecting that kind of turnout the first time around. We were really surprised by all these people showing up, several generations of people. We had fans that were 16 years old all the way to fans in their mid-40s who are fans from back in the day. So, basically it was always on our radar but it never really came about because of scheduling, not finding the right promoter and so on. We tried a few times with the people who put on the first Thrasho but it just never worked out. So when it finally clicked with promoters this time, we were really excited and we agreed to do it after they agreed to our terms. So that’s how everything came about, really.
So this is your first LA show since that 2009 Thrasho De Mayo.
Yes, and altogether it’s our third US appearance. We played LA in 2009, New York in 2013 and now LA again this year.
And people are excited to see you because you haven’t really played here much. I guess that’s one thing at your advantage in that sense.
I think it’s always important to go to the places where people actually enjoy you, and we’re doing the right thing in those terms. Once we recognize that people like us somewhere, we try to return to that place. Obviously it’s in our favor that we haven’t played in the States much and this is only our second California appearance altogether.
In terms of the set itself, what are you planning to do in this show?
We’re going to play the fan favorites from our first album ‘Possessed By Fire’. We’re definitely going to do some cuts from our latest album ‘Fire & Damnation’ which came out via Metal Blade in 2012. We’ll have few from ‘Rising From The Sea’, not too many, and we want to concentrate on pleasing the fans and they usually want to hear a lot from Possessed By Fire. But we don’t want to be like a throwback old-school act, so we recorded this last album and we always play a good chunk of it in our shows. It’s kind of easy if you only have three records altogether, you know. The other reason we don’t do too much from Rising is had another vocalist and I wasn’t singing on that album. We do the songs we all feel comfortable with.
Right, and I’m glad you brought up the whole throwback thing because so many bands are doing it. Sometimes it’s cool but at most times it just feels like a cheap escape for bands who run out of ideas. Do you agree with that?
Yeah, I mean, ultimately it’s up to the band and whatever they decide. But when we decided to get back together for real in 2008, we wanted to work on new material and didn’t want to be a throwback and we don’t want to live off the glory of two records we did in the 80s. It’s kind of ridiculous to even think that. May be for bands that had more output in the 80s it’s a smart thing to do, but for us it was about being a real band again, record new material and play those songs. Obviously you can’t neglect the fans that were there from the start. You never really want to do that. But tot strictly stick to things you’ve done as a kid is a little strange. We were like 17, 18 when our first record came out and now we are a lot older. So it’s kind of weird to just refer to that time and not acknowledge that time has moved on, you’ve grown up and you’ve got more to offer than that one thing.
Exactly. You did mention the 2012 album, which I thought came out great. It must have meant a lot to you to put that out after so long because it showed that you can still write new songs.
We were really excited to come out with a new record. We thought about what direction we were going to go in and basically came to the conclusion that we needed to put out the third record in the vein of the other ones. We didn’t want to reinvent the thrash wheel here, so to speak, so we said let’s just be us and put out music that we enjoy and that fits the band. Our playing has improved, the production techniques have improved. We didn’t want to record in analog and make it sound like garbage. The reason why our records of the 80s sound great is because they’re from the 80s. In the 2000s they can’t be from the 80s, so we didn’t even attempt any of that. We have tried to keep the fire burning in the songwriting process, the performances and all that, rather than trying to do a throwback on the production or even the songs in that sense. We stuck to our formula but we also had to acknowledge that we’re better players. So we didn’t even try to play something that sounded remotely like when we were 18.
That makes sense, man. And it’s been two years since that album, so have you written any more new material?
Oh yeah, we started writing the new record. I just got back from Europe not too long ago where we had a lot of festival appearances this year. We basically started working on the record pretty much at the beginning of the year, did a small tour of Europe in late winter/early spring, then did the festivals and between these festivals we started rehearsing the new songs. That’s always how we usually write. We try to send ideas back and forth but the music really comes together only in the rehearsal space. So, everything you hear is as organic as possible. We don’t try to strive for isolation. But obviously we can’t hang out in Europe forever, so scheduling-wise we try to put everything together in a way to make the most of our time. We’re hoping to record soon and shooting for spring, and then we’ll have to deliver the record to Metal Blade three months prior to release. So if we can give it to them at the beginning of next summer, they’ll schedule a release for Fall 2015.
That’s great to hear. After this LA show and other than working on this next album, what plans do you have?
The immediate future is all about the record, basically. We were offered a South American tour with Heathen not too long ago for January-February 2015, but we had to decline it because we’re not going to commit to anything live until this record is fully written and recorded. So live-wise, we’re looking at the festival season in Europe next year and then touring after the release of the new album. We just have to focus on the record, specially because half the band lives here in the States and half in Europe, so we don’t have the luxury of getting together once a week or whatever. We look at tours and albums as projects, and right now our only project is the album.
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