ABORTED Interview – Sven talks about the band’s success

By Kunal Choksi

Transcending Obscurity (Kunal Choksi): Hey Sven! It’s been a long time mate (since the ‘Diabolical Conquest’ forum days). Your band had then just released ‘Engineering the Dead’. Since then, the progress has been phenomenal. To what would you attribute your band’s success?

Aborted (Sven): Hey man, it’s been indeed a long time, also a long time since you sent that interview. Let’s just say masturbation is one hell of a hobby and well you know, once you get old you start forgetting things, except masturbation. I think I attribute our devastating success to our relentless sex appeal, especially towards wild animals, it’s crazy to see how that demographic is huge in the physical copy market, that being said, maybe the fact that we work hard had something to do with it, but I’ll def stick to sex appeal!

TO: You’ve braved many fickle trends. Aborted have managed to remain relevant throughout. What’s the secret?

Aborted: Having a good breakfast is important, recently we have discovered the Acai berry as an amazing source of protein for breakfast and it actually is a superfood. Everything that says super is clearly super, therefore we had a lot of super breakfast, and being super therefore really helps with remaining relevant. Have you seen this mug? No wrinkles baby! Other than that I wouldn’t dare imagining how we managed, it may have been sheer luck, it may have been our love for all things death metal, it may also have been that one episode of the A-team, who knows?

TO: What are your thoughts on the scene elitists that refuse to acknowledge the modern influences? Do you think it’s necessary to imbibe fresh influences in order for a band to progress?

Aborted: I think there are only two styles of music: good music and bad music. Elitists are just a bunch of stuck up idiots thinking they are cool because they have some sort of eclectic taste. You’re not eclectic, you’re just stuck up. Get over yourself and be open to other things, either you like it, either you don’t both are fine, but disliking something because it doesn’t sound old school is plain fucking stupid.

TO: You’ve been on several record labels. I remember it being a big deal back in the day to see your band get signed to Listenable Records. How has the progress been since then? Are you happy to be in the ‘big league’ since then?

Aborted: We’ve basically been on Listenable and on Century Media, we just re-signed for ‘Retrogore’ with Century Media so yeah things are going well, they have done a good job at keeping us sexy, and every record has been a step forward from the last, so we can’t complain. By this I also clearly mean our looks, our music has been a degenerating pile of nonsense since the demo really.

TO: Back then perhaps I was your only source of contact for metal this side of the world, India to be particular. But now obviously things have grown tremendously and there’s a thriving metal scene here, especially for your style of music. What do you think of that? Do you have any plans to tour Asia in the foreseeable future?

Aborted: We did tour Asia actually for ‘The Necrotic Manifesto’, but we did not do India sadly. Perhaps because there was no offer or we were not in contact with a reliable promoter. Hopefully we can come to India sometime. We have never been there and it would be most awesome to see what the scene and fans are like. I am sure good times and many a blast would be had! It’s interesting to see how the scene develops and how you have grown from a fan of the music to a relevant pivotal figure that side of the world, kudos for that my friend.

TO: ‘Retrogore’ is reminiscent of the Razorback era of bands like Lord Gore, Frightmare, Ghoul and others. Is it a throwback to that style while remaining relevant?

Aborted: Not really, the artwork perhaps, but the music I would def say is quite different from all those bands, at least to our ears. The whole album is def a throwback to the 80’s lifestyle and cinema in particular and well, our childhood.

TO: You used to make your own artworks/layouts. Is that artistic side of your still alive? Nowadays how do you channel that creative urge?

Aborted: Yeah, though I very rarely work for bands anymore out of choice. I’m a visual designer for a mobile agency for a few years now as my real job hahaha. So it’s a very different style of designing but I love it. I occasionally still do stuff for bands when I have the time, I did the last few Benighted releases, because they our brothers and they are also one of the most amazing death grind bands on the planet right now.

TO: Aborted members have been a part of several bands in the past like Leng T’che, System Divide, In-Quest, and more recently Oracles on Deadlight Entertainment. How do you manage such parallel band activities? Do they conflict with the plans for Aborted? How do you avoid that?

Aborted: We just plan well ahead of time and everyone realises whatever we do on the side, Aborted is priority 1 and we all live by that code. If things conflict then Aborted has priority and the other band has to either look for a fill in or cancel, of course it depends on what it is. We won’t cancel a Oracles tour for one Aborted show either haahhahaa.

TO: You used to be a big movie buff (or I’m making this stuff up, haha). Any recent favourites? What is your take on Asian, or more specifically, Bollywood movies? (Movies from India).

Aborted: I’m not really familiar or into the whole Bollywood thing, but yeah horror cinema is still my thing. I’d say some favourites from the last couple years would be Cabin In The Woods, Evil Dead remake, The Conjuring, The Collector/Collection things like that, though I will say horror films often miss the mark these days and purely rely on jump scares and shitty ghost crap which is starting to annoy the living hell out of me.

TO: Thank you very much for your time and for remembering a few things from back in the day. Any message to your fans this part of the world?

Aborted: Thanks for the support bro and keep on doing your thing! Hopefully we can come melt some faces in India one day! Check out ‘Retrogore’ you fools!