Interviews: MORRATH

On this new occasion, we have had the opportunity to interview the Death Metal band, MORRATH from Poland. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name, you planned it or came out just like that?

Previously we all played in a band called Prowler, but we decided to change the name, because the previous one was used by many other bands. It somewhat came out in a moment. It consists of the words ‘mort’ (which is a latin word for death) and ‘wrath’. These two words seem to depict our playing really well and mixed together create a cool name.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

We wanted to play extreme metal because this is just our music, we love it and can put a lot of emotion into it. Death metal is also great for a different reason - compared to thrash or grindcore, it’s a much wider genre, which allows you to really differentiate the music. You can play as fast as you can, and then you can slow it down as much as you want. You can use melodic tremolos, with more rhythm-driven parts, then come in with an acid-like harmony to break it with a thrashy riff. It just allows you to put so many things into your music that this is the obvious choice.

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

Mieszko and I (Bartek) met in school in our mid-teens. We were just two maniacs of heavy sound coming from the same small town of Rawicz. We have started hanging out and listening to old-school thrash and death metal, as well as some hardcore punk. We have been dreaming of forming a band, which we did in 2017 when we were sixteen. We had not been playing our instruments for a long time yet, so a three-chord punk riff was the peak of our abilities at that moment haha. It was Prowler and it came through many line-ups and style changes. In 2019 we made the foundations for the current lineup when Szymon and Mateusz joined. They were metalheads from Leszno (30 kilometres from Rawicz) and previously played together in a different band. Milosz took the drum duties in 2020 after parting ways with our previous drummer. We met him on the Internet and shortly after changed our name to Morrath.

4. Each band member's favourite band?

Well, let me start with myself. If I had to choose one of them, I would go for Morbid Angel. It is a really solid piece of death metal, inspiring so many things in the genre. It perfectly blends heaviness with climax and Trey Azagthoth is my biggest guitar idol. My soloing also follows this school of acid-like and crazy leads. Our vocalist Mateusz said that his favourite band is early Sepultura and Max Cavalera is the one that got him into singing I have to say, I love this band as well haha. They have set the standards of heaviness and were the inspiration for many death metal bands. Our bassist and co-founder Mieszko went for Suffocation with their first four albums, a really solid technical death piece that still consists of the raw power of death metal. Their music is our main inspiration in more rhythm-driven groovy parts. Our second guitarist Szymon and drummer Milosz went for Death and I have to say, the late Chuck Schuldiner was a real genius and godfather of death metal. He and his band were really ahead of their time and death metal would not be the same without it. Chuck soloing inspirations can be heard in Szymon’s playing, and Gene Hoglan has inspired Milosz to play some non-standard fills. As it can be seen, our favourite bands are mainly old-school death/thrash ones and I think it can be heard in our music.

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

Our inspirations come from really many sources. We have our idols like any other band, so that is one of them. The riffs come out differently - sometimes we jam and some notes just sound great, sometimes it just starts to play in our heads at the most unexpected moment. Sometimes we feel emotions like anger and just put it into music. We rather compose songs at home, making just small changes at rehearsals. We write the lyrics after composing music and it is Mateusz’s and mine duty. Ideas for them come out just from our lives and our interests, we simply write about what is in our minds at the moment. It just flows, we do not make any broad plan for them.

6. Where was your last gig?

Our last gig was in Gorzów Wielkopolski in our country on March 25th. It was a great night with a hell of a lot of headbangers of our and older generations, we received a great reception and the energy on stage was incredible as well as a nice party after the show. We played in Gorzów in July last year and a lot of local metalheads loved our performance and were waiting for our comeback. That was a hell of a night!

7. Where would you like to act?

Our aim is to conquer as many stages as we can. We want to play a lot of shows in Poland as well as in other countries. We are open to new proposals and plan to try playing abroad more. One thing we also would like to get is an opportunity to play more open-air festivals during summer because now our gigs are mainly in venues. We hope someday we will get the chance to play on Brutal Assault.

8. Whom would you like to feature with?

There are really many bands with which we would like to perform. We have performed with a Polish metal legend Turbo, but we want more. Unfortunately, we have not got a chance to play with a second Polish legend Kat before Roman’s death. We would like to play with extreme metal legends like Morbid Angel, Suffocation or Vader as well as some newer ones like Nunslaughter, Blood Incantation or Snet from Czech Republic. We also have some dreams to play with more underground artists like Perdition Temple from the US and Corpsesed from Finland.

9. Whom not?

We do not like to play with ‘all music’ pieces with pop artists, because we know our music does not appeal to the mainstream masses and this is not our public. We just do not want to play with bands that have not got the feeling of dirty heavy music.

10. Have any of you ever suffered from stage fright? Any tips for beginners on how to beat that?

I suffered some kind of stage fright during our first shows, which were my first live performances in life. I quickly get over them as well as Mieszko. We just come out and play our stuff, even if something goes wrong, we just keep playing and some mistakes are common thing during shows. When Milosz played the first show with us, it was his first live performance in his entire life, so he was really nervous, but we tried to calm him down. All the stage fright was gone when he counted on the first song. So that is my advice to all beginners. Do not worry about some mistakes - I make them too, top bands like Suffocation and Morbid Angel make them. Just bang your head to the music and go with the flow. And I promise that 90% of the stage fright will come out when you just start f*ckin’ playing.

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

In one of the previous questions we were talking about our favourite bands and it is obvious that they have inspired us. We also take inspiration from a lot of other old-school thrash and death bands as well as some newer ones. It is too hard to name all of them. We also have to say that some new underground bands from Poland, who are bigger than us, inspire us to work hard and play a lot to achieve their level.

12. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

Well, it was at one of our gigs. One man came to us and started hugging us in an awkward way. Then he offered us a ride in his car while being so drunk that he could barely walk haha.

13. What do you think of your fans?

They are really devoted headbangers that want to have a great time listening to heavy music, love live shows and are very supportive of the underground. We really appreciate every single person that attends our gigs and buys our merch, takes photos with us or simply cracks a cold one with us after the show haha. It means a lot to us, we love to bring memories about our biggest fans during our rehearsals and parties!

14. What do you think of our site?

First of all, we have to admit that we haven’t heard of Your site before, but we are really happy to discover it now! We really appreciate sites that are willing to make interviews and write about underground bands. We think that Your site is really well done in terms of graphic design, clarity and overall performance. We wish You as many readers and fans as possible! What really drags our attention is the “bands” section. It’s really nice when readers can quickly choose a band that they are interested in, rather than scrolling down the whole page. We hope that more sites will choose a similar way of managing as You did!

15. Something to add?

Support the underground scene, not only us, search for the bands that play good stuff and follow them, buy their CDs and merch. Keep the metal alive! Thanks for the interview, we appreciate it!