VAN DIEMEN - Unleash The Beast
Written by: Tom Wilson @thetomwilsonexperiment - Sense Music Media | Monday 29th August 2022
Tassie Metalhead Finds His Sound in Germany
It might have been crafted in Germany, but Sarcophilus Laniarius, the second full-length from VAN DIEMEN, is as Tasmanian as the savage creature on its cover. It’s also probably as ill-tempered. Doing his first ever interview, Patrick Schmidt spoke to SENSE from Kiel…
So I don’t embarrass myself, talk me through the Latin here.
The album is called Sarcophilus Laniarius, which is the Latin word for an extinct version of the Tasmanian Devil, like a cousin of the Tasmanian Devil. It’s meant to be bigger and more aggressive, and I was like, “Yep.” [Laughs]
Speaking of naming, how are you the first heavy act from Tasmania who has thought of using the name “Van Diemen”?
I’m actually not. There’s another one. I found out after I named the band that. There was another band, more like a brutal death metal style, but they’re from the 90s I think, and they spelt it as in D-E-M-O-N. They ended up sending me a message the other day and they’re like, “Hey, you fucking stole our name!” And I was like, “Shit, sorry man! I didn’t realise!” [Laughs] It’s too late now!
“Sorry bro, the merch is printed!”
[Laughs] Sorry dude!
I didn’t realise [that you’d moved to Germany] … I thought you might have moved and come back.
I moved over here seven years ago now. I met a girl in Tassie, my girlfriend, she’s from north Germany here. We just sort of fell in love and moved over here, and next thing you know, I’m here seven years later.
Were you making music before the move?
No, I was playing in my bedroom by myself. I wasn’t in any bands. It was just a hobby for me, and then I came over here, and I joined a band, and I just fell in love with it. I was like, “Yeah, this is sick.” I decided to do it a little bit more professionally, and invest a bit of money into it.
So, you moved to Germany. What kind of culture shock was that for you, as someone who grew up in Tassie?
Massive, just massive. I was pretty ignorant when I came over here. I was expecting to come over here and have people in fucking lederhosen – you know, the shit that you see in the movies and that … walking around with steins of beer. They’re actually pretty normal, but there is that sort of life here, and it sort of surprises you. You go to these beer festivals and that, and they go hectic, man. You can get beer in the supermarket for, like, thirty cents, and you can walk around on the street with it, drinking it. You can walk around with a bottle of vodka in your hand if you like, no one’s going to say nothing. Get a pack of ciggies for five bucks. It’s cool over here man. It’s real fun.
I’ve seen the term “one man band” used with you a lot. To what extent is that accurate?
Not very. I write all the music and that, and the lyrics as well, but then I asked a guy to sing for me, and he didn’t want to officially join the project. His name’s Marcel. He’s got his own band, and he’s fully committed to that, but he does all the singing. He’s a good mate of mine. But he’s not really involved in the day-to-day VAN DIEMEN shit. He jumps on when he’s needed to sing and that’s about it.
I imagine playing live would be difficult.
We haven’t played live. Nah, so this is still a studio project if you will. I mean, I’ve got another band as well – a thrash metal band – so I get to play live with that band. With this one, I was happier to just take it easy and focus on the music, because when you start joining bands and stuff, everything becomes much more complicated. You’re no longer focused on your life – you’re focused on five other guys, and their girlfriends and their wives and their jobs and their fucking everything, and trying to get everyone in the same room at the same time, and they’ve all got other bands … You’re also trying to get them to keep their weekends available without booking gigs for their other bands. It just becomes sort of chaotic. At some point I’d love to do a live thing, but it’s going to have to be a little bit further down the track when things are settled, I think.
The album, how long have you been working on it?
I write them pretty quick. I can get an album out in a couple of months, I reckon. The thing that takes the longest is ordering merch and waiting for CDs to arrive and getting the artwork printed and making music videos and all the things that come around it is what actually takes the longest for me. I could pop out an album every three months if it was just the writing, you know what I mean? That’d be sweet. Unfortunately everything else takes a long time.
Growing up, what were some of your formative gig experiences?
The first band I think I ever saw must’ve been SHACKLES. It was a band called SHACKLES from Sydney. It was a death metal band. I watched them at the Trout Bar. After that, it must’ve been TABERAH, actually, because a bloke in my class, his older brother was the old drummer in TABERAH, so we would sort of go and watch them, and go to the underage gigs, like 14, 15. I think that was what sort of kicked it off where I was like, “Yeah, that’s sick! I want to get into metal and stuff.” Before that, I didn’t really listen to metal, so I think those guys sort of got me into metal a little bit, actually. After that, it was PSYCROPTIC, of course. I must’ve seen them half-a-dozen times when I was younger. Yeah, just the local Tassie bands, mostly, for me.
I still have a scar under my arm from a PSYCROPTIC gig. I decided to go crowd surfing at 6’8” and 120kgs and got dropped like a bad habit right onto a broken beer bottle and didn’t realise until the next morning.
Ooof!
[Laughs] They’re fucking nuts, man.
It’s good to have battle wounds.
What about now that you’re older, what have been some of the formative experiences? What was the last time you saw a gig and it was just like, “Holy fuck, this is why I want to do this?”
It’s got to be … I see a lot of bigger bands and I think, “Fuck yeah,” but then I’d also see … when I came over to Germany and I saw the local metal scene over here, that really got my attention. I was like, “This is actually sick … It’s a lifestyle here. People live to play in bands over here.” The metal scene over here is just awesome, man. I really love it.
Would you see there are any genres of heavy music that you have noticed are quite popular in Germany?
Definitely death metal. Thrash metal is very popular … everybody loves KREATOR and SODOM and those sort of bands over here. Thrash metal goes hard, definitely death … I’d say they are the two biggest for sure.
Sarcophilus Laniarius is out now.