1. Hi Fred! How are you? I hope everything is well and you're feeling fine.
Hi Gerste !!! Yes, everything's alright here and I'm ready to answer to your killing questions J !!!

2. Please introduce your band to our readers and describe your sound to all those who haven't heard INHUMATE yet. What are the latest INHUMATE news?
INHUMATE is an old French band that stands to grind some souls ! So, I say old because the band started in 1990 and never stopped until now and I say that we stand here to grind some souls because if we started as a common death metal band we slowly changed the musical orientation and if we consider that we play grind / death, many people consider us as a grind core band. To describe our sound ? that's difficult… I think we have found our own style and I really don't agree when I read here and there that we sound like CRYPTOPSY, NAPALM DEATH or BRUTAL TRUTH… I think that with the years INHUMATE put up its own style and never betrayed it. So, for people curious about it there are several solutions : buy an INHUMATE CD, buy a compilation with an INHUMATE track or download some MP3 on our website http://www.inhumate.com. Our latest news ??? We should play some gigs in the coming months in France and Belgium and we are also working slowly (but surely…) for our next full length album. Unfortunately I can't give you any release date for it.

3. What is your official discography thus far? Please give a short comment and your personal opinion of each release.
The INHUMATE official discography is
- "Abstract Suffering" (1993 / demo tape with 4 tracks / 100 copies / totally sold out),
- "Grind Your Soul" (1995 / demo tape with 7 tracks / 350 copies / totally sold out),
- "Internal Life" (1996 / CD with 18 tracks / 500 copies / totally sold out),
- "Ex-Pulsion" (1997 / CD with 13 + 1 track / 1200 copies gone so far / still available),
- "Growth" (2000 / CD with 17 tracks / almost 2000 copies gone so far / still available).
About the 2 demos I can say that they were showing what we were able to do at that precise moment and nothing else. To answer a question many people want to ask about those demos I'll say : "No ! We will not repress them under CD in the coming times and this for one very important reason : INHUMATE is not a commercial band and the demo repressing is a 100% commercial act, either if you can always find a bunch of true underground addicts that should be interested in that"). About the first CD I think it was a cool stuff when we released it, now it sounds a bit old, but it's life and music is in perpetual evolution. About the second one I'll say that it's an interesting CD because it's maybe containing our first grind / death sounding tracks with things like "Therapy for Dogs" or "Mother Fuck Her" J ! "Growth" is of course considered as the best to date, as it is the last one for the moment of course. Now, about all of them I can say that if we had to release them now we should change some things, but it's always easy to say that many years later… When we did all those recordings we were doing that the best we could each time ! So, besides those recordings you can find some INHUMATE tracks on several split tapes and ep and also a very long endless list of tape and CD compilation from all over the world.

4. In my opinion INHUMATE has a very interesting artwork concept for the CD covers: an heptalogy based on the concept of life and the abolition of time. Please tell us some more about that. Who had the idea for this concept and who creates/paints your artworks?
We are trying to put an unity between all our productions (CD only). And as you told it, we try to make a concept that will unite all our artworks and album titles. This concept will take in the artwork especially because we think it's common and maybe too hard to put a concept in all lyrics of 7 albums without telling always the same things… This idea began when we were searching to the name for the first album. Yannick proposed "Internal Life", and we accepted it. It was a good name and why should this one be worst than another one ? So, when we were searching for the title of the second album we decided to make something that was following the first one and this is the real beginning of the concept idea. After the "Internal Life" (maybe life inside the mother's womb, there is the moment of birth. That why we called this second album "Ex-Pulsion" ("expulsion" in French is the exact moment of birth and we cut the word in two because "pulsion" in French means "urges" !). After that, we were thinking to go on with that concept and Christophe and me had the idea of all the rest : 7 albums dealing with the idea of life (who's life ? Maybe the human one but maybe and this can be much more interesting : INHUMATE's life !) and abolition of time because at the end of our concept the things begin again and never stops. So if things never stops there's no time ! We can consider that there is a time when we think that all things have an end don't we ? So, back to the concept, the third album is called "Growth" and deals with the teen age years, then will follow "Life". This title is simple because it's the exact middle of the concept (fourth album) and the title is have something to see with the first and the last one. We will also put a surprise in this album… But I can't say anything more for the moment, just wait and see J… The fifth one will be named "The Fifth Season", sixth one "Expulsed" (make think to the second one and explain the moment when someone - something - is expulsed from life to death), the last one will be called "Eternal Life". And to answer to your question, the artwork of the first one was done by a young French artist : Rita Cuzzupi, the second one was taken in a medicine book, the third one was done by Christophe tattoo artist and the picture for the fourth one has been done by Zig, a very well known underground artist.

5. What are your lyrics dealing with and who writes them? How important are the lyrics for you?
Lyrics are very important for us, like everything we do around INHUMATE. We try to make only good things;, we don't want to give people some shit things. So Christophe (vocalist and writer of 99% of the lyrics) try to make interesting lyrics that deal with topics like life and death, music, the cathedral of Strasbourg, art, the problem of cloning, etc… With those lyrics he also want to go out of the usual gore grind or social clichés.

6. INHUMATE played together with great bands like AGATHOCLES,MALIGNANT TUMOUR,UNHOLY GRAVE or CRYPTOPSY. You did a lot of gigs in France but also in other countries (Holland, Germany, Czech Republic...). What can the crowd expect from a typical INHUMATE gig?
You can expect everything all people should expect from a serious underground band that play for pleasure and not for money. INHUMATE is not a poser band on stage ! We are on stage to sweat and to grind and that's fucking all !!! We usually have a mosh pit when we play and when I hear some bands telling that the crowd is bad or lazy I think that the fault goes to the band because if people don't fucking get crazy it's because the band was not sick enough !!! The stage attitude is very important for me ! We play violent music so we try to give a fucking brutal show and not fucking posing rock star attitude (too many black metal, death metal or NY hard core bands act Like this and it's ridiculous and slowly killing the underground feeling…). Now the best answer I could give is : try to visit an INHUMATE show J !!!

7. Is INHUMATE the only band you're playing in? What about the other band members? Is anyone involved in side projects or other bands?
Ah, ah, ah !!! Yes I'm playing in INHUMATE only and I don't think that one of us should find time enough to be involved in another musical project… We begin to be old now, almost all of us is over 30 years old and INHUMATE already takes all our week ends for 8 years now (since the line up is stable). So, we put all the energy for a hobby in INHUMATE and I think it should be hard for us now to get some more free time, energy and money to put on another side project. But I'm also putting up a new label : SKULL FUCKED PRODUCTION. Of course this will also take a lot of time but I can work at home and I'm still present for my children, so this is ok J !!! It's fucking not easy to stay active in the underground scene when you have a family life man J !!! But everything's possible and I get crazy when I hear some stupid fuckers that tell me that they leave the underground because they don't have nay time left… Liars ! When you want to find some time you always can find it !!!

8. Please tell us about your musical influences and list your top 5 releases of all time.
I have no particular musical influences as I'm into metal for 20 years… So, I like all kind of brutal metal. And about my top 5 releases, for today it should be (maybe should I change tomorrow…) :
- VENOM : "Black Metal"
- SLAYER : "Raining Blood"
- C.V.I. "Forensic Necrovulvectomy"
- CANNIBAL CORPSE : "Tomb of the Mutilated"
- CARCASS : "Symphonies of Sickness"

9. INHUMATE and the GRIND YOUR SOUL DISTRO have a united story. Please give us some more information about GRIND YOUR SOUL DISTRIBUTION.
Yes, both structures have a unites story because INHUMATE is a self produced band and the money to release our CD, make our promotion, print our t-shirts, etc… comes from this distro. So GRIND YOUR SOUL Distro is INHUMATE's distro. It's run by Yannick (drummer) but everything's inside the distro owns to all INHUMATE guys. So, all interested people can ask for the free list. You can find in it several hundreds of pure underground stuffs (whole list on our site http://www.inhumate.com or drop me an e-mail INHUMATE@ifrance.com). Don't expect CANNIBAL CORPSE, MARDUK or NAPALM DEATH in it… I think this distro is especially for true curious underground maniacs, for people that want to discover new things and it's not for fashion followers that just want to buy what they already know. I'm always trying to find some new unknown stuffs. Last good contact I had is with a guy from Chinese Republic. I got several stuff from there and the most interesting one is a compilation with 12 bands from there. In it you can listen to a band called ENDOPUTRESCENCE. It's absolutely great fucking brutal death metal in the US vein. Unfortunately there's only one track of them… And I heard that the band only released that track…. In my opinion this is the way to feel the underground : searching for good bands. Of course I know it costs much and we are often disappointed but when I find just one killing band it's so great !!!! That's what happened when I discovered the Brazilian brutal death noise grind band called C.V.I. When I listened to that tape I thought it was the absolute underground band J !!!! Awful sound but powerful as hell !!!! And so I decided to release it on CD with my personal money (and believe me it cost a lot !!!)… Crazy ? Sick ? I don't care !!! This is underground I think : an absolute hobby !!!

10. What are your thoughts on the French scene? Are there many supporters of extreme music in the area you live in? Can you recommend any bands/zines/labels/distros from your country?
I think the French underground scene is getting better and better with the years. Of course I can only talk about the brutal scene as I'm absolutely not involved into the other stuffs like black metal, atmospheric, hard core, etc… About those scene I can tell you that we have a label in France called DRAKKAR and the guy that owns it is a nazi !!!! A pure fucking nazi !!!! Boycott him please !!!! So, back to the brutal scene I think that interesting band sin France are BLOCKHEADS, SUBLIME CADAVERIC DECOMPOSITION, IMPERIAL SODOMY, MORGUE, DEPRAVED, GURKKHAS, UNFORMED, etc… About zines the only I will name is SKULL FUCKED ZINE. It's a French written zine distributed in 1000 copies and free. It's here to support the scene and nothing else. I don't want to give other names because I'm not sure that other zines I know are still alive… That's the problem with fanzines, they usually have a short life L… About labels of course there is my label SKULL FUCKED PRODUCTION, besides this the French biggest brutal label is BONES BRIGADE. But some other labels are WARPATH, CRIMINAL, BLACK DIAMONG, etc… But I can't assure that they are doing good work…

11. If you were offered a split release with a band of your choice, who would it be?
I don't really know… Maybe rectal sludge from Poland…

12. What's your opinion about D.I.Y. fanzines like the CAMPAIGN FOR MUSICAL DESTRUCTION zine? Do you believe that fanzines are still playing an important role for the underground scene? What do you think about E-zines?
I think they have a very important role because people that want to read them have to buy them and buying something is the proof that people is really interested in it. I think that webzines are alright but it's also very easy to make one and too many webzines are not visited because the guy that make it just ask for promos, review them, make interviews and don't promote his site… So, it's absolutely uninteresting and is no support to the scene… A paper zine costs a lot of money and time and the guy that want to try to have his money back must do promotion for his stuff and by this way he also promotes the people that are featured in his zine. Underground paper publication are necessary I think. And I do also appreciate a lot the DIY attitude, this is the true feeling of the underground : not many money but super motivated !!! Too many people cry because they don't have money and they can't do anything… It's fucking shit because either with not much money everybody can find something to do to help the scene in the underground !!!! It's only the commercial scene that need money to do things… And about this I'd like to add that underground (or not rich…) doesn't mean shit !!!! With INHUMATE when we started the band was fucking poor (like all beginning bands) and we always tried to give the maximum quality !!! That's very important in my eyes !!! Last example about this quest of quality : yesterday I had the promo of the last RULE OF THUMB (Belgian deathcore) mCD. It's a self produced stuff and I think it's absolutely great and very interesting lay out, artwork, etc… Those guy understood that underground and self production can mean quality !!!

13. What about the INHUMATE future plans?
I think I already answered to this before with our heptalogy… About sooner things we have some gigs to do here and there, we should also release a split EP with a German band called VAGINAL INCEST… But the most important thing for us for the moment is working for our next full length album !

14. Thanx for taking the time to answer my questions Fred. Any last comments/statements? This space is yours.
Thanx a lot to you for opening your pages to INHUMATE J !!! We're always ok to answer to interesting questions !!! So, my last comment will be for readers : if any of you is interested in anything with us : speaking, buying some stuff, organising a concert, insulting us, etc… Just feel free to write me, all letters and e-mail will have an answer and absolutely no rock star IRC needed here !!! Stay underground and fuck the mainstream !!! That's the only solution !!! So, my contact is : INHUMATE c/o Fred ANTON / 19 rue des paturages / 67310 ZEINHEIM / FRANCE / INHUMATE@ifrance.com / http://www.inhumate.com

FRAGEN: Gerste // ANTWORTEN: Fred