My Beloved Darkness

Answered by: Andreas

1. A brief history of COMPOS MENTIS and how do you define your name?

- The band was formed in 1996 by Jesper, Ryan, Dan and myself but it wasn't until 1999 when Bo joined the band on keyboards that we took our present name, COMPOS MENTIS, and began to play the kind of metal that we do now. In 2000 we recorded our highly acclaimed demo, Quadrology of Sorrow, and the following year we signed a contract with the American label Lost Disciple Records after having received a few proposals from various labels. Our first full-length, Fragments of a Withered Dream, was released in January, 2003. In September the same year we went on a European tour with Illdisposed and a few months later, "Fragments." was rated as the second-best release in 2003 at Danish Metal Awards 2003. COMPOS MENTIS is a legal term and means something like to be at your common sense. We took the name simply because we thought it had a really cool sound to it.

2. To record Fragments... did you receive other proposals apart from Lost Disciple? Why did you choose Lost Disciple? Will your new CD be released under this label?

- As noted above, we did get a few other proposals but Lost Disciple's offer was the best. As far as the new cd we are not quite sure yet whether it will be released through LDR or whether we are going to find a new label but I can't say much more at this point.

3. You have a very good Swedish sound, many means even affirm that you being from Denmark plays much better than any Swedish band. What do you think of this?

- It's right that our music sounds Swedish but I think that we have more different elements in our music than many Swedish bands, especially on the new tracks that we are working on for the next album. In general I think that the Danish scene is at least as healthy as the Swedish right now. Both new bands and festivals pop up and it seems as if the rest of the world begins to notice little Denmark, e.g. Illdisposed has been signed to Roadrunner etc. So it's really cool to be a part of the scene now and you should expect much of the new generation of Danish bands!

4. Well, your cover somehow sample to the man sunk in the pain and the desperation, why to show that human facet? Why so much pain in the world? Are they interested in existential topics?

- I think that it's an interesting topic and a very basic element in the human existence. I am studying philosophy and it is mainly the more existential themes that I find interesting. Besides it fits the overall feeling in our music very well so it felt natural to us to develop the artwork and the lyrics in the same vein.

5. Do you like weapons? I see each one of you armed in their flyers.

- We just thought that the photo would be kinda cool so we went to a studio and shot a whole bunch of pictures in front of a white screen. After that our photographer spent quite some time to cut and paste all the pictures into one. Luckily, we don't pay per hour, hehe. But the idea behind the picture is that everybody has several personalities and this picture shows the two extreme opposites and one of them obviously wants to get rid of the other ;-)

6. Well, do tell us which your thoughts are about the man's existence?

- Hmmm, that's a quite extensive question but I guess that your existence is nothing else than what you make of it. At least that's the short version.

7. How do it go your live presentations, did you already have in honor of playing with a great band? Some important festival?

- When playing live, we always focus on making our shows as energetic as possible - if it wasn't, people might as well stay at home listening to the cd. We very much enjoy playing live and so far we have played with Danish bands such as Illdisposed (Roadrunner), Mnemic (Nuclear Blast), Withering Surface (Scarlet), Hatesphere (Scarlet), Exmortem (Osmose), Saturnus (VOW), Thorium (Diehard). The only festivals we have played so far are "Kloften Festival", a small Danish three-day event with 10.000 visitors, and "Fee Metal Festival", Denmarks biggest metal festival.

8. Toward where do you believe it goes the metal music? More melody? More electronic music?

- Definitely towards more electronic music, I think! As far as melody, I don't really know cause the amount of melody has been increasing during the last years with more clean vocals etc. but it is difficult to say how long it will keep rising. Sooner or later we will probably see it going the other way again.

9. For those that didn't still listen to Compos Mentis, describe us musical and lyrically your work.

- The foundation is melodic death metal in the Swedish vein but with our use of keyboards, we also draw inspiration from symphonic black metal. Don't expect extremely fast and brutal music as that never was our prime focus.
In short: symphonic rock from hell.

10. Thank you for time towards me, tell us your future plans and your last words for all your fans in South America...

- Well, thanks to you too for doing this interview! We expect to finish songs enough for a new album during this summer but we haven't planned when we will enter the studio next time so it might take a while until the next album is released.
We hope to grow even bigger with the next releases so that we get the opportunity to tour as much as possible and as many places in the world as possible - even as far from Denmark as South America. In the meantime, check out our website (www.composmentis.dk) to listen to some mp3's and to stay updated on the situation in the CM camp. Thank you!