Aborted Are Locked In For Froth & Fury

‘Froth and Fury Festival was the right thing to come along and the guys from Archspire are good friends, so it’ll be a good time.’

Sven de Caluwe, founder of Belgian metal band Aborted, is taking some time out to discuss his bands hectic work schedule which includes six dates across Australia alongside Archspire, with two spots on Froth & Fury Festival the highlight. Before Australia, there is still Japan and mammoth tour of the States as well as change on the drums.

‘Kevin Paradis was just a session for the one tour, so he’s not actually in the band for the dates in the US and Australia, Japan. We are actually taking Siebe Hermans along who did the last, I want to say, five shows of the European tour because Kevin had to play his last shows with Benighted. We’re taking him along. The whole idea is that we’re still kind looking on who we’re going to settle as far as drums go, to be honest, we did almost a full run with Kevin and Siebe only had five shows, so we figured we’d give him a bit more and see how that feels and then go from there. I know Siebe pretty well. He’s also in my other band Coffin Feeder, so I’m used to playing together with him.’

Aborted have unleased twelve albums in their career, starting with the death grind groove of 1999’s The Purity Of Perversion to the more technically gifted and sharp as blade precision of Vault Of Horrors in 2024.

‘It’s just been a natural progression, really. When we started the band, it was a very different time. There wasn’t all that much technical music. If you go back to the nineties, technical music was Death. I mean Death is in no terms technical these days. If you compare it to the stuff that’s out there, like Archspire for example. They are the new era of technical death metal. I think when we came up it was just more like that. There was a lot less knowledge out there. It was just like everyone was self-taught. It was more about writing cool songs, focusing on the riffs and the emotions that go with it, and the aggression, something that’s still very important to us. Just to be clear, we don’t write music to be technical, I think as time went along and some members joined some proficiency came into the band and it’s natural that everybody also put their own feeling into it as everybody got better at their instruments.’

It’s been seven years, and counting, since Aborted graced Aussie shores and the reasons why are multitude and a sign of current issues working bands must face to put on the face melting shows they do.

‘Last time was with Black Dahlia murder, so it is quite possible. The biggest problem would be that COVID happened so we didn’t do anything for three years and then we just kind of focused on the US because that was the first place to really be open. Europe was still kind of recovering until it’s been a bit better, but we’ve been hit with some more challenging things such as the war in Ukraine, energy crisis, all that stuff. We’ve pretty been hit with extraordinary unfortunate events, one after the other for the last couple of years. The market took a little bit of time to recover for touring, but we’ve been hitting the US pretty hard.’

After the extensive touring, the band will hit the studio again for album number thirteen and if there’s any concern about the personnel situation, Sven defiantly clears it up.

‘The band’s really busy for the next year and a half. There’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s not been announced yet. We’re working on a new record. Looking at recording in the summer and I believe the first singles will drop in the fall of next year. We have the band. There’s just been one member that stuff happened with. Daniel is very much here. He’s taking on the largest chunk of the writing with the last record already. Ian’s been with the band since, I want to say it’s been ten years actually this year. So it’s the three of us right now. We haven’t had a bass player since COVID because Stefano went back to studying. He finished a PhD and he couldn’t tour anymore. He chose to focus on a career in academics, which obviously we respect fully. We’re still very good friends. We talk a lot and he was a very integral part of the band. So we haven’t really replaced him because we haven’t felt the need to. It’s worked fine so far and until we find that one person that would be the right replacement, we’re not really in a rush to look into that. We’ve got to find the right person personality wise, and it is easy touring with four people as well. It has to be a really big advantage to getting someone else in the band again.’

Interview By Iain McCallum

Catch Aborted on tour with Archspire and Organectomy on the following dates. Tickets HERE…

And Froth & Fury in Adelaide and Perth, tickets HERE…