INTERVIEW: Fabian Hildebrandt – Deserted Fear

There’s something quite magical about the German death metal scene. For a country more commonly associated with thrash and power metal, the Germans have become masters of death metal since the turn of the century. From outfits buried deep in the underground to bands signed to prominent labels, in 2019, German death metal is booming. DESERTED FEAR are one of the leaders of the charge, and are back with their fourth record, Drowned By Humanity (read our review here), following their 2017 Century Media Records debut, Dead Shores Riding. Prior to the release of the record, we caught up with guitarist Fabian Hildebrandt to discuss the new album, the incredible German death metal scene and DESERTED FEAR‘s recent sponsorship deal with a German youth basketball team (here are few ladder ball throwing technique that anyone can master in no time)!

Hey Fabian, thank you for taking the time to talk today. As we’re approaching the release of Drowned By Humanity, how is everyone in the DESERTED FEAR camp doing?

Fabian: No, thank you! We’re feeling great! It’s our fourth record, and it’s crazy when we look back over what‘s happened over the last few years, it’s been amazing! Crazy. We never expected this when we wrote our first record, we just wanted to play some death metal, record an album and let’s see what happens. Now the fourth record, so it’s crazy.

You’ve released two singles from Drowned By Humanity so far – Welcome To Reality and The Final Chapter. How has the response been from fans and the press?

Fabian: The response has been great so far! I mean, it’s always difficult to find a single, because everyone in the band has his own favourites. But we found two songs, and there will be a third one on Friday. Yeah, the response has been great so far. People enjoy it, they’re looking forward to the album. Let’s see.

DESERTED FEAR have been pretty consistent in the release schedule – if you include last year’s EP, you’ve had five released in seven years. Was there any sense of being burnt out when writing Drowned By Humanity, or were you still as enthusiastic as you were when first starting out?

Fabian: There was nothing planned, we didn’t think about it. After Dead Shores Rising, we played a lot of live shows. At the beginning of 2018 we had just two riffs, but we didn’t have a deadline, and we didn’t want to have any pressure. But we went really fast for songwriting. We had a great flow. In summer last year the songwriting was done, so we said “Okay, yeah, let’s record!” I don’t know, you always fear not finding good riffs anymore. But it’s not like that so far, so we’re pretty happy!

When you started DESERTED FEAR, did you have a feeling you’d be able to build a career to this stage where you are signed to a label as prolific as Century Media Records in such a short space of time?

Fabian: Not when we started DESERTED FEAR, no. When we had our school band 15 years ago, we saw bands like LINKIN PARK, that was when we had dreams! Or we expected something like [LINKIN PARK‘s success] but yeah, we failed! I remember our third gig was a huge open air – well, back then I thought it was a huge open air, I saw to stage two months ago in a picture, it was pretty small! But we played there as the first band, and the sound guy asked us “What do you guys want to hear your monitor?” But there was no monitors at all on the stage! We couldn’t hear each other, and it was just our parents in front of the stage. Yeah, that was horrible so we quit the band and focused on driving motorcycles! Then I started DESERTED FEAR with our singer Manuel [Glatter, vocals/guitar] and Simon [Mengs, drums]. It was just fun, because we have we had this bad thing before!

What were the themes and concepts you wanted to explore, or stories you wanted to tell, with the lyrics of Drowned By Humanity?

Fabian: We are getting older, and our singer became a father, so you are not just thinking about what’s [happening] today, you started thinking about what’s [going to happen] in 20 years? What’s [does the] future [hold] for our kids? There are some things that are not right in our society, I think, and the way we treat our nature. That’s something we really wanted to address this time.

And what was the concept behind the artwork for the record?

Fabian: We always do something like a bad that Photoshop sketch, like when you cut out something in the newspaper and put it together! So we did something like that and send it to the artist [Lambang Megantoro] and what he did was fucking great, man! It was just like it was our head. You don’t always know what you’re going to get, but he delivered 100%!

You’ve recently become the sponsors of a youth basketball team. Tell us how that came about? It’s certainly a unique way to market the band!

Fabian: I played handball when I was a young kid. There was a German band called DIE TOTEN HOSEN when I was young, and they sponsored a football team which was cool! Now we are basketball fans, Manuel and me, we always go to the games here. There are a lot of kids, and we asked what do they do for the youth. They create work for the youth and a lot of young teens, and we wanted to support that! So our tax accountant is also a sponsor, and he made a connection. We asked if we can do some shirts for the kids, and they said yes!

DESERTED FEAR have a run of shows in Germany, Switzerland and Austria in March. What other live plans do you have in support of Drowned By Humanity? Can we hope to see you in the UK in 2019?

Fabian: I don’t know yet, but I hope so! We played in London on the Headbangers Ball Tour in 2017 and the people there have been really nice. So we hope to come back to Great Britain and see the landscape! But there is nothing planned so far. I would say it’s hard for us to come over on our own to outside of Germany, because we are not as well known as we are in Germany. It’s hard to go there without a bigger band. We hope to get a chance, maybe the end of the year or next year, to tour with a bigger band and go outside of Germany. We’ll just see what comes. We are busy all the time, and if nothing comes we will just enjoy our normal life! Go fishing, enjoying time with family.

Which of the new songs are you particularly excited to debut live?

Fabian: We already performed Welcome To Reality. It’s always crazy to perform new songs live, we are always really nervous! But I’m looking forward to playing The Final Chapter. It’s really dramatic, and I love the melodies in there. Let’s see how the crowd reacts!

Germany is most well-known in heavy metal for the thrash and power metal scenes of the 1980s, however, since the early 2000s there has been huge wave of German death metal bands dominating the underground. What do you think prompted a shift towards death metal for so many German bands?

Fabian: I really don’t know, honestly. For myself, we started listening to nu-metal stuff like LINKIN PARK, PAPA ROACH, stuff like that. Then we got into IN FLAMES, the newer stuff, and we’ve gone back in time to the older albums and we loved it more and more. Maybe all the other bands did the same thing and started to play death metal!

From the outside looking in, the German death metal scene appears to be very unique. There’s a lot of bands working together with split releases, underground labels giving bands a big boost, and a real sense of comradery within the scene. What do you think makes the German death metal scene so strong and unique?

Fabian: Yeah, it’s really cool! If you play shows all over Germany you always meet people over the years, and after two or three or five concerts you become friends, you start to make splits and start to organise your own concerts. It’s really great. We two release shows booked with support from REVEL IN FLESH and DENY THE URGE, and these are bands who invited us back then to play at their release shows! I would say it’s maybe like the death metal scene in Sweden and the early ‘90s.

Are there any underground death metal bands you are particularly impressed by, either in Germany or further afield?

Fabian: In the underground scene, there’s HORRENDOUS from USA, they put out a great record. But also REVEL IN FLESH from Germany or DENY THE URGE and SULPHUR AEON. They are great bands, they put out great records and I hope they will carry on.

What does the rest of 2019 have in store for DESERTED FEAR?

Fabian: Hopefully some support tours through Europe, maybe. We really want to go to South America or Asia, but that’s just dreams! Let’s see where we can get to, it’s not in our hands.

Thanks again for your time today, Fabian. Finally, do you have any parting messages for Distorted Sound Magazine’s readers?

Fabian: Thanks for reading! I hope [your readers] come to a concert when we come to Great Britain and Scotland. You should check out DESERTED FEAR‘s music, it would be really nice!

Drowned By Humanity is out now via Century Media Records. 

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