Deathstars Whiplashe's Focus' on New Music with Great Eagerness to Return to America Soil


Embracing that darkness that is Europe with the sounds of Scandinavia circling them, the industrial goth metal band known as Deathstars. Not to be confused by Star Wars has been musically active for the last 15 years. In which they crossed the pond over to the U.S. getting to tour across North America for the first time ever! Why did it take them so long to cross over? What was their experience like while out there? Will we be seeing them return or hearing any new tunes or anything whatsoever? Frontman vocalist Andreas Bergh or (Whiplasher Bernadotte) answers those questions, plus plenty more of the band's future and continuing success that is Deathstars!


1. First of all, who are you, and what do you do in the band?

Whiplasher: I am Andreas also known as "Whiplasher" and I do the vocals in the band.

2. You guys had just wrapped up your first ever U.S. tour, how was it? Why did it take you so long to come over?

Whiplasher:  We have been wanting to go over for years, since we started,  we had planned to do it, it's just the schedules didn't work out. I don't know why, because we have been touring all over the world, for a long time but it's never been in the cards to go, obviously in North America. So now we just took the chance with this, touring with Moonspell and Septicflesh to finally go there and it was a great time. For us, it was like starting from square one pretty much, it's our first tour there, we haven't really established us as a live band there. Hopefully we do get back as soon as possible. All of us want to go there ASAP, so  if we can go back there within a year that would be nice. That's how I look at it just one more time.

3. What were some of your favorite things about being let alone touring in the U.S.? What was the experience like?

Whiplasher: It was overall good. We had as usual we had very bad luck when it came to the practical stuff like the tour bus. We had a tour bus exploding in the Austrian Alps. So barely got out of it. Now we had a hit and run outside of San Francisco, with two other accidents with it, then also the driver drove into a bridge in Manhattan, so the roof was low. A part from that there were other issues,  like we had problems getting our second driver, which made us miss a couple of shows. Besides those things, we did have a great time.

4. Whenever an out of state or country act comes to a certain terrain, word is spread and shows tend to sell out, was this the case for Deathstars on this U.S. run?

Whiplasher: No not at all. Also I think it's a huge difference for us playing in Europe or Mexico or Russia a part from the U.S. at this point, because we have even had a decent distribution there when it comes to our albums. I think that from what I heard with Moonspell and Septicflesh, they usually tour together and like Moonspell have been there 12 times, so I guess a lot of people have seen them already. Then it's also for us, we can't have stage props or anything like that in the U.S. So it's like, starting all over again as I said, just being a band on a plywood stage, performing the songs, that's where we come from originally and what we enjoy as well, because growing up with bands like NC5, Iggypop, it just should be the band the music. It's kind of refreshing to work up from the bottom again so to speak. But I also did see a huge following there, people dressing up as us, we have diehard fans from all over the world. So it feels good to see our band breathing on the streets of North America as well.

5. It's been almost a year since the release of your fourth full-length album "The Perfect Cult". Do you have any new music in the works?

Whiplasher: Yes we always write, but since there has been so much touring since fall of last year, we haven't had much time. We usually sit and write music while on tours, it's the same thing when you get home you don't sit down and write music right away. So we need that period of time to start working on new songs. I guess now after the U.S. European festivals, we will start working harder on the material, so we can start recording the new album, that;s a goal.

6. Have you ever considered releasing your music in terms of an acoustic release?

Whiplasher: No not really, we did discuss doing acoustic shows in the future. But I don't think we would do proper acoustic versions of songs we have already recorded. Maybe we will see about writing new music in acoustic. We are an electric band we like distortion, I'm not too sure but you never know.

7. Out of all that you have released, you have yet to release a live album or live DVD anything like that in the works?

Whiplasher: Yeah the DVD has been something the people have been asking for, for many, many, years. We been slow, we have filmed a lot of shows with professional crews and stuff but there is kind of an inflation with the DVD, we are definitely going to do something but it's not in a hurry. Just going through all of the material takes some effort, someone has to deal with that and yes a live album or DVD we will see, we have always discussed it but there's no stress about it.

8. Besides the touring and music business with Deathstars, some of you have been involved in other projects Swordmaster, Dissection, and Opthalamia, will any of those be coming back to life or consider playing a show or tour with you guys?

Whiplasher: No never. I mean with Deathstars, especially me, I decided not to be in any other bands. But to focus on this band, and everyone is in the band and the band is successful. No I don't think, we try to keep it as Deathstars as a thing of its own. We come from the death metal, black metal scene of the early 90s' the extreme part of it, when we grew up and I still enjoy that music, maybe I will do a project like that in the future. But it is something I have been thinking about, but I won't ever combine it with Deathstars.

9. You went from being a 5-piece to a 4-piece act, how come? Do you prefer the line-up this way or the other way or does it not matter?

Whiplasher: Because Cat who played guitar with us, was just fed up with touring and didn't want to tour anymore. I mean he wanted to be in the band but didn't want to travel as much as we did. Some other stuff was going on in his life which we respected. For us, there was no need to finding a new guitar player, just for the sake of having  5 members. But it's something we never know, maybe someone else will join in the future, but it works fine as a 4 piece so we will stick with that for now.

10. In your publicity photos, you guys go all out with your attire and make-up, but during your performances it's toned down to just casual attire with or without make-up, have you performed the way you look in the publicity shots or would you consider it?

Whiplasher: Yeah we have a lot of different outfits from the uniforms to the leather jackets, we just want to visualize music somehow. Not just go out in t-shirts and jeans. So yeah of course, we have certain face of the band, we put out there. It's not super important but it is part of the band.

11. How many of those military hats do you own? Do you still own all of the previous one's?

Whiplasher: Everyone keeps stealing it. All of the fans, when I throw on the side of the stage when not using it, someone is crawling from the shadows stealing it. I don't know how many I have had. A lot of the custom made one's are expensive, made with symbols, the logo, etc. it's kind of irritating. I don't have many of the hats left, but I think all of us still have a lot of the old uniforms we used throughout the years, people steal stuff all the time. I think someone in Mexico stole my custom made leather jacket that was very expensive, then something happened in North America, it's like that all the time.

12. Would you ever consider doing a show or a tour where each of you wears a certain outfit from that time period of that release?

Whiplasher : Maybe we will do that we will see.

13. Will we ever see you perform any of your releases in their entirety from front to back?

Whiplasher: That would be interesting and I would enjoy that, would be really fun. But I don't know, but it's not something we are thinking about right now. Maybe at some point, we will see, it's an idea.

14. On some of your previous releases, you have some unreleased tracks here and there, how much more back catalog do you have leftover that we may get to hear?

Whiplasher: The thing is, we a lot of stretches of songs, about 95% of them we throw away. We have a lot of stuff we really don't, I mean we do it as demos or something but never. Sometimes we look back at that material and look back at it and see if it would fit, but mainly we don't use it. Songs we have recorded and not released yet, will not be released. We are very picky about what we release. We don't release material that we don't like, just because of showing new material, you kind of destroy the band. We are pretty strict about that.

15. You had turned to using the IndieGoGo campaign as your source of helping you get over here and in general, reaching above your goal, why did you turn to this outlet and why do you think others do as well?

Whiplasher: That was amazing that we got help to do this. You don't earn that much money. We have so many things happening, it's been so much bad luck and the fans willing to help, it was amazing. I think we got that info from other bands, and our management set it up. In the future hopefully we don't have to do that stuff and can go over there by ourselves. It was great help this time but hopefully we will manage it some other way in the future. I have even seen my favorite director, he's getting crowd funded and it's just another way to participate and help out.

16. What else can we expect to see from you guys for the rest of this year, leading into the next year?

Whiplasher: Well right now, since we have been touring so much since fall of last year. We have some festivals, always getting offers to tour from different areas. But there comes a point when you have to say it's a enough and try to focus on writing new material. I think right now all of us are into trying to get another album out there, instead of it taking 5 years like this last one. This is our biggest priority than going out touring again. We already toured for this album so hopefully focus on the new album.

17. Do you have any last words for fans, or potential new fans?

Whiplasher: If they want to listen to sound of Scandinavia  and the darkness of Europe, then you must check us out because you don't get that in America there is no chance. We would like to come over to the U.S. as soon as possible again so hopefully you can check us out!

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