Obscure Bands: Rite

I had a chance recently to conduct an interview with a member of a new Swedish black metal band, Rite. I really like their two-song demo Hight of the Day (available for pay-what-you-want download on their Bandcamp page), which was officially released today (6/6 of course). Even better than what's on there, I got a chance to listen to a rough version of a song they're working on and it's awesome. It's sort of like a black metal Ulcerate. I would really be looking out for these guys in the near future.

FMA: Who is Rite, and how did the band get started?

AH: Rite are a seed that has grown since around 2005 when I first talked to TE about music and we had a lot of similar ideas but due to different mental aspects and other aspects it was just talk for a long time.

Last year after a rehearsal with a band we both play in, TE said he had some ideas he wanted to try and record; the result was more than satisfying so we just had to make it happen.

At this time I hadn't played guitar for almost 10 years so I had a lot of catching up. We both have been in the metal scene since the beginning of the nineties. I was one of the first members in one (in)famous band from Sweden but I left the band around '95 due to different reasons. TE has played in a lot of different bands and made a lot of strange music.

At this moment in time Rite is the main band for both of us; we see it as our soul and we want to see how far we can take this without saying we have played in that or that band.

We both do music and we both [play] the guitar and bass in the band. TE handles the drums and vocals and I write the lyrics. This is the core of Rite but we have others with us if we need them.


FMA: Where are you based? What's the metal scene like there?

AH: We are from Sweden, from different parts; I am from the west coast and TE from the east coast. At this moment we are based in Gothenburg.

The metal scene in Sweden is good. I think we have a handful of great bands; in Gothenburg, hmmm . . . I really don't know since I don't follow the scene that much.

FMA: There are two songs on the demo, and they seem to come from very different places. "Shrine of Storms" reminds me of pre-Volcano Satyricon, while "Hight of the Day" is much more modern with its slow, dissonant atmosphere-building. What are your influences, and how would you describe the music?

AH: You are right in that they sound different; it is a choice we made. We made one song each and just stayed with the result.

TE made "Shrine of Storms" and it is more straight-forward. I can't say much about that song but [I] personally have never listened much to Satyricon; even when Dark Medieval Times came out I really did not like them. All I know is that TE is a die-hard Hellhammer fan, but I think he has a lot of influences outside metal like Joy Division and electronic stuff.

"Hight of the Day" was from the beginning just some riffs I made and I did not want to add blastbeats, just try to create some sort of feeling that I was in when I did the song, and after [a] while the song just [grew] on us and it still does.

My influences [are] also from a lot of different music. I hardly listen to any music these days since it is so hard for new music to grow on me, so obviously the old stuff is influential on me like Dissection, Mayhem, Burzum, Eucharist, Sarcófago, Tiamat, Darkthrone and a lot more. Funeral Mist and Deathspell Omega made great impact on me as well.

I would like to describe the music as raw atmospheric with [its] own sound, without boundaries; we don't want to copy anything we have heard before. This is of course impossible but we will try.

FMA: They sound like they were recorded or produced separately. Both are delicously raw. But the production on "Shrine" sounds good while "Hight" seems flat in comparison. What's the story there?

AH: You are right that the sound is flat on "Hight". They are recorded at the same time but I just have started out with my own studio and the whole recording process was like me learning all studio stuff from the beginning. I learned a lot about these things during the process. I overworked a lot of things during these recordings.

FMA: You've told me you're working on greater things. What are the near-term and long-term plans for Rite?

AH: Right now we are working on new material and we are in a state when it just flows naturally. Inspiration and work ethics are amazing right now and we feel we are dedicated to what we do. In the long term it is up to what people will think of the stuff we do, but we will continue to record and work. We have no special goals; we are old and don't have dreams about being "big" so the whole thing is so much easier. We do what we like and that's it.

FMA: If you could force everyone in the world to listen to one album, what would it be and why?

AH: Shit, hard question but for me personally it would be Reinkaos by Dissection because many people are turning away from this record because it [doesn't] sound like Storm of the Light's Bane 2, but it is an amazing album and probably the one album I have listen[ed] the most to in the last couple of years. Outside metal it would be Pet Sounds by [The] Beach Boys . . . the stuff on that album [is] mind-blowing. TE would maybe say [A] Velvet Creation by Eucharist because when he is drunk that record plays a lot.