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Witchtrap
Witchtrap are an amazing band that combine the best of death/thrash and rock n roll into one wicked sound. After hearing their newest release “Vengeance Is My Name” on Hells Headbangers I knew an interview was in order. Here is an interview drummer Witchammer (Hugo Uribe):
MC: Where did you grow up and where is the band based out of?
HU: I grew up in Medellín Colombia and we are based out in Medellín too.
MC: How did you come to discover heavy metal music? What were some of the first bands that you saw?
HU: I discover Metal because of homework at high school about the Rock Story, in early 1987 and my very first Heavy Metal albums I heard in those years were Metallica-Kill'em All and Slayer-Hell Awaits.
MC: Were you in any bands before Witchtrap? If so what bands were they?
HU: Yes, I was in a band called "Dark Millennium" together with my brother "B. A. Ripper" and "Enforcer" as founders of This band before Witchtrap, also B. A. Ripper and Me were involved for few time in other band called "Agaliareth" at same time with "Dark Millennium", but this band broke in few time.
MC: When did you decide you wanted to play drums? Looking back was becoming a drummer harder or easier than you thought it was going to be?
HU: My brother B. A. Ripper and Me both play guitars and drums but I developed more skills on drums and my brother on guitars that's why I play drums on the band from the beginning, yeah drums personally became easier to me than my brother.
MC: Did you have somebody teach you how to play drums and if so who was it? Do you think you’re a good drummer and how much better do you think you will get?
HU: I'm just a simple drums player but I have never studied about how to do it, I only watched on some videos of Venom, Slayer and Metallica how it is, this way I realized how to play drums, that's it.
MC: How did Witchtrap as a band form and did you go through many line-up changes until you got to the current one? Who is in the band right now?
HU: We're not sure about which date is, but it's between 1992-1993. We had two changes on bass our first bass player "Slayerblade" had an accident where he lost one of his arms, after 3 years we had on bass to "Dark Moon" till 2002 and in 2003 "Enforcer" come back to the band because he was the 2º guitar on "Dark Millenium" band.
MC: Has the band played many if any live shows and if not do you plan on playing any live shows at all?
HU: We play around once or twice per month, almost all of them in Colombia in different cities, to play outside of Colombia it's a little bit hard to get gigs, anyway we'd love to play every fucking day for sure, it's one of the things we enjoy as hell, but to do that we need to travel to Europe or USA maybe to make this real. We hope it happens some near day.
MC: I have your release on Hells Headbangers Records. How did you come to sign with them and how many releases is it for? What formats is it available in? Is it for more than one release?
HU: They got in touch with us in early 2006 before the "No Anesthesia" album were out, they were very interested if we had a label to work with, so that's why we got a deal to them, but only after this new album "Vengeance Is My Name" we have got a deal by 7 years with them, but the most important thing is we have the freedom to see if we keep with them or not, over more they are and have the real support that Witchtrap were looking for long time ago, and now we're happy to have found them and work together.
MC: How did you come up with the name Witchtrap and were any other names floating around before you came up with that one?
HU: We got the name from a Terror movie from 80's that has the same name, actually we had no other names around, Witchtrap was the only one.
MC: How did you come up with the title of your album and how did the artwork for the cover?
HU: About the new one "Vengeance Is My Name" it came from a song name, we think it's an attractive name to give to the album. The artwork was made by Matt Putrid the same guy that has worked with Impetigo too. We gave him our idea or concept for the artwork and the rest came with him.
MC: Do you have any prior releases out besides the release on Hells Headbangers?
HU: Yeah we have some few stuff besides of Hells Headbangers has pressed, our debut Ep Witching Metal 2000(later pressed by them in 2007), two demo tapes "The First Necromancy" 1997 and "Turn In Your Graves" 1998 and our first Full-length "Sorceress Bitch" 2002.
MC: For those who have never heard of the band, what do you think you sound like and do you feel like you’re an original band?
HU: Witchtrap is a Real Heavy Metal band influenced as any Metal bands in the metal story, I mean nobody is original but if you mean we are similar than other, yeah, sure we can sound similar to many others as Slayer sounds similar than Judas Priest, or Venom sounds similar than Motorhead, or Bathory, Hellhammer, Destruction, Kreator and Sodom sounds similar than Venom or AC/DC sounds similar than Chuck Berry, or Morbid Angel sounds similar than Possessed etc., Witchtrap has a lot influence of NWOBHM, German Power Heavy Metal from early 80's and USA Heavy Metal from early 80's and Hard Rock touches from 70's, that’s why we can sound similar than many bands from 80's, but the most important Witchtrap has a Metal sound, free of nowadays trends or contamination, making Metal sounds simple and no compromises just as metal had to be done from the beginning.
MC: Is there a big heavy metal scene where the band is based out? Is there many clubs where bands get to play live?
HU: Yeah we are a big metal scene in Medellín, about clubs actually there few I mean there some local bars where you can meet your metal friends every weekend and share some drinks and maybe some gig with around 100 maniacs per show maybe 150 metalheads, but there are many bangers in other cities that go to the gigs in big amount of people, Medellín has more bands than fans or headbangers that supports gigs. It's a strange thing in here.
MC: What are some of your favorite bands and drummers?
HU: Robb Reiner (Anvil), Abaddon (Venom), Wacko (Raven) , Dan Beehler (Exciter), among others
MC: Is being in the band a full time job or do you do other things besides the band? Are any of the members in any other bands?
HU: In Colombia and South America it's fucking impossible to earn your life playing gigs or pressing stuff, we have jobs to keep alive our bands, to get Amps, Instruments and pay our taxes and live our life you know, if we could earn our life playing Metal, that would be the best thing in our lives for sure, but that's impossible, our band started only as we love Metal and no more, then the band got recognition from the underground and after that, we are keep doing the best to keep alive the band in real hard times and now after 20 years (this year 2012) of saving money of the shows and sales of our stuff, at last we could get our own instruments, I mean(guitar, bass, drums, cymbals, Amps and fixing our home studio to record new stuff as often as we can) because before this, we had to pay big amount of money to rent drums, guitars, cymbals, Amps, and of course pay expensive studios to record our music, that's why Witchtrap has taken long period of time between each full length we have.
As far as other bands, yeah B. A. Ripper and Enforcer play in other band call "Nighrtmare" and Enforcer plays in other band call "Hellworld" too.
MC: What was it like going into the studio to record this album? Were all the songs ready to go and it was just a matter of going in and getting them recorded? Do you feel pretty natural going in and recording or is sometimes a pain in the ass?
HU: Witchtrap has enough stuff to record maybe around 3 full-length releases, but our pain in the ass is to make a good mixing, to record is really easy to us, but mixing is a total shit, but we think in the new coming album the things will be easier, because we have learnt a lot of mixing, after we have taken a year mixing the "Vengeance Is My Name". Enough time to learn about jejeje.
MC: How have the reviews been so far for the release? Have you had any bad or unfair reviews at all?
HU: As everything, you can get good and bad thing when you are a public band, I mean music is available to everybody out there and everybody can say about music a lot of things. Witchtrap's new album has gotten many good reviews actually, there some bad reviews surely, but the important thing is there are a lot of reviews talking about us and our new album that means our music has been listened by a lot of metalheads and we are totally happy to get this distro around the world, and the reviews put in the balance, are in favor of good for a large
MC: Is there any songs that you recorded that did not make the release and that you may use them at another time in the future?
HU: No, we have planned very well all our albums for long time ago, we think it's better to record a good album with few songs that people can remember easier than an album with more than 10 songs that people can forget easier. You know what we mean. That's why 80's stuff are in mind of all Metalheads, because 10 songs are more than enough to make a good album and it worked great in those years. Don't you think? (hell yeah-chris)
MC: Does the band have any merchandise for sale at all?
HU: Right now we have only few stuff for sale, because all our stuff gets be sold faster and easier, we only have few copies of the "No Anesthesia" and of course of the new one album.
MC: Plug any websites that you have.
HU: sure here they are:
www.reverbnation.com/witchtrap
www.facebook.com/pages/WITCHTRAP/126799634014732
www.facebook.com/pages/Witchtrap/119861254710711
MC: How long do you see the band being around?
HU: I hope till I die.
MC: Any last words. Horns up for the interview.
UR: hey my Metal friend first of all a lot of thanks for your support and given to Witchtrap this space to share to all your readers about who we are, what we do and the way we live, Metal is our passion and style life, and the right way to express all thing we feel from the bottoms of our hearts and Witchtrap and all its members hope to see you soon in near tour, we are focus on that happens very soon. Your Metal Brother WITCHHAMMER! Stay Evil, Stay Ugly, Stay Metal and see ya in Hell!! United We Stand, in the: METAL ARMY MARCH!!!