Expenzer’s début album Kill the Conductor is a no nonsense, no frills Thrash album that hits the spot. Their vocalist Tom gave us some more information on the band…
For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!
We are Expenzer, a 5-piece Thrash Metal band from Switzerland. We create Metal that is alive and evolving. Formed in 2014 we just released our début album “Kill The Conductor”.
Give us a bit of history to Expenzer
All members of the band played together in various combinations on projects and have a long history together. I (Tom; Vocals) joined the the four guys (Jeff and Sean: Guitars; Reto: Drums; Lou: Bass) who just played their last gig with their old band Pigskin that existed for about 18 years. They looked for a new singer to restart the band, and it felt right from the beginning. But it was a different thing, so we decided to change the name too. With the focus on all our individual strengths, we created a monster that just tasted its first fresh blood…
Where did the band name come from?
We wanted to call the band Bud Spencer (hehe) … but then we thought it was a bit to lame just to steal a name…. I mean you have to live with that then….but we liked the sound of the words, so we came up with Expenzer. It means nothing, just sounds cool and we are in good company with the EX- at the beginning…
What are your influences?
The spirit of the untamed Thrash Metal. All dudes in the band are very into stuff like The Haunted or Testament, Pantera, Darkane… just bands who took this kind of music and put their stamp on it. We all are not bound to a certain style and there would be so much you could miss if you just focus on a genre, but with Expenzer we want to make music that we are rooted in, that’s our homebase.
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
Oh man…this could fill a double page…I worked for a long time in a CD store and still talk about bands without end… I just check my albums, ah here..
Sadus 2006 Album Out For Blood (A pissed off singer & the coolest bassplayer and a super weird/angry production ).
Anacrusis 1991 Manic Impressions ( Visionary music, still ahead of it’s time.)
Non Human Level 2005 Self titled: ( project of Darkane, Meshuggah and Devin Townsend Band musicians…you get the point)
and some newer cool shit:
Alkaloid 2015 – The Malkuth Grimoire ( Death Metal in the spirit of Gojira, no blinders here.)
Gorod 2012 A Perfect Absolution ( So much music to discover on this; songs, not just riffs.)
Zatokrev 2015 Silk Spiders Underwater ( A Swiss Band, heavy as fuck, Neurosis-like)
And always every Overkill Album….
What’s your favourite song on your new album and why?
I think our album works the best, as a whole. Each song fulfils its purpose in the order we’ve put it on. We just rehearsed today and “Play for the Deaf”, fourth song on the record, just feels awesome to play live. I look forward to every part of the song, it flows and kicks you in the teeth at the right times. Tomorrow I’ll maybe say the same thing about another song, I love them all…
What are the subjects/themes of the songs on this album?
Most of the time I try to put the music into words. I like Metal Songs who sound like Monster Movie Titles, “A Dying T-Rex”, “Lightspeed Heartbeat” or “The Silence of The Amps”, just come to mind over a certain riff, then I write the lyrics around it. I don’t have a concept or a defined message, I just paint bloody pictures over killer riffs….
Give us a bit of information on your songwriting process.
On “Kill The Conductor” Jeff wrote most of the stuff. 3 Songs came from Sean and 1 from Lou. We all work on songs by ourselves, we can trust each other that no bullshit will come through, and if so we are vocal and open about it. I get the instrumental version of the song and, as mentioned , try to support the riffs and rhythms and give the ugly baby a name….
How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?
I think you can’t make plans on that. I have a vision for the new stuff, but so have the other four guys in the band. So our goal is to combine the strength of everybody, to create the best we can at that moment in time.
What’s next for Expenzer?
Play gigs as often as we can, record the next album and have fun playing exactly what we want and know what that is.
Wonderbox Metal 