Surgical Strike is a German Thrash metal band formed in 1993 in Hannover. At a time when all new formed metal bands wanted to jump on the cross-over or grunge train, vocalist and band mastermind Jens Albert wanted to bring great American thrash metal to Germany. In 1997 SURGICAL STRIKE’s EP “Overruled” became demo of the month in Germany’s famous Metal Hammer (3/97). Since then, the band has gone through numerous lineup changes and after a almost two decade long hiatus SURGICAL STRIKE are back, meaner, faster and harder than ever. Albert re-established the band in 2014 with Linus-Henry Meyer on drums, Bastian Windszus and Marcelo Vasquez Rocha on guitars. In July 2015 they hit the studio in order to record their first EP after the hiatus that is soon to be released. The band are pure, uncompromising, modern thrash metal. Fast double bass grooves, hellish thrashing guitars, brutal riffing and here and there melodic leads meeting with aggressive vocals in order to unleash hell. Undoubtedly, SURGICAL STRIKE have their roots in 1980s bay are thrash metal, yet they created a timeless and distinct version of it that does not sound like anything contemporary on both sides of the big pond.
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Hi Jens , Welcome to Acier Doux , First , warm Hails , and thanks for taking time to answer to my questions !!! Can you first tell us about you, your background as a musician…your past or actual involvement in other bands! I want to know everything about you career ?
Jens : My career started about 1992 when i formed a band called “Bloody Remains” with our former drummer Colin but it only lasted for one year ! Straight after that we found a bass player and 2 guitarists and we formed Surgical Strike back in 93 we recorded 2 Demos back then but for some reasons broke up in 1996!After that i had a short hiatus and then joined a Thrashcore band called:De/test from 1999 to 2005 with whom i recorded 2 Demos and an EP after that i did not make music at all until 2014 when i had the idea to bring Surgical Strike back !
The band’s lyrics focus pure Thrash subjects. Is that something that you have an interest in, ? Is it difficult to find subjects not already taken ?
Jens : The subjects i write always depend on what at the current moment worries ma and what i personally think about! there’s always topics for me to find and if i write lyrics i don’t really care if they are typical Thrash Metal lyrics.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u2FjVWk3xw&w=320&h=266]
With music based at the root of the Metal genre, who are your biggest influences musically ?
Jens : My personal influences have always been American thrash acts such as Exodus / Heathen or Forbidden but also a lot of pure Metal stuff such as Queensryche or Vicious Rumors .
Introduce us to your EP ” V-II-XII” that was released at 2016… Are you still satisfied with it? How are the feedbacks for now? And the sales are they gaining weight as a big baby in full growth?
Jens : Sure we are still proud of our EP and the sales are ok ! We are now looking forward to write as much new material as possible to put out a full length soon ! We also received a lot of well honored reviews for it and we are really very pleased with the result .
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSpeL4zSZ4A&w=320&h=266]
Who composes the most in the band? Have you got a quite particular way of composing, or does everything occur during rehearsals and then exchanges through emails ?
Jens : Most of our stuff is composed by me and Marcelo our rythm guitarist he usually sends us the files and then i start to write lyrics while the rest of the band tries to add some own ideas after that we try to put everything together during our rehearsals well that’s the way we compose our stuff usually !
Choose one of these bands : Slayer , Exodus , Overkill , Surgical Strike . Tell us what you think and feel while listening to their music, and which of their albums is your favourite ?
Jens : To be honest i am not such a big fan of slayer but Overkill and Exodus are both some of my favourite acts and for sure when i listen to their music it is one of the best ways for me to relax and forget !
Do the musicians of Surgical Strike play in parallel projects? If so, are the styles different or quite close ?
Jens : I have no side projects at all because i want to focus only on Surgical Strike! But our rhythm guitarist and our bass player both play in a Groove Metal band called Drone as our well Lead guitarist who also joins a Death Metal band called: Torture Pit ! And our Drummer also has another Band called Millarium they play some kind of Modern metal but all these acts sound completely different compared to Surgical Strike .
Where do you normally play? What have been some of your bigger tours/gigs and whom have they been with? Any good stories that you would like to share along those lines? Any upcoming plans/events that we need to know about ?
Jens : This year we are planning and are allready playing some single shows right now the most important thing for us is as i said before to get a full length album finished and to get a support slot for a tour as soon as possible i am sure there will be a lot of cool news coming soon ! With heavy greetings .
I leave you a bit of living space to make the final promotion and conclude…
Jens : Thanks for support keep it up Brother .
Interviewer : Med Manef Slama
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