Pic courtesy of: UnderThreat "What’s important for us is that we end up satisfied with the structure, that we don’t repeat ourselves and that everything falls into place inside the song"

CR: What would you say is the biggest and most important characteristic this album possesses?
Nicolas Bermudez: A clear, cleaner sound, better song structures and a tighter performance.

CR: Deathmosphere has at least 5 songs that surpass the 5 minute barrier, what kind of importance does length has to an Under Threat song?
Nicolas Bermudez: None really, what’s important for us is that we end up satisfied with the structure, that we don’t repeat ourselves and that everything falls into place inside the song.

CR: There is no doubt that the guitars are the “base” of this new production, how much technicality is necessary to play an Under Threat song and how much room is there left for spontaneity when writing those guitars?
Nicolas Bermudez: Spontaneity is the key for Under Threat, because thanks to that we can come up with all the riffs that eventually become songs. We never try to force something inside a song if it doesn’t come natural to us. How much technicality? Well I can tell you that we give our best on every composition.

CR: Under Threat plays a very “aggressive” melodic death metal, it sort of remains me a lot to this Dutch band Detonation, what are the most direct influences that you guys have?
Nicolas Bermudez: Many really; we all listen to different stuff, a few to mention will be: Iron Maiden, Death, Dream Theater, Metallica, In flames, Hypocrisy, Morbid Angel, Carcass, the list is really, really long; if I would have to say what’s the most “direct” influence on us, I will say that the mix of all this music stays with you, it gets under your skin.

CR: Can we call the melodic death metal from Under Threat “an aggressive evolution of melodies”, how would you describe your music?
Nicolas Bermudez: Progressive Death/Thrash, but melodic…I don’t know; like the great master Chuck from Death use to say “labels in music make no sense”. Labels are ok for a supermarket, to divide the fruits from the vegetables; if you headbang, sweet and jump on a metal concert, don’t doubt it for a minute, you are a metalhead, and that’s that. Under Threat is heavy, fast, sometimes dissonant, sometimes not, everything from the heart.

CR: What can you tell us about the process of recording Deathmosphere?
Nicolas Bermudez: The album was recorded in Studio One in Racine, state of Wisconsin, that’s like half an hour from Milwaukee, where we are living right now. Recorded and produced by Chris Djuricic who owns the studio; he also worked on our previous album “Behind mankind’s disguise”; many other bands like Jungle Rot, The Enforsaken, November’s Doom and the famous guitarist Michaelangelo have recorded on that studio. This was the first album in which we used Click tracks, all suggested by Chris, and that really helped us on the entire process of recording.

CR: So you guys have no more relationship with Conquest Music?
Nicolas Bermudez: No, we worked with them on the previous release, they still have the rights for that album but aside from that we have no more attachments to them, our label now is Barbarian Records from Madison here in the US and Hateworks is our label for South America, they also distribute our album world wide.

CR: UnderThreat was on tour this year? How is the band received by the Americans over there, is there any problems because you are of “Latin roots”?
Nicolas Bermudez: Well, actually we haven’t have a complete tour this year, we have been on some festivals and doing some concerts mainly on the mid west side of the US, Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, etc…but our last real tour was back in 2003 promoting our album “Behind Mankind's Disguise”, we played with Monstrosity all over the country, the process to set up a decent tour here in the US is complicated and it takes a lot of time to plan.
The American crowds are very demanding, since they have pretty much seen it all; but if they like something they don’t really care where the band comes from; the only thing is that you have to be able to manage the language in a proper manner, other wise is very hard to actually get inside the scene, so I guess that’s the first thing a Latin band has to take under consideration, not just to speak proper English but to also be familiar with the terms they use, and how to communicate with the audience. We have had a very good response from the people, mainly from all those followers of the European metal scene.

CR: Who put together that tour?
Nicolas Bermudez: Conquest Music, but we do our own bookings now; sometimes some promoter calls us to set something up.

CR: UnderThreat played a couple of years ago in the Colombian festival “Rock al Parque” a fest that every year seems to be getting bigger and bigger, just how important is this sort of event for a metal band?
Nicolas Bermudez: Its very exiting to play on such a big stage in front of so much people, its important as an experience, but for a metal band is not “crucial” since the Latin American metal market is not one of the biggest ones in the world; maybe for pop and rock bands that sort of events do help their careers a lot more.

CR: Do have any figures on how many shows have Under Threat played in order to promote this new album?
Nicolas Bermudez: Not really, I think I lost count; we pretty much play every weekend in different places, so maybe is something like 4 or 6 gigs a month.

CR: What’s the toughest part or the most annoying one when it comes to record an album?
Nicolas Bermudez: The mix, my ears get really tired of listening to the same thing over and over and still maintain a level of professionalism, but you have to do it since in a second you could miss a mistake.

CR: The cover art work for Deathmosphere was design by Niklas Sundin of Dark Tranquillity, how did you guys got in touch with him?
Nicolas Bermudez: That was thanks to Dew Scented’s singer, we played with them in a fest in Minneapolis; he is a friend of Niklas so he gave us a way to contact him. Niklas already had some designs lying around, and after he listened to the album he finished those designs and gave it to us.

	Pic courtesy of: UnderThreat "Labels are ok for a supermarket, to divide the fruits from the vegetables; if you headbang, sweet and jump on a metal concert, don’t doubt it for a minute, you are a metalhead, and that’s that"

CR: UnderThreat’s line up has pretty much stayed the same for a long time; is there a secret to keep a band from loosing members?
Nicolas Bermudez: Tolerance, a lot of Tolerance, be patience and open minded; besides the fact that we all moved together to the US helped us leave behind some of our differences because we had to live many experiences together, so we sort of grew closer as a band and as friends. My advice to other bands will be that, to be tolerant and to quit your ego; another thing is to be honest with each other, no matter what, because if not those problems could become in the future something like a cancer that will eventually destroy the band.

CR: You guys have had the change to share stage with real big names in metal, like Destruction, Divine Empire, Fleshgrind, Anal Blast, Kataklysm, Suffocation and Strapping Young Lad, what do these experiences left you?
Nicolas Bermudez: A huge headache the next mourning jejejeje; you learn a lot about how to behave on stage, sound techniques, mistakes you shouldn’t make and a lot of other things you need to know to keep this sort of live going.

CR: Deathmosphere already has sometime out, what has been the best reaction to the record, and what the worst?
Nicolas Bermudez: Positive reactions, the invitations to big concerts and festivals, the participation on a promo cd for the German magazine Heavy and the change to distribute the album in Japan via Soundholic, by the way in a couple of days you can find the album in Japan. Negative; I guess the fact that the market is flooded with metal bands, making it very difficult for big labels to sing new bands, not just Under Threat but many great bands that have a really hard time promoting themselves.

CR: What’s the biggest difference between this new record and all the past ones by Under Threat? Do you think you guys have achieved a “trademark” sound on Deathmosphere?
Nicolas Bermudez: I think that when a band reaches a certain amount of time playing together they develop a sound of their own; but yes we are still working on achieving a sound we can call the Under Threat sound. On this new album the execution and production is better as well as the structure of the songs; the album is a little more “brutal”, heavy but we still manage to maintain the melodies and progressive sounds from our previous materials.

CR: How do you perceive the Colombian metal scene? Certainly Colombia has had a big explosion of native artist to export, but most of them are pop, rock or tropical music oriented.
Nicolas Bermudez: Yes, Latin America is a market for other types of music, metal is very underground, even thou many bands have reach a high level of professionalism and can now compete with the rest of the world. I think the problem for metal in Latin America is social, cultural and economic; all those stereotypes that don’t allow us to share a better unity as a genre; you know those ideas of competing no matter what, to succeed no matter what you have to do even if that involves stepping over someone else, what we should be doing is creating a better, stronger local scene instead of stepping over our colleagues.

CR: To what point, do you think the nationality, or the idiosyncrasy of a person affects the way they compose music, what do you think is the biggest difference between the European and American metal bands in comparison with the Latin bands?
Nicolas Bermudez: It has a big influence, as a matter of fact I think that music is a way to express all the necessities that come with our cultures; is like the animals need ways to communicate, defend themselves and to procreate, like that but in a more evolved way humans seek in music a way to express very specific necessities inside their natural and social environment.
All the Latin bands are influence by the Europeans and the American bands, just like in every other aspect of our culture; in Colombia the bands are a bit more influenced by the European scene. Some of our difficulties or barriers are the language and the though economic situation, that diminishes our chances of success.

CR: What about the video inside Deathmosphere, what can you tell us about it?
Nicolas Bermudez: That video was recorded during our presentation on “Rock al Parque in Bogota, October 2004; when we got back to the US we edit what we had and decided to place it on the new album; right now we are working on a new video for Deathmosphere.

CR: What about future plans, I know is a bit early, but when can we expect a new album from you guys?
Nicolas Bermudez: We hope to have a new album next year, we have been working on it since 2005. Right now we don’t have any proposals from record companies, we don’t even know on what label in could come out. Meanwhile we are going to continue promoting Deathmosphere as much as we can; we are also planning some gigs in Colombia at the end of the year, it would be really nice to visit some other countries in Latin America.

CR: Ok, Nicolas, thank you very much for your time, hope everything goes as plan for you guys, the last words are yours…
Nicolas Bermudez: Thank you very much for showing interest in Under Threat, a big hello to all the metalheads in Costa Rica, we hope someday we could pay you guys a visit; please visit our web site at www.underthreat.com for news, merchandising and more, don’t forget our new album Deathmosphere is out now!!!