Pic courtesy of: Gothmetal "We were ready to try things in a new way, and show people that we are capable of creating a new sound and identity in this completely saturated melodic death metal scene"

CR: To start, how are you man? What’s Detonation up to lately?
Koen Romeijn: Hi Carlos! Everything is cool here. The weather sucks at the moment, but I’m at work now so the rain doesn’t bother me that much ;) Only 3 days to go until my vacation....With the band everything is going great, we’ve done a couple of cool shows lately, including one with the reunited Cynic, and some more interesting shows coming up. And we’ve also started to write new songs again, which is always a new challenge!

CR: You have a couple of gigs planned for the rest of the year, are this like an official tour to support the release of Emission Phase, or they are just individual dates to promote the album?
Koen Romeijn: They are just individual shows, in venues scattered across the Netherlands. We did not do that many club shows when we released our previous work “Portals to Uphobia”, so we thought it was a better idea this time to do these shows first, and then focus on the rest of Europe by touring extensively. This will probably happen around October or something, at least we hope! We did manage to do another UK tour already, like a month ago. The UK is always cool to tour, and our fans are really loyal over there, so we gave them the chance to hear the new shit for the first time ;)

CR: Well “Emission Phase” is out, and most of the reviews I could find online are pretty favorable, many state that this album is the one that is finally distancing the band from the always present comparison to Dark Tranquillity, you guys don’t even have a Niklas Sundin album cover like in your previous two albums, those that has anything to do with the fact that this album doesn’t just look different but it sounds extremely superior to your previous works?
Koen Romeijn: Yeah, we wanted to do pretty much everything different surrounding this album than the previous 2. We were ready to try things in a new way, and show people that we are capable of creating a new sound and identity in this completely saturated melodic death metal scene ;) We've always tried that actually, but somehow the critics never stopped comparing us to Dark Tranquillity or In Flames since the first album, which I have never really understand. So for this album we changed our style a bit more by focusing more on complex rhythms and less on the melodies. We also changed studios, which gave us the best sound we've ever had, and another art designer. We also made it a concept album to give it even more an own identity. But don't get me wrong here, we did not do all this just to avoid the comparison with aforementioned bands of course ;) Our main reason was to explore the boundaries of our musicality and basically just try new things.

CR: A concept album right? Can you give us an overview of the topic (nuclear holocaust right?) and the motivations behind that topic?
Koen Romeijn: Yes, this time I've managed to make it an actual concept album. I tried that with "Portals to Uphobia" as well but the topic was a bit too vague to actually speak about a real concept. But "Emission Phase" is the real deal haha. It's a chronological story about the impact of a nuclear bomb, and the story specifically deals with the despair and fears people are confronted with that live in the area where the detonation took place. So it's not really an 'action' story, but more a psychological one about mankind’s struggles and fears. I also tried to write the lyrics from my own personal view, so that the story is easier to identify with me I guess. My motivation to base this album upon this concept, was something I had been thinking about for quite some time. The whole idea of nuclear warfare and mankind’s urge to self destruct is something that fascinated me ever since I was a young kid. Not that I thought it was cool, it actually scared the shit out of me. Probably seeing movies like 'The Day After' when you are young do not help either ;) But you know, I really wanted to write a story about this subject from my own perspective. The actual story and what it is about is too long to fully explore here, so if you are really interested feel free to check out the lyrics in the booklet!

CR: In “Emission Phase” (in my humble opinion) the vocals are placed in the right places and keep up with every tempo the right way, something that sounded sort of forced on previous albums… or maybe not forced but placed over everything therefore not blending that smoothly with the entire album, that was one of the few criticism I use to have for Detonation, but in this “Emission Phase” all the vocals seem to blend perfectly, and the inclusion of the clean vocals really gives the album a bigger array of resonance. Was there anything different done when writing and arranging this album in the vocals department?
Koen Romeijn: Yes, absolutely. Well noticed! When we write an album, I always create the vocal lines at the very last moment, just before we enter the studio, and sometimes even write them while recording. I like to work that way on the vocals, it's a very inspirational for me. But of course, the problem is, I am very dependent on how I feel that particular day when I record vocals. If I have a bad day, it has a direct influence on the way the vocals turn out on CD. So for this album I wanted to try something new, and have a more relaxed and focused method of working. Luckily I was able to record all vocals in our rehearsal room for ´Emission Phase´, and I had about 2 weeks time to complete all vocals for the album. So Thomas(our drummer) and I worked on vocal lines on day 1, and I recorded those lines on day 2. And so we worked towards the end of the album. So yes, we paid a lot more attention to the vocals this time, also because we had a lot more time to do it in. That's also why we put in the clean vocals as well, we had time to experiment with it, which is something we did not have with the previous album, else we would have included clean vocals on that album as well ;)

CR: New producer as well, it seems that you guys just wanted to change pretty much everything for this album… what motivated all that change in direction?
Koen Romeijn: Like I said, it was time for us to try some new things. To keep ourselves focused and explore our own musical abilities. We're very happy that we decided to work with Jochem Jacobs and Bouke Visser from Split Second Sound studios, because they gave us the fattest sound we have ever had on CD, and it was also a lot of fun to work with them. Not to talk bad about Excess studios by the way, because our first 2 albums sounded good I think and Hans Pieters, the producer from Excess, is a really great guy, but SSS studios somehow created a more modern and much clearer sound. Jochem is a brilliant guitarist himself (in Textures) and he's kind of the same age as we are, so all that made it a very cool experience to work with him. We will definitely do the next album with them again.

CR: If I’m not mistaken your deal with Osmose is over right? If you could pick a label who would it be?
Koen Romeijn: Yes, this new album is the last part of the contract. We have to get a new deal now if we want to release another album. We actually don't know yet if Osmose is willing to offer us something new, but on the other hand maybe it is time for us to move on as well! We've been treated well by Osmose the past 4 years, they have done good things for us, but maybe it is possible for us to sign with a bigger company, at least we are going to try! Doesn't really matter to us which company, as long as they can release our albums properly, and give us the opportunity to tour more!

CR: What would you say is the stronger feature on “Emission Phase”?
Koen Romeijn: I guess it is very dynamic. The songs are more powerful and rhythmic than most of our older stuff, and at the same time we managed to come up with some of the most mid paced tracks we have ever done. We focused more on balance for this album, and also kept the pace in general a bit slower than usual, which is one of the reasons that some of the songs are kind of long for Detonation standards. ;) But all in all I believe it is our most mature album to date, a good combination of everything we have done in the past, combined with some new and fresh influences.

	Pic courtesy of: Gothmetal "It's almost impossible for us to decide what style we want to write, the music normally just comes out. If I would guess, and look at the material we are writing now, I would say it will sound in the vein of "When Stone turns to Ash"

CR: Any plans to tour the US?
Koen Romeijn: No real plans yet, but we would most certainly like to! But I guess it is not realistic for us to think about touring the US at this moment of our career. We simply do not sell enough CD's, and this new album isn't even officially released in the US, so touring at this point would be useless more or less. Of course it would be a great experience, but it would definitely cost us a fortune to get it all done. So maybe when we sign a new deal with a bigger label, and get the next album properly released in the US, we'll start working on a tour. Hopefully!

CR: The track “The Collision of Despair” sort of managed to combine or maybe help us look at the later development of Detonation thanks to all the changes, and elements that introduced to your first album, do you think there are some songs that can give the audience a look at what the future sound of Detonation my someday transform into?
Koen Romeijn: That's kind of difficult for me to say, as I have no idea what the sound will turn into next! It's almost impossible for us to decide what style we want to write, the music normally just comes out. If I would guess, and look at the material we are writing now, I would say it will sound in the vein of "When Stone turns to Ash", the 2nd song on the new album. But then again, we always write songs with a lot of diversity, so you never can tell exactly how the entire album is going to sound like. One thing is certain though, the next album has to be faster again....we kind of agreed all together that the songs on "Emission Phase" are a bit too slow for us haha. We want to go faster and more technical! But of course, this is what we want, now we have to actually try to make those songs ;)

CR: There was and obvious improvement on the sound quality of “Portals to Uphobia” but the main idea remain pretty much untouched from “An Epic Defiance”, perhaps the guitars where a bit thicker and faster on your second full length, but the aggression and the song structure pretty much remain the same. At that moment if you can remember, was Detonation focusing more in perfecting a technique to achieve a certain sound, or were you guys working through some of these sounds so that you can finally break away from them?
Koen Romeijn: "Portals to Uphobia" was a logical continuation from where we ended on "An Epic Defiance". We never had the intention to change the style or try new things, we just kept on writing ever since we started for "Epic" without thinking too much. Of course we wanted to perfect the things we began with on the first album, and we wanted to make the songs are bit better structured and the melodies slightly more sophisticated, but that's about it. We kind of did everything the same way on those albums. Same studio, same producer, same art designer, we didn't want to take any risks at that point basically, we just released our first album which did well internationally, so why change things then already? ;)

CR: On your first release “An Epic Defiance” the music certainly is melodic death metal but you state in your bio that it has a very “thrashy” approach, what do you think were the elements that made you guys reach that assumption?
Koen Romeijn: Ever since we started in 1997 we had people coming to us, saying that they liked our thrashy style of playing. We actually thought this was strange, we never noticed thrash influences ourselves at first, but after we released "Epic" ourselves in 2002, we had stated in our bio that we played melodic Death metal. A lot of people commented on that and said that we had a very thrashy approach of song writing, so we eventually changed our bio. It is true, we do have much in common with thrash bands, especially when it comes to our riffing. So we decided to keep it this way.

CR: There is a great solo line in “The Loss of motion control” on your previous work “Portals to Uphobia” I wanted to talk about it because for some reason those guitars sounded so very Rock n’ Roll, so clean and precise, perhaps helping me understand the degree of technicality and emotions you guys place on every song you write and play, what do you think is the biggest “strength” in the riffs and solos that Detonation displays in that and in all other albums? What sets Detonation riffs apart from other melodic death metal bands?
Koen Romeijn: We always try to put emotion in our music, this is very important to us. And besides this, we are not easily satisfied when we write riffs. Usually at least 50% of the riffs we come up with are being disposed off sooner or later, we only want to use the finest and most intense riffs. And another thing is that we do not attempt to stick to just melodic death metal. If we write a cool black or thrash or whatever metal riff we will use it, as simple as that. The same goes for our leads actually. It doesn't all have to be extremely technical. If it is, that's cool, but we might just as well come up with a good old rock and roll solo, as long as it feels right with the song as a whole, it doesn't really matter to us.

	Pic courtesy of: Gothmetal "Ever since we started in 1997 we had people coming to us, saying that they liked our thrashy style of playing. We actually thought this was strange, we never noticed thrash influences ourselves at first, but after we released "Epic" ourselves in 2002, we had stated in our bio that we played melodic Death metal"

CR: For some reason, just like Norway thinks they own black metal, Sweden seems to think they own melodic death metal (at least that’s how it looks to me over here!), at the beginning of your career how do you guys saw the whole melodic death metal movement, did you see it as something belonging to a certain area or was it like more about the sound and message; because now and a couple of years back the media has taken upon themselves to label not only the style of metal but to label the style with the country!
Koen Romeijn: We have never seen it as 'Swedish metal exclusively'. I mean, the whole Swedish Death metal scene was influenced mainly by bands like Iron Maiden and Megadeth as far as I know, and everybody got their influences from somewhere else at first! We got our influences also from Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Megadeth, but also from a lot of Swedish bands. Maybe that is the reason why I feel we are kind of different from most melodic Death bands....we do not want to be part of the Swedish scene, because we are not Swedish, we're Dutch for fucks sake! When we released the first album we did not even notice ourselves that we sounded like a Swedish death band, I mean we just made an album with songs we thought was cool, we liked this style. I get very frustrated actually when I read another review saying; ''Detonation plays Gothenburg metal'...bullshit. We make extreme melodic metal, that's it. We're from Utrecht by the way, not from Gothenburg ;) But I guess a lot of bands face this kind of bullshit...like a lot of Dutch Death metal bands are being labeled as 'US Death'....it's beyond me, critics should stop those bullshit comparisons.

CR: In “Portals to Uphobia” you guys place some (please correct me if I’m wrong) folk Spanish guitars on the instrumental piece “Lost Euphoria part III” why those guitars, they sure sound good, but what’s the story behind them?
Koen Romeijn: You are right, those are Spanish guitar parts! We love to experiment with different styles and atmospheres in our music. Like I said, we're not bonded to just melodic Death, we try whatever style of metal we like and blend it into one big pile of melodic metal. Mike our guitar player is very into the flamenco style of playing, and he came up with a few cool acoustic parts. We've always done acoustic parts in our music, but never these Spanish influenced parts. We tried it, and it sounds great I think, definitely something we will continue to do. On "Emission Phase" we have also included a couple of Spanish guitars, and I think it blends perfectly with our music.

CR: Most of you guys are in other bands like, M-90’s and Cardamon, what’s your primary project?
Koen Romeijn: Detonation is our main priority, it always has been since it is our band with the most potential. M-90's is no more actually, Mike and I used to play in this thrash band but there was no use to continue unfortunately. Cardamon is a project Thomas and I started in 2004, and this band is actually doing well. We've recently recorded our debut full length in Excess studios, and we're looking for a record company at the moment to release it as soon as possible! Musically, Cardamon is like a mixture between Katatonia, Anathema and A perfect Circle, but with female vocals. I'm also guitarist in an old school Death metal band Engorge (NOT the US Engorge haha), and Mike and Thomas also do a couple of other projects on the side. So as you can see, we have very busy schedules haha.

CR: The Netherlands is a model country to the world in what individual freedoms mean and progressiveness in its public policies (many love the fact that marijuana is legal jajaja), living in such a country, how do you think this political and social surroundings influenced the metal movement?
Koen Romeijn: Hm, that is a tough question...a thing I do know is that here in The Netherlands it is easy to start a band and tour the country. I mean, the government supports venues and cultural things, and there are lots of metal heads in every city. But I don't think the politics have anything to do with the metal movement over here, more the music scene in general. I feel blessed living here, it is where I truly feel at home. And as far as the marijuana policy goes...it does attract a lot of musicians, and supplies in their inspirations haha. Although not for us, we don't do drugs. Except for ridiculous amounts of alcohol ;)

CR: Well, thank you very much for your time, please if you will like to add anything else feel free to do so!
Koen Romeijn: Thank you Carlos for the interview! I'm going to enjoy my 2 weeks of vacation soon, take care and see you on the road hopefully in the not too distant future! Check out www.myspace.com/detonationnl for songs and updates on our band!
Cheers, Koen