It’s been a bit more than a week since the stage at Quantic Club got shattered by some of the most brutal death metal acts, an event organized by Axa Valaha Productions. On this occasion, Defeated Sanity headlined the event, so we couldn’t miss the chance to invite Lille Gruber to a discussion about dedicating one’s life to music and co-founding a band even before being a teenager.
DinIntunerec: Hello, thank you for getting on board with this interview and welcome to Romania. How are you guys? What you have been doing recently?
Lille Gruber: Hello, Daniela, Yeah, I’m fine. We are very tired because recently we have been playing kind of rougher venues in the last few days and we were in Bulgaria. We are very happy to be in a very pro venue today at Quantic. I think we’ve been playing almost 20 shows now without a break, so we’re all a little bit tired.
DinIntunerec: Tell us a few words about Defeated Sanity, Lille. How did you decide to form the band and what did you have in mind at the very beginning?
Lille Gruber: Well, when we started, I was just basically a kid, you know, really like a boy. And we just started playing and it was not so technically advanced as it is now, but we always knew about the best musicians out there and we were trying to get to that level, eventually. But, in the beginning, we were just playing… Over the years, we just came to the conclusion that it’s definitely what we want to do with our lives. Obviously, now it’s exactly what we’re doing with our lives.
DinIntunerec: You’ve been driving Defeated Sanity since the very beginning. How has your approach to songwriting and composition evolved since the band’s early days?
Lille Gruber: The songwriting itself has always been important, but it became more and more important. I feel it has always been more important than the performance itself, because you feel ecstatic when you write a really good song. However, if you don’t hit a certain note or you don’t hit one cymbal right, that doesn’t destroy a good song. Sometimes you see maybe more amateurish kind of band, and then they play a cover song from Slayer or something. Then you can just see how good that song is, although they’re not particularly good musicians, but they play a very, very good song and you can hear it immediately. So, just the writing itself has become more and more important. And then, of course, it’s a bonus when you can perform it well too.
DinIntunerec: You started this band with your father… can you tell us more about that? How did you feel at that point? Whose idea was it? Yours or his? It’s not very usual, you know, so there must be a story here. Even more so, since your father was a seasoned jazz musician.
Lille Gruber: Basically, we were in a little village, and it was just hard to come by other musicians that even know this extreme music. So, basically I didn’t know anybody who knows something like death metal. Maybe people know Metallica, but that’s it. But then, people that play music are even harder to find. My dad was a fully formed musician when it comes to jazz, rock, and that stuff. So, just started playing together. I was very talented, I guess, as a kid, so he had fun playing with me, and I obviously had fun playing with him, because, when you play the guitar and the person that plays drums lays down a really good groove, then everything goes easy. And the other way around, too.
If a guitarist plays some cool riffs, then you’re very inspired to play drums. However, basically that’s just what it was, and I was trying to find like-minded musicians around the same age as me, but it didn’t happen for a long time. Then, by the time we did find other members, my dad was just fully into the metal thing. I got him 100% into the metal thing. Many people believe I didn’t feel it was cool as a teenager playing with your dad. But, actually, it was really cool.
DinIntunerec: What got you into extreme music in the first place, and who are some of the bands that got you into this genre?
Lille Gruber: It’s very, very easy. It was basically my brother. He listened to a few of the heavy metal bands. I could hear from his room… Iron Maiden and Megadeth, Metallica when I was a kid, and then he stopped listening to metal and became a punk rock fan. He wanted to get rid of all his Iron Maiden cassettes and then I was like, okay, they’re mine now. I listened to them, and that’s how it started, with Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Metallica, then Overkill, Slayer, Sepultura. Then it got more extreme, as I started listening to Morbid Angel, Obituary and Death. It literally always got more extreme, more brutal, and with blast beats.
DinIntunerec: What is the story behind the name of the band?
Lille Gruber: We basically stole that from a Japanese band. They’re called Defiled, and they had an EP that was called Defeat of Sanity. We didn’t really know how to name the band, so we thought maybe we’ll just name it like that. Then, we kind of stuck with it. I’ve never talked to the Defiled guys, but it’s maybe good to make it public. It’s maybe a little bit of a homage to them, because that was a very cool EP.
DinIntunerec: Let’s take a journey back in time. You founded the band in 1993 and released demos and splits until 2004, when your first full-length came out. What took you so long?
Lille Gruber: We were just experimenting. Also, in 1993, I was, I think, 11 years old, so the music was kids’ level, especially the performance. The writing was already very good, but the performance needed improvement… I couldn’t memorize the songs, and everything was not so tight. On the other hand, we were finding our style, too. We were experimenting with lots of different styles, doom, and even some black metal. We did some black metal, for fun, and then we did some prog stuff.
Then, around 1998, we were just very sure we wanted to play brutal death metal. Just straightforward in a way, but also very complicated in another. Also, we didn’t want to release something half-assed. We wanted to collect the best songs we have to make a good first album.
DinIntunerec: Speaking about your debut album, tell us about the concepts behind it, and how does the title Prelude to Tragedy relate to the concept, and with the totally disturbing artwork?
Lille Gruber: Prelude to the Tragedy is about human cloning, and that you can use clones to do crazy things, really bad things. That’s basically what it is about. We thought it would be perfect to name the first album like that, because it’s the first album, and even when we recorded it, we had more new songs, and we were sure that was just the beginning. That’s why we called it Prelude. It has a double meaning. The artwork is basically related to that, you can see there’s pods with bloody embryos in there, and they represent the cloned humans.
DinIntunerec: Psalms of the Moribund followed in 2007, and there’s a clean revolution in sound and composition. Tell us how this album came about, and what changed during the process of creation and recording.
Lille Gruber: There was a time when we had the most old-school influence, from the early death metal bands from the 90s, on the first album. Then, with the second album, or even before the first album, there happened a lot of new style changes… People used a more guttural voice, and everything was more technical in a way, crazy, and brutal, so we kind of felt we had to incorporate those styles or elements, that’s why it’s a pretty drastic change. We got a vocalist that had more the modern (at that time) style, and we also wrote that way.
DinIntunerec: Also, can you connect the symbolism and the colors of the artwork to the themes of this amazing album?
Lille Gruber: Well, the cover artwork was more spontaneous, we didn’t really think about it. I asked my friend, who also drew part of the Defeated Sanity logo, to think about a shirt design. Then, he drew this thing, which was just a pencil drawing, and I was blown away when I saw it. I was like certain that was not just a shirt design, we had to use that for the album. However, because it was just a pencil drawing, by the guy Ray, our label guy from Grindethic back then did the coloring for the album.
We told him to use more bleak colors. It reminded me a little bit of the bleeding cover artwork from Cannibal Corpse. I absolutely love it, but we didn’t think about it much, it was just very spontaneous.
DinIntunerec: Chapters of Repugnance came next in 2010. It’s very brutal, aggressive to the saturation, and abrupt with regard to tempo changes, which gives the impression of somehow segmented composition. What can you tell us about this album? Were you experimenting? Also, there aren’t so many amazing jazz influences as on the previous albums.
Lille Gruber: I think on Chapters… there were still very weird things happening, but maybe it’s true to be less jazzy. There was a lot of more brutal, straightforward stuff on it. I don’t know how that came. It just flowed organically. Especially a song like Engulfed in Excruciation. I didn’t want to be so technical on that song, so maybe just this one song helps people get the impression that it is less jazzy or whatever. But in general, I think we just did the same that we did on Psalms…, but just a little different. We got more elements from this instead of that. In general, it was just organic. The songs were just flowing.
DinIntunerec: Passages into Deformity followed in three years. Again, an album which stands out. Tell us about the way your sound evolved and what this album is all about. Also, what’s the relation between the concepts and the amazing artwork again?
Lille Gruber: One main thing was, of course, that my father died after the Chapters of Repugnance album. The concept of the album was kind of influenced by that because we didn’t write so much about violence and stuff like that anymore, but more about something else… We had a little bit of Buddhist approach as we read about states of mind in the Buddhist world and stuff.
This kind of played into it and we used the dark states of mind basically. It’s still very dark and sometimes also brutal, but I feel that kind of changed around a little bit to write about different subjects. Musically, with the fourth album you are already in a little bit of a different approach. We have done this, we have done that and so many different things are already explored, so many riffs. So, we took a little bit more groove, I think, and slowed things down and used a little bit more old-school influences again. That was the thing. Longer songs, also, we had very long songs on this one.
DinIntunerec: What about the cover artwork?
Lille Gruber: When it comes to the cover, it was basically about states of mind and how your mind gets altered by society and the world influences your mind. We have a guy in the middle that is being torn by that… which is meant in a mental way… When you watch something on TV and that forms a weird opinion. Also, wrong things get spread by media and the society so you get deformed that way. That’s why it was called Passages into Deformity.
DinIntunerec: Let’s go to the next release, Disposal of the Dead /Dharmata, from 2016. Composition-wise, the album is split and one is bound to prefer one half over the other. Tell us about this album including the artwork which has also two sides.
Lille Gruber: As I said already, with the fourth album you have to really think about what you can do that’s new because you don’t want to repeat yourself and play the same stuff again and again until it gets kind of boring. So, we were like, let’s write some music that’s not technical at all, just very brutal and straightforward… We were basically writing two EPs. One is just brutal and we took out all the crazy tech things. Then, we used them for the other EP and even put more solos in and included clean parts. Also, beautiful harmony and stuff like that. Therefore, we kind of split the style in two and made two EPs in one and I’m very happy that we did this.
The cover artwork for Disposal of the Dead captures basically all the themes on that record. The lyrics are also split because it’s death metal… so for the Disposal part we dealt with the physical part of death. Which means we talked about how different cultures get rid of the bodies, so that’s basically about funeral rituals. For instance, Into the Soil is about the open casket which is very creepy in my opinion and then there’s another song about a tribe of cannibals which eat the loved ones that are passed away. There’s more stuff like that and the cover kind of shows them.
Then, we have the Dharmata side of the split. It is more about the mental part of death, so we were actually writing about the Tibetan Book of the Dead where your mind goes out of the body and has a travel before it gets reincarnated. The cover kind of fits with it too.
DinIntunerec: Going further the following album was The Sanguinary Impetus, out in 2020. This one is again a killer: 34 minutes of some of the wackiest most brutal death metal music of modern times. Tell us about this album and its artwork which is more abstract this time.
Lille Gruber: As I said, we got almost desperate… Because of all the slam, brutal and old school death metal… So many bands are coming and doing the same thing and it’s very stagnating. I think death metal and brutal death metal and even metal has been stagnating for a long time… With this album, we were almost looking mathematically for the kind of riffs and rhythms that no one has done before… Thus, we were kind of forcefully trying to find the thing that hasn’t been done. You can look at it positively or negatively… maybe people say it’s too brainy, but I’m still very happy with the record! Indeed, it has a different style and it shows desperation to find new motives and riffs. Because you have to come up with something new and that’s what we tried there.
The artwork is very abstract at least the front cover. Jon Zig made a big thing which is again linked to the lyrics. However, the lyrics again are very different. We tried to look for something completely different and since it’s death metal it always has to be about death. And a little bit of violence, blood… Anyway, we’re talking about killing methods in the animal realm, so it has nothing to do with humans. For example, a flesh eating plant finds a strategy to get a fly or a mouse… It’s weird stuff, as it was a desperate album… desperately trying to find something new.
DinIntunerec: We finally got to your latest release The Chronicles of Lunacy. There’s a clear return to a more raw, aggressive sound, compared to the previous albums. What sparked your desire to emphasize more on brutality this time and how did this impact your songwriting?
Lille Gruber: It has to do with The Sanguinary Impetus because as I said it was something very forceful and we gained a lot of knowledge creating that album. It seemed like The Sanguinary Impetus was the experiment and maybe Chronicles is how science actually used that experiment and made something successful out of it. Although Sanguinary was already successful, but it was still very experimental. With Chronicles we took basically everything we knew and put it in one part and I think it still sounds fresh because of what we did on Dharmata and The Sanguinary Impetus. It’s also using very old riffs, so it’s a perfect balance of everything: old and new.
DinIntunerec: Conceptually and thematically this album explores different forms of violence and mental decay. How does the band translate these disturbing, yet complex themes into a cohesive musical experience?
Lille Gruber: It’s hard work because first we wrote all the music and then we came up with the idea this music fits really well the concept of Defeated Sanity. Insanity, basically, so Josh and I thought about how we can put that in a concept album. We wanted to write about different delusions, mental illnesses and different forms of psychosis… So, we found different things. For example, Extrinsically Enraged is about rabies, when you get bitten by an animal.
Another example is the first song, where we’re talking about people that get sexually attracted to amputation, so it’s about a guy that amputates his legs. Unbelievably as it may seem, these things exist… We found all these different themes and it’s very hard to tell a story through a song… So you have to really sit down and see how you can do it. I’m very happy with what Josh and I achieved.
DinIntunerec: The artwork of this latest release is mind blowing. How does it mirror the themes and concepts of the album?
Lille Gruber: The conception of the artwork is very similar to Disposal of the Dead, where we took all the themes of the record and put them in one collage. That’s basically what you find there. For example, an amputee, people with stumps and since there’s one song about giving birth to a deformed baby which also influences the psyche of the mother basically, in the middle there’s a deformed baby. There’s a song about drug use. So, you see a lot of syringes and stuff like that. One song’s about Catholic kind of fanaticism. That’s why you have the nun… It’s a collage of all the themes on the album
DinIntunerec: There’s a song on this album that stands out with its nightmarish intensity: the seventh track, Condemned to Vascular Famine. Walk us through the creation of this madness.
Lille Gruber: A lot of people think it’s their favorite song and we didn’t really expect it to be a fans’ favorite… The song was just… I don’t know what I was thinking… First, I just wanted to make a slow song, to show that you don’t have to use speed to make a crazy song. So we used again very weird rhythms, where the drums play something completely different than the guitar… And then, the bass plays something else too. The funny thing though is that we did end up using fast parts… It gets very fast at some point. I can’t really remember how it came about, it’s just organic. Basically, we wanted to come up with some slow things that are at the same time crazy and that’s at the beginning of the song.
DinIntunerec: Defeated Sanity is a band that has always embraced experimentation. When you try new things musically, how do you decide on the key elements that define the band’s sound? Does this process come naturally when you write new music?
Lille Gruber: Good question It’s a good question because there’s always doubt. Because you listen to a band like To Violently Vomit… They wouldn’t do a lot of the crazy things we are doing, like the jazzy things. Then, you get split in a way, because you think your favorite band is not doing that… It takes a few days and maybe weeks and months and we say okay, we’re doing it. It’s actually something that happened with Chapters… There was a very weird part where I thought for months. First, I said we can’t use it, because it’s too weird and now it’s one of my favorite parts because we kept it.
For example, starting the song Condemned to Vascular Famine with just the drums. It’s the same kind of weird decision. I think we are well known in the underground because of that. Also, I think if we hadn’t done that we wouldn’t have a name and then at this point it’s a no-brainer to say we did the right thing… I mean the most extreme thing we’ve done was Dharmata. Some people were asking why we did that, but I’m still happy and proud that we did it and we’re probably gonna do it again.
DinIntunerec: How does the writing process go in your case? Who does what? Is it a collaborative thing? Does everyone chip in?
Lille Gruber: I try to make it collaborative. But, I think I have the most creative output. So there’s always one, two, three songs where I take riffs from Jacob or Vaughn or even Josh. Josh wrote a riff in Condemned… as well. I’m always very happy about that because I like collaborating with other musicians. But, for the most part, I have such a creative drive that I always finish almost a whole album before the other guys can come up with some stuff… Don’t forget they have to learn all the stuff, so we can play it. It kind of takes up space in their brain. Sometimes I feel like maybe I should stop writing and give them a chance. Maybe there should be an album where they write the most and I just arrange it… But I just have the biggest creative drive and I just can’t help it. It’s just coming out…
DinIntunerec: Each band has defining moments or turning points. What are the key elements that shaped Defeated Sanity into what it is today?
Lille Gruber: I don’t know I can’t really explain it. I think nothing would have changed my determination anyways. My determination to become as good at playing metal music as I can. There was no big turning point. There was no doubt from the beginning, when I was like 11 12 years old. I just knew this is the most important thing in my life. If you talk about turning points, the first thing was the connection with my dad which was very unusual. Very important, also, was finding Jacob the bass player. Jacob is a genius when it comes to organizing and the business side of all that. I don’t think we would be where we are without his organizing genius. On top of that, he’s a crazy bass player. Finding him was a big turning point.
DinIntunerec: What is the main driving force behind the band? What drives Defeated Sanity forward?
Lille Gruber: I think it’s creativity and love for the music! Enthusiasm! At every show, when we just feel people really getting crazy… They make us feel better. There’s not a better feeling in the world than that. Makes us just want to get better and better and celebrate this music! That’s the driving force, really. I’m very determined. This is what I can do. I can’t do a lot of other things. It’s just music… no hobbies, no interests.
DinIntunerec: What were the main obstacles that you had to overcome during your career so far?
Lille Gruber: Of course, the the death of the main guy, the co-founder of the band, was a big hit for everybody. Although Wolfgang was already out of the band when he died. That was a big hit, of course. Then there was another obstacle, with Jacob moving to the U.S. That made things a little bit harder, but we overcame this. We already have a reputation so we can go on tour and pay some plane tickets and then we can get together and play this music. So it wasn’t or it is much of an obstacle. Other than that, we are where we want to be, really. I mean, we also lost the guitar player. We were together for 14 years. Christian was a very important figure for the band. But, we are very happy with Vaughn too, so that’s another thing that we took care of.
DinIntunerec: What makes you more wired up, writing new music or performing live? What’s the best thing for you about performing live?
Lille Gruber: I would say it’s a different kind of enthusiasm… I remember when I finished one of the songs from Chapters and I recorded it (just very primitively), I was just basically punching the air, because I was so happy about what I’ve done. So, it does get you wired up to create a great song. But, in general the song comes to life when you perform it life, it’s the best thing. Then again, when you do it 20 times and 21 and 22 and 23 times, it can also be hard, you know, especially when there are only 20 people or there’s a bad stage sound… Or, like the last few venues we played, they were outside, in the winter and it was torture. Then, it’s not so much fun. But, if you have a great crowd and the playing conditions are great, I think we’re performing a perfect song that’s perfectly written. This is probably the best thing about playing music!
DinIntunerec: What was the best or worse or an unforgettable incident, a memory that happened on tour or while you were on the road? Or during a live show?
Lille Gruber: There are thousands of memories, thousands of special something… For instance, in 2020 we were supposed to do a tour and started to play four shows in the USA and then Corona cut it. We were supposed to do like 30 dates and then it just got cut short. That definitely sucked… One time, our old guitar player saw someone being beaten to death on the street, a homeless guy. That was pretty crazy, in Baltimore. I didn’t see it. But, there was police everywhere because a person died and stuff.
However, most of the memories are about good moments. We always love going somewhere where there’s water. I remember we could jump off a cliff together and it was fun. Sometimes, funny things happen, cool things. Some of the best shows are sometimes small shows. I remember playing in New Mexico, Albuquerque. There were just 50 people, but they were 50 fanatics. We didn’t expect much from that show, but it was amazing, they were absolutely going crazy and it was a very positive experience.
DinIntunerec: What is the most important life lesson that you have learned so far as a musician?
Lille Gruber: Very hard question! Because there are so many different lessons you get. I guess sometimes you don’t feel good on stage, something doesn’t feel right, or doesn’t sound right… Sometimes, you just have to keep playing, although you don’t feel good playing it you still can perform it. And then, later for example, you see a video and it’s really good! Or maybe I didn’t feel good, but the other guys all felt good and they say it has been our best show we’ve ever played… Therefore, sometimes you just have to play through it. You may see people just standing in the beginning… This shouldn’t affect you too much…. Bad conditions, or bad vibes or whatever. Neither should affect you too much. I think that’s a good life lesson.
DinIntunerec: Thank you for your time Any final words for the readers?
Lille Gruber: I hope I’ll see as many extreme metal lovers today, at the show!
