Interview for DEATHTHRASHER MAGAZINE by ELIN "ØLIN" ANITA OMHOLT:

DT: Hi Kristoffer, how are you?
Kristoffer: I feel fine, and thanks asking!

DT: Tell me, when did you start your interest for music?
Kristoffer: I first started my genuine interest for music in 1988 I think. I was truly amazed by “…And Justice For All” by METALLICA, and ever since I have been interested in various types of Metal. Over the years I have also started to expand my musical horizon and discovered different types of music, which I think is necessary if one wants to grow as a musician.

DT: Tell me about your musical influences.
Kristoffer: As earlier mentioned METALLICA made a huge impact on me, and from that point I got interested more of the extreme types of metal as well. Bands like MORBID ANGEL, SAMAEL, EMPEROR, ENSLAVED, BOLT THROWER and early SEPULTURA are among my all time favorite metal bands. But when it comes to composition of music, there are a lot of non-Metal bands that have influenced me as much at the Metal bands, if not even more. SWANS, GGFH, DEUTSCH NEPAL, BRIGHTER DEATH NOW, INANNA and MZ.412 to name a few.

DT: Which genre would you put your music into?
Kristoffer: Many bands dislikes to put themselves into a genre, but I pretty much think this is necessary. This is important both for promotion and when people ask what type of music we play. It is also important to use terms that most people in the scene is familiar with, so we describe our music as Psychedelic Industrial Death Metal.

DT: Tell me about your songs, are there any connection between them? What is it all about?
Kristoffer: The theme the songs deal with is the deconstruction and total transformation of the Earth. This means the deconstruction of the idea behind all existing life. The machines will walk the Earth! There is a strong connection between all songs, as they are all spawned upon the same concept, but the connections are often very cryptic if one only read the lyrics separately. Lots of bands choose to present a concept as a epic story, but we feel we get to express what we want in a more efficient way by going for the more cryptic version, and it suits the music much better.

DT: Tell me about your discography. 
Kristoffer: Right after we founded V:28 in 2002 we released a Demo called “Time Is Empty”. This demo was just send to various record labels and some Magazines, and we got great feedback on it. In 2003 we did a promotion CD simply called “Promotion CD 2003”, that we gave out for free, and for a period we also had it for free as mp3 on the internet. Later in 2003 we recorded our debut album called “NonAnthropogenic”, that was released by the American label Vendlus Records (www.vendlus.com).

DT: Which song is your gem?
Kristoffer: I think it is hard to pick one song, as I think the “NonAnthropogenic” album as a whole has such a special feeling where all the tracks fulfill each other. But if I have to pick one song as my favorite I think it must be “Zero Nothing”.

DT: You change your name from VOID to V:28. Why?
Kristoffer: Some of us played together in a band called VOID before we founded V:28. After a while the vocalist had to leave the band, and we decided to change the musical expression into a more Mechanical and Industrial direction. As there were a lot of other bands that call themselves VOID, we felt we had to change it not to get mixed up with other bands. We also wanted to get a more unique name, and a name that represented some industrial influences.

DT: How did you come up with the name?
Kristoffer: If you take the letters O, I and D in the English alphabet you will see that they are number 15, 9 and 4. If you add these numbers together you will get 28. That is one out of 28 reasons to why we chose that name, the other reasons are to be found on our website (www.v28.com).

DT: What is it about the number 28?
Kristoffer: Theoretically 28 is a perfect number. You can divide it by 28, 14, 7, 2 and 1, and if you add these results together you get 28!

DT: Tell me about your outfit, why camouflage?
Kristoffer: We try to create a very end-of-the-world feeling through our music, and we feel that the best way to express this visually is to wear the kind of military outfit that we do. The camouflage painting is just to make the visual appearance more complete.

DT: RAMBO or CONAN?
Kristoffer: TERMINATOR.

DT: Have you got any record contract yet?
Kristoffer: We signed a contract with VENDLUS RECORDS for our debut album, and we are very happy with the work they have done for us. It is a underground label, but Joseph, who runs it, is truly dedicated, which means a lot to us. 

DT: Any upcoming gigs?
Kristoffer: We are confirmed to play at the Elements of Metal Festival in Norway, and hopefully some more gigs will be confirmed this fall. Unfortunately this is only in Norway, but we would like to go abroad and play some gigs.

DT: Your future plans?
Kristoffer: Our future plans are to finish the tracks for the upcoming album. This means a lot of hard work with composition, rehearsal and lyrics. We are also printing some very nice T-shirts as we speak (they are available through our website www.v28.com)!

DT: Comments to the READERS of DEATHTHRASHER MAGAZINE? 
Kristoffer: I hope everyone takes some time to check out V:28, I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed! There are some mp3 files available for free at the VENDLUS RECORDS website (www.vendlus.com) and the “NonAnthropogenic” CD is available for a very low price. Also watch out for a special offer with both CD and T-shirt on our website (www.v28.com). Hail the underground!

DT: Thanks to you KRISTOFFER. Wish you all the the best for you and your band in the future.
Kristoffer: My pleasure! And thank you for your interest in V:28!