Regurgitate - Biography
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Biography
The birth...
REGURGITATE started out in 1990 with the following members: Rikard Jansson - vox / Mats Nordrup - guitar. Mats also played drums in CREMATORY (from Sweden, not the one from Germany) and GENERAL SURGERY. The band recorded a not so long (2 min) demo in 1991 and played live one time - with a drum machine. Peter Stjärnvind - who played drums in a lot of bands at that time, soon joined the band.
Line-up 1991:
Rikard Jansson - vox
Mats Nordrup - guitar
Peter Stjärnvind - drums
In '92 REGURGITATE went in to a studio and recorded five songs for the split with VAGINAL MASSAKER, released by Poserslaughter. For some reason it was decided that the songs shouldn't be gore ones but rather with a social message (or something). Back to the gore with the songs recorded in CREMATORY's rehearsal room 93-01-09, that was released by Glued Stamps Records on a split with PSYCHOTIC NOISE. The tracks: Brainscrambler, Regurgitated Giblets, Internal Bleeding, Methylated Bile, Liquid Excrements, Carnal Cacophony, Vomit Breath, Suicide.
In late 93 songs were written (by Mats) for the split-CD with DEAD released by Poserslaughter. Peter didn't have time to play the drums (because of his other bands...MERCYLESS, UNANIMATED, DAMNATION, LOUD PIPES.......) so Mats took over the drums, and because rehearsals are difficult when the guitarplayer also plays the drums, they asked Urban, who played with Mats in CREMATORY (still the Swedish one) to play guitar on the CD. Urban and Rikard (both very much in to grindcore) weren't to happy with the songs - much more death metal than real grindcore. The studio sucked too.
The Effortless CD...
After the recording Rikard and Urban decided to make some real grindcore songs, and to ask Peter to handle the drums again. At this time it was also decided that CREMATORY should disband and Joppe who played bass in CREMATORY joined REGURGITATE. Urban wrote 30+ songs and the band also picked two old songs that were re-recorded (Carnal Cacophony and Vomit Breath from the split with Psychotic Noise). The result was the CD "Effortless Regurgitation of Bright Red Blood" which was recorded in "GMB Crematorium" in may 1994 and released on Lowland Records. What the band wanted was for the CD to sound something like "Reek of Putrefaction". The intro is from "City of the Living Dead" (aka "Gates of Hell", directed by Lucio Fulci). Scene with a woman throwing her guts up..... (regurgitating, you know ;-). And there is a AGATHOCLES-cover there too.
Line-up 1994:
Rikard Jansson - vox
Urban Skytt - guitar
Johan (Joppe) Hanson - bass
Peter Stjärnvind - drums.
Because Poserslaughter was so slow in getting the split with DEAD out, "Effortless...." that was recorded six months later came out at the same time (Lowland did a great job on that one). Poserslaughter wasn't too pleased with that...but on the other hand Urban, who drew the cover for the DEAD-split, wasn't too pleased either. It really should have been in black and white...it looked much cooler that way. Poserslaughter ruined the cover...and what are those red balls they placed in the eyes?
In '94 OBLiTERATiON records released a split with GRUDGE with two songs from the same session as the PSYCHOTIC NOISE-split and 11 songs from Demo-91.
Really pleased with the studio and the lo-fi sound achieved on "Effortless..." the band decided to record there once more. Result: the "Concrete Human Torture" demo-94 with 17 new songs. Pure grindcore chaos! Even more grindcore chaos followed as the band went to Germany '95 to play a couple of live shows in the Berlin area. Things were looking good but unfortunately, after writing some 50 grindsongs during '94, Urban was getting tired with it. Since no new recordings or live shows were made it looked to the world as if REGURGITATE had disbanded. The band did release a split with INTESTINAL INFECTION on Noise Variations in '96, but the songs are from '94.
Effortless re-released
This could have been the end of the REGURGITATE story, but fortunately (?) enough it isn't. A couple of years after the initial release of the "Effortless..." CD an american record label - Relapse - was in contact with Rikard about a possible re-release of the CD, and with the rising interrest in grindcore music this seemed to be a good idea. Around this time Urban and Rikard asked themselves if it wasn't a good time to see if song writing inspiration had returned - after all, 5 years had passed with no new compositions! In deed it had and in '99 the band went into a studio and recorded some new songs for the first time since '94. The 12 new tracks ended up on "Promo 99", which was intended mainly for record companies. As no one in the band was in contact with the old bass player - Joppe - at that time and the old drummer - Peter - was busy drumming with ENTOMBED, there was a new line-up on "Promo 99". A new drummer was found in Jocke (RETALIATION, DAWN, KIDS ARE SICK, THY PRIMORDIAL...) and Urban decided to handle the bass as well as the guitar.
Line-up 1999:
Rikard Jansson - vox
Urban Skytt - guitar and bass
Jocke Pettersson - drums
Relapse released "Effortless Regurgitation... the Torture Sessions" in 1999, containing 63 (!) songs including the original "Effortless..." CD, the "Concrete Human Torture" demo as well as some earlier songs. This meant that many of the bands early recordings became available for a wider audience. Relapse also recieved a copy of "Promo 99" - which they liked - and therefore gave REGURGITATE an OK for a brand new full length CD. But, before it was time for the recording of that CD, 28 tracks were recorded in august of '99 for various split 7"s. Late '99 Urban was busy writing songs for the upcoming album, which was scheduled to be recorded in february of the following year.
The Carnivorous Erection CD...
February 2000: Armed with 38 new songs REGURGITATE travelled through Sweden in order to get to Örebro, and Soundlab Studios where the "Carnivorous Erection" CD was recorded, with the help of NASUMs Mieszko Talarczyk. Recorded in a great studio and with the best songs written to that date "Carnivorous Erection" was intended to show people that REGURGITATE was back and in no way ready for retirement. Relapse released the CD in november that year with cover art by Wes Benscoter that raised quite a few eyebrows. It was banned from the stores in Germany, for instance. The CD got a lot of great reviews from magazines all over the world including one of the biggest morning papers here in Sweden (Svenska Dagbladet).
In august of 2000 9 new tracks were recorded with the help of a friend - Atte Strokirk (BLACKSHINE). The tracks were intended for a split 7" with GORE BEYOND NECROPSY on No Weak Shit Records. These tracks were dirtier, noisier and more chaotic than "Carnivorous Erection" something that appealed to the more die hard grindcore fans.
Live evil...?
In 2001 the band, for the first time, rehearsed on a regular basis. This also meant that they could seriously consider playing live on a regular basis. During the bands first ten years of existance a total of four gigs was played - non of them rehearsed! But, as offers to play live poured in, the band decided to begin by playing a gig in Stockholm (at Kafé 44), with a stand-in bass player - Terje, the vocalist of Arsedestroyer. More gigs followed: Fuck the Commerse IV in Germany, Obscene Extreme Festival in Czech and a small tour in Europe together with Entrails Massacre and $krupel. The first couple of gigs weren't much to write home about, but when it was time for another gig in Stockholm together with Yacoepsae, things had certainly changed for the better.
Hatefilled Vengeance
In between the liveshows new songs were written for a 12" vinyl - Hatefilled Vengeance. A bunch of new songs together with some old ones were recorded, once again, in Soundlab Studios with Mieszko Talarczyk. The result was far better than the band hoped for, but still exactly what they were striving for - straight forward grindcore, but with good production.
Offers to play live kept coming and in early 2002 the band decided it was time to get a permanent bass player. An american, just moved to Sweden, fitted the bill perfectly - Glenn Sykes. Having played with bands like Vomit Spawn, and Cardiovascular Sub-Hypothermia he certainly knew his way around a grindcore song. The first times Regurgitate played live with Glenn on bass was two gigs in Rostock and Berlin in February of 2002... and both gigs went great. The gig in Berlin was totally sold out and the club was so unbelievably hot and damp, that Jocke almost passed out behind the drums.
Line-up 2002:
Rikard Jansson - vox
Urban Skytt - guitar
Jocke Pettersson - drums
Glenn Sykes - bass
Deviant - new full length album
Since it was two years since the recording of Carnivorous Erection it was decided that a new and third full length album was long over due - Relapse agreed, and Soundlab Studios was again chosen as the place to record. But first of all new material had to be composed, and this has been Regurgitates main concern in 2002. Between song writting sessions, the band has taken time to record a bunch of new songs for various sampler CD's, as well as songs for a split 12" with hollands scariest - Suppository. Regurgitate also went on a tour together with Suppository and Entrails Massacre in July - 11 gigs in Germany, Czech and Slovakia... and - if we could have decided - in Switzerland, but the Swiss Customs wanted otherwise. The tour was, despite that, a great success.
The new album was recorded during the first two weeks of November 2002 and was released August 4 2003.
Good reviews, bad news
After the release of Deviant the reviews started pouring in... and they were good reviews! This included reviews in several of the larger newspapers here in Sweden and All Music Guide calling Deviant "one of 2003's best".
Despite the good reviews and some plans for touring in support of the new album, we decided to lay low for a while as our drummer Jocke was in more and more pain after a back injury. A handful of gigs (like Just Killers - No Fillers Fest and Morbide Festspiele - both in Germany) were played in 2004 with the help of our friend Anders Jakobson (Nasum), but apart from that we bided our time and waited for Jocke to recover.
The end of 2004 saw the return of Jocke behind the drums: Our gig in Cremona (Italy) on December 11 together with Nasum was our first gig with "correct" line-up for a long time. Unfortunatelly this gig was the last time we would meet our good friend - and person behind most of our recent recordings - Mieszko Talarczyk (1974-2004) who went from Italy to Thailand to celebrate christmas and his 30th birthday... He was later confirmed to be one of the many victims of the Tsunami that hit Asia on December 26th 2004. He will be missed...
2005
Soundlab Studios was booked this summer for the recording of our fourth full length album, but without Mieszko Talarczyk the studio is no more available. If we will record the album this year in some other studio is unclear at this moment... What is clear is that we will play our first gig in the US at the Maryland Deathfest.
REGURGITATE started out in 1990 with the following members: Rikard Jansson - vox / Mats Nordrup - guitar. Mats also played drums in CREMATORY (from Sweden, not the one from Germany) and GENERAL SURGERY. The band recorded a not so long (2 min) demo in 1991 and played live one time - with a drum machine. Peter Stjärnvind - who played drums in a lot of bands at that time, soon joined the band.
Line-up 1991:
Rikard Jansson - vox
Mats Nordrup - guitar
Peter Stjärnvind - drums
In '92 REGURGITATE went in to a studio and recorded five songs for the split with VAGINAL MASSAKER, released by Poserslaughter. For some reason it was decided that the songs shouldn't be gore ones but rather with a social message (or something). Back to the gore with the songs recorded in CREMATORY's rehearsal room 93-01-09, that was released by Glued Stamps Records on a split with PSYCHOTIC NOISE. The tracks: Brainscrambler, Regurgitated Giblets, Internal Bleeding, Methylated Bile, Liquid Excrements, Carnal Cacophony, Vomit Breath, Suicide.
In late 93 songs were written (by Mats) for the split-CD with DEAD released by Poserslaughter. Peter didn't have time to play the drums (because of his other bands...MERCYLESS, UNANIMATED, DAMNATION, LOUD PIPES.......) so Mats took over the drums, and because rehearsals are difficult when the guitarplayer also plays the drums, they asked Urban, who played with Mats in CREMATORY (still the Swedish one) to play guitar on the CD. Urban and Rikard (both very much in to grindcore) weren't to happy with the songs - much more death metal than real grindcore. The studio sucked too.
The Effortless CD...
After the recording Rikard and Urban decided to make some real grindcore songs, and to ask Peter to handle the drums again. At this time it was also decided that CREMATORY should disband and Joppe who played bass in CREMATORY joined REGURGITATE. Urban wrote 30+ songs and the band also picked two old songs that were re-recorded (Carnal Cacophony and Vomit Breath from the split with Psychotic Noise). The result was the CD "Effortless Regurgitation of Bright Red Blood" which was recorded in "GMB Crematorium" in may 1994 and released on Lowland Records. What the band wanted was for the CD to sound something like "Reek of Putrefaction". The intro is from "City of the Living Dead" (aka "Gates of Hell", directed by Lucio Fulci). Scene with a woman throwing her guts up..... (regurgitating, you know ;-). And there is a AGATHOCLES-cover there too.
Line-up 1994:
Rikard Jansson - vox
Urban Skytt - guitar
Johan (Joppe) Hanson - bass
Peter Stjärnvind - drums.
Because Poserslaughter was so slow in getting the split with DEAD out, "Effortless...." that was recorded six months later came out at the same time (Lowland did a great job on that one). Poserslaughter wasn't too pleased with that...but on the other hand Urban, who drew the cover for the DEAD-split, wasn't too pleased either. It really should have been in black and white...it looked much cooler that way. Poserslaughter ruined the cover...and what are those red balls they placed in the eyes?
In '94 OBLiTERATiON records released a split with GRUDGE with two songs from the same session as the PSYCHOTIC NOISE-split and 11 songs from Demo-91.
Really pleased with the studio and the lo-fi sound achieved on "Effortless..." the band decided to record there once more. Result: the "Concrete Human Torture" demo-94 with 17 new songs. Pure grindcore chaos! Even more grindcore chaos followed as the band went to Germany '95 to play a couple of live shows in the Berlin area. Things were looking good but unfortunately, after writing some 50 grindsongs during '94, Urban was getting tired with it. Since no new recordings or live shows were made it looked to the world as if REGURGITATE had disbanded. The band did release a split with INTESTINAL INFECTION on Noise Variations in '96, but the songs are from '94.
Effortless re-released
This could have been the end of the REGURGITATE story, but fortunately (?) enough it isn't. A couple of years after the initial release of the "Effortless..." CD an american record label - Relapse - was in contact with Rikard about a possible re-release of the CD, and with the rising interrest in grindcore music this seemed to be a good idea. Around this time Urban and Rikard asked themselves if it wasn't a good time to see if song writing inspiration had returned - after all, 5 years had passed with no new compositions! In deed it had and in '99 the band went into a studio and recorded some new songs for the first time since '94. The 12 new tracks ended up on "Promo 99", which was intended mainly for record companies. As no one in the band was in contact with the old bass player - Joppe - at that time and the old drummer - Peter - was busy drumming with ENTOMBED, there was a new line-up on "Promo 99". A new drummer was found in Jocke (RETALIATION, DAWN, KIDS ARE SICK, THY PRIMORDIAL...) and Urban decided to handle the bass as well as the guitar.
Line-up 1999:
Rikard Jansson - vox
Urban Skytt - guitar and bass
Jocke Pettersson - drums
Relapse released "Effortless Regurgitation... the Torture Sessions" in 1999, containing 63 (!) songs including the original "Effortless..." CD, the "Concrete Human Torture" demo as well as some earlier songs. This meant that many of the bands early recordings became available for a wider audience. Relapse also recieved a copy of "Promo 99" - which they liked - and therefore gave REGURGITATE an OK for a brand new full length CD. But, before it was time for the recording of that CD, 28 tracks were recorded in august of '99 for various split 7"s. Late '99 Urban was busy writing songs for the upcoming album, which was scheduled to be recorded in february of the following year.
The Carnivorous Erection CD...
February 2000: Armed with 38 new songs REGURGITATE travelled through Sweden in order to get to Örebro, and Soundlab Studios where the "Carnivorous Erection" CD was recorded, with the help of NASUMs Mieszko Talarczyk. Recorded in a great studio and with the best songs written to that date "Carnivorous Erection" was intended to show people that REGURGITATE was back and in no way ready for retirement. Relapse released the CD in november that year with cover art by Wes Benscoter that raised quite a few eyebrows. It was banned from the stores in Germany, for instance. The CD got a lot of great reviews from magazines all over the world including one of the biggest morning papers here in Sweden (Svenska Dagbladet).
In august of 2000 9 new tracks were recorded with the help of a friend - Atte Strokirk (BLACKSHINE). The tracks were intended for a split 7" with GORE BEYOND NECROPSY on No Weak Shit Records. These tracks were dirtier, noisier and more chaotic than "Carnivorous Erection" something that appealed to the more die hard grindcore fans.
Live evil...?
In 2001 the band, for the first time, rehearsed on a regular basis. This also meant that they could seriously consider playing live on a regular basis. During the bands first ten years of existance a total of four gigs was played - non of them rehearsed! But, as offers to play live poured in, the band decided to begin by playing a gig in Stockholm (at Kafé 44), with a stand-in bass player - Terje, the vocalist of Arsedestroyer. More gigs followed: Fuck the Commerse IV in Germany, Obscene Extreme Festival in Czech and a small tour in Europe together with Entrails Massacre and $krupel. The first couple of gigs weren't much to write home about, but when it was time for another gig in Stockholm together with Yacoepsae, things had certainly changed for the better.
Hatefilled Vengeance
In between the liveshows new songs were written for a 12" vinyl - Hatefilled Vengeance. A bunch of new songs together with some old ones were recorded, once again, in Soundlab Studios with Mieszko Talarczyk. The result was far better than the band hoped for, but still exactly what they were striving for - straight forward grindcore, but with good production.
Offers to play live kept coming and in early 2002 the band decided it was time to get a permanent bass player. An american, just moved to Sweden, fitted the bill perfectly - Glenn Sykes. Having played with bands like Vomit Spawn, and Cardiovascular Sub-Hypothermia he certainly knew his way around a grindcore song. The first times Regurgitate played live with Glenn on bass was two gigs in Rostock and Berlin in February of 2002... and both gigs went great. The gig in Berlin was totally sold out and the club was so unbelievably hot and damp, that Jocke almost passed out behind the drums.
Line-up 2002:
Rikard Jansson - vox
Urban Skytt - guitar
Jocke Pettersson - drums
Glenn Sykes - bass
Deviant - new full length album
Since it was two years since the recording of Carnivorous Erection it was decided that a new and third full length album was long over due - Relapse agreed, and Soundlab Studios was again chosen as the place to record. But first of all new material had to be composed, and this has been Regurgitates main concern in 2002. Between song writting sessions, the band has taken time to record a bunch of new songs for various sampler CD's, as well as songs for a split 12" with hollands scariest - Suppository. Regurgitate also went on a tour together with Suppository and Entrails Massacre in July - 11 gigs in Germany, Czech and Slovakia... and - if we could have decided - in Switzerland, but the Swiss Customs wanted otherwise. The tour was, despite that, a great success.
The new album was recorded during the first two weeks of November 2002 and was released August 4 2003.
Good reviews, bad news
After the release of Deviant the reviews started pouring in... and they were good reviews! This included reviews in several of the larger newspapers here in Sweden and All Music Guide calling Deviant "one of 2003's best".
Despite the good reviews and some plans for touring in support of the new album, we decided to lay low for a while as our drummer Jocke was in more and more pain after a back injury. A handful of gigs (like Just Killers - No Fillers Fest and Morbide Festspiele - both in Germany) were played in 2004 with the help of our friend Anders Jakobson (Nasum), but apart from that we bided our time and waited for Jocke to recover.
The end of 2004 saw the return of Jocke behind the drums: Our gig in Cremona (Italy) on December 11 together with Nasum was our first gig with "correct" line-up for a long time. Unfortunatelly this gig was the last time we would meet our good friend - and person behind most of our recent recordings - Mieszko Talarczyk (1974-2004) who went from Italy to Thailand to celebrate christmas and his 30th birthday... He was later confirmed to be one of the many victims of the Tsunami that hit Asia on December 26th 2004. He will be missed...
2005
Soundlab Studios was booked this summer for the recording of our fourth full length album, but without Mieszko Talarczyk the studio is no more available. If we will record the album this year in some other studio is unclear at this moment... What is clear is that we will play our first gig in the US at the Maryland Deathfest.