AN NCS INTERVIEW: ROGGA JOHANSSON (HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY)

Rogga, photo by Jacob Johansson

(We present the following interview of Rogga Johansson by our Comrade Aleks. The initial focus is on the latest album from House by the Cemetary, released by Pulverised Records in May, but of course the discussion branches off into many other topics too.)

Rogga Johansson is a paranormally hyperactive Swedish guitarist and vocalist who started to conquer the metal underground with the death metal band Terminal Grip in 1994. I could fill the entire foreword just counting the bands and projects where he took part or which he keeps on running. But it seems that his most crucial band is Paganizer, the successor of Terminal Grip which has provided death metal since 1998 and produced twelve full-length albums and a good bunch of smaller releases.

However tonight we focus on the international death metal (of course!) project House by the Cemetary which he runs together with American vocalist Mike Hrubovcak (ex-Monstrosity, Azure Emote, ex-Vile, etc).

Their third album The Mortuary Hauntings was released in May 2024 by Pulverised Records, and if you missed it somehow, this interview with Rogga will close that gap. If you dig stuff with titles such as “Cadavers Emerge”, “The Realm of the Cursed” and “Opening the Gates of Hell”, this will please your tastes.

 

 

Hi Rogga! How are you? What are you occupied with now?

Doing good here man, hope you are doing well too! Right now I’m drinking beer, but I guess you mean musically? I’ve finished writing a bunch of new Paganizer material as well as am planning vocal sessions for two Furnace albums. And I’m also doing vocals for a new Those Who Bring the Torture album that I just finished writing.

 

House by the Cemetary’s second album The Mortuary Hauntings, is released, so what do you do in such situations now? Do you pay any attention to another release and promote it somehow?

I do the usual stuff I guess; when I get interviews, I answer them and if anyone asks me stuff I’m easygoing and always answer. As I usually do much stuff, it’s always some release that is new or newish, and I answer questions and do promo the best I can.

 

You collaborate with Mike also in Astrophyte. Why did you choose to create another project with him rather than release it as House by the Cemetary’s album?

Basically, it was just a bunch of songs I had laying around, and we just had the idea to try it with a sci-fi concept and have Mike do growls and Indii do female clean vocals. It’s just a little something we did really, nothing that we plan to continue with I think.

 

Mike, photo by Diego Viera

What’s special for you in House by the Cemetary? How do you separate this project from others you’re involved in?

To work with Mike. I love his vocals and he arranges stuff so good, it’s always a pleasure to work with him. Everything is smooth and fun and easy. Musically I separate it by trying to not use the same style riffs really that I do in many of my more Swedish-sounding bands maybe.

 

Do you mean that you write music differently when you work with other vocalists than if you write for a project where you both play guitar and growl?

I would say yes, I maybe feel a bit more adventurous haha. But yeah often I feel I wanna do something that maybe fits their voice.

 

Despite everything The Mortuary Hauntings sounds… charged. It’s full of energy, and all three of you perform your parts with bloody enthusiasm, like possessed. How many takes, in general, did you do during this recording session?

As we all are separated geographically, I can’t say really, but I know Travis who did the drums is a powerhouse and he just goes with the flow and records his parts. I’m more of a guy who plans my riffing, and can do a few takes before it gets right, mainly because I suck as a guitar player haha. I’m sure Mike planned his stuff very good, you can really hear that he put some idea and effort to his vocals.

 

How do you find energy to work with such intense schedule? And do you ever run out of ideas?

I don’t work much at all I feel, I just write and record stuff when I feel like it. And I write music very fast so an album can take a couple days sometimes, and sometimes a couple weeks. And I only rehearse once a week with Paganizer. So I don’t feel there is a lot of time indeed.

 

 

Well, how do you manage to separate your efforts between so many projects? How do you organize recording sessions, the composing of music, and so on? Do you have your own schedule of releases?

It doesn’t feel like much to me really. I usually work very fast and finish writing and recording my parts for an album in a few days, and then I can take it easy a long time, and then maybe I get the itch again and do another album in a few days or during a couple weeks if I do it slower. Usually, I just feel what project it should be for, but sometimes I don’t and then the songs just are put away, and come to use in a future time instead.

 

Having such a huge discography, can you name the most important release you worked on? Most successful? Most underground? Most brilliant maybe?

That’s a really hard question, so many are special to me for all sorts of reasons. I couldn’t tell you which is the most successful really tho, as labels usually never tell you anything, sad but true. I know the debut of Demiurg did good though and that album is also special to me. It’s really magic, everything on that came out just as I wanted it really.

Most underground, I’d say anything that the not very good label Metal Bastard released haha… They seemed to just print and sell out and then never revisit the release again. Which is sad, as for instance the double album with Catacomb is one of the best things I’ve done I think, and it’s rather impossible to find.

Anyways, if I have to choose, I think Paganizer‘s Dead Unburied would be the most brutally brilliant album, it’s a force of nature really, I love the album. Anyone who liked death metal should check it out I think. They might enjoy it haha.

 

 

Most of your bands perform death metal, and this genre has its rules. How often do you allow yourself experiments? And how often do you choose just to follow the genre’s rules and write something that one may expect from a normal death metal band?

I don’t use any rules at all really, even if that sounds strange. I just write what comes naturally to me, and I guess I’m very limited and have a special way of writing. So, I never throw away any riffs as they don’t fit, I make them fit haha. I mean, listen to the albums of The Grotesquery, I don’t think there is any other band that sound like that. That’s just as I use everything I come up with and don’t throw anything away just because it wouldn’t sound classic or something like that.

And I have actually gotten use for my heavy metal riffs too the last few years, as I’ve released albums in that vein with Gauntlet Rule and Battle Axis. Actually, Blaze Bayley sings on one Gauntlet Rule song, so check that out if you want to hear something I’ve done that’s not death metal.

 

Yes! You work there with Peter Svensson, and he’s prolific musician too. How do you share your responsibilities in Gauntlet Rule?

Well, I do all the music, the riffs and melodies. And then he arranges the songs and does the bass and of course all the awesome lyrics. He also arranges all the vocals for the vocalists, so he is indeed the main guy in the band.

 

And I think that you had your first death-doom album in 2024, right? Do you usually tend to avoid the slow stuff?

Which album is that? And well yeah maybe I tend to stick with the mid-tempos, not doing very fast or slow stuff. I’m a one trick pony haha. But it’s fun doing different stuff so maybe I’ll do more of that in the future. Gauntlet Rule has been extremely fun the last years indeed.

 

You write lyrics for almost all (or all?) the bands where you play. Who writes the lyrics in House by the Cemetary?

Well, not all but most, yeah. On the debut of House by the Cemetary it was mostly me but this time Mike stepped up and wanted to do the whole album, and it turned out killer. He’s got some really good lyrics done indeed.

 

There are certain obvious influences regarding song texts in death metal, like horror movies, atrocities in general, satanic stuff or Lovecraftian literature as a kind of specific element. What are your favorite topics?

I’m a sucker for Lovecraftian stuff haha, I just love it. I’ve read so much Lovecraft and also from others around him like Bloch and Derleth, I just love that whole universe. Movies are fun too, especially when you find maybe some old movie you know that most people don’t know, then it can be fun to write a lyric based on it. For my main band Paganizer it varies though; often it’s existential agony or the disgust with humanity that comes out there, as it’s the band I maybe use to say how I really feel about things sometimes.

 

 

Do you have Lovecraftian songs in all of your bands and projects?

No not at all, but it’s an easy and always fun thing to use, I don’t get tired of it really. I mean you can use stories that are already there, and you can make up your own stuff too. It’s a really fitting universe to set your death metal stories into.

 

I see that there’s “The Book of Eibon” in The Mortuary Hauntings. Which role does Lovecraftian literature play for you?

As I said above, I love it. Since I was a teenager or I think even before, going to the library from school and finding those early Swedish collections with Lovecraft, it was magic. It’s the best horror really and you don’t get tired of it either, that’s a true mark of genius indeed.

 

Rogga, with how many bands do you play live now? How difficult is it for you to take part in live shows?

I’ve only ever played live with Paganizer, my main band. Or yeah also with Terminal Grip, which was the name before we changed it to Paganizer. All other bands are projects really.

I also briefly was the singer of Deranged, for one tour. But that’s it.

 

By the way, is Paganizer your main band still? Can you pick up the band or project that shaped you as musician, that influenced your manner of playing more than others?

Indeed it is. And Paganizer is the only band I’ve felt really the need to play with live too. We had far-going plans with Revolting; as it’s a very conceptual band and has really good songs we thought it could be cool. But it all fell apart mainly because I hate playing live haha.

 

How do you see your extreme possession with death metal? From where do you pump the energy which you channel through your bands? Do you feel a kind of “professional deformation” in you?

I don’t know man… I just do what I can do. I riff and out comes these riffs, I open my mouth and this is the vocals that come out. I just do the music that is coming out. I surely would be happy to play also classic rock or try some other stuff but I’m not that able, I just do what I can do really. This is how I sound when I do music and vocals and I can’t really do it any way else. I’m not Nicke Andersson sadly haha, who can do awesome classic rock like a master, as he grew tired of death metal.

 

How do you manage to remember the words correctly during the gigs with the bands where you’re vocalist?

I don’t haha! I sing the most weird stuff all the time. I maybe recall the lyrics in half the setlist and the rest is just made up lyrics haha… It’s so stupid but it’s true, I’m shit at remembering lyrics really. It’s a great source of agony indeed haha.

 

You have been involved in so many bands and projects, how do you feel about your status now? Do you feel a change in the attitude to your work? You know, like Rogga Johansson is the brand of some specific death metal or something, the name with a reputation behind it?

Yeah I’ve done a lot of stuff indeed, it’s really weird how much it is… When I think about it it’s stupid haha. And during a lot of years the most things I heard was that everything I did sounded the same, and that it was generic and this and that. And often people bashed me and it seemed that they hated my stuff just as I made so much of it. And that’s cool, people can think what they want, and I don’t force people to listen to my stuff.

But the past few years it’s a new feeling really. Often people refer to me more like a staple in the scene, or like a style of its own or something. I don’t get much hate anymore; these days people seem to feel that I have done something cool. At least that’s the feeling I have gotten the last couple years, and that feels nice really. I’m happy so many people don’t hate me anymore haha.

 

Did you get your bunch of hatred, really?

Well I wouldn’t call it hate, not on a personal level. No one ever said anything to me, but often friends that are online have said that they encounter stuff where people really dislike my stuff just because I do too much of it according to them. I don’t get it really, they don’t need to listen to it haha. But the internet is full of people who feel they must tell everyone what they think.

 

Do you have time for a regular job after all of this?

I’m unemployed right now, but before I’ve had other jobs indeed. Music doesn’t make you money. Remember that, kids, haha!

 

There were already a few releases with your participation appearing this year: Ribspreader’s Reap Humanity, Catacomb’s Acanthocyte II: Scorned Life, Massacre’s EP Tri-pocalypse, then your solo album Otherworld, and there’s Furnace’s Trojan Hearse ahead. What else may we expect from your side this year?

Well first and foremost Paganizer will have a new album out Flesh Requiem, preceded by a mini-album Forest of Shub-Niggurath. Then there will be a new Revolting album out, Night of the Horrid. A new album of my own little fave project too, Ghoulhouse, with the album Fresh out of Flesh. Also STASS will have a new album coming out I think, and the second album of my heavy metal project Gauntlet Rule will also be released.

So as usual it’s a bunch of stuff haha.

 

Got you Rogga! Well, Forest of Shub-Niggurath sounds exciting, I need to check it! Thanks for the interview! Didn we skip something important by the way?

Yes do that! Thank you! And I don’t think you forgot anything haha, very good interview!

https://pulverised.bandcamp.com/album/the-mortuary-hauntings