Coroner

By Júlio Valada on Aug 9, 2011 in Exclusive Interviews | 0 comments

An interview with Tommy Vetterli from Coroner during Hellfest 2011.

As I’ve said in the prior article I had two interviews booked for the last day at this year’s Hellfest, and the second one was with Coroner which had closed the second day the prior night. I was already prepared to miss the Anathema and Grand Magus shows, because they were playing at the same time as I was supposed to interview the band, but with all the delays and waiting I ended up also missing Morgoth, as you’ve probably read on my report of the festival. And why was there such a delay?

Well, after arriving on time at the place of the interviews I waited a bit to see if Tommy would appear. I noticed that Ron was giving an interview in one of the booths, so I guessed that Tommy would be around. At the end of said interview I approached and greeted him, told him I had something booked with Tommy and that I was waiting for him. Ron kindly answered me that Tommy was AWOL but that he would try to contact him. We went to take a breath of fresh air outside and ended up having a nice friendly chat, as his cellphone signal was busy.

So here I was with the singer and bassist from Coroner, plus a big friend of the band from their heydays (sorry for not remembering you name mate), just chatting and killing time. We talked about normal stuff like his reaction to the amount of audience the night before, and I can say that Ron was pretty baffled with so many people watching Coroner after being apart for fifteen years. He told me that the band had been rehearsing for six months for this tour and that it was all a bit strange for him, as he now has a normal job as a security officer, because it was like a part of his life was coming back to him from the moment he got his hands on the bass guitar again. He told me that despite being apart for so much time it all felt pretty natural, and things just fell in place when they started rehearsing again. He also told me that his day job was good for him playing music as it requires a lot of concentration, something also needed for playing music as complex as Coroner does. The chat was so good that we ended up talking about football and how our teams did last year and all of that, and if my memory serves right his favourite club is Grasshopper CZ.

After a while Tommy eventually appeared with Markus, and I had the opportunity to meet both of them. The three discussed something in a strange language (some Swiss dialect probably) and Markus suddenly told me to follow him. He picked up some t-shirts of the band and told me to choose one of my size out of four different ones. That was probably to compensate for all the waiting and it was a very nice gesture as I waited around one hour for them.

Them the time arrived to interview Tommy. Sadly I only had ten minutes to do so, so I’m sorry if it feels a bit rushed (and again my accent isn’t the best one around). Tommy was a bit apprehensive maybe, as he wasn’t very communicative. I asked all the normal stuff about their reunion and the reactions around it, and I eventually asked him about the Sanctuary reissues dating from 2007 which got him really baffled as he had no idea that they existed. I also asked him about the pre-Death Cult period of the band, something that was supposed to be a mystery that is now gladly solved. It was a good chat albeit from a bit of a distance. Tommy went on to his couple of blondes that were much prettier than me and I was left with a smile on my face, an interview on my camera and a shirt on my hand.

Bottom line, it was well worth it, and to have the chance to chat with such legends was pretty awesome. Check the recorded interview below for all the details and enjoy a chat with Tommy Vetterli.

Interview: Júlio Valada

Camera: Júlio Valada

Video-Editing: Francisco Monteiro

By: Júlio Valada