Le line-up, loin d’être anecdotique, de TO SEPARATE THE FLESH FROM THE BONES méritait déjà, à lui seul, un interrogatoire en règle. Comme « Utopia Sadistica », le premier album du groupe, est une véritable tuerie, il paraissait donc impensable de ne pas tenter d’en apprendre plus sur ces danois masqués par le biais de quelques questions plus ou moins pertinentes.

At first I wonder if T.S.T.F.F.T.B. is a real band or just another side project. Could you explain me why scandinavian metal musicians always have to play in several bands at once ?
Rot : It's a bit of both, we treat it as a band whenever we are doing it and we are planning to do much more. There are of course problems at times to schedule things for example a tour, but we believe that there's a time for everything.
It's fun to play with different people and to do different forms of music, that's to only reason I have for playing in many bands. A musicians job is to play after all.

You’ve just released your first full album , just a year after “For those about to Rot” and you’re still masqued. What’s the main reason for this ? To preserve your other bands or is it just a business and contract reason ?
Rot : It's a part of being To Separate The Flesh From The Bones, the stockings kind of keeps our heads together when we are on stage.

How can you stay masked when everybody knows who you are ?
Rot : I believe it still confuses some people. And what's the big deal Kiss had masks, took them of and then put them back on. Masks are cool.

Explain me how did you choose this band’s name ? Have this something to do with with guiness book’s records ? Or was it just to express you’re a grindcore band ?
Rot : It suits our music well, and it's easy to continue if needed. Like ''How to separate the flesh from the bones of a maggot that doesn't have any bones?''.

It’s a bit surprising to hear TO SEPARATE THE FLESH FROM THE BONES when we know where you guys are coming from. Did you start the band to let the beast inside of you speaking anfd yelling ?
Rot : This is something we have wanted to do for years, now was the right time and place for it

To go back to “Utopia Sadistica”. How long did you work to reach this primal and brutal result ? Some people use to say, most brutal bands are also the angriest ? Do you recognize yourself in this cheap analysis ?
Rot : We had 5 songs ready when we entered the studio. We pretty much wrote them on the spot, everyone wrote one then we recorded them and then repeated the process. It worked out well, this way the intensity remains. The songs weren't ruined by to much polishing.

You’ve mixed in this ‘Utopia sadistica” some catchy riffs with an grinding old school vibe but there’s also some kind of unhealthy feeling when I listen this record. What did you have in mind when you’ve start composing ?
Rot : There's gotta be blast ;)

I’ve heard about some guest apparence from Jeff Walker on your album. Is there something true in these rumors ? And if yes, how did you get him in studio to record for you ? He’s actually pretty busy with his own solo project.
Rot : Lee Dorrian was in town he actually brought Jeff with him, now he has been with us live as well which has been awesome. He's working on his solo album at our CCPC studio here in Helsinki so we work out slots for everything.

Don’t you think you guys are too good musicians to play grindcore ? What about those mistakes we used to find in grindding records ?
Rot : Ha!, there's a bunch of mistakes on this one too. Besides nothing beats the feeling of playing grindcore. It has nothing to do with how good or bad the musicianship is, you love it or you don't.

Could you explain me at last what the hell is a rectagram tattoo ? (check their guestbook you'll understand))
Rot : I haven't seen one, I guess it's one gram of something tattooed somewhere near the rectal area.

Time for silly questions : what’s the best cooking receipt to separate the flesh from the bones ?
Rot : This is our favourite:

chicken noodle soup

ingredients
Chicken Broth
1 chicken carcass or the equivalent in chicken bones
1 whole uncooked chicken
2 large carrots, quartered
3 sticks of celery (including tops and leaves), broken into thirds
2 large onions, peeled
2 tablespoons of cloves
4 litres of water
1 tablespoon of whole black peppercorns
Sea salt to taste

Soup
1 tablespoon of peeled and chopped ginger (approx cm sq)
2 to 3 tablespoons of fish sauce (taste it and add like you would do salt)
120g rice stick noodles

Condiments
1 cup bean sprouts
1 lemon, cut into quarters
1 bunch of Thai Basil
1 tablespoon chopped fried onions
2 tablespoons finely chopped spring onions

Preheat the oven at around 240°C. Trim any excess fat from either end of the chicken, baste it in olive oil and sea salt and brown it for around of an hour, turning once. Whilst this is cooking, put water in large soup pot and bring to boil. As it does so, add the chicken bones, carrots, celery, peppercorns, a generous pinch of salt and the onions, with approx 6 to 8 cloves studded in each end. Bring to boil and then turn heat down to let it simmer for an hour. By this time, the baking chicken should be well browned and very nearly cooked. Add it whole to the simmering stock and let it continue to cook for at least another of an hour. About ten minutes in, taste the stock and make sure you are happy with the levels of seasoning.

When the whole chicken starts to fall apart, remove it from the pot, separate the flesh from the bones and return the bones to the pot, storing the flesh in a oven-proof dish with a lid. Spoon over a couple of ladles of the broth to keep it moist. You don't have to keep it warm in an oven, just put it in a dish from which the heat will not escape so easily.

What kind of word would you like to have on your grave ?
Rot : ''Here rots Rot and why not''

Last comments… Upcoming projects for the band ?
Rot : We are doing one show in Åland before we have other commitments, we would like to do a Europen tour later this spring or early summer. We just have to wait and see how things turn out.

http://www.toseparatethefleshfromthebones.com/