intervafterall

AFTER ALL

CHRISTOPHE DEPREE 

After All from Bruges, Belgium has been around in different constellations since the eighties. They have also experimented with different genres of metal but lately they have returned to their thrashing roots. They have done shows with almost every important band from the eighties, Anthrax, Agent Steel, Destruction, Overkill and Heathen to name a few. They have opened up for Saxon and Judas Priest. They have simply accomplished a lot even if they were from a small country like Belgium. After All has worked together with top-producer Harris Johns (Sodom, Tankard, Voivod, Coroner, Kreator and more) on "Mercury Rising" and "The Vermin Breed".

And legendary illustrator Ed Repka, known for painting Megadeth's classic albums has painted After All's artwork for their Dawn of The Enforcer-album, It was produced by Dan Swanö. The band has signed up with the classic Roadrunner Records label and they are looking forward towards the future. I have spoken with After All's guitarist Christophe Depree.

We can begin with a small presentation of After All.

Hi, we are a Belgian Thrash band which guitarists Dries Van Damme and myself (Christophe Depree) started back in 1987. After years of playing local shows we started touring Europe in 2003 after releasing several albums through different labels. A full bio and discography can be found at www.afterall.be.

The complete history of After All can be found at http://users.telenet.be/denofiniquitybe/afterall.htm

After All

Your latest album Dawn of the Enforcer, has got favourable reviews. Is it your best work to date?

Difficult to say it's like asking who is your favorite child :-) but I guess through years of experience we have honed our songwriting skills and also production wise we try to raise the bar every time. So although we love and stand by all our releases I guess it's safe to say "Dawn of the Enforcer" could indeed be considered as our finest offering. As all the planets really aligned on this one (songwriting, production, artwork, guest appearances, label)

Legendary illustrator Ed Repka painted the artwork for the Dawn of the enforcer-album. How was it to collaborate with him?

A bit unreal to be honest... It's like a dream come through. He is indeed a legend and his work is phenomenal it was therefore a real honor that he provided and even custom made the artwork for "Dawn of The Enforcer".

Pretty unbelievable to be part of his portfolio alongside scene greats as Death, Evildead, Megadeth, Nuclear Assault, Toxik, Vio-lence.

After All - Dawn of the Enforcer (2012)

You're working on a new, how is it going and when will it be released? Tell us everything there is to know about the new album.

Songwriting and recording are in full swing. Seven songs are recorded at the moment all but vocals and leads, song number eight is written and there are plenty of ideas waiting to be worked out.

We even decided to minimize playing live for a while to focus on writing and recording.

We are aiming at a release in the first half of 2015 but obviously the quality goes above all so it's will be finished when it's finished. We are trying to top "Dawn of The Enforcer", no easy feat :-)

The material is in the same vein as the "Dawn" material maybe a bit heavier, faster ... difficult to give you an objective opinion ....

After All hasn't always been a thrash metal band, what made you return to thrash metal?

We didn't really have  a meeting and decide to go back to thrash, it kind of happened naturally. I can tell you that both myself and Dries have our roots really in the Thrash genre (although not exclusively) so we were bound to end up back there.

According to me when our second and current drummer Kevin Strubbe joined the fold back in 2003 that definitely facilitated that return as his playing style really fit that direction.

You have toured with Agent Steel, Anthrax, Overkill, Sacred Reich, Heathen and Destruction amongst others. How was it to tour with such legendary bands?

Totally awesome and unreal. Who would have thought years back when we started the band we would tour and play with all these bands we looked up to. Some of them have become real good friends, a couple of them have even contributed guest appearances on our releases. Pretty mind boggling come to think of it.

You opened up for Judas Priest and Saxon in Belgium in 2012, how was that gig?

Pretty surreal, I mean Judas Priest, .... that's the really big league! We were treated with much respect and Mr Rob Halford himself even watched and filmed part of our set ... Plus obviously all the crazed metal fans that were in attendance and appreciated our performance made for an unforgettable experience.

What bands had the biggest influence After All's sound?

Hmm difficult to say as we all have a really broad musical taste. I guess obviously the classics like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath along with a large portion of (mainly US based) thrash bands (SF bay area, LA metal scene)

In 2012 you signed a deal with Roadrunner Records, how did that come about?

It seemed like all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place at the same time, we had big expectations.

Unfortunately shortly after our release Roadrunner were taken over by Warner and a lot of reorganisation took place. But it's still an huge honor to have an album be released by such a legendary label.

After All has been around since the late eighties, but how has this thrash revival affected the band and the interest for After All's music?

We have been around for quite a while, that's is true :-)

Obviously we did benefit somewhat from the revival but we've really always done our thing. We're always happy to bring new people in contact with our music regardless of what specific scene they are part of.

The Belgian thrash scene is a bit more underground compared to the scenes in Germany and around San Francisco. Has it been a disadvantage being from Belgium?

Hard to tell, but I guess coming from a small country like Belgium we've had to maybe try harder, be more persistent in getting our name and music out there. It would have been a lot easier if we had all been born in San Francisco and had all been 16-17 years of age in 1985 :-) .... it is what it is though.

You have worked with legendary producer Harris Johns a few times, how is it to work with him?

Very cool, "Mercury Rising" (our fourth album released in 2002) marked the first time we ventured outside our native Belgium to record an album. And we chose Harris because of his impressive resumé not in the least his collaboration with VoiVod plus obviously him being key to the German Thrash scene.

Harris is a real easy going guy with a great ear for detail and I really think back fondly of our German recording time for both "Mercury Rising" and its follow up "The Vermin Breed".

What's the highlight of your career?

Too many to mention really, all the great bands we played and toured with. All the life long friends we made along the way.

The great tour memories, but maybe above all the nice body of work we have created until now with our different releases.

What's your plans for the near future?

Continue to write and record our new forthcoming album and make sure it absolutely SLAYS !

Have you got any funny story to tell, if anything weird has happened while touring or so?

There are a couple that spring to mind

- some After All members jumping the stage half naked during Agent Steel's set on the last show of the Vicious Rumors/Agent Steel/After All tour

- catching the last ferry to Helsinki and literally arriving 5min before stage time on the Candlemass/Destruction/After All/Deathchain tour

-our bus driver putting the wrong fuel in our bus after the first show in London on the Killfest tour (Overkill/Destruction/Heathen/After All)

I could go on ....

Any last words for our readers?

Thanks to you Jim for the interest in our band
all people interested should check out our stuff at

www.facebook.com/afterallmetal
www.youtube.com/afterallmetal

feel free to comment or contact us
Metal is the Law !

Cheers

Xtof

By/Ruthless


(29-10-2014)