intervpoltergeist

V.O. PULVER 

POLTERGEIST, CARRION & GURD

Guitarist V.O. Pulver was once in a band called Carrion with them he recorded the semi-legendary underground album Evil is There! Carrion then evolved into Poltergeist and V.O. recorded three great thrash albums with them. But due to the lack of interest from fans and media Poltergeist to disband. In the nineties V.O. joined a band called Gurd.

I've spoken V.O. Pulver about his friendship with Destruction and their later vocalist André Greider who started his career in Poltergeist. It took a long time to get in contact with V.O. he was quite busy with Gurd and the recording of Destruction's new CD. But finally after months of waiting, V.O.'s wife Inga that handles media contacted me. Well enough said, here is the interview.

How do you feel about the new Gurd album, are you fully satisfied?

I think if I would finish the perfect record, I could quit making albums ;-)). But besides this , I am very proud of 'encounter', it's so far our best 'combination' of merciless thrash-riffs & pounding grooves! and it also was the first time, we had all the time we needed to finish the production, because we recorded & mixed it at our own studio 'little creek'.

How is the new Gurd-album compared to the earlier ones?

Like I mentioned before, it tends more to 'bay area' thrash, concerning the guitarwork and vocals. But it also contains elements from our past records, where we focused more on groove & simplicity. On 'encounter' , there's also a strong rock'n'roll influence in some songs.

How have people responded to Gurd's a bit more modern sound than Poltergeist's?

Most of the people liked the 'new' approach of gurD, but it never was meant to be the follow up to Poltergeist. In Poltergeist , I only played guitar & wrote all the songs & lyrics. Since I took over the microphone in gurD, it clearly made a big difference to the old band, cause my voice isn't as melodic as André's. I prefer the 'shouting' & screaming more.

How was it when Gurd played with bands like Overkill, Annihilator & Destruction?

It was great, because all these bands are part of my youth & for example, Jeff Waters is one of my favourite guitar players! to play with my old friends from destruction was cool, too, because back in the days I used to be their roadie!

Why did Poltergeist cease to exist?

Because in the end, nobody really gave a shit about us. We did a tour together with coroner in '93 & nobody was showing up at these shows. It was so depressing, that both bands were splitting up afterwards. We also had big time problems finding a decent label back then & we always had lineup changes, so there was no real band-feeling left anymore.

What do you think of the Poltergeist albums you've made?

I still dig them, especially 'nothing lasts forever' because it was the first time, I recorded an album with a real good drummer... ;-)) also the mix at the Morrisound Studio in Tampa / FL was a great experience. I learned a lot from Jim Morris, production-wise! I also like 'Depression' , the first one, because many of these songs were 'classic' Poltergeist stuff & the sound is still listenable. But I still hate the sound & the drumming on 'Behind my Mask' , I consider this as our worst effort & would do almost everything different on this record.

Behind My Mask

Are the Poltergeist albums going to be re-released?

I don't think so. As far as I know, Century Media is still selling 'Behind my mask'. The other ones are sold out. I try to get back the rights on 'Nothing lasts Forever', so I can maybe re-release it on my own, but it's difficult & I don't have a lot of money to spend. There's also the question, if anybody would be interested in buying this album?!?

Tell me more about your friendship with Destruction?

I know the guys since '85 ! we live in the same area & had a lot of great parties together. Especially in the 80's, there where a lot of places & shows where we went to & drank & smoked a lot.... ;-) This is probably also a reason, they decided to record their new album 'Metal Discharge' at our studio 'Little Creek'. We had lots of fun & the record came out great!!! It will be released in September 03.

Why do you think that the thrash scene died in the nineties?

I have no idea. Maybe because it became a 'trend' back then & the record companies started to sign every band which considered themselves as 'thrash', even when they didn't know how to play their instruments and when they realized, the bands wouldn't sell, they just dropped them & signed new bands (back then, especially all the upcoming death metal bands).

I think it's always the same with all the trends, the industry focuses on the 'hype' & when it's over they drop everything they signed before... they just forgot that thrash is the best fuckin' music on this planet and will come back !!!! *gggg*

Nothing Lasts Forever, I guess but what do you think of the thrash scene today?

I think there are quite a lot of good new bands , like the haunted or dew scented etc.. also a lot of the old heroes came back together ( Exodus, Destruction even Death Angel & Dark Angel !) & people realize, that this music really rocks & influenced tons of so called 'nu' or 'modern' acts. It's just sad that one of my alltime-heroes, Paul Baloff had to go too early... R.I.P.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Which one of all the albums you've made is your personal favourite?

Obviously our new one 'Encounter' ;-)) no, honestly i really like it best, because it has the biggest Thrash influence of them all.

I also like the debut, 'cause there were also a lot of great , fast riffs on it. Some of the songs were originally written for Poltergeist. But after the split, I took the riffs, changed the drum-rhythms & added some different grooves to the songs. But it still has some hyperspeed riffs on it.

What do you think of all the mp3 filesharing sites? Is it a good thing that the music can get a bigger reach or is it a negative thing due to the loss of income?

I think it's great. In the old days, there was the whole tapetrader scene (I still have some cool demos like the legacy or the first destruction demo). But it was great for new bands to spread their music without the industry controlling what's good and what sucks. You know, I believe in the metal scene, if people really like a band they discovered on the internet, they go out & buy the record. At least, this is what I am doing... nowadays you don't have the money to buy everything & check it out.

You have to be selective. So when you have the opportunity to give it a listen & decide for yourself, if you want to support this band, why not? the whole fuckin' music industry is so fucked up, because they spend money on every damn shitty trend & NEVER lowered the prices for cd's or records. They made big fuckin' money over the last 30 years & now they are crying & spending lots of money for stupid copy-blockers etc.. STOP SIGNING EVERY SHIT & STOP FILLING YOUR POCKETS maybe then the music scene will recover.

Why doesn't Peter Haas play the drums on Poltergeist's single "Tell me", instead you used Alex Lang, right?

The single was recorded before we did 'Nothing Lasts Forever'. At that point, we still played with Alex, who left the band shortly after the recordings of 'Tell Me'. Maybe he was scared of doing a whole album with us.. ??? ;-)). After he quit, we had no drummer & asked Peter, if he could do at least that record, because he was in about 10 other bands/projects at that time... he didn't want to be a permanent member in any band back then... after all, we managed to play a few shows with him & it was killer, because he's a real extraordinary drummer!!

What is André Greider (Ex-Poltergeist and Ex-Destruction vocalist) doing these days?

He's still a good friend of mine & we still have contact. He's not making any music since then, although he had a lot of offers from different bands. But he's still into metal & buys a lot of CDs, so he has to work his ass off to earn enough money for his 'passion' ;-). I recently talked to him & Marek about maybe doing a poltergeist record in the future (NO real reunion though, because we don't have time to do it properly..) & they were very interested.We will see what happens.

Carrion - Evil is There!

Have you got any funny story to tell about your life in music?

Too many to mention.... but here's one: back in 88 or 89 I used to be a roadie for swiss band Drifter & we did a tour with Manowar. One day I smoked a big joint with one of Manowar's crewmembers during their show. The guy was so stoned, he just kept on pushing the knob for the fogmachine. So when joey, who has a glass-eye on one side, came back on stage, he didn't see anything & fell from the stage... the guy had to fly home & I felt really sorry for him...

Any last word to our readers?

Yeah! keep the faith in metal & don't listen to MTV etc. what's 'in' or 'out'. Make up your own mind about what you like or not!

SKIN UP!!!

By/Ruthless

(13-08-2003)