Eighteen years - eighteen years of a Death Metal dynasty; eighteen years of evolution, of refinement, of influence, of dedication, of domination. And the driving force behind it all, of course - eighteen years of passion. Dutch Metal maestro Henri Sattler and his titanic band GOD DETHRONED have achieved a level of progression and amorphous growth that has defied any given rules or scripted expectations of what Death Metal should be. GOD DETHRONED has forever been what The Serpent King has deemed it to be, breathing distinct essence and life into each album he creates. The next chapter of GOD DETHRONED has now begun, a chapter rife with historical inspiration and melodic mastery. It is this history that lies at the core of the passion that drives Henri Sattler and GOD DETHRONED. This is the passion behind "Passiondale".

I don't know if you consider "Into The Lungs Of Hell" a concept album, but to me that was the transitioning point for you guys, the evolution of the sound that you have. And certainly from there on, the concept each time - "Lair Of The White Worm", etc. - what caused you to want to go in that direction?

"There was no real idea behind that. I like historical themes, I like certain books, so when I saw the documentary on TV about Bram Stoker, who was this writer from England who wrote the book 'Dracula', he was not popular at all in his time. I think he got really popular after his death, and the last book he wrote before he died was 'Lair Of The White Worm'. I saw the documentary about him and then I read the book and I thought, 'Wow, I'm going to write a song about it.' And ever since, I try to find impressive stuff - usually on every album I would have one, maybe two historical themes, like the song about The Flying Dutchman, 'Soul Capture 1562' [from 'Bloody Blasphemy']; the song 'Firebreath' [from 'Bloody Blasphemy'] was about Michiel de Ruyter, who was a Dutch sailor; and the song 'The Somberness Of Winter' [from 'The Grand Grimoire'] was about a Dutch sailor named Willem Barentsz. But those were exceptions to the albums. And since we had a guitar player [Isaac Delahaye] for awhile from Ypres, Belgium, I visited him on a regular basis and Ypres was near Paaschendaele and it was full of war cemeteries and war memorial signs. The Menin Gate, which is a big gate that holds like 40,000 names of missing soldiers, and Tyne Cot Cemetery, which is for all the Australian soldiers and they have walls - very long - and I think they have another 20,000 names there of missing soldiers. So that was really impressive; then we went to the World War I museums there and I thought, 'Wow...' here's this war that I know nothing about, because Holland was neutral during that war. I had to know more about it; I started doing research, I read books, I read stuff on the internet, and I decided to do a concept album about World War I, which was pretty unique because no other Death Metal band ever did that before. And it was pretty hard, because I wanted to write from an objective point of view. I didn't want to say anything bad about German, French or English soldiers; I just described what went on during the war from an objective point of view. And I managed to do that, and I was wondering if people would pick it up or if they wouldn't understand it at all, but from what I found out later people really got the message and really got into the whole concept."

And I think the neutral perspective that you have, that gets the bigger picture in that hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the war died for fighting over this relatively small but very useful area.

"Yeah, the Germans had a plan called 'The Von Schlieffen Plan', General [Alfred] von Schlieffen made a 46 day plan, 46 steps, every day was one step. By the 46th day they should have conquered the French army - that was the whole thing. Europe was divided into strange alliances; for example, the French and English were arch enemies for centuries. So the French made a pact with the Russians; the Germans had a pact with the Austro Hungarian troops. And once the heir to the throne of Austria, Franz Ferdinand, got shot in Sarajevo by somebody from an ethical minority who wanted to be separate from that country, that's where the war started basically, when this guy got shot. The Austrian police wanted to investigate in Serbia, in the country where he got shot, and they said, 'No, we don't allow any Austrian police in our country.' So then Austria declared war to Serbia, Germany followed, but for some reason the Germans wanted to conquer the French army as well. But they had to go through Dutch and Belgian territory; there was a contract from the 1600's saying that in case of a war Holland and Belgium had to declare to be neutral, and England would protect them. So first Germany asked to go through Dutch soil to get to France and we refused as agreed, and then they asked Belgium who also refused as agreed, so then they had no choice but to go through Belgium. So they attacked Belgium; the English were supposed to protect Belgium and they did, so they declared war on Germany, and that's where it all escalated. And then the troops got stuck in Belgium and they were digging trenches; they were stuck there for four years. So it was Ypres [Belgium], Verdun [France] was a big city where they were fighting, and down through France to the Swiss Alps. In total nine million people died in World War I, but in Ypres only it was nine hundred thousand - that's ten percent, and in Verdun also nine hundred thousand, which is also another ten percent; so in two cities is where almost a majority of soldiers died. There were four battles in Ypres around Passchendaele, so in those four battles nine hundred thousand people were killed."

That's what I found incredible - it seemed rather futile, such a waste of human life. The YouTube documentaries you have on your [MySpace] page said that one of the commanders was ordered to go in knowing that most of them were simply going to die.

"Yeah, when they had an attack on the enemy, they would go in with like 350 soldiers and 35 would return. Every day. And it was raining heavily during that time, so they were firing one hundred thousand grenade shells on two square miles every day with the ground lowering 900 meters...I don't know how much feet that is, but 900 meters is really a lot...there was lots of forest there and it's all gone. But because it was sort of a stalemate, they tried to come up with new techniques to win the war. They invented mustard gas, they came up with the tank - it was all invented during World War I because they were stuck there for four years so close to each other but they could not go anywhere, they could not win. What they were winning this week they were losing the other week; so it seemed there was no end to this war. And I think the war would have lasted a lot longer if the US army didn't come in in 1917 or something, or 1918 in the last year of the war. Because both sides were improving on technical things to win the war; like mustard gas, tanks, machine guns, whatever. In the beginning of the war they still had cavalry and they'd have cavalry charges, but against machine guns they were all shot; so cavalry disappeared during World War I."

And what I also found interesting was the role of the terrain itself - as you mentioned, all the bombing that went on in such a small radius. The tanks would bog down; and [the song] "Drowning In Mud", obviously...the holes that would fill with water, you could see that with one wrong step you would be dead; not even directly attributed to the war, just falling into a hole of water.

"Yeah. And it would be full of dead people. There would be nothing to eat or drink, but they couldn't drink the water because it was full of dead soldiers and the remains of mustard gas. It was terrible."

I have to say that this completely surprised me and I was looking to try to see who did the melodic vocals on "Poison Fog" and "No Survivors"; I just honestly didn't know you had it in you.

"Well, I didn't do them myself; it was a friend of mine, the singer from a band called THE WOUNDED. We wrote those lyrics from a different perspective of soldiers who were there; one that survived in 'Poison Fog' and the other one dies in 'No Survivors', describing from the soldier's point of view. And I wanted to have that sung with a different voice and I thought maybe clean vocals was a really nice option, so that's what he did. Then I learned it later so now I sing it live; I can do it."

I found that the perspective of the soldier, especially in "No Survivors"...there's that emotion there, you can feel the sorrow; you get a real sense of what it must have been like for these people to endure what they did.

"Yes, and it makes a nice contrast to the songs as well."

You just finished a tour in South America, and based on the blogs that Susan [Gerl, guitarist] has posted, it sounds like not only do you have some of the most rabid fans down there, but also a lot of turbulent bus and train rides - earlier tonight you mentioned a 20-30 hour bus ride.

"Yeah, it was heavy! Those countries are so big you can't even imagine. I think Brazil covers a big part of the United States only...the size of the country, I mean. Those drives were still okay, because we toured around the area of Sao Paulo - okay, still big but doable because most of the people live in the big cities anyway; in the countryside there is nothing. But then we went to Peru, and there we played like three shows in all the corners of the country, and that country is also really big. We were riding along cliffs and we would look down and it was like, 'Whoa!' Sometimes three or four buses a week fall off the cliff; so we were really lucky. We won't do that again, we'll fly next time instead of using a bus. And then the drive through Columbia was like 30 hours, and we were driving through FARC territory - FARC are the rebels, the terrorists in Columbia - so there were soldiers along the roads everywhere; we were stopped every 45 minutes and they would check the bus for guns and stuff. And actually the Dutch government tells you not to go there by bus, but we did it, we had no other choice you know? And nothing happened; the FARC are in the jungle and some cities, but we were not travelling through those cities, we were just on the Pan-American highway, which is not really a highway but just a normal road through the country. But it was full of soldiers everywhere with big machine guns...apparently it was safe. (laughs)"

Yeah, I guess - that's typical down there I suppose, but it would be quite a culture shock.

"Yeah, definitely."

I love this picture you guys posted - you ran into Ron Jeremy. (laughs)

"Yeah, we went to The Rainbow after a show in L.A., and usually you see some celebrities there and this time it was Ron Jeremy. We arrived really late; we could only drink one beer, it was like half an hour until they would close the place, and there he was. So we just had to get a picture with him. (laughs)"

That's great. So do you plan to continue with the album concepts?

"Actually, since...you know, one of the disadvantages that I find about GOD DETHRONED is that we've done so many different things, we wrote so many different songs, we made so many variations on albums itself and also between albums that sometimes you see GOD DETHRONED being announced on a festival and they don't really know what to say about us. They say it's a very good band, good songs, good albums, but there was nothing...I mean, you talk about CANNIBAL CORPSE, they have all the horror themes, you know? And GOD DETHRONED has so many different things that they don't know what to choose. Now that we did the 'Passiondale' album about World War I, now they have something to hang onto. And since I'm a history freak anyway I decided to go on about this World War I topic because there is so much more to tell about World War I that I want to make another concept album about it."

That would be great. I love the earlier albums, but once you got more into the story telling...that's much more non-typical I guess, and I can understand that people might struggle with that, but to have that level of originality and variety - that's very appealing and I think it's a hell of an accomplishment to evolve the way you have over the last 18 years to be where you're at today.

"That's true; it works well for us. When we play live in Europe it's basically always good, a good turn out, but you know...when you finally have something to hold onto, like a concept that stands out so much like 'Passiondale' does, I'm like, 'Ok, I like that concept, there's a lot more to tell.' It will not sound like a 'Passiondale II', it will sound like a fresh album, but it's just the concept that's the same and a continuation about the topics that happened during World War I." [FIN]