Interview With Paul Speckmann Of Speckmann Project

30 years after the debut album was released Speckmann Project returns with a crushing sophomore offering entitled “Fiends Of Emptiness”.

A true pioneer of extreme metal, Paul Speckmann co-founded Master in 1983. Two years later the band dissolved, and Deathstrike was formed after a failed search for a guitar player for Master! First Deathstrike, and then Master recorded their influential demos respectively! A recording contract was eventually secured between Master and Nuclear Blast and in 1989 Speckmann (vocals, bass) along with Chris Mittelbrun (guitar) and Bill Schmidt (drums) recorded their debut album in Solid Sound Studios, but things didn’t go quite as planned. “Markus Staiger, the label boss for Nuclear Blast, decided he didn’t like the production of the soon to be released self-titled Master album!”, Paul Speckmann recalls. “So after a few brief conversations it was agreed upon from all parties that we would go to Morrisound Studios in Florida and record the album again, with a new line-up featuring myself, Aaron Nickeas from Abomination on drums and Jim Martinelli from Burnt Offering on guitar, and add some additional songs. Legendary producer Scott Burns produced the new recording and after it was sent to Nuclear Blast it was once again rejected – for being too polished! So in the end Burns remixed the previous recordings from Chicago and that was released as the Master debut album. I felt that it would be a waste to throw out the Morrisound recordings, so this was released as the first Speckmann Project album in 1991”.

Three decades have passed and now the time has come for a much awaited follow-up album, this time in collaboration with Swedish death metal-savant Rogga Johansson, known from Paganizer, Ribspreader, Revolting and a myriad of other bands. So what inspired Paul Speckmann to do a second Speckmann Project album in 2021? “Rogga felt that the many collaborations we did with the Johansson & Speckmann project were sadly not given the attention they deserved. Rogga and I have recorded several excellent albums together that have gone mostly unnoticed by the general public! So maybe the press as well as the fans would relate better to the Speckmann name alone”, Speckmann reasons.

Absolute Power
Indifferent
A Sick Carnival
Destroy The Weak
The Stall
The Corporate Twisted Control
Fiends Of Emptiness
The Victims In Silence They Lay
The So-Called Tyrants
A Diabolical Sense Of Proportions
Canceled
Then The Calm Before The Storm
Through Darkness