For somebody reading this and hearing about the band for the first time, how would you describe your history ?
Steve – I think Hunted has a fairly standard history – similarly to most bands, Hunted started off as a covers band paying tribute to the likes of Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, and Deep Purple and after a while Hunted started to write its own compositions (I joined the band around this time, Jon in fact, is the only original member left!). Again, like many bands, we recorded some demos but experienced several line-up changes before recording our debut album ‘Welcome the Dead’. Our history then gets more exciting, with Chris G on vocals, Jon Letson on bass, Matt Thomas on drums, and myself on guitar, we recorded and self-released ‘Welcome the Dead’ receiving some initial reviews which were overwhelmingly positive! We then also recruited Dan Owen as our second guitar player - he seems to be have fit in really well with the band; we then received interest from a few labels but we decided to go with Massacre Records and we inked a deal with them. Things are definitely quite exciting at the moment and hopefully we can add some more pages to Hunted’s history!!

Jon - As Steve mentioned, Hunted has (in one way or another) had a fairly long history to this point but everything’s really started to pick up in the last couple of years. Being (like some mysterious artefact from the past!) the only original member left in the band now, it’s so cool to have seen Hunted grow from a bunch of young metalheads paying tribute to the music we loved to finally being able to get our music across to so many people who actually enjoy and appreciate what we’re doing... and hopefully this is only the beginning!

How has the band's sound evolved since the demo "Alone" ?
Steve – well, a lot of the evolution of our sound, I would describe as a ‘natural evolution’, for example, ‘Alone’ was recorded with average-equipment, on a very tight low budget, whereas by the time we recorded ‘Welcome the Dead,’ our equipment was better, we had more of a budget which meant more time to play around with tones in the studio, and naturally we were better players compared to when we recorded Alone. Not only that, but I think it was clearer to us what we wanted to achieve and sound like. Our sound definitely had matured since ‘Alone’ and as a band we were ‘tighter’ musically.
I think the ‘Alone’ recordings were always incomplete; we didn’t really have the studio time to try and achieve exactly what we wanted. With ‘Welcome the Dead’ we gave ourselves that time (even though we still would have liked quite a lot more!!!). Furthermore, for ‘Welcome the Dead’ we actually had a pre-production period where we studied the songs and considered all sorts of options to make them better; that was the first time we had done that and I think it paid off. We made riffs a bit better and more energetic, added more harmonies where needed, added melody lines for more feel… I think as time has moved on we now approach our music in a much more professional manner, and our sound will certainly keep evolving… we listen or read all reviews and take on board people’s comments and I’m sure this will make our music even stronger.

Jon - I think Steve and I feel pretty much the same way about the demo and how it compares to Welcome the Dead... and even about the direction our new material seems to be heading in (which we’re very, very excited about!). We’re all still very proud of Alone - I think it’s probably a fair representation of where we were as a band at that time and it opened a lot of doors for us but there are definitely things we would write/play/produce much better now (at least, i hope so!) if we had the chance. I think it’s useful to see albums and demos as steps along the the road, rather than creative ends in themselves so in that way I think that, while Welcome the Dead is a really good album that we’re all really pleased with and that seems to be doing very well on the whole, we already feel that the next album will feel a bit different and try to improve on the things that could have been better in Welcome the Dead. Hopefully, that’s a process that’s going to continue with every album and its successor and throughout our whole career as a band!

Did you play in any bands before Dominanz ?
About 15 years ago I played in a band called Ofryskje together with Høst from Taake. I also played in Taake for a short period. Besides that me Frode (the drummer) has got some project together.
Frode played for many years in the black metal band Thy Grief. Jørn has as many know his band Hades Almighty, and he is also a former guitarplayer in Immortal and Old Funeral.

Who were your musical inspirations growing up ?
I was growing up in the 80’s, so I started to listen to heavy metal in early age. I listened to bands such as Iron Maiden, W.A.S.P, Twisted Sisters, Metallica and so on. At the age of 10-11 I started to listen to thrash and death metal. And it just went on from there. In the 90’s I mostly listen to black metal. And the albums De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (Mayhem), A Blaze In The Northern Sky(Dark Throne) and Emperor (Emperor) is still some of my favorites!

Are there any plans or to do live shows ?
We will do some shows inNorway this year. We hope to do a tour in Europe next year, and we also try to book some festivals for 2012. So is there a club or a festival that would like to book us. DOMINANZ ARE READY!

Before going on stage to play a live show, does the band have any rituals ?
We just try to relax. Have a few beers to get in the mood and taking on our stage outfit.

What are your personal favorite genres to listen to now, metal or non-metal [ indus...
goth... ] ?
My personal favorite is definitely metal, but I also listen a great deal of non-metal music as well. I listen to black metal, some goth, a very few industrial bands, heavy metal, grindcore etc. In general I listen to melodic atmospheric metal! And also music such as Sixteen Horsepower and Johnny Cash.

Do you have any final words for our readers ?
As you know there is an excessive amount of work behind this release, so I hope of course the audience will appreciate it and buy the album. We have recently been in the studio and recorded some new songs for the next album, and we are looking forward to the continuation. It will be more metal, more extreme, but we will still take care of the dark and gloomy, and the catchy phrase of Dominanz! The album will be ready in a year. And as I said earlier we’re hoping to do some festivals in 2012 as well. So keep an eye and ear out!!

Philippe Duarte