Brazilian d-beat/crust quartet! Based in Campinas, a city in southeast Brazil - northwest of São Paulo, DETËSTO is undoubtedly a band worth checking out. The band has many great records and stuffs under their belt and there are plenty of good matters and messages they would like to share with through their music. Well, I will not write longer on this introduction section because the band’s founder/vocalist Mr. Wallas Constantino Lisboa Nogueira has delivered really informative and in-depth feedback to the interview I submitted. Let's read and get to know Detësto more closely.
- Interview by Atandistorted [June 14, 2023]
1: Hello friend! What's up today? Please introduce us about Detësto; band history, purpose it was established, current members, etc.
Firstly, it is a great pleasure to talk a little about the band DETËSTO for the readers of VIVA LA PUNK ZINE. My name is WALLAS and I’m the lead singer of the band DETËSTO, and I’ve always been involved in gigs helping bands, etc. and thought it was time to have a band. In 2016 I called 2 friends to do some sessions, which were really cool and we made our first recording. After that, a great friend of mine joined on drums (MICHEL) and a guitarist, who stayed in the band until 2019, when ZIGGY joined the band replacing him until that moment we never had a steady bassist in the band, always friends helping when we needed it, until in 2021 RATTÖ joined the band and for the first time we had a bassist who really belongs to the band and who added a lot, both in terms of composition for new songs and for the gigs that we are now doing.
Our intention was always to play a raw and distorted sound, which is very different from the scene in my city that is more “melodic” and this has always caused us problems to find members in the band, since our influence is the Swedish crust/d-beat 90s, 80s European hardcore/punk and a little HELLHAMMER/CELTIC FROST spice!
Our lyrics talk about the themes inherent to most of the bands in this scene, anti-war songs and we also have more personal lyrics, mainly some that should go into future sounds, lyrics influenced by the difficult period of the Pandemic, the era of darkness that we had in last 4 years with this idiot who ruled Brazil, Bolsonaro and also some personal (difficulties) issues that made the lyrics a little darker.
2: We understand that Detësto is obviously into Swedish d-beat/crust hardcore punk. What is interesting about this genre musically and soundwise?
In fact, that Swedish scene came later, because what first influenced me – and that many years later planted the seed that would become DETËSTO today – was when I listened to EXTREME NOISE TERROR for the first time in the late 80s, because until then I listened to the more “traditional” Hardcore/Punk and I was delighted with that song with the guttural vocals and that totally influenced me and I discovered other bands and later came the Swedish scene, which I love very much, bands like DISFEAR, ANTI-CIMEX, WOLFPACK, SVART PARAD, AVSKUM, BOMBANFALL, NO SECURITY, MOB 47, etc that I really appreciate a lot.
In Brazil, both the Swedish and Finnish scenes have been well known since the 80s, as in the case of Swedish bands, LP compilations such as “THE VIKINGS ARE COMING” and “AFFLICTED CRIES IN THE DARKNESS OF WAR”, presented us by bands such as FEAR OF WAR, CRUDE SS, ROVSVËTT, etc and made these bands very appreciated here, making us curious to know others from that country, I even believe that bands like FEAR OF WAR are more popular in BRAZIL than in their own country.
3: Do you all also listen to other music genres?
Yes, we all listen to other types of music and the other members play/played in other bands with a different style than DETËSTO, in bands from more alternative styles to death metal!
We are not radical and we like to listen to other styles of music and we find radicalism childish and silly, this was even “normal” when we were teenagers, but we grew up! Haha I particularly like dbeat/crust a lot, but I also like other styles, mainly 80s metal. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of “tupa tupa” bands like EDIÖNDÖ and IGNORANTES from Chile, besides being a big admirer of LA FRACTION!
4: I have no accurate information about your full discography. What has Detësto recorded and released thus far?
Our material released so far:
Detësto “The Stench of Death” - CDR EP (2017 - Brazil)
O som do Abismo - Compilation CDR (2017 - Brazil)
Horrendous Grindcore Freak Compilation Vol.3 CD - (2018 - Brazil)
Split with Skarnio Tape (2019 - Brazil)
DIY Conspiracy Vol.1 Compilation - Tape (2021 - Bulgaria)
Detësto 2020 Studio Trax Tape (2021 - Colombia)
D-Beating Vol.2 Compilation Tape/CD (2021 - Portugal)
The Varukers Tributo Compilation CD (2021 - Brazil)
Short Music for Freak People Compilation CD (2021 - Mexico)
Detësto – Дибит 2020 Tape (2021 - Russia)
Split with Immoral (Indonesia) Tape (2022 - Indonesia)
Detësto “self-titled” 7” vinyl (2022 - USA)
5: Tell us more about your latest release and the future plans?
Our last recording was a sound called “Krigsoffer” which was a recording we made for an LP compilation that will only be released next year (2024), but it is now available to listen to on our bandcamp and also on youtube.
We have 02 releases planned for this year yet: a split tape with the Swedish band DEFEKT that will be released in Brazil and the CD version of our split with the Indonesian band IMMORAL, which was released on tape in Indonesia, will also be released in the USA.
We should enter the studio in August to record 5/6 songs that will probably come out on CD in the USA in the future and in other formats most likely too.
The band is currently doing gigs, we have some scheduled and others to be confirmed, and in September/October we should take a 2 month “vacation”, because my first child will be born and this will be my priority in these 2 months, but we have gigs already scheduled for the second half of 2023.
6: Well, how do you think that the messages written/contained in your lyrics will inspire and motivate your music listeners?
As already mentioned before, our lyrics follow the anti-war line, so to speak. Themes about wars, injustice and also (mainly in the future of some lyrics written for future sounds) more personal things, like depression, influenced by all this shit we live with the pandemic, the growing fascist wave that grows in my country and in the world in general, the ignorance of anti-vaccines, who deny science and believe in its nonsense, the wars that happen not only in Ukraine – which has wide press coverage, but others that are little commented on, such as the one that occurs in Ethiopia, Yemen, Haiti, Syria and other conflicts that don’t get the same attention and are just as vicious as the war in Ukraine. Why such a difference? Anyway, how to be sane in an insane world?!?
We are against all this and we have to resist all this shit.
7: What is “punk” based on your perspective?
PUNK for me is being you and not caring what others think and respecting differences. PUNK gave me the opportunity to get to know other cultures, get to know other realities different from the one I live. I have always been a person who has always liked to correspond by letter and learn about the reality of other scenes and have contact with people from other countries. I’ve always been involved helping bands in shows, tours, even organizing shows in my city, mainly crust/d-beat/grind bands, because here in my city it’s more alternative bands or that Californian melodic punk/hc and I tried to bring different bands from that played in my city. I organized bands from different parts of my country, as well as bands from other countries like USA, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Peru, Slovakia and others.
I made many friends around the world, I already had the opportunity to visit other countries like Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Germany, etc. “normal” could never live. This PUNK brought to me.
8: Please share a little bit about some of the best gigs and tours done by Detësto? What have you usually learned from each live show?
In fact, we played a few shows and when the band started, my idea was to be like a studio band, like WARVICTIMS was (until a certain time), because I’m extremely shy and that meant that I only had a few projects that was not taken so seriously and that only happened with DETËSTO. But I’m managing to overcome this barrier and we played a few gigs and in terms of shows, certainly the first we did with the band in 2019 – which was chaos before, because the guitarist who played with us left the band 10 days before the show and ZIGGY helped us on this gig and then definitely joined the band – and the other gig that was very important for the band and especially for me, was playing recently together with RATTUS and TERVEET KÄDET, RATTUS was the first band I heard in the 80s in a totally different language – because I had only listened to American bands until then.
Particularly for me doing gigs is being incredible, because I’m having contact with other people, we’re playing with bands with a different style from ours, which I think is really cool and we’re not just restricted to a “niche” and other people who would have difficulty getting to know I like our sound style, besides what music for me is therapy, it makes me forget about my problems and brings me relief from all the stress of this crazy world we live in.
9: Thanks and respect from Malaysia. Last words are yours. Viva La Punk!
I would like to thank you ATAN for the interview and for the space that was given in VIVA LA PUNK ZINE, it was a pleasure to serve you! I know it’s still a distant dream, but it would be amazing to tour Asia one day and we would certainly love to play in MALAYSIA. If you want to get in touch, you can do it directly with me via email wallas_constantino@hotmail.com or on our Instagram: http://instagram.com/detesto_dbeat. THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT!