In a new interview with Germany’s Moshpit Passion, VOLBEAT frontman Michael Poulsen spoke about his new death metal band ASINHELL, which released its debut album, “Impii Hora” (Latin for “Ungodly Hour”), last September via Metal Blade. Regarding how the idea for ASINHELL came about, Michael said: “Well, the thing is when I formed VOLBEAT, that was the idea to mix a lot of different styles that I couldn’t mix in death metal when I had my first death metal band back in the days, DOMINUS. So, that was kind of a break, and that was just on pause doing death metal. So I grew up with all these ’50s melodic tunes and was listening to a lot of different styles of music, and I wanted to combine that in one band and that became VOLBEAT. And VOLBEAT became extremely busy on the road and in studios and there was no time for a second band. So, I guess, like so many other people, they had the time to reflect on a lot of stuff during the pandemic, and I had the time to sit down and actually open up for the dark coffin of death metal riffs again. So that’s what I did. And my good friend L.G. (Petrov) from ENTOMBED sadly passed away. And he kind of gave me a push at the very end to start this project. I’m already sure that people already know the story, or else Google it because I’ve been talking a lot about it. But he kind of gave me the push to get started. And here we are.”

Asked if it was hard to convince his business team that it was a good idea for him to make an album that is not as “commercial” as VOLBEAT, Michael said: “Everything I do is with passion and for the love of what I’m doing. I had no idea that VOLBEAT one day would become such a big band and a good business. We’ve been constantly touring and we’re constantly working very, very hard and dedicated. We could easily retire, but why should we do that? We still love what we’re doing, and I’m doing this death metal thing for the same reason — for the passion, for the love of old-school death metal. I’m a big nerd and I’m proud of it. So, it’s not a secret that I’ve been missing going out and playing death metal again, but I just never really had the time for doing it. So, everybody knows that the only business there is in death metal is hangovers. (Laughs) I’m just having a really good time doing this. So, no matter what I do in life, it’s done with passion. And I have absolutely no intention of creating something that could lead to a good business, because I’ll leave that up to other people. It just came to be that VOLBEAT became that big.”