time, this was a huge deal, especially for a death metal band. BLACK MARK was one of THE leading metal labels in Europe at that time. THOUSAND DREAMS AGO was the first album we released on BLACK MARK. However it was picked up again, we were critisized for sounding less powerfull then on CARNIVAL OF SOULS. And I agreed with those comments. For me, EXOTO sounded a bit less agressive on our second album. In the same period, there have been talks going on about playing support for SLAYER, opening TORHOUT - WERCHER (now ROCK WERCHTER) and we were in the picture to play a "VIERKANTE METER" session at STUBRU. Today, I don't feel STUBRU is a rock-station anymore, but back then, they gave rock and metal bands plenty of airtime.
In those days, we even had deals to go on tour, free of charge. These days, many bands have to buy in to tours, at the cost of thousands of Euro's. Back then, we were selected because they respected us, our music, our style. That was normal back then. We've played with MORBID ANGEL and we were in contact with GRAVE and LOUDBLAST. Then we came at a point were we had to make a choice. Going fulltime for the band, or keep working our day jobs. For guys aged around 20, that's not an obvious choice. FLIP was the eldest in the band, and he just had his first child.
Immediately, it became clear he couldn't make that step at that point in time. We've tried to convince him, but in the end, he decided to stop playing in EXOTO completely.
In the mean time, our drummer DIDIER was killed in a traffic accident. Obviously another great blow for the band. We could leave that loss behind us as a band, especially musically. But FLIP has always been the writer of our songs. He did it all himself. With an old casette deck and what must have been one of the first drum computers, he arrived at the rehearsals with complete songs. We just had to finetune his work.
Also, in those days, it was hard for us to find a decent second guitarist. EXOTO may not sound very complicated, but when you play our music, you'll notice it isn't simple either. Every guitar player will know that usually, they have a strong left hand play, or a strong right hand play. The chord setting and the strumming of the strings. To play our music, you need both hands to be stronger then average. A combination that's hard to find. That lack of a second guitar player, means we've done all recordings in those days with only FLIP on the guitars. He played both the rhythm and the lead section in the studio. Live, we did play with some interim guitar players in those days. IVO from MEANTIME was one of them. ALAIN