After talking festivals and the making of Colossal in Part One of this interview, Baest return to discuss the friendship that has kept their lineup together for a decade. They also look back on their North American tour with Arch Enemy and ahead to the UK shows, which begin in Southampton on 29 September.
Baest are a band with a totally stable lineup and have been friends for years. They all live in the same area. “We’re proud of that,” Lasse said. “It took a lot of hard work as well.”
“You have to work your ass off to make it work,” Olsen said. “Not everyone can manage to take care of a friendship for that long. You have to take care of that throughout the time. We had our faults. But we’re in a great place right now. I think a great way of working on a friendship is also working together creatively. You learn that. I think you can take some of those things from being a band out into your everyday living as well.
“Even after 10 years, we still have so much fun when we meet up, like last Wednesday and had to go on tour for three days.”
The 2025 shows with Arch Enemy in North America saw Baest play tracks from Colossal even though the album had not been released. Brave, maybe, but it worked a treat for the band. “It was absolutely totally breathtaking,” Simon Olsen said. “Yeah, it was awesome.”
“It’s funny,” Lasse Revsbech said, “To travel the whole world and then you play for half an hour and leave such a great impression on people. That is just amazing.”
“You can see a lot of the political aspects that’s happening over there,” Olsen said, “but that has nothing to do with the actual people living over there.”
“We believe in them,” Lasse says.
“We believe in them,” Olsen agrees. “We were happy and inspired by their passion as well, and by them coming out and spending all that goddamn fucking money on merchandise. We left with 1,000 t-shirts and came back with 11. Halfway through, we sold out all the tour shirts. What the hell. They lined up for them. We aren’t messing with these guys.
“We met a lot of people who are still contacting us. When are you coming back, and when is the new music? So we have a lot of love for the North Americans, and we would love to go back there as well.”
It is very impressive for sure. You can imagine it would be very tough for a Death Metal band from Denmark to get noticed in America. “It was just a very, very fortunate offer to go and play with Arch Enemy,” drummer Sebastian Abildsten said. “The people are not guaranteed to be there. We didn’t expect that to happen on our first time. So that was a very luxurious time.”
It was the longest time Baest had been away from home as a band. “Being in it together,” Olsen said, “we had such a good time as well. Even the off days, we were camping around completely beautiful areas in the United States and in Canada. In the Rocky Mountains. We drove through deserted areas in Nebraska as well. Meeting people out there, we were so happy and fortunate.
“Playing with those bands, they’ve been doing this for so long, and it’s so professional. To meet them, and them saying, ‘You’re a fucking great band. This is going to go well for you.’ The guys from Fit For An Autopsy as well. The guys from Thrown Into Exile, who were like the opening act, and of course, Arch Enemy and the whole crew. They’re fucking legends.”
Misfortunate Son was another new song that was on their US setlist. This is a song that, to me, comes across really well. I love the way the bass interplays with the riffs. I would imagine that song would have sounded awesome on one of the larger stages.
Lasse confirms it does. “We always started with the clapping. We love playing it live, actually. It’s a very fun song to do. The one song where Simon actually sings in Danish.”
“That song is just so boogie,” Olsen laughs. “It’s got the groove, man. It’s a pure rock song. That’s the whole barrier from Death Metal to rock music. It’s so fun to play.”
Baest hit the UK this week, and with Colossal to promote, how do they decide which older tracks to keep in the set? “With this year’s festivals, they became the outline of what will happen,” Lasse says. “But I think we will make small changes.”
“The main focus, of course, will be on the Colossal,” Olsen says. “But it’s always fun to try and represent all your years, all your eras and try to make them fit in. Also to show some colour. We also have our first EP, Marie Magdalene, turning 10 years old. Maybe some of those songs will be on the setlist, who knows? But yeah, some great bangers that represent us, and fit in a great setlist. Some for people to remember.”
These dates will be great. Colossal is a fun album, and Baest are a band that convey that fun on stage. The upcoming tour is intense with hardly any days off. Is there pressure to maintain the vocals?
“I’ve done it before,” Olsen says. “The last time on the European Tour, it took a couple of days actually in to. So maybe I will take my precautions this time and try and not drink beer.”
“Not drink beer?” Lasse laughs.
“Not drink so much beer this time,” Olsen smiles. “But maybe get some sleep, keep hydrated. I think for me, most of all, it’s mentally. It’s very subjective for each vocalist. How they manage to warm up and prepare their voice. For me, it’s mostly a mental thing. I can mostly perform when my head is there. So for me, it’s important to have a calm mind and to have a mindset which is prepared. The rest is small measures. I think it will be fine.”
The UK leg kicks off in Southampton on 29 September, and then Baest run all the way to Hamburg on 18 October. With only two days off, stamina is a word that springs to mind.
“I guess,” Olsen says. “But we are again having fun, and that’s the whole mental state, not only for me but also for the whole band.”
“It can be more depressing not playing,” Lasse says. “Then you miss home.”
I asked the band what their favourite UK town or city to play was. Bristol was the snap response, though Belfast soon came into the reckoning. Either way, the band noted them for having plenty of beer.
Lasse says he is looking forward to meeting people again whom they have met over the course of time. “Hopefully some new faces as well from London,” he says. “We’re just looking forward to going on tour. Fuck man, come meet us. Come have the same fun as we have because we are having a ton of fun. We are there to share that, that fun, with each and every one of you.
“So we will be at the show. We will be at the pub. Then we will be at the show again. We will be everywhere you guys are. So come see us, get your tickets now. Because it’s gonna be amazing. It’s gonna be fun.”
It will. But, as Simon Olsen says to plenty of smiles, “Expect no mercy.”
September
October
