MEDIA: Interview

IMMORTAL SOULS

This Interview was given to IMMORTAL SOULS prod. (Slovakia) at friday 31 july 1998, by Sergei Shelepov and Vladislav Starovoitov as Postmortem’s webmaster and photographer.

1. The design of your demo is very professional…Our two countries Slovakia and Estonia share the same destiny…I mean, after the fall of socialism we became very poor countries. I ´d like to know what you have to sacrifice to make such professional demo, so good recorded with great promo campaign? I guess you must have invested all your money into this demo… We are very glad that you enjoyed our music and album´s design. Of course, we aren´t very rich (he-he) and therefore had lots trouble with releasing of our last album. Actually cassette was released 3 months later than we planned. The “cost“ of “ The Call Of The Sea “ is about twice bigger than our previous album (I mean recording and release).

2. These days its pretty difficult for ex-USSR to break through , lets take GHOSTORM as an example, such an exellent band and BLACK MARD fired them. How do you see your position in the Underground? Our position is is stable and we have reached a certain level of popularity among the metal fans in Baltic states. We have regular gigs here in Estonia… In december’ 97 we played in Riga with THARAPHITA, SKYFORGER, and other bands in BLACK CELEBRATION international metal festival. In june 26 th we took party in METAL SHOCK int. metal festival at open stage, Minsk, Belarus, with GODS TOWER and others…

3. I’d say that the situation of in all Underground scene between ex-USSR countries and the rest of Europe is pretty different. Would you be able to tell the main differences giving you scene a certain brake? What about the differnce between Europe and ex-USSR, there are things done long time already and have its system, traditions. Here things are in very beginning and only developing. Only thing already developed is underground itself. All local bands try to make their way through western labels, because we haven´t any solid label to release such kind of music.

4. Of course I do not want to say that our Slovak scene or scene in Poland is totally different but «westerns» kind of woke up and started to show an interest in our bands, but I have to say that it took couple of years. I guess that this situation will happen again to your bands, later. Is there any political or economic base or support for the bands in Estonia, so the bands can break through outside? Heh… In very recent time ( I mean old “good” Soviet times ) here was a system of official comissions which listened bands to decide which are “deserving” to obtain a license for official concerts. Criterions were both professional and political. Without this license you were unable to make gigs on normal stage with good sound… this paper was only significant thing to make your musical career. Now situation changed but not in right direction, the criterion is only one: money. If your band is potent to make a lot of money you will have promotion , concerts and recordings. I think in Slovakia the situation is similar.

5. The best would be if our bands or your tried to orientate all their promotion to overseas countries, it really pays off and the people there will give you their attention and support for sure. Do you do any promotion outside, overseas, in the States for example? Yeah, we are trying to promote in USA too . Our ex-vocalist Mark Khekht is currently living in New York and all such stuff is going through him. I think serious promotion musty be done trough serious labels and companies but probably they haven´t enough wish and enthusiasm to deal with “unknow” bands from post-socialism countries.

6.If you do promote your stuff out there, what have been the responces like on your demo? I don´t want to say that your previous demo was weak stuff but it really was a class behind tour new demo “THE CALL OF THE SEA“… Please, compare this demo and the previous one… What about responses, it´s mostly blah-blah-blah in veil of “ you guys have done great work, your album is excellent, but we haven´t enough time now to deal with you, but we´ll be in touch with you”.

Previous album “Bloody Justice Comes…” was recorded for 24 hours of pure studio work in Pärnu. The conditions were somewhat worse than in Tallinn but it was also cheaper about 3 times. “The Call Of The Sea“ was recorded and mixed during 18 hours here in Tallinn and 5 hours in Narva. It´s sad but not all succeeded how we wanted and some ideas are put off for more good times. Problem is only one: not enough time (it means not enough money for studio work). Musically the style isn´t changed very much as you see, it still remains as a mix of brutal and melodic death-metal.

7. Though you consider your band being Death Metal, your songs shine some Thrash Metal atmosphere… We have some thrash elements (or atmosphere as you said), but neverthyless our music is death-metal. I think you´ll not argue very much, if you listen “Midnight-Execution”, “Raise Your Sword” or “Mentally Insane“ and so on, it´s death-metal anyway.

8. I – as a chiefeditor of the fanzine- would like to know something about your scene. Please, give me some names of only good fanzines, bands and labels, don´t name those worthless cause there are a lot of shits in every country… Yeah, it happened at least: we have now metal magazine in Estonia called “PLAKK“ dedicated to black-, death- and other extreme kinds of metal. First issue was released in May (if I correctly remember) and second will be out in some near future (it will be dedicated to Estonian stage). They send us questions for an interview and I hope it will be placed there. What about bands I will mark here THARAPHITA (pagan black-metal), IGNORABIMUS (doom-metal) ; CARNIFEX, RATTLER, VIGILIA MORTUM (death-metal), WINTER NIGHT OVERTURE, DEILEGIUM (black-metal)… the listing will be pretty long. We don´t have any labels which can be seriously accepted.

9. Well, I have been positively surprised by the sound quality of your delo… Did you have certain ideas how your demo would sound or did you- accidentaly- invent the sound in the studio? Well, we already have some experience in studio work. We haven´t very much chances to make experiments with sound in studio. The sound on our last album succeeded but it isn´t far an ideal.

10. Hm, the last question will be the musical one… I guess your instrumental pieces are much better than the quitar ones… they are very well inlayed amongst the riffs… Will you use such inlays in the future? Maybe we´ll use instrumental pieces in future, but we don´t want to play atmospheric music on principle. I hope our music will always death-metal.

11. OK, that´s all for now, well, I could ask you many more questions, especially about your country and its atmosphere but I need to save a little space for other bands… I wish you and your band good luck and I hope that you will be signed to some really good label soon… Thank you for attention. I wish all best to you and your zine and production, keep good work. I hope our collaboration will continue in future too.