MEDIA: Interview

Sergei Shelepov. LEGION "M" Metal Music Magazine #4, 2001

There are great metal bands in little Estonia! It's just a pity that we know too little about them... However, Postmortem is still familiar to the Belarusian public from their performance at the METAL SHOCK'98 festival, and the rest of the public will soon become familiar, thanks to the CD album that has just been released on the Moscow label " Call of the Sea...

Guitarist/vocalist Sergei Shelepov, the informal leader of the hot Estonian guys, is in touch with the M correspondent...

After the release of MC The Call Of The Sea in 1998, nothing more was heard about you. And very soon a new album should be released... Instruct us a little about what it will be and what it will be about? Perhaps it was unheard of in Belarus, I won’t argue, but all this time we did not sit idle. Let me go back a little: when we recorded The Call Of The Sea, we received many proposals for the release of various compilations, both from the CIS countries and from all over the world. Here '98 was rich in compilations...

In 2000, we recorded 2 songs for tribute albums to King Diamond and Led Zeppelin, which were released in the USA on Dwell Records. And what was released in April 2001 in Moscow on More Hate prods is a new version of The Call Of The Sea: the design on the tab was changed, and the same two tracks were added that were released on Dwell Recs, plus a new song, totaling the album 1998 year plus three new songs. So this is not a completely new album, but a re-release expanded and externally modified. But nevertheless, there is more than enough material for the new album. And I hope to implement it next year.

In addition to POSTMORTEM, the musicians also have a project called Sugar Free, which was very successful and about which there are many good reviews. What do you hear about this project now? Sugar Free - This is a project of Denis alone, and not of all POSTMORTEM participants. Everything is fine with them, they perform from time to time and have recorded a new album.

During the existence of the POSTMORTEM, your lineup changed a lot, it came to the point that you and your brother were the ony who stayed, right? Are there any problems with the lineup now? Yes, our lineup did change often, not without it. But I think this is only for the better, and I think that these are internal affairs of the band, not for interpretation from the outside. Now this is okay.

By the way, did you have a battle for the name with a German band with the same name? To be honest, there was nothing serious, and it’s unlikely there will be, we didn’t borrow it from them, we came up with it ourselves. You know, we are pretty sick of this question already. Everyone asks it. In fact, there are many bands with the same names, here are examples: Catacomb, Aggressor, Nirvana, etc. Usually where we perform they always add (Estonia). In your country, even a compilation was released with 2 POSTMORTEMES at once - ours and the German one, and nothing, no one was hurt. Not only that, it’s even It was cool :)

In the summer of 1998, you were able to please your fans with a performance at one of the Belarusian festivals as head-liners. How did you like the performance? Everything was great. We enjoyed the trip. We drank Belarusian beer, met interesting people, met those whom we have known for a long time and work together, but have never met visually. And the people greeted us with a bang. Thanks to Anton Prigornitsky and Igor Silnichenko for inviting us. The only thing that was incomprehensible was that our video from the concert disappeared somewhere from the official videotape, and this, you see, is not very pleasant, especially since we performed among the top three headliners.

When you first started playing, what did the Underground look like in Estonia? Yes, much the same as now, its own clubs, its own party, like probably everywhere else in the post-Soviet space, and not only...

What's happening now? Now we have our own metal publication Plakk (www.metal.ee/plakk), which is published unstably, but in good quality.

How is life in Estonia in general? Life is fine, apart from many shortcomings and post-Soviet influence.

Any future plans? Album, concerts, tours...

Well, and a few final words... Good luck to everyone, Stay Brutal, Stay Death!!!