Having had no plans to cover any music
whilst on a work trip to Russia, I somehow fluked a meeting with
Krasnoyarsk-based technical death metal band, Lost Conception. Well known regionally, and with something of
an international following also, they are just another talented extreme-metal
outfit from the expanses of Siberia. On
arriving at a row of scruffy apartment-block garages, I am introduced to
guitarist/second vocalist, Il’ya, and sound engineer, Artem. Ahead of the promised arrival of lead
vocalist and guitarist, Nikita, I prep my notes for what will surely be a full,
frank, and utterly groundbreaking interview...
Il’ya: Nikita should be here soon.
Half an hour later, it’s increasingly
clear he won’t be. Some elements of
music are truly international. And
artistic disregard for punctuality, it seems, is one of them.
Artem: It’s OK. We can do the interview with just two of
us. I’m also a full member of the band.
Il’ya: Yeah, without Artem, we sound
worse!
Artem: I’m definitely part of this
band. Other sound engineers work for
money; I just work for the idea. I
support the band at concert, mix the music at home, and didn’t charge for my work. We are friends, and share music tastes.
Q: So
this would be a good time to find out just how you guys got to where you are
now.
Il’ya: We began like 3 or 4 years ago.
Artem: It was March 8th,
Women’s Day. But I was not there at the
start. Nikita – he’s the main composer –
met the first vocalist, and they decided to make a technical death metal
band. They found a bassist, but he left
after one year.
Il’ya: Really, we left him! He was into a different type of music, like
Russian rock.
Artem: I came in to help record the
first demo, “Pathetic Existence”. We
recorded at the singer’s house, and it took 1 or 2 days, with a drum
machine. He recorded the vocals, and I
mixed. He offered for me to join, and I
liked the music, so I accepted. We went
to concerts together, as a band, and I checked the live sounds, like to accent
solos.
Q: So
is that singer still with the band?
Artem: No, he left. He drank a lot – “that’s not a problem for
us,” interjects Il’ya with a sly grin – and he wasn’t functional. He missed rehearsals and made lies to get out
of rehearsals. We went through lots of
singers, but in the end decided to go with Il’ya and Nikita. What’s the point in finding another singer if
other band members have decent voices?
Q: So
what is the band now, exactly?
Il’ya: There’s me, on guitars and
vocals.
Artem: I do the sound
engineering. Then we have Nikita, with
lead vocals and also guitars, he’s the main composer and ideologist of the
band. And there’s Roma, on bass, and
Aleksandr on drums.
Il’ya: And we all have band
names. I’m Verz. Artem’s ZXX – “and how exactly are you
supposed to pronounce that,” I ask – (grins) it’s not really supposed to be
pronounced. Nikita is Dr. Slip.
There follows a brief, but animated
discussion of the meaning of the word “Slip”.
Il’ya: (blank faced) I always thought
it meant the same as “fall”.
Artem: (with accompanying hand
actions) No, it’s like Slipknot.
A brief Russian-language description
follows.
Il’ya: (face lighting up) Aaah! And then Roma’s name is Loki, like the Norse
god. Aleksandr is Mutilator.
Q: So
that’s introductions over with. What
about your musical influences?
Artem: Definitely it’s Death.
Il’ya: We all like death bands. There’s different tastes, though. I prefer Finnish, like Children of Bodom, and
also Arch Enemy. Nikita prefers
technical bands, like Behemoth.
Artem: Nikita used to transcribe the
music of Death, and that’s how he learned to compose. But in the band, everyone writes their own
parts. Il’ya and Nikita write different
guitar parts to work together with each other.
Roma is musically educated, and he’s very talented. He always tries to make something new with
his bass parts, like you can hear in the track “Infinity” – the final track
from the band’s 2011 debut album, Paroxysm of Despair.
Q:
And what countries do you tend to look towards for your music?
Il’ya: Finland. Fintroll!
I think they’re a great band. Something
in his telltale grin suggests this might not be the whole truth.
Q: No
influences in Russia?
Artem: Not influences, but one band we
respect and want to cover is Hieronymus Bosch.
Now it’s my turn to look confused.
Isn’t that some kind of skin disease?
They’re a band from Moscow, they play progressive death.
Q:
How does being in Krasnoyarsk, out in the middle of Siberia, influence the
band?
Il’ya: It more influences how we live
our lives.
Artem: Our location is Krasnoyarsk is
not important. Being in Russia is
important. We sing about government, in
Krasnoyarsk we see shitty people, and even in Moscow everything’s the
same. But we have technical
problems. We don’t have a big
studio. We tried local studios, but they
weren’t good enough.
Il’ya: They [Krasnoyarsk’s music
studios] have different sounds, like Alt Core, Metal Core, some gay fuck. That’s not even music!
Q:
But does your location not impact on your touring?
Il’ya: Well, we played several
concerts at Metal Hail Fest in Irkutsk – a “close” city, only a handful of
hundred kilometres up the trans-Siberian line from Krasnoyarsk – which is
Siberia’s best open air festival. The
first one had like 40 groups from Moscow.
Artem: Well, from everywhere in
Russia. And the last one we played there
had 80 bands.
Q: Do
you tour outside of Siberia?
Artem: No.
Il’ya: We’re not so famous yet!
Artem: We were invited to St.
Petersburg, but it’s difficult for every member of the band to just drop their
commitments, like education and work, so we couldn’t go.
Q:
For a band stuck in the middle of Siberia, you have a suspiciously
foreign-sounding name, not to mention your English lyrics! Are your fans not mostly in Russia? How do your lyrics work for them?
Il’ya: Our lyrics are mostly about
greed, about the sins of humanity.
Artem: A whole lot of fuckness of
humanity (laughs). They’re about
ignorance.
Il’ya: Well, not all our fans are in
Russia. We have visitors to our webpage
from other countries.
Artem: In Russian vocals don’t sound
as awesome.
But Artem’s words bring a frown from
Il’ya. It’s clear there’s some tension
over the issue.
Il’ya: My opinion is different. I have another band, and, in there, they have
Russian lyrics.
Artem: We want popularity not only in
Russia, but in the whole world. Most
fans are likely to be from other countries.
Technical death metal is not very popular here! Not enough people listen to the genre
here. Everyone speaks English, but
Russian is only spoken in Russia.
Russians can understand English, but Americans can’t understand Russian!
Q: Do
you think the English language sounds more authentic for metal?
Artem: We had a conversation about
what language to use. Most people said
English was more plausible for growls.
It sounds wrong to us when Russian speech is growled.
But again, it’s clear Il’ya isn’t
satisfied with this idea.
Il’ya: I have a different
opinion. I don’t think that Russian
growled or screamed sounds worse than in English. One of my arguments is, well, someone famous
said, “Europe and America have lots of bands singing in English. Sing in your own language. It will be a new style.”
Q: Is
there not, then, a risk that singing in English means you’re more likely to
imitate bands in the West, rather than creating your own style?
Artem: I don’t think it has anything
to do with authenticity. Bands sing in
Russian but still try to copy US and UK bands.
Singing in Russian doesn’t mean we won’t copy!
Q:
There’s one major Russian peculiarity I want to ask about, though. Russian music is now famous across the whole
world – this comment
draws incredulous stares from my interviewees – for the Pussy Riot affair – which quickly reshape themselves into
looks of scorn. A lot of your lyrics are political. Do you feel any constraints, being in Russia,
on what you can and can’t sing about?
Artem: But our lyrics are quite
abstract. We don’t mess with real
people, or with religion. We have strong
positions against religion, but Pussy Riot went and insulted religion in its
own home – one of Russia’s biggest and most famous cathedrals, no less – anyone
can have a political opinion here, but just not direct it at real people. That was Pussy Riot’s problem.
Il’ya: They messed with religion.
Artem: Out lyrics can be applied to
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, US, Europe...
Il’ya: It’s my opinion that Pussy Riot
was not about publicising political opinions or attacking politicians. The US wanted an Orange Revolution – so
called after the protest movement which brought down the pro-Kremlin
establishment in Ukraine a few years ago – in Russia. I think people in the music industry in
America found these four girls and told them to do it. I think that Pussy Riot are very bad.
Artem: I don’t think they’re bad, I
think they’re stupid. They’re not
talented musicians; they’re not musicians at all!
Il’ya: It’s got nothing to do with
music. It’s all politics.
Q:
But now what about you guys? What does
the future have in store for Lost Conception?
Il’ya: I think the main aim is to
start touring, once we’ve ended our education.
Then we can start to work more on music.
And maybe find another label.
Artem: We had some problems with our
drummer. He studied to be a translator,
and went to China to study the language.
We had to rehearse with a drum machine.
And, pray tell, just how long were you saddled with this inconvenience? He was gone for nine months. Fuck me!
We practiced separately, but we almost forgot how to play together. We needed some time to regain our skills.
Q:
And future work?
Artem: We’re planning to record a
single with one song from our next album.
That’s our second album. It’s
already half finished.
Il’ya: We’d like to introduce some new
sounds, like black metal influences.
Artem: We don’t want to copy
ourselves. We don’t want another
Pathetic Existence. So we’ll look at
some black metal and brutal death metal influences.
Il’ya: And me and Loki are interested
in electronic sounds.
Artem: Yeah, there may be some
industrial and electronic instruments.
Before the end of the year our single will be recorded.
My questions spent, and my wrist aching (from
writing, you understand), I clamber out of the battered garage which serves as
the band’s rehearsal zone, to be greeted by brilliant evening sunshine. Death, politics, and sunny weather; what
doesn’t Siberia have? Oh yeah. Decent internet. Interview posted 28/09/12, on return to the
UK.
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