Pic courtesy of: Alastor S.E. "Black metal has always had the characteristic of blending many elements, this genre is very flexible"

CR: Why don’t you begin by introducing yourself to our readers?
Abrahkkan: Abrahkkan, lead singer Alastor Sanguinary Embryo, Costarrican black metal band, we have almost 10 years of officially being playing, so I can say we are in a continuous struggle to get this genre out of the underground scene in Costa Rica and why not export our material to international listeners.

CR: Why the name Alastor Sanguinary Embryo?
Abrahkkan: Well, when we were starting the band, we wanted to name it just Alastor, but soon it came to our attention that there were already a lot of other bands called that way, I think there is one Alastor in the United States, another one in Portugal and I think there is one called Lord Alastor as well; so we decided to transform the name a little so that we wouldn’t be mistaken with any of the other Alastor bands. The Sanguinary Embryo part was just taken from one of our songs, it talks about the rebirth of the demon called Alastor. Today we want to establish that name, or at least be recognize as Alastor S.E.

CR: How did you guys decided to play black metal?
Abrahkkan: We started back in 1995, a friend of mine was in the band and he ask me if I was interested in trying out for the vocal part, since they had no singer at the time; I went, they listen and they ask me to join. At first the band was more into death metal, but when I joined, I started to bring black metal albums so that they could hear some bands that I liked a lot at that time, something like Emperor, Samael, bands like that, and soon after that we started to play around with some sounds we found interesting from those black metal albums. After we all decided that we wanted to play black metal, we started to look for a name that fitted the band and our new style of music.

CR: How was the black metal scene back then in Costa Rica?
Abrahkkan: The only black metal band besides us back then was “Paganus Doctrina” and if I’m not mistaken they were only a studio band, they recorded a Split cd with Pseudostratiffied Epithelium. Paganus Doctrina sounded good in that Split they did, but they never played live or kept working on black metal, so I would say that there was no real or well established black metal band in Costa Rica when we started.
In regards of the people, the fans, there weren’t many, but little by little they began to get intrigued by the idea of a black metal Costarrican band, so they began to show up to our gigs.

CR: Alastor S.E. first demo came out in 1997 “The Howling Creature of Night”, were did you guys recorded it?
Abrahkkan: It’s a demo that has the length of a full cd, but we call it a demo for the sound quality in it. We recorded that demo, a friend of ours had the equipment to do it so we went ahead and do it; he had some experience recording demos, so the result wasn’t that bad.
It wasn’t a very elaborate work, but the songs are not bad at all, if someday, someone would like to make and album out of this something like a re-released this record could actually be up the challenge.

CR: In that demo I can hear a very Raw Black Metal, but it has two distinguishing tracks, the intro and the last one, why were those tracks included?
Abrahkkan: Yes, the intro and the last one, well black metal has always had the characteristic of blending many elements, this genre is very flexible; the old school black metal do include more of those classic guitar bits that you can hear in that demo. Those two tracks are composed and played by a friend; he was the one that end up designing the latest record cover art. He’s a very close friend of the band.

CR: Can you remember how did the people receive that first Alastor S.E. production?
Abrahkkan: Very well actually, even with all the mistakes on it, from recording techniques, to the general sound of it, there were a lot of things just not fitting correctly in that demo, but yes the general reviews were pretty good.
We released 100 tapes, we had this company making them, with cover art and the lyrics printed on them, it was pretty exciting; 25 of those tapes went to the media, magazines, record companies and some people that wanted to hear us, and we sold the other 75 very fast to our surprise, and that really motivated us to continue working on this genre and composing this kind of metal.
Even today there are fans that ask for many songs in that demo and there are others that approach us and said that to them that was our best ever black metal released.

CR: Alastor S.E. second released was in 1999 “Eternal Tears Through Asmodeo's Blackened Flames”, by listening to this material I can definitely see a big improvement in every single aspect of your music, do you think this mini cd gave the band the right path to follow?
Abrahkkan: You can say that, but that path you are talking about comes with every cd I think, maybe we haven’t yet established ourselves in one single style of playing, but what we have established is that we are going to keep playing fast black metal. We are growing with every song and every production we make is a continuous evolution, since our influences keep coming from every direction. I think that for that mini cd we got caught by the influences of the time, like the use of keyboards, we placed those keyboards everywhere and the songs are longer than ever. Today we know that the keyboards should go just in some parts, to balance its use a little more. You can say is experience, because I remember how exited we were to put those keyboards everywhere, but now is a different history. We really enjoyed and learned from that album, but later when we sat down and carefully listen to it, we realize that the extension of the songs had a lot of negative aspects, like for example if we wanted to make a video out of one, it would have been a huge video, or putting a song on the radio, I think the shortest song on that album was ten minutes long. We also thought about playing that whole album live, since is so long we can’t play them all live. That mini cd was a very good step for us, but there was a lot work to be done.

CR: Was any record company interested in you guys back then?
Abrahkkan: Well, yeah, but not from Costa Rica, back then there wasn’t a record company that really fit our style of music. Now there are a couple of people trying to do something more professional, but back then, no one from home offered us a deal. We sent the demo tape, and this mini cd to record labels all over the world, we got some offers, but there was a problem, the offers that a record company makes to a small band that is just coming out are very bad, so we decided to just keep working for ourselves, and at least get some profit from the sale of our records.
When we sent the demo, some record labels told us that they were interested in the band so that if we wanted to sent them new material to do so, because the demo was just for us to let them know that we could actually play and compose. Later we sent the Eternal Tears mini cd, with cover art and finished, so they just offered us to distribute the album, but that wasn’t what we were looking for, so we decided to wait for the next album, and the same thing happen. With D.E.M.O.N we wanted to do something fancy, like an special edition, and a record company was not going to do that for a new band, so we decided one more time to do it ourselves.

CR: What kind of promotion you guys did for the Eternal Tears Through Asmodeo's Blackened Flames?
Abrahkkan: We took that album on the road, we played in El Salvador, Guatemala and many more places, and it was pretty good for us.

	Pic courtesy of: Alastor S.E. "Maybe we haven’t yet established ourselves in one single style of playing, but what we have established is that we are going to keep playing fast black metal. We are growing with every song and every production we make is a continuous evolution"

CR: Talking about that latest album D.E.M.O.N, there is a change in your line up, and your general sound. What was the goal on this record?
Abrahkkan: Right after the Eternal Tears album, we had a couple of changes in the band, our drummer left the band for personal reasons, its weird but we have had a different drummer for every different record. That same year (2000) Grackons our new drummer, told us of a girl he knew (Perséfone), and that she was very interested in our music, so we decided to try her out. She came, did her mini audition and immediately we invited her to stay, we were very impressed by her voice and the possibilities to include her in our next release. So after that we started to write new songs for the D.E.M.O.N album, having her vocals always presents on the mixing of those new tracks; we wanted to blend her vocals, the keyboard and other things to create a better atmosphere.

CR: D.E.M.O.N is short for something right?
Abrahkkan: Yeah, the original name for the album was extremely long, we wanted to place a shorter name on the cover so that people would not have problems pronouncing the name, because at the end if the name is too long people are going to make it shorter any way, like I do with the Eternal Tears album, I only called that way because the name is just too long.

CR: How’s the full name?
Abrahkkan: Demonic Empires Manifest Opposing the Nazarene, that’s what D.E.M.O.N. stands for.

CR: Many critics here in Costa Rica have catalog your latest work D.E.M.O.N. as an incredible production, not just for the sound quality but for the album cover art and the printed promotion done to it, I have heard the following comment “This record is so well done in every aspect, that is hard to believe its not European”, what do you think of such comment?
Abrahkkan: I heard that to, but I heard that more from people that are not very familiar with the Costarrican metal scene, some comments like that came from a couple of friends over in Nicaragua and El Salvador, but from Costarrican metal fans I haven’t heard that a lot.
We don’t brag about it, we don’t suddenly believe we are Norwegian or something like that, but it’s nice to hear that the people think its good work; we know there are still a lot of things we have to improve. We recorded that album ourselves in our house, so it was quite good for a home studio. We decided to record it like that instead of going to a studio and spending a lot of money, instead we got that money for the record and bought some equipment to begin our studio and actually we like the sound of this record better than the previous one we did in a studio here in San José AGB Productions. We had big expectations when we went to that studio to record the Eternal Tears album, but we faced so many problems, for starters, the personnel of the place had no idea about metal, and we had to continuously worry about everything that didn’t went right because that meant we had to pay more for those extra hours, and since they charge by the hour, by the end of the album we went way over our previously anticipated budget.
That’s why for the D.E.M.O.N. album we rather spend that money in buying stuff that will eventually help us more in a long run.

CR: Do you guys have a particular way or procedure to write songs?
Abrahkkan: Well, the procedure or method that we use is not previously planned or scheduled it just sort of work for us in the beginning and we just kept writing music that way. It begins with some guitar riffs or our keyboard player comes with some ideas and from there we all star to participate, giving ideas or shaping the ones already brought by the members of the band. In the vocals, I’m the one that has to figure out a way to include my part into the songs, always treating the vocals as one more instrument, the lyrics are placed later. When everything else is in placed I have to sit down and write the lyrics for it, I would say that many or most of our lyrics are inspired in the music previously written.
The rest of the guys help me out by letting me know, how the song sounds to them, by giving me topics to develop.

CR: Here in Costa Rica is hard for some metal bands to maintain a certain amount of crowd attendance, yet you guys seem to have that area covered, in almost all your gigs I have seen a lot of people, what’s the secret for that?
Abrahkkan: I think that’s because we have always tried to give more than just a live performance, we have tried to do a show, Alastor S.E works hard preparing the gig, thinking on what to wear, and preparing the make up, you know to create an atmosphere that goes a long side with our music. We want to create a whole visual stimulation, last year when we launch the D.E.M.O.N album, we decorated the place where we played, with curtains, cages and projecting some images on a monitor, that was the reason why we won the “Metal Battle” back in 2001, in that contest there were other great bands like Decembers Cold Winter and Mantra, they played to perfection, I don’t think we beat them musically, but we had that visual aspect that made us very attractive.
We go out with our faces painted; looking at the people, gesturing, and that gets them more involved in our music, I’m not criticizing bands that just go out and play in jeans and normal clothes, I mean that’s just the way they do it, we do it our way.
I think people like to go to our gigs because of the atmosphere, the energy, because they get involved in the whole black metal feeling.

CR: In what other countries have Alastor S.E. placed in?
Abrahkkan: Pretty much all over Central America and Panama, with the exception of Honduras and Belize. We were actually going to visit Nicaragua in December but it got cancelled, we hope to play there next year.

CR: How do you see the Costarrican metal scene today?
Abrahkkan: I think lately it has suffered a lot of important changes and transformations, I think it was just a matter of time before this happened; for example, all the international concerts that we had in 2003 – 2004, it was just amazing to see so many great and legendary metal bands playing in San José. This whole “avalanche” of big metal bands had a lot of good things but it also had some bad, some that affected the national metal scene. I mean to be able for a Costarrican band to play along side Behemoth or Dismember was amazing, to talk to them to share some time with them was amazing; but like I said it also brought some bad things to the national scene, at least to the promoters of little Costarrican metal gigs, many people was saving their money for the big bands and they forgot about the little bands in our country. We tried to offer the people better gigs, in better places with better sound, but the fans just didn’t want to pay more for a better product, so we could get out of the tiny bars, with crappie sound.
But it’s a process, it was something that had to happen, it really helps a lot for the national bands to see the international professional playing. Today actually the whole “avalanche” of metal bands has diminished a lot; I think at the beginning some promoters though that this was a gold mine, and after loosing a lot of money they just decided to called it quits. I mean we have a pretty strong metal scene but we just don’t have the amount of people necessary or the money to be attending big expensive concerts every month. Many of the promoters are metal fans, and they did some of those concerts out of the love for metal music, people like Víctor Mora from Subterranean, Cristian Arce, Darren and that other guy “conejo” the one from Colemesis, all of this guys lost a lot of money when their concerts didn’t make the money they needed.
Lately the national concerts are rising again, mainly because people have no where else to go, and now is when we the bands and the promoters have to work hard, to show the people that we can do good things here, that we can make good music and organize great events, we have to teach the people that if they give us their money, we are not going to disappoint them.
Another thing that the promoters have to work is the ticket sale, because for some of this international concerts they began to sell the tickets a lot of time before the event, and that’s good, but they get desperate the day of the concert if they haven’t sell enough tickets and they lower their prices at half and sometimes even lower to at least get some money, but this instead of helping them it confuses the people, that after paying a lot and seeing some guy or friend pay way less than them, they decide to wait for the last minute in the next concert and pay half of the original price.
The Costarrican metal scene is growing and rising, nowadays metal is no longer a taboo, a bad influenced and is not openly accused by the church or other ignorant people.

CR: Which bands have influenced you through out you life?
Abrahkkan: Ok, in the beginning, when I was just finishing school, it was glam and hard rock, Europe, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, White Snake, and from there I started with faster heavier stuff, one of my all time favorite bands is Anthrax, and when I began to like black metal the bands were Emperor, Burzum, Immortal, Dark Funeral, Marduk, Anorexia Nervosa and many more.

CR: Alastor S.E. lyrics are almost always based on demons and poems about demons, is that subject always going to be with in every single one of your albums?
Abrahkkan: Not necessarily, if we like and think of other topics we write about them, but you have to understand that we are a black metal band, and we always want to write and give the records that evil and dark atmosphere. We want for our lyrics to enrich our songs, like a soundtrack does to a movie, to a horror movie.

	Pic courtesy of: Alastor S.E. "Personally I don’t have what you can say a “religion” I like to explore everything and learn from everything, I think that in every religion from the most fanatic Christian to the most evil satanic teachings there is always something that you can learn and use in your life"

CR: Do you have any spiritual believes?
Abrahkkan: Personally I don’t have what you can say a “religion” I like to explore everything and learn from everything, I think that in every religion from the most fanatic Christian to the most evil satanic teachings there is always something that you can learn and use in your life; I have learn a lot since I’m in the band, looking for subjects to place in our lyrics and just out of curiosity, there is just one thing I hate, and that is when people think they have the truth just because they believe in a certain thing or god.

CR: What do you think a band or musician needs to be considering a professional?
Abrahkkan: In a band, you need to agree from the beginning in the kind of music that you want to play, and to have a real commitment in working as a team.

CR: Have you ever felt that the local media discriminates bands like Alastor S.E.?
Abrahkkan: Sometimes you can say that we don’t get a lot of attention from the local media, but that’s totally understandable, because like many other things in life, what keeps the media alive is money. Actually there is some major news organizations that have gave us a change to appear in their media, I can’t tell you if there intentions were honest or they simply wanted to exploit us as Satan worshipers. A couple of months ago “7 Dias” a local TV show, interviewed us, this reporter Marcelo Castro spoke to us previously to the interview, and he explained that they wanted to get to know our band and our music, well when we saw the show, it turn out that the topic was Satan and metal music, he wasn’t honest with us, but at the end at least he gave us a chance to talk and express ourselves. But discrimination, no, not in that degree, maybe they just miss inform people, but that’s better than nothing.

A couple of weird questions

CR: What does Costa Rica need to become a develop country?
Abrahkkan: The one million dollar question, I could tell you so many things, things that some people defend and others attack, both with pretty good arguments, I think that’s why there is so much confusion in the country right now. But I think that one thing that we need before we start to talk about economics is to clean up our politics, to get rid of all the corruption eating our country, and we are starting to do that, so I think we are going in the right path there. We need to get rid of that third world country politics and we need honor among our politics, maybe when we achieve that, we can become a develop country.

CR: Do you think that violence in the media affects the behavior of people?
Abrahkkan: I think it does, the media keeps feeding us violence and since we are kids we see in the news that life is hard, that violence is everywhere, what I don’t know is who starts this vicious circle, because the news show us what’s happening in the street, and maybe those images make us violent, or maybe we are already violent and they are just showing us a reality of what we are.

CR: What music genre you have never liked and probable never will?
Abrahkkan: (takes his time) Maybe, country music (rancheras), salsa, cumbia those kinds of music, even though I have many friends that love that music, and I had the chance to see and hear incredible musicians in bands like that. Another one is this reggaeton, now this is some shitty music, its just one melody, and no one really cares about the artist in that music is all about selling the body of the models they put on their videos, if there was something good to say about this music is that they managed to make millions of people dance. But hey, different people like different kinds of music, I don’t really like to get involve in the what’s good music and what’s not discussion, music is cool, that’s all I have to say.

CR: What future plans does Alastor S.E. have?
Abrahkkan: A new album, we already have like half of the songs for it, so if we keep this good rhythm going, I can say that for June, July of 2006 we can began to record our new cd.
We want to work more on the drums, recently we have been listening to some pretty cool effects on some bands and we want to try and use that in the next record, some effects that you can hear in bands like Behemoth or Kataklysm. In the D.E.M.O.N album we used some cool effects on the drums, and we want to increase those, so that it can have a little more power to it.
We want to work a little more in the guitar part also, to work with a bigger array of effects as well as traditional guitar recordings.
The next album will be recorded like the D.E.M.O.N one, in our home studio, that way we can take the time we feel is appropriate to release a quality product.
Also get a second guitarist because now we are playing with just one, and keep playing as many gigs as we can.

CR: Well Abrahkkan, thank you for the time, any last words for the fans?
Abrahkkan: Don’t turn your backs on the local bands, if you guys pay a lot for the international bands don’t think too much before paying just a little more for national shows, if you guys do that, then we can all rise and the local scene will grow strong and will provide the fans better shows and better material, that’s my message, Keep supporting the local scene.