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"We just play what we feel. It will always be brutal death metal with a strong antichristian attitude" |
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CR: Hey man thanks for the time? Are you ready for Christmas jejejeje
Bart: Yeah, fucking shitmas with all those stupid carol songs all around
CR: Trying to break the everlasting question of making you introduce the band why don’t you tell us a short Biography of yourself and how you got involved in Azarath?
Bart: My first real band that I formed with my friends was Cenotaph. It was in 1990 or 1991. We recorded two demos – “the time of Eternal Death” and “Empire of Sin”. In 1994 I joined DAMNATION after their fucking great debut demo “Everlasting Sickness” and I recorded with them: promo’94, “Reborn…” Cd’95, “Rebel Souls” Cd’96, “Coronation” Mcd’97, promo’98, “Resist” CD’2000 and some cover songs for various compilations/tributes. In 2001 I joined AZARATH, few months before recording the debut album “Demon Seed”.
CR: Azarath is described by many as death/black metal is that label accurate? Or what are we missing in our attempt to label you guys!
Bart: We really don’t care about that. We just play what we feel. It will always be brutal death metal with a strong antichristian attitude.
CR: Approximately how many shows did Azarath played this year, and is it difficult to arrange such presentations now with Behemoth been such a big success in the US?
Bart: We don’t play much. We had two tours cancelled this year in Poland, in April’ 2007 with Dismember and in August’ 2007 few shows with Immolation. At last, in November we played a week tour in Poland together with Stillborn and Deception (Hail to them!!!)
After Behemoth’s big success in the US, as well as in almost the whole the world, we had no chance to play shows with Inferno on drums since few years. We looked for good drummers to replace Inferno during shows. We’ve found Wizun, who played a couple of shows with us and the tour with Vader in 2006, and finally in 2007 we started to play shows with Adam Sierzega from mighty LOST SOUL (r.i.p.).
CR: “Diabolic Impious Evil” your latest album praised by many refute by none as far as I can see; a couple of reviewers that have been following the bands career state that this album has more rock n’ roll based riffs than your previous albums, and by that they mean that the guitars have gain in brutality and diminish just a little in technicality, do you agreed that the music in this new record has become a bit more primal in order to increase the massive brutality that it has?
Bart: Yes, I think we play maybe in a less complicated way but with more fury, a darker mood, etc. We really haven’t thought about that while creating music / riffs for this last album. We just played what we felt. I think that music must have something and this is not technique, it must be something what we call “spirit in music”.
CR: “Diabolic Impious Evil” certainly is heavy, better put… brutal, the album has such a strong and forceful attitude in every single song, is like a typhoon of riffs, vocals and a obliterating drum work; nonetheless since all this is put in songs were all this elements have to learn how NOT to obscure each other, do you think that maybe the album would have sounded totally different if the production wasn’t so clear? Or do you think that Azarath can live with a “dirtier” recording?
Bart: I think we have a dirty sound anyway. It is not your typical clear sound. We recorded drums and guitars in Hendrix Studio (like for “Infernal Blasting “ the album) and then vocals, bass, solos and mixing the album in Hertz Studio. And we consider that our album doesn’t sound like most albums from Hertz Studio.
CR: How long did it took you guys to write and record this album?
Bart: I started to write songs few months after “Infernal Blasting” but we have no chance to do normal rehearsals with Inferno. So I had to record my riffs on PC and then send / give music files to Inferno. Then Inferno worked on them during his tours with Behemoth. Of course Inferno also writes songs for Azarath! And when we had a chance to meet we played riffs to each other, talked about songs structure etc. So it was a very difficult time to compose songs for this album and as I see now it will be harder nowadays, because Behemoth is getting stronger and stronger.
Recording this album was also difficult. First – we had problems to find free time for recording and studio. Finally we got few days in Hendrix Studio in June 2006 when we recorded all drums and rhythm guitars. And just after that Inferno and Malta (sound engineer) had to fly out for the Behemoth US tour. Next we got 4 days in August in Hertz Studio where we had to record all vocals, bass, solos, and mix the album. So it was fucking crazy time.
CR: Inferno sounds extremely fast on “Diabolic Impious Evil” well like he does in Behemoth as well, is just that here he sounds angrier, if it was and I believe it is, up to you… how fast do you think Azarath can go without loosing control of the songs; do you think you guys can play faster, heavier than you did in this album?
Bart: We don’t care if we can play faster or heavier or not. It is not the point. We proved that we can play fast and that’s all. I can agree that in Azarath Inferno sounds angrier, without loosing control. We call it “controlled chaos”. It all comes from the spirit, is a way that we record albums…
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Pic courtesy of: Wojciech Janus |
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"We don’t care if we can play faster or heavier or not. It is not the point. We proved that we can play fast and that’s all" |
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CR: About the lyrics (I just couldn’t find them any where) are all just the same anti-Christian, blasphemous lyrics that your fans are used too (it sounds like they are but I have to ask) or do you have maybe in one song another topic that you wanted to touch without loosing the brutality that Azarath represents?
Bart: I am not responsible for the lyrics - we have some out of the band writers – but I can say that we have mostly blasphemous and anti-Christian topics, as well we had some songs about death.
CR: In “Baptized In Sperm Of Antichrist” there is a great guitar solo almost at the end of the song (love that fucking part!) are all the solos rehearsed and written down before recording or are they just an inspiration during the recording?
Bart: It’s different. But the solo that you mentioned Thrufel have prepared before the recording session I think. I also like both Thrufel’s solos in this song!
CR: “Diabolic…” is not a long album only 32 minutes at most, do you think your style of music can’t be put in a lets say 1 hour album and have the same impact?
Bart: I don’t think so. Let’s take for example Deicide “Deicide” or “Legion” albums, they are also so short but if you want more you just play it again from the beginning! We don’t want to record 15-20 songs for the album, for us aprox. 10 new songs per album is enough.
CR: Like any other musician you probably can’t say which are your favorite songs on any given album so the question is what are the songs that are most difficult to play live and which ones seem to get the pit moving faster?
Bart: Songs from last album “Diabolic Impious Evil” are great to play live, especially “Devil’s Stigmata”, “Screaming’ legions death metal”, “Beast Inside”. The most difficult songs to play come from the debut album “Demon Seed”.
All those songs make the pit move faster!
CR: I’ve seen a couple of live videos on your myspace page, are you guys considering on recording a official video or perhaps a DVD?
Bart: We don’t think about it yet. But we will put on myspace some new live videos from the last tour in Poland.
CR: Azarath’s art work follows the same path per say, black and white and with just one drawing on it (talking just about the cover of course) are you guys going to continue that same idea on future records or do you think it will come a time when you will include some colors on it?
Bart: Don’t know right now. We consider following this path but it’s difficult to find suitable old drawings every time. Maybe we will use some other idea but it still won’t be lots of color painting.
CR: Poland in recent years (even thou the country’s death metal history begins a long time ago) has produced a massive amount of death metal bands that have really created an impact around the World; why do you think Polish bands have so much brutality within themselves? I mean your death metal doesn’t get close to anything like melodic death or metalcore, you guys are just raw and angry as fuck.
Bart: I don’t know exactly why but it is sure. We have many and many great death metal bands. Maybe it comes from rebellion against all those Catholics, Christianity, omnipresent churches and all those weak worshippers….Also maybe from the number of alcohol drunk…
CR: Satanic metal is not a new thing, but the blend of images and art work from the underground black metal “scene” has become attractive to many bands of different styles, mainly thrash and death metal, why do you think that “image” of black and white album covers, and satanic art work has become so “popular” among bands this days?
Bart: I don’t know and don’t care about trends. For me the cover must symbolize the ideas of the album.
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"We have many and many great death metal bands. Maybe it comes from rebellion against all those Catholics, Christianity, omnipresent churches and all those weak worshippers" |
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CR: A couple of…let’s say dumb ass questions!
CR: If you could obliterate from the face of the earth one style of music what will it be? (you cant say gospel!)
Bart: I’ve always played death metal so that’s it.
CR: Tell me a band that you like that could surprise many as one of your favorites?
Bart: MANOWAR
CR: What has been the most metal thing you have ever seen in your life? (I mean an action done by someone and not music)
Bart: Robo-cop?
CR: What would happen if you die and realize you are in heaven!
Bart: I would think that it must be another nightmare….
CR: All right sorry about those last questions just trying to get some profile info on you jejejeje! Man thank you so much for your time if you would like to add something more please feel free to write as much as you want… and yes “Diabolic Impious Evil” kicked my ass so bad I’m having problems sitting here!
Bart: Thank a lot man for this great interview and for support! Hope our next releases will kick and tear your ass! Stay tuned for more evil!
www.azarath.tcz.pl
www.myspace.com/azarath666
