Salute comrade! I would like to ask you help me to introduce the band for our readers, so it would be good if you talk some facts about Kayros which is necessary to know before ears of our readers will be prepared to heed your tunes.
We started to play as Kayros back then in 2005 and the difficulties were basically the same for every band that starts from "point zero". Whatever the style it is. It means doing gigs, access the media to promote you music, have a good backline, etc. It is also true that underground music is not an easy way to go, more, when you are consequent with what you preach. But when we achieve our goals it means a lot to me and us as a band.
How often do you play gigs and how many people do usually visit your shows?
In Chile we play a lot. Maybe 40 or 50 gigs per year. Couple of times we went on tour to Argentina, 2010-2011. Basically we move in an underground circuit of bars and universities and some independent rock festivals. The number of people going to our shows is relative. Sometimes we play in front of 100 people. Other times in front of 700. But we know, also, what it means to play in front of 20 people, haha!! It depends a lot on the date of the shows, the city... depends on many factors. After a lot of years playing together we got many friends that follow us and go to our shows which is very important to us because the energy that flows in every live show is what, at the end of the day, keeps the flame alive.
“Pozo Negro” was our first album. We recorded it, 2008, in AUDIOMACHINE RECORDS, in Santiago, Chile. With almost no cost. Because the owner of the record studio, back then he was just starting the business, and he saw us play in Concepción (our city) and he liked our music a lot and he offered his studio for free to record our material. Recording it was easy although we did not have much experience working in a studio. We did the job basically in one night with very few takes per song. Then we let the mastering and mixing in the hands of Bruno Rudolph. He's really a master!!
“Pozo Negra” has an amazing art-work, where did you find it and what is it’s story?
The art is from a friend of ours. "Gama". He is tattooist and also makes paintings with the "pointillism" technique. One night of booze and grass at his place he showed us his art and that image impressed us a lot. Immediately we knew that this should be the album cover, and that’s the way it was. That night he gave us that paintwork and we use it as the album cover. It was a wonderful moment.
Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll seem to be necessary attributes of rock, heavy and metal music; though there could be some variants – hellfire for example. What are you priorities amidst such everlasting rock values? What is your personal choice of main rock or stoner symbols?
Not at all... I mean... we really hate these rock and roll "clichés" and the classical figure of a rockstar like Eddie Van Halen hahaha!!! We are just normal people like anybody else and we are lucky to play in a band and to have the capacity to make songs... but that doesn’t make us like different that the other guys that go to our shows and listen to our music. Just like anybody else we get drunk and sometimes we drink a lot hahaha !!! We smoke grass... we listen to a lot of rock and roll all the time basically psychedelic and acid rock, particularly the most underground bands of the 70's of which we are constantly in search of...In South America there was and is a lot of great bands and I take this opportunity to recommend to you PESCADO RABIOSO, LOS JAIVAS, COLOR HUMANO, PAPPO'S BLUES, INVISIBLE, etc...We also listen to a lot of 90's rock and roll bands like SKINYARD, SOUNDGARDEN, SLEEP, MUDHONEY just to name a few....and about the classic symbols of stoner I guess they are right...they give some personality to the genre and some sort of visual identity. But we were never so much into it....
Yeah we released it on October the 20th. It was a symbolic date for us because CHOCLO our guitarist died on September-2012 in a tragic accident, being the album finished, and as a tribute we wanted to get the album out exactly that day, Choclo's 30th birthday, and play it live in total length! And it was an amazing gig! Sold out! And we knew that Choclo was on stage with us all the time. This whole situation made us to speed up the editing of the album because we wanted to have, without question, the album out that day. We had some conversations with some local labels but we decided to release it independently that day. We made 500 double cds copies which have been sold very well and we are thinking in another edition this time on vinyl... hope so... The point is that in South America we don’t have machines to press, so it makes it a little bit difficult. Anyway, if somebody in Europe is interested...well...just contact us! The recording costs were not high. We recorded it at the same studio we did POZO NEGRO. AUDIOMACHINE STUDIOS. Today is one of the best studios in Chile with great equipment. The owner, Juan Carlos, is a very good friend that’s why working there was very cheap. Just like POZO NEGRO we recorded it live in 2 days but the mixing time was very long and exhausting. We spent many months in this process until we were 100% sure with the way it sounds.
Man, are you meaning that “Tierras Infertiles” totally sold-out? How did it happen?
No, not totally exhausted, but we have very few copies of the album, we get only 500 copies independently and had pretty high expectations for the people, as we drive enough time working on the album. Also it was the first double album that was published in the underground in Chile, certainly our guitarist's death "corn" also helped generate more expectations on the album. Choclo that was very dear to the people and within the Chilean underground, this was his posthumous work, bone Imagine L.A. woman of the doors or pearl of Janis Joplin, when a member of a group dies days before launching the album certainly also generates more interest in the work, all this helped to sell very fast.
Some of your songs sound really psychedelic, some of them sound ominous and even aggressive, and what kind of feelings did you put into this work?Just imagine 4 guys in a little recording room in the south Chile's with a lot of anger to throw out and with the feeling of being alone facing the world with our music. We put all our energy and fury on the creation of this album. You never know if it maybe the last...Our lyrics are very dark in a way and they talk about State terrorism, fucking social reality, the extermination of minorities and in a personal way how difficult it is to live in a world that is falling into ruins in front of your eyes... The rhythm changes were something that we always enjoy to do... that changing climax-some very aggressive parts to other more ethereal - is something that we work a lot and the core of it is undoubtedly improvisation. It’s our trademark.
The album consists of two CDs, how did it happened that you have 15 tracks for one release?
Since we released “POZO NEGRO” in 2008 we never stop writing songs so when we entered the studio to record “TIERRAS INFÉRTILES” we had a lot of songs that we really liked and we wanted to record them all. And unconsciously we realized, during the composition time, that it was some sort of conceptual connection within the lyrics just perfect for a double album which we decided to record independently with our own resources because the labels said to us that that would be a commercial suicide. But we didn't care. Our spirit is always tightly bound to the underground and independent spirit so we said "fuck you all we don't need you to do our thing". So that was pretty much it. We made it our way. We record an album completely independently and we are very proud of it.
I would like to ask you comment some of your favorite tracks from the album – their lyrical and musical conception if you wish.
My favorite songs from the album are “OBITUARIO”, “TIERRAS INFÉRTILES” and “LENTO PASAR”. I think they represent quite well the darkness of our music and also those rhythm changes and climax within the songs. We got some really heavy riffs within a lot of psychedelic. I like “DAMA VIOLENTA” a lot too. Choclo wrote the lyrics for this song. It is very personal. It is about a relationship he had with this girl... very tormented and violent... I love that song... musically begins very dynamic and it is very dark at the end.
You live in Concepcion, true to say I did interviews with few bands from Chile but none of them was from your city, can you tell us about it?
Concepción is located in Chile's central-south... and it is true... most of the time the media is interested in what, musically, is generated in Santiago. But Concepción is an important rock and roll epicenter in Chile. Is a university city and that constantly generates an explosion of new bands and a lot of people willing to listen to rock and roll. And I think that Concepción presents a phenomenon not found elsewhere which a very self-sustaining circuit is where you can play constantly for many people in the same city. And that reinforces the myth that Concepción is the capital of Chilean rock and roll.
So, do you feel yourself popular in Chile? And what kind of responses did you already get from abroad?
No, do not think we're popular in terms of being a group of TV programs and we’re not played on the radio mass, as we move rather in the underground and that is the area where we feel more comfortable. If after years of playing much we have many people who follow us at shows and listen to our music and show us a lot of love, especially in the south of Chile and also this is the audience that we want to. That’s people will listen music which they really like - rock and roll beyond the fashions of the moment.
The first thing is to try to play as much as we live and present the album "wastelands" in as many cities in Chile and abroad. We have plans to visit on tour Peru and Argentina this year, try hard to sound again as solid as we did with Corn, and finally two days before died Choclo, we recorded six new songs. That will work and will publish this year or next with new material that we're composing, the idea is that despite the blow we received with the Choclo death we have to keep moving, for us music is everything.
Thank you for this interview comrade! I wish you all the best – good luck!
Just please add few more words for our readers mate.
Aleks thank you, greetings to all who filled this page, and give yourself some time and listen to some heavy sudamericano the move now. I recommend bands like Yajaira, Knei, Orate, Demonauta, Tlon, Reino Ermitaño and many more, there is much swampy rock in these parts of the world, cheers.
Interview By Aleks
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