Hi, guys! Who’s in touch today?
Hi, Aleksey! Konstantin, our leader, is going to answer your questions, and if required, Igor will help.
I’m not gonna surprise anyone (this is not the point), yet would expect you not to get bored too much while talking about your lineup.
To my mind, lineup formation matter is one of the toughest problems we had to face throughout our existence. The point is that here, in province (yes, we are from the truest province ever), it appears very difficult to find the person who would at least share our musical tastes, not speaking of playing something of the kind. The band idea was initiated by Maksim, our singer. He suggested me playing something in vein of all these canonic bands everybody knows of, and I agreed. By that time I had been enough experienced as guitar player in several local bands. Nobody thought this would turn into something consistent. As regards bass player, we were keeping Michael in mind, the guy we had dealt with a couple of times. He didn’t mind playing something bluesy and joined us through the first rehearsals. The band needed a drummer and the 2nd guitar player that far, as initial pieces were written with two guitars in mind. Yet we didn’t want to postpone playing because of drummer search and decided rehearsing with backing track. As for the second guitar player, things got even simpler. Igor, the guy from our company, as it turned out, played guitar from time to time. I gave him our workouts, and he liked them and started visiting rehearsals on regular basis. It is this lineup that we were playing in for a long period of time. From time to time we checked out local drummers, but didn’t hear what was expected from them. One day Dmitry came along, and soon he became our drummer. He liked what we were doing, but his participation in our band was constantly postponed due to various reasons. However, his coming got The Curse of Wendigo to its final form, and we started making music with full value.
What are main ideas (both musical and conceptual) you initially desired to express through The Curse of Wendigo? And how successfully were they realized in your first album?
Let’s start with music. Initially, when the band just started, we chose stoner doom with ethnic references to North American Indians. Throughout the process, hard rock, grunge and psychedelic elements appeared in our music, and we tried to combine all these into the whole in the most interesting way. As for the concept, our purpose was to fill all pieces and lyrics with associative picture of North America, its woods and atmosphere of Indian vision and world perception. Huge amount of our lyrics is referred to the theory of paleocontact and ancient cultures. Such pieces as Gloomy Friend and The Prodigal Son have more to do with personal stuff. Anyway, it’s up to listeners to decide how much we have succeeded therewith. Now we would do it much better, but, basically, we are satisfied with the result.
Probably yes – we hurried up a bit, but we based upon the tempo the stuff was being created with. Thus, we had tracks in the same vein which, in fact, were included into the album. But some pieces turned to be more into rock, both in terms of sound and structure. It is this direction we’d like to develop further, and, as a result, we needed to turn the initial stuff into the album format. Well, and declare about ourselves to the listeners. The whole stuff was recorded in one day. It was rather funny, considering the fact I was the only one experienced with studio work. I wrote most solos overnight, and some of them are still hard for me to play:)))) Many things were finished in course of mixing and mastering, some were recorded repeatedly.
Like it or not, the stuff shall be competitive to draw attention to the band. In case you don’t like such term, I would call it “attractive” – the point remains the same. So, what do you think The Curse of Wendigo is attractive with?
Surely, we fully agree with you. With such abundance of bands nowadays, even in such noncommercial genre as doom or stoner, you need to make the listeners interested with something unusual. Personally, I think doing the same for the hundredth time has no sense. Yes, genre limits are rather strict, but these can be spread. I would like to talk about our creative activity from the point of its quality. We are eager to have everything, from song structure and up to cover art, worked through as much as possible. Well, as much as our professional and material opportunities allow doing that. As for our being attractive to listeners, it’s – once again – not up to us.
There must be some response to the album, mustn’t it? By the way, how do you distribute it?
Basically, response is positive. No admiration burst of course, yet just as expected. We are brand new formation for listeners, and the fact we are just noticed is a good result. As we are not going to stop with what is already achieved, time will tell. The album is being spread via internet, and I think it’s pretty enough to start. The next release is gonna be physical. As for now, a few singles are hitting network soon.
Now a bit about “references to mythology of North American Indians”. Why not South American ones your colleagues from Ethereal Riffian love so much? Or our Aleutian shamans?
Well, once I got deeply impressed with Stephen King’s “Pet Cemetery” where references to Wendigo, Indian mythic spirit, can be traced. This is how mere interest developed into the whole style. Moreover, back then we were often listening to shamanic singing recorded in 60s of the last century. This also left certain mark upon our music. Actually, there’s no ideological basis here, the choice was unconscious.
You also mentioned you were inspired with “psychedelic movies”. So, what are the first titles in the list?
Under “psychedelic movies” we, first and foremost, mean films of 60s which appeared as response to liberalization in all spheres of public life. These can be basically characterized with occultism, free sexual relations, taking hallucinogenic substances, rock’n’roll etc. For example, I would point out “Easy Rider”, very kind movie about friendship and freedom, and we picked something from “Alice in Acidland” poster when creating our logo. Apart from that, we all love Jarmusch’s “Deadman”, especially for it soundtrack written by Neil Young. More radical stuff like “The Holy Mountain” or “El Topo” by Alejandro Jodorowsky is not alien to us either.
I don’t know if you like the following comparison, but when listening to your “The Prodigal Son”, I start keeping Gods Tower’s “Twilight Sun” in mind. So, you can express your love for Black Sabbath as it regards your music preferences.
The matter is that nobody in the band has ever listened to Gods Tower:) As for Black Sabbath, especially early works, yeah – surely, we love’em, as well as, say, Pentagram. Personally, I got interested with stoner/doom stuff thanks to them. Anyway, I’m not gonna list bands we got inspired with once – it would take long and get boring. And I don’t think their names would surprise anyone. I would only like to mention that our musical preferences are not limited with distorted styles, here you’ll find place for noise rock, blues and even electronics and pop stuff.
It seems early to make any conclusions, but anyway – how do you see your further development from the point The Curse of Wendigo is at now?
Now we are working hard about the new stuff trying to make it as much high-quality and worked through as possible. New pieces are more rocking, sometimes with blues sound. This time we record our songs gradually, with more responsible approach one might say:) In near future we plan shooting video for one of new pieces and start active gig activity.
Well, let’s try.
“Eclectic Tail” tells about how disrespectful and consuming our humanity is towards the world around. After all, we will get what we deserve, i.e., certain annihilation, and remains of our eclectic search will be just a trace on the Moon. Probably, it’s the toughest track to perform, though it wasn’t changed a lot when being written.
“Gloomy Friend” is about dark half of one’s personality which is always nearby.
“Endless Hunger” – actually myth about Wendigo, spirit of northern woods.
“The Prodigal Son” – our life changes continuously, and so do we. It’s impossible to get back. I think this track turned to be the most “laboured”. Unfortunately, some ideas once aimed for this track remained unrealized, this is why it is not appreciated a lot by band members.
“Fallen Treasures” is about knowledge given to us by the “gods” and changed for doubtful material values. It’s our favourite for sure.
Well, something like that. You see, it’s very hard to describe lyrics objectively, as everyone I think should see their own meaning through associations and imagination.
Then let’s wish our readers good luck when switching their imagination on to The Curse of Wendigo, and you – success with your development! Anything else for the readers?
Thanks for interesting questions! Thanks to all those already listening to us, we hope to make more and more people interested with our stuff. Looking forward to see you at our gigs!
Interview By Aleks
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