Come follow me to the deepest Russian underground! Come to Old Chapel! Come to celebrate the black mass and feel the raw and wicked atmosphere of twisted old school death doom metal. The band has released new Ep “Symptoms of Possession” a month ago, and it’s their second work with first full-length “Tales From The Churchyard”. Here’s quiet interesting story of Pavel (vocals) and Sergei (drums), band’s founders.
Salute! Congratulations on your new release! EP “Symptoms of Possession” was presented on March 10, but so far little is known about your band. To begin with, who you are?
Pavel: Salute Alex! The idea of creating a band came to me and Sergei a few years ago, may be around 2007. We spent a lot of time searching for musicians, unfortunately this search still continues. We don’t have a complete line-up. The music we want to play is not very popular in our city Ivanovo.
Sergei: The first rehearsal was able to take place only in April 2010 due to these line-up problems. And we still have months of downtime.
Old Chapel is usually defined as death/doom band, but it is obvious that the elements of death metal dominate in your music. Where did the definition “doom” come from? How much of doom is in your music?
Pavel: Doom metal is the music of our past. Of course death metal is predominant in our music now. Doom component is formed with slow and measured riffs forcing a gloomy mood. However, I think that it is difficult to draw a clear line between death and doom in our music now.
Sergei: I think it will continue to be more death metal. We’re going to write more fast songs next time, we want to move in this direction.
Both your albums sound aggressive and raw. Do you agree? What is the reason for the anger?
Pavel: Rawness is a loose concept. It doesn’t mean poor quality. Personally, I don’t feel any extreme anger in our music. Perhaps it is, but I would like to add more anger. True metal should be angry; it should be intensive and punchy. I think that in this case the word “energy” is more correct than the word “anger”. I would like to feel more energy in our music.
I would not argue, but even your cover arts and song titles can be described with the word anger. I will ask in another way. What emotions do you put into your energetic music?
Pavel: This is a difficult question; it is not easy to answer. We try to write dark music, it is important for us. As for emotions, they are akin to those you feel watching old horror movies.
By the way, the sound is raw on purpose, isn’t it? Or may be this rawness is just the lack of studio processing? Were there any differences between recording these two releases?
Pavel: Raw sound is important for us. I want to repeat that rawness is a very loose concept. We are not very satisfied with the sounding of our releases. Yes, there were many differences between recording “Tales from the Churchyard” and “Symptoms of Possession”. We have tried to avoid many of the mistakes that we made in the recording of the first album. I think we have made some progress in this. We recorded “Symptoms of Possession” at another studio, with another audio engineer. It was very difficult to work with a guy who recorded “Tales from the Churchyard”. His negligent attitude is unacceptable. It was a bad experience.
Well, both releases were recorded in different studios. I did not ask about such things for a long time, but how much money have you spent on recording each album?
Sergei: Yes, the releases were recorded at different studios. In the case of the first release, it was not quite studio. To be precise, it was a rehearsal room. To be honest, we spent a little money on the first album, something around 200 $. All the drums were recorded at once, for about six hours. Drums for some songs were recorded in one take. We were really constrained in time and conditions. We treated more seriously to record “Symptoms of Possession”. We spent more time and of course money, something around 500 $, including payment for mixing and mastering.
Pavel: I like old school death metal, sometimes doomed, sometimes extremely fast. I like Autopsy, old Swedish school, and classic thrash. Modern bands which play in vein of old school death are very important too. I mean Decrepitaph, Bastard Priest, Hooded Menace, etc. I could continue this list. Great respect to Pyre from St. Petersburg, they are awesome and very professional band. Also I often listen to punk metal or crossover; I mean something like Municipal Waste.
Sergei: Well, I have no ideals, I have sources of inspiration. Old death metal, predominantly Swedish, old classic thrash, bands of the new wave of old school death, something like Bombs of Hades or Bastard Priest. Also I must mention classic doom, stoner, old fashioned heavy metal.
“Tales From The Churchyard” was published by Gris Records (Ukraine). What were results of this collaboration except an opportunity to publish your stuff in CD format?
Sergei: This collaboration gave nothing. There was no promotion by label. We used to wait for answers to our questions for months. Moreover, the booklet was changed without our consent, and there were mistakes in the layout. We are working on re-release of “Tales from the Churchyard” now. It will be re-mastered, the layout will be changed. It will be on factory printed CDs and it will be limited to 500 copies.
Wow… Who is engaged in re-release of “Tales From The Churchyard”? How successful was the self-promotion?
Sergei: There was no self-promotion as we are not satisfied with the quality of that first album. Moreover, some bastard downloaded the tracks from our MySpace page and distributed them all over the internet in a low bit rate. The same thing happened with the new ЕР. It was intended for free listening through Bandcamp, bur someone found the way to download the tracks again. As for the re-release, it must be said that the label found us by itself. I think it is too early to give its name. It is located in South America.
Pavel: The first record is full of flaws. It is not easy for me to listen to this stuff now, I’m not satisfied with “Tales from the Churchyard”. We tried not to repeat mistakes of past while working on “Symptoms of Possession”. All songs of “Tales from the Churchyard” are decent. These songs are just poorly recorded, it is their undoing.
“Symptoms of Possession” was released only in digital format as promotion stuff for labels. Were there any suggestions? Do you have any intention to refine the album before publication?
Pavel: There will be no improvements. The stuff has its flaws, but we can not change anything at the moment. There were some suggestions, more than we expected. We have made our choice. “Symptoms of Possession” will be published as soon as possible. But we have to finish with re-release of “Tales from the Churchyard” primarily.
I know that Old Chapel plays live. How often? How serious is your attitude to the band? Do you plan to record songs and play gigs regularly, or maybe you want just to push the project further occasionally?
Pavel: We are serious about the band. I always yearn for concerts. I appreciate the opportunity of being on stage, as it is a great experience for the band. Concerts give the opportunity to show your real power. It is very important to bring the concert experience to the studio. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough of that experience. We had something like 10 or 15 concerts in our city. Once we were the opening act for German thrash metal band Necronomicon. Now Old Chapel does not give concerts because of the difficulties with the line-up.
Sergei: We are always very serious about our band. It is very important for us. As for the concert, the last one was more than a year ago, in February 2012. We really want to give concerts, but not in our city. Here is very nasty attitude of organizers and public. We hope to find musicians for live performances, because there were some concert suggestions from other cities. And of course, we will continue to write and record new songs.
What about the popularity of such music?? Old school death/doom seems archaic monument of the past, but recently it was widely popular. When this decline of popularity began? By the end of the Nineties?
Pavel: I don’t think that death/doom is a monument of the past. If we mean something like Mournful Gust or Revelations of Rain when we speak about death/doom… Well, in that case everything is excellent. Unfortunately the music of these bands is not what I mean by death/doom metal. I think underground metal is good because it has more dedicated and more thoughtful audience than mainstream bands. Only true fans are always aware of the events in the underground. They know for example that the re-release of Gorement was published. They know about Desultory or God Macabre, about all bands that were forgotten by people. I also think that there is a new wave of interest in raw old school doomed death metal. That is good. There are new bands. Dinosaurs of ninetieth are back in force. Hooded Menace suddenly recorded a song of Eternal Darkness. All this is very promising.
Sergei: I think that this music will be in demand as long as true metal fans are alive. I’m happy that in the underground nothing changes for the sake of fashion, everything remains the same as in the old days. Time has stopped here, and that's good.
Sounds optimistic. I have no more questions for today. Thanks for the interesting interview! I wish you success with the publication of your stuff.
Sergei: Thanks for the interview! Greetings to all the true metal fans. Support the underground!
Interview By Aleks
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