Interview с The Mist : DARKSIDE.ru

Congratulations on the new album of The Mist, which is really killer. To me it's one of the best thrash metal albums of the year. You must be proud of your new album, aren't you?
Of course. It was hard work and you have to think twice when you want to make a conceptual album. A lot of conceptual albums are so boring, so you have to make it happen with the heart and the thrash metal spirit. And I'm proud. I'm very happy with all the feedback and congratulations that I get. I'm very proud. I think with the new album we honor The Mist's name and the whole discography. I think we are doing it the right way.

- In one interview, you said that fans could expect the new album in 2024 already, but it has come out only now, in late 2025. So what happened? And is it true that the album was more or less done some two years ago?
Yeah, we recorded it in 2023, I think. We had to wait because we had an offer from a big label, but it didn't happen. And so we had to find a good deal. Otherwise that would be another album that would be only released in Brazil or something like that. And it's not good for us. So we had an offer from my friend Fernando Ribeiro to join Alma Mater Records and we did it. We are very happy with the Alma Mater Records support and here we are.

- And how was it to have an album under your belt, but didn't release it?
The whole album that we recorded in 2023 and it remained untouched. But we did a new mastering and mixing with Tue Madsen. So basically, it's the same thing. Tue Madsen just put the magic in our album.

- And who was your sound engineer and where did you record the album?
Well, it started here in Belo Horizonte, my native city and the city of Sepultura. But it was a rough version of the album. So we just kept this version for future release. But we needed to make it happen with a good engineer like Tue Madsen.He recorded so many great bands. So it's a fucking big deal here. Tue put things in the right place. And we have some kind of goal to play thrash metal in the style of The Mist. We wanted to make it with a modern sound, but not in a bad way. Thrash metal is like a prostitute. I think thrash metal has always flirted with other styles like traditional metal and sometimes power metal and speedy metal. So I think we can make something new, but preserve the traditions of the genre and stand in our way.

- Speaking about modern influences in your music, I must admit that there are some melodic death metal vibes in some of your new songs. Would you agree with that?
Well, sometimes we are like prostitutes. Sometimes we add some kind of black metal in the music. But Edu Megale, our guitar player, has a lot of influences from that melodic death metal. And so it's normal that we carry some kind of death metal shit on our songs.

- As far as I understand, you and Edu Megali are the main songwriters. So how do you work together? Do you play guitar as well?
Usually I write my lyrics and I have some kind of ideas about them. For example, "The Dark Side of the Soul" was born in anatomy class. I have a degree in radiology and I was having a lesson in anatomy class there and a new body came to the room. And I was there and watched how the student cut the body. I watched him doing that and I saw the liver, the h

eart, the lungs. And I had some ideas about the new album. So "The Dark Side of the Soul" was born with a lot of bodies around it. I wrote a lot of lyrics, called Edu and said, "Oh man, I have ideas for a new album and I think it's time to start". He makes the music base that we work on and put it all together: solos, backing vocals and some kind of quotes or phrases. So I think we are all building a conceptual album piece by piece. It's like making a kind of an autopsy, like you take the lungs and make something that could be turned into a poem or something like that. What do you feel when you cannot breathe? And so if you listen to “(Lungs) - Death Is Alive Inside Me”, I think the music is so claustrophobic. The vocals, the music is so fast, that it leaves you no air to breathe. I'm singing very, very fast. So we were trying to build parts of the body and make something that works together with each organ. Like "(Liver) - The killing of my imaginary friends". When you act with the liver, you don’t think before you act. You act with anger, with hatred. You want to kill all your fake friends. All fake friends that you are always living around or talking to.

- I understand that you dedicate each song to different organs of the body. And there is a song called "(Cuore) – The Dark Side of the Soul". Why did you decide to use Spanish or Portuguese word cuore instead of the English word heart?
Oh no, it's Italian. Cuore. It sounds like a nice Italian song. It's so musical. It's a nice name. It's a different way to say heart. It's very nice.

- So it's just because it sounds better than heart?
Yes.

- Okay. And you know, your lyrics have always been very meaningful. It's not just a typical thrash metal, black metal, satanic stuff. It's like poetry. Sometimes it's philosophical. I believe that it requires fluent English to write them. So did you learn English at school or at university?
I learned English at school and sometimes I just watch movies, listen to music. I remember when I was young, I translated all the Beatles songs. But I think my English is not so good. I can sing in English, but I didn't learn it in university. I have degrees in philosophy, in fine arts, and in radiology. So I used to study a lot. I read a lot of papers, scientific magazines or something like that. I think it helped me.

- It's pretty impressive that you have so many degrees. Do you teach at some university?
No, no, no. I'm not a teacher. I'm just a student. I like to study. I think when you have a degree in philosophy, it's a kind of an illness. Because you always want to read, always try to know more about yourself, about the world, about the environment, about life. So I'm very curious about what I'm doing here in this fucking world. I think there's a lot of these thoughts on the new album. What are you doing with your life? You know, everyone is going to die. Okay. But what are you doing with your time? What are you doing with your life now? That's a lot of people fucking you. And you have only this life. You will not return here to live another life. This is your fucking life and you have to live it now.

- Okay, got it. And, you know, I must admit that you are in a very good vocal shape. It's really impressive how you make this scream in the beginning of

"Anatomy of the Soul". Was it easy to record this line from the first take?
Man, I've always said that I'm an old fart. So I always scream in thrash metal, and I know how to do this. For me, it's so natural. I never did vocal lessons. I don't know how to sing properly. There's a lot of singers that are always teaching how to growl, how to scream. And I say, “Man, I think I'm not able to do this”. I think you have to learn how to use your voice, your growl or something like that. There's a lot of vocal styles that I don't know what they are. I just scream. My technique is hatred. I scream with hate, with anger. You put all your bad vibes, bad feelings out with the scream. Sometimes I make mistakes during recording sessions and I have to make it all again. But I'm very comfortable with this type of singing being 62 years old. I think I'm in good shape, like you said. And I'm doing the same vibe and the same tone when I'm on stage. I think it's important because if you sing sentence by sentence, you cannot stop in the middle of the performance. So I'm always trying to reproduce everything that I recorded in the studio. I also do the back vocals with a lot of different voices or something like that.

- Could you please explain to me the idea with the cover artwork of the album? So what's the idea with this hanging toy and children watching through some hole in the wall?
Man, if you look at the cover, you see two beautiful girls with nice eyes, nice skin. And when you look at the hanging doll, you say, "Man, it's a jump rope. They hung their doll". And then you look at the eyes of the girls and see that little evil look. And so these beautiful girls are so evil. When I was searching for the cover of the album, I checked a lot of artists. I didn't want to use Photoshop or something like that. I took a book of Michael Whelan’s works and saw all the pictures. So I remember when I turned the page and saw this picture with the doll, I was sure that this would be the cover. I decided to get in touch with Michael and I knew Audrey Price, his wife. I sent her a message that I wanted to use one of Michael's works for the cover. And Fernando Ribeiro helped me a lot to have this picture, too.

- Okay, and what are your plans with the new album? Do you want to tour in support of this album? Are you ready to go to Europe with concerts?
I think I'm ready for this. We have to find an agent to make it happen, but we are ready to, it's our goal to spread "The Dark Side of the Soul" around the world. This year we have a co-headliner tour with the Troops of Doom with Jairo Guedz, our former guitarist. It was beautiful, it was awesome. We love the Troops of Doom.

- I really hope you'll get a chance to bring your new album to Europe. I also have some questions related to the history of the band. And the first question is about your name, it sounds Russian or Greek, so do you have some ancestors in Russia?
No, no, no. I think it's very peculiar when you see a Brazilian called Vladimir. In the 60s and 70s, Brazil had a dictatorship and there was a lot of resistance here against the system of the dictatorship. It was very, very brutal. And so my father was a member of one of this group who shared the ideas that were very next to the communism ideas. And these people named their children after

the communist leaders. So my name is Vladimir because my father wanted to name me after Vladimir Lenin. I have a brother called Alexei and one sister called Lyudmila.

- Sounds absolutely like a typical Russian family. And speaking about the story of The Mist, I know that you're also friends with Sepultura and you wrote a song for them, "To The Wall". So how did that happen that they used your lyrics and did they pay you for that?
Max Cavalera asked me to help them because they had a song without lyrics. So he invited me to write a lyric for the song and I remember I was working in Cogumelo Records. During the lunchtime I went to the bathroom, sat on a toilet and wrote the lyrics there. I had an idea about a guy who stood against the wall. He was sentenced to death or something like that, and the lyrics are his last words or last thoughts. At that time I was in Chakal and I wanted to write different lyrics for Sepultura and I think I did a good job.

- Yeah, definitely. Didn't they ask you to write more lyrics for other albums?
No. I wrote a lot of lyrics for other bands, but the only lyrics for Sepultura that I did was "To The Wall". I'm still friends with the guys, Paulo, Andres. Max and Igor I haven't seen since quite a while. But I heard the new version of "To The Wall". It was great.

- You mentioned this Cogumelo Records. Before it became one of the influential record labels in Brazil it was just a record store. So could you tell me a bit about this place and the guys who own this place? Why did they decide to sell thrash or heavy metal music in Brazil at that time?
Well, long story. I was always in Cogumelo. I was a customer and I always bought a lot of vinyl there. And Patti and Joao Eduardo are the owners until today. They invited me to work with them. And so, well, it was in the beginning of thrash metal, and I remember how I played to Patti a cassette with Metallica's "Ride the Lightning". I told her, "This is the new rock and roll. This is the new heavy metal. I think it will change the whole rock and roll thing here in Brazil". And she invited me to work there. I started to go to "Woodstock" in Sao Paulo, a big store. I bought a lot of nice stuff, like patches, t-shirts and vinyls. We started to change the policy of Cogumelo Records, and so there was a lot of metal. It attracted a lot of headbangers. People were everywhere – in the store and outside. I think Cogumelo turned into a big house for all the headbangers in Belo Horizonte. Later I had an idea to record a band, a local band. The best local bands at that time were Overdose and Sepultura. And so we recorded an album with both bands. The idea came to me from a bootleg which contained the first records of Destruction and Sodom. Side one was Destruction, side two – Sodom. So we copied the idea and recorded a split album with Sepultura and Overdose. And so Cogumelo started to sign other bands, like Chakal and Holocausto and built a big cast of Brazilian bands.

- Don't you miss that time when the record store was such a huge and important place, like a connection point for like-minded persons? It wasn't just a store or a shop. It was a point to meet your friends, to hang out, to chat with people.
Of course. That was good because we all were young. So I don't think it's working today, because the musical industry changed a lot. Of course there's a lot of freaks that love vinyls and CDs. But that time was special: a lot of friends, a lot of crazy, crazy stuff. And a lot of good music. I was 20 or 22 years old and witnessed the releases of Metallica's "Master of Puppets", Slayer's "South of Heaven", Anthrax' "Among the Living". Man, it was the golden age.

- Yes! I remember the time when you had to go somewhere to find your favorite albums, to discover them, because there were no online previews, lyric videos. You had to pick up albums because you liked the cover or you heard from someone, "Oh man, this is a cool band, check them out!" That's what I miss about that time, because now you can download all albums in one click.
Well, it's sad. It's sad, because nobody cares about the lyrics anymore. Nobody. But back then you took a vinyl and saw all the pictures, all the lyrics, like a kind of a book. When you listen to the music and read the lyrics, you are almost making a part of the song. I think all these platforms like Spotify or AI-generated fake music, they are robbers. What is the future of metal? I think you know what I'm talking about. Sometimes I talk with my friends about vinyls, about the old times, or that big Slayer show or something like that. And you close your eyes and think, "Oh my god, I was so happy, and I didn't know, I didn't know that I was so happy at the time". And today there's a lot of bands, but you listen to them and think, "Are they really new?" In the early ears you had that kind of surprise that you were discovering something fucking new. We had some kind of revolution that changed everything. And now people come to a show with the cells and phone, recording the show in front of your face. I guess I sound like an old man, like my mother when she complained, "It's not music, it's fucking noise". But man, I do miss the old time a lot.

- At some point in your career, Music for Nation wanted to sign The Mist. But as far as I understood, due to some advice from a guy from Germany, you declined this offer. So could you comment on this situation? Who was that guy?
Man, I really don't know. I think Jairo said it before, but I wasn't involved in the business side of the band. I remember that I was studying, I was in my philosophy course at the time. And there was a contract with Music For Nation for two albums. As far as I remember the owner of the Cogumelo declined the contract. I don't know if that was the drummer who said, "Oh, we lost the deal because Cogumelo declined it". And so, we had to record another album for Cogumelo. I was not in the business stuff. I was just singing фе rehearsals.

- And to round up the interview, could you remember the biggest or the craziest show that you did with The Mist?
I remember some epic shows during "The Hangman Tree" tour. I remember a lot of fans crying during the show and these fans liked our album a lot. I remember a big show here in Belo Horizonte. I think it was a sold-out show and we had a backdrop with an entity with open arms. And a girl, a friend of mine, said, "Man, the vibe of this show is so strange because this creature seems to control you". Later I watched the recording of the show and the backdrops were floating and it looked like the creature was moving. It was very nice. Now we need to have a good moment abroad.

- I hope so. Thank you very much for answering my questions and if you want to add something at the end of the interview, feel free to make it.
Thank you very much for having me. It's so nice to know that we have a lot of fans that listen to The Mist. So take a time and listen to our album and try to get the vibe of the dark side of the soul. Thank you very much, love y'all and peace.

By Freewind Rider
9 янв 2026 the End

The Mist

From the Dark Side of the Soul