Interview с Deathstars : DARKSIDE.ru

It took you a lot of time to record the new album. How was the work on “Termination Bliss” different from the way you recorded “Synthetic Generation”?

First of all, we recorded it in our own studio Black Syndicate, and that was very comfortable for us. We could go to the studio whenever we wanted, not being pressured by the time schedule that someone else has created. That was a kind of freedom for us. Moreover, we have gone through a lot as a band and as individuals, more as individuals actually, because it’s been a very dark period, especially for me and Nightmare Industries (guitarist). So when we started to record the album, we were much more focused. The first album was more of a first step for us, and this time we really dug deeper into this kind of expression we created on “Synthetic Generation”. I think it was a much better experience overall.

The press release says that “the album is the most complex thing we’ve ever done when it comes to exploring our mental issues.” Is it also true about the recording process? Was it easy for you to get the sound you wanted, or was it a struggle?

The sound wasn’t a problem, it’s our mental issues that were the problem. (laughs) When it came to recording the album, we never even talked about which direction to take, we didn’t make any guidelines for us as a band, we never said that we should do this or that kind of song. We don’t look at any other bands as sources for inspiration, everything you hear on this album is taken from our lives. When it came to writing music, it was very natural, even though we threw away 90-95 percent of what we wrote. We’re very selective when it comes to using the material for an album. What was tough for us was that Nightmare was in a deep depression, and it took a long time to get things started. And we live far away from each other, so it also took some time for him to move to Stockholm. That’s what was the struggle, not the recording.

The press release describes the record as “a huge step into the western vacuum”. Can you talk a little bit more about it? Does your negative vision of the future have anything to do with the European Union, or is it about the Western civilization in general?

The thing with “Synthetic Generation” was that it was much about indifference that people tend to fall into. People don’t care about anything, the only thing they care about is not taking care about anything at all. This is what we call “the western vacuum”. What we do as a band with our songs is that we try to project our frustration on ourselves, criticize ourselves in the songs for being part of this culture where nothing really matters. We try to find a quality in darkness, we glamorize death and darkness, the only things that are real for starting up a conflict so we can progress and question ourselves all the time. I guess it’s like a big fight against this kind of indifference in our lives. It’s a very complicated thing, it’s personal as well, as it’s an aspect of our real life.

And the lyrics that you are writing – do they represent your own personal views, or do you take into account the opinion of other band members?

I think the way that we live is pretty much the same. Especially me and Nightmare, we are almost brothers, so to speak. Of course, the lyrics are about me, but it’s very close to how the other guys live. All of us have the same values, they are very much based on friendship, it’s internal business, and every song is about this band. Deathstars is an institution of exclusive darkness which is held by the band. It’s free for every patient to come and visit Deathstars if they want. But it’s very personal, it’s all about us, it’s just cynical irony, or it’s about aggression, as opposed to pity.

Speaking about the band, I cannot but ask you about the line-up situation after the departure of guitarist Beast X Electric. Are you comfortable being just a four-piece, or will you look for a permanent second guitarist?

We’re not comfortable as a four-piece band, and we will be looking for a second guitarist, but as it is now, we just don’t have the time. We will go on tour with another guitarist, but if it’s a session guitarist or a full member, I don’t know. We’re hoping to find someone that can fit in the band.

Let’s now speak about the visual aspect of Deathstars. First of all, who designed the cover artwork for “Termination Bliss”, and what meaning do you want it to convey?

I think it’s like a classical 1960s kind of horror image. We really didn’t want ourselves on the cover, and we wanted the whole picture to be white. We had some different options, it’s mainly me that takes care of that, and this was an image that we got from a guy in the States that was really cool. It had the ghoul horror touch to it, even though it’s modern.

How much is image important for Deathstars? Would you, for instance, play a show in your regular everyday outfit, if circumstances forced you to do so, or would you rather cancel the show?

(laughs) No, of course, we won’t play in our ordinary clothes. The image is not important for us, but it’s important for the band. It’s entertainment from hell, it’s very much like the visual music that we want to extend with that – having a stage show, make-up, artist names and so on. It’s a package.

The videos for the first album were very impressive, and as far as I remember, they were financed by your previous record label, LED Records. What can we expect from the video for “Cyanide”, the new single?

The new video is even more visual, it’s larger than the old ones. It’s Deathstars, it’s dark it’s huge, and it’s a bit more eccentric. We filmed it in Belgrade, Serbia, and it was a really good experience, we are very fond of the aesthetics of the post-Soviet East. It was nice to be there, we feel at home in places like that. What to expect? Expect the unexpected!

Was it your first time in Belgrade, or had you already been there before?

No, I’d never been there before, but hopefully will come back. We got really fond of it, so we’re talking about maybe recording our next album there, if it’s possible. (laughs) But we’ll see to that.

As you said, “Termination Bliss” was recorded in your own studio. Why did you decide to have a studio of your own? What makes this studio different from many other studios that Sweden has, such as Dug-Out or Studio Fredman?

Studio Fredman is very good, but we know exactly how to do an album, and we want to do it ourselves. So instead of spending all that money on paying someone else for the studio time, we bought our own things. It’s pretty simple, and it doesn’t take that much to create your own studio. Also we moved from Gothenburg to Stockholm, so it’s been the best alternative possible for us.

Will this studio work exclusively for Deathstars, or will other bands record there as well?

Right now we’re recording a new Dissection album there, they’ve been working there for quite a while. We’ve done a couple of other bands, but I don’t know how it will work in the future.

Deathstars have played with Dissection in Stockholm in October last year. Are there any chances that the two bands will go together on tour?

I don’t know. We’re good friends, but we haven’t spoken about it.

Speaking about live activity, what Deathstars show has been the most memorable for you?

Maybe the first gig we did when I beat up a guy onstage. He was coming up onstage and just running around, so I nailed him. (everybody laughs) And then the other guys in the audience abused him. I slept with his girlfriend afterwards (cracks), so it was quite a dramatic thing.

What countries offer the greatest response to your music as far as touring and album reviews are concerned?

It’s been very good through all of Europe. Of course, it’s the biggest in Sweden, but it’s been good everywhere. When we toured with the last album, we had just released “Synthetic Generation” internationally, so we were not as big a band as we had been used to being in Sweden. It was more of trying to convince people, but it was a good experience. The audience has been very good.

As far as I know, after the Wave Gotik Treffen festival last year over $15,000 worth of gear were stolen from your tour bus. How did it happen? Did the police manage to catch the thieves?

People think that it happened in Germany, but it happened in Sweden. I think it was Hell’s Angels who stole it. (laughs) I had some contacts with the police who were setting up some kind of trap, but I don’t know how it worked out. This was a kind of drug addict who stole it, and I think he sold it for $1,000 or $1,500. And last weekend our rehearsal room burned to the ground, so we don’t have that much luck. Our best friend is bad luck, we always know that it’ll be there.

When you find yourself in bad situations like this, what keeps you going? Where do you find the strength to carry on?

This is what we love to do, we just wanna explore darkness, and… There are a lot of things that keep us going, I think we’re just passionate about music, it’s very important for us. When things like these happen, they are no big issues for us, we just keep going. We are strong in mind, so to speak.

Do you have any kind of ultimate goal that you want to reach with Deathstars? Or do you just enjoy the process of making music?

Of course, the goal for the band is to make music and keep integrity. We always struggle forward. Maybe in the far future I can imagine Deathstars opening up universities all over the world, maybe in Moscow. A Termination Bliss University in Moscow, where we will only teach how to undress yourself sensually, how to play metal and how to look good in the dark. And mathematics! And there will be some gymnastics as well for the girls! (everybody laughs)

What do you now thing about the stuff that you did with Swordmaster, the band that preceded Deathstars? Are you still proud of those songs?

Absolutely! I really love that kind of music, and the bone of Deathstars is death metal and black metal, that’s where we come from. I’m really proud of those albums, I’m still really into that music. Deathstars is just a better way for the kind of expression we’re interested in now, but it doesn’t mean that we’re not interested in what we used to do. I’m still thinking that it would be nice to play some death or thrash metal again.

So is there a chance that one day you will do a side project playing those kinds of music?

I probably will, yeah. I cannot tell you more than that, I can’t speak for the other guys, but maybe we will do something like that, just for the pleasure of it. But the most important thing now and what we’re concentrating on is Deathstars. We don’t have any other bands at this time, that’s our only focus.

For “Synthetic Generation” you recorded a cover version of “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. Who came up with this idea? Was Billy a big influence on you?

No, he’s not really a big influence. We were talking about doing a cover song for the second edition of “Synthetic Generation”, which was supposed to be released in Sweden, and I came to think of this song. We recorded it, but when the album was supposed to be going to the press, Uli, the drummer, called me and said that a band called Murderdolls had done this song. I still haven’t heard their version, but that’s a band that’s pretty much in the same genre as we are. So we told the label, “Throw that song away, we can’t release it.” But that was with the Swedish label, and when Nuclear Blast released it, I was really surprised by finding it there, I didn’t know it in advance. It’s just a cover song, but we are interested in and influenced by the sound of the 1980s. Though not by Billy Idol particularly.

And where is the second bonus track for “Synthetic Generation”, the song “Our God The Drugs”, coming from?

That’s the first song we wrote. (laughs) It was just a demo version, and I don’t even have it. I think that’s unique for the Russian version. Maybe someone in Russia could send me a copy? It was one of our first tracks, at that time it was more of an experiment and trying to find what Deathstars was all about. I haven’t heard this song for a long long time.

With song titles like “Our God The Drugs” or “Death In Vogue” there will definitely be some people who will misunderstand your songs. Is it your intention to be provocative and to make people think, or is it just a side effect of the way you express yourself?

I don’t think like that at all, there’s no strategy behind it. It’s just how I do it. If this was a band that was about to provoke, maybe I would buy 200 cats and release them all in the middle of a street in Stockholm and set them on fire. This would indeed provoke the people! (laughs) But as I told you, this is an institution we’re doing, the expression is very complex, and we want to create a vibe with the band that sometimes is like that. Of course, it’s about being self-destructive, it’s about aggression, feeling frustration and no love. But there’s also cynical irony, a twist to it all the time. I’m not the one expressing pity for myself or goth songs about how beautiful the dark is. I use darkness to have sex in (laughs), and to learn about myself, to dig into the dark. I see nothing romantic in darkness at all, I see darkness as something very sexy, very useful, very dramatic and very glamorous. It’s all about sophisticated aggression for us.

How much is the response from fans and critics important for you? Does it matter for you if people like the new album or if it flops?

Yeah, I think so. If there are two people who like the album, there won’t be much point in going on. (laughs) It doesn’t matter what people say when it comes to the band, and if there’s only five people in the audience, we’ll still be doing this bullshit. Of course, it’s about us as a band as long as we’re happy, and we feel passionate about it, but it’s a complex process. You start writing songs when you’re alone, you go to the studio and meet the band, then you take it to the stage, and of course, you want to see what the reactions are, because it’s a chain of being creative, and at the end you want some kind of response to what you have done. We don’t do music to sell music, you can’t do this with rock and metal music, they’re too honest. When it comes to Britney Spears and the likes, this is the kind of music you can manufacture for people who are not interested in music, but who like to get it served on a silver plate. But you can’t fool people who are passionate about their music. I never even thought like that, for us it’s very important to do the music that we would like to do. It’s very interesting, and of course, if people like it, it’s cool. And hopefully some girls do! (everybody laughs)

Special thanks to Kathy Schutte (Nuclear Blast) for arranging this interview

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
December 12, 2005
26 янв 2006 the End

Deathstars

Exploring The Darkness