- Posted By: Dark Emperor
- Comments: 0
Thanks for taking time to answer our questions, and let’s get started. Noctiferia has taken a very long road in defining their musical style. Can you please tell us why this process took so long and the band passed by all kinds of different styles over the years?
UROS: There are many reasons for that. One is that we come from the country, and part of the Europe that has really low economical standards and didn't have well developed music industry. So being in a metal band didn't make it any easier. And it's still not easy today! We were the first band from Slovenia that was really trying to create a name for ourselves not just in our country but mainly abroad. And if you come from a country for which more than 90% of the world doesn't know it exists, is that much harder and time consuming. Second reason is that we love music and are very open-minded about it. So we like to progress, try out new things, try different approaches in creating. It's also important for us not to create a similar record twice … there is too much possibilities in music for us to repeat ourselves, at least for now. But if I look back at all of our records, I hear and feel that same dark, mysterious and majestic feeling with strong atmosphere on all of them. The music may be different, but feeling is the same.
Now playing Industrial Metal, do you think the band will stick with this sound for a few albums?
GIANNI- Well first of all I have to correct you, we are not playing industrial metal..it is more a mixture of many kinds of metal including some industrial sounds. We prefer the term extreme metal, though Noctiferia might be hard to put in just one box. We are known by experimenting in music.. our every album is a different experiment of mixing something new.. on Death Culture I would say we sound more organic than on previous album, we use many ethno instruments and sounds, we are one of those bands who keep evolving their sound and music, but we will always remain in the category of extreme metal. Our music is our life so we will continue with this spirit..we cant just record albums like an album manufacture, we need to be satisfied with the final result, even if this takes longer sometimes. We already have few songs we are working n for the next album, and I think if you like Death Culture you should like our future stuff as well, but we are getting ahead of ourselves here…
The band’s latest (and very impressive) album “Death Culture” has recently been released in Europe and soon to be released in the USA. Can you tell us more about the concept and ideas behind this release? What is the meaning of the shirtless dude with blood on the cover?
UROS: The concept behind the album is a way of a life of a modern man. I believe that we people are spiritual beings and we should behave as such. Instead we are busy with greed and power-tripping. I believe that the capitalism is the cancer of our time! And since this album is conceptual, the cover itself is a part of this concept. If you look at the cover it shows a man pointing his hands towards the sun, towards the light, hope, victory ... but his hands are covered in blood. Blood is representing all the sins, narrow-mindedness and ignorance of modern man. We are trying to be something more than we are, to achieve some kind of meaning in life, but we don't realise that the path we walk on is covered in blood and we will not find the glory at the end of it, we’ll find what we deserve! So the cover combines all the issues that we talk about in our lyrics in very simple and direct way. Its culture of death and everyone is a part of it!!
The album was mastered by Peter Tagtgren and Mastered by Jonas Kjellgren, how do you think this worked out for you guys? How was it to work with these two legendary musicians?
GIANNI- working with these two guys is a big achievement for any band I would say, and for us considering that we are coming from very small country which wasn’t really known for metal or interesting for music industry, for us it was dream come true. We are all big fans of Peter and his work since forever and when we heard he will work on our album- we were gob smacked! We met Peter at Metalcamp fest in Slovenia in 04. He saw our show and he liked it and we re in touch from then on. We worked with Peter on our previous album for the first time. He was also one of the first people from the industry who believed in Noctiferia, he said we are very exotic band, big compliment. We also toured together in UK, so by the time he worked on Death Culture he really knew us as persons and understood exactly what our music needed. He also recommended Jonas to do the mastering and the combination and final result is killer!
Noctiferia is not on Listenable Records, how did this deal happen? Are you guys pleased with the way the label is handling “Death Culture”?
UROS: We’ve first met guys from Listenable in 2003 when touring with Immolation, Malevolent Creation, Marduk and Aborted. So I guess from then on they were watching us we were watching them and when the time came to find a label, Listenable was the first that we’ve offered Death Culture to. They were also the first ones to say yes to us, so it was done-deal pretty fast. I think we are band suitable for Listenable catalogue, we like their open-minded approach towards music and all the support and promotion we are getting. All the best about Listenable!
We only see a few live dates for the band, are there any plans for a full-scale tour in order to support “Death Culture”? Maybe some North American shows?
GIANNI- We just came from European tour with Mayhem which was great for start of Death Culture era, haha. We had great time, really enjoyed to play the songs live, the audience was great and we can’t wait to embark on a longer tour. I believe our management is working on European tour dates first, but we all hope to do an US tour as soon as possible and hit the States for the first time! We spend most of our free time in our rehearsal room, we always practice, make new riffs or just jam, but there is nothing like performing in front of an audience. We all love touring… is there anything better than waking up in new city every day and performing your music to different crowd of metal heads, and then do it all over again the next day?!
Hailing from Slovenia, there are not many bands that have a big name from that part of the world. Can you tell us more about how the scene is there?
UROS: The scene is growing a lot comparing it to few years back. It is a big difference. We got different scenes, from old school and traditional to newer and extreme and generally metal is not a taboo anymore as it was. With Metalcamp things changed in more positive way, more and more bands are present. We try to encourage young musicians that it is worth to practice, play and have your vision. It was never very easy for bands from undeveloped places but it’s important that you believe in what you do and keep on doing it.
“Death Culture” features very rich and dynamic songs with a massive production, how do they work when played live? Do they sound similarly?
GIANNI- like I said we spend a lot of time in our rehearsal room and we are most happy when we play our music. You know what they say, practice makes perfect, haha. We love to unleash our energy on stage and people say we are very energetic on stage. We use matrix for live performances so our sound live is as massive as on the album. Uros does live back vocals and I play special percussion drum-set on some songs (Samsara, Catharsis), so it pretty diverse.
If you could make a super band with any musicians dead or alive, whom would you pick? and what kind of music would you play?
UROS: This is by far the best question ever! I could write you a book instead of an answer! There is no way I can come up with just one dream band, unless this band has like 30 members and they are playing at least 10 different metal styles…
Igor Cavalera – most groovy drummer would be on percussion
David Vincent – No.1 vocal in death metal would be in charge of mighty growls
Jeff Loomis – 7 string master of a new millennium on guitar
Chuck Shuldiner – no words needed, on guitar and killer screams
Gene Hoglan – god of thunder behind drums
Steve DiGiorgio – extreme fretless bass guru on extreme fretless bass
Eric Wagner - just having him on stage standing and smoking joint would be cool!
… all I know, it would be metal and a killer one too!
Anything else you want to add for your fans and our readers?
UROS: Check out our new album Death Culture! It is very complex record with a lot of layers and different textures where every open minded metal fan will find something for him-self. It’s a great combination of different extreme metal styles. It’s one of the freshest metal albums out there with a lot of great ideas and very well technically executed... And the awesome mix and mastering, meaning great overall sound that fits this record perfectly. You will not regret it! Thanx for checking Noctiferia and all the best to American metalheadz!
Thanks for the time and good luck promoting the album.
More info: http://www.myspace.com/noctiferia
