Interview with vISION (Tragic Black, Corvid)
http://www.tragicblack.com/
http://www.myspace.com/tragicblack/
http://www.myspace.com/corvidband/
Nattsol: Tragic Black began to exist 8 years ago. Tell me the history of its birth.
vISION: I was a Senior in high school in 1999, was hanging out with some friends and was thinking “what is an obvious goth word?” and the word Tragic came to mind. Then I was thinking about bands like Christian Death and Black Sabbath that are strong names but also have polarity in their names (Christian, light and Death dark, Black dark and Sabbath light) you get the idea, but I didn’t want any “light,” only the dark. So naturally came up with Tragic Black. It was a nice idea that remained just that, an idea until Vyle and I had been hanging out a lot and I shared the idea with him & we formed the band. We mostly drank a lot and conceptualized for quite some time until a friend introduced us to Ashe, who we called “Nothing” based on some Poppy Z Brite’s “Lost Souls” inspiration. The thing was, we never played live before and since didn’t hear back from the band who offered us our first gig (Redemption) until a week before, and we weren’t totally ready. So basically we had to hurry and practiced everyday until Halloween/gig day. Tragic Black was to be a visual, aggressive, in your face band so we all put a lot into our look for the first show. Our first songs were; “Hannah”, “Sickly Fiendish”, “Nevere”, “O’ come all ye Faithless” and the “Boys” Bauhaus cover. It was a short but sweet show, and our friends were pleasantly shocked by our talent. That night we were approached by Toni, who later joined the band after a few months of decision making.
Nattsol: As I understood, your reference is Rozz Williams (I can remember three your covers of his songs), and also you were influenced by Bauhaus (as you said, you made cover of their ‘Boys’). So who else you’re influenced by?
vISION: “MALIGN” was a big inspiration for Vyle and I. He borrowed my “Shatter & Impale” cd and learned all of the keyboards on the album. I loved Xavier Haight’s high pitched vocals and dark socio-political lyrics. Besides Malign, SPECIMEN, SEX GANG CHILDREN were also big inspirations on the goth side at least. I was also really into bands like AFI, Leather Strip and Rudimentary Peni. As time went on and I became friends with Stich, he introduced me to a lot of amazing punk bands who became a big inspiration, bands like; Aus Rotten & The Unseen.
Nattsol: Tell me more details about your self-released CDs – Articulate Lacerations, Vatican Demonica, The Sixx Premonitions and the live album Burnt Black (did I miss something?).
vISION: Before we had the pleasure to release albums under a record label, we were determined to get our music out to people into dark and underground music, so we spent a lot of time and money recording, designing and producing our own CD’s. For me, I knew that one day we would have a record label and wanted to create self-released CD’s, things that would become rare and out of print for those who gave us the support we needed. I looked at my Malign CD and how much it meant to me, knowing that the record label it was released on had been out of print for almost ten years, I felt lucky to have it and be a part of the time it was available. So that’s something we wanted to do for our fans. It was strange too, I wanted to make a ultra-rare cd and call it Vatican Demonica, so one day we made a mp3.com exclusive CD and titled it “Vatican Demonica”, thing is, no member of Tragic Black ever got one! So it became so rare that not even we had a copy, due to the untimely closing down of mp3.com.
Nattsol: Now about your first ‘official’ CD ‘The Decadent Requiem’. In comparison with your self-released CDs this work seems full and finished. Think it was really great experience. So can you say that it was the end of some creating period? What actually did it change in the band’s life?
vISION: The Decadent Requiem contains the attitude of what made us want to form the band in the first place. It’s all about awakening. Awakening to the lies we were fed in public school. Awakening to a spiritual reality and feeling no need to believe in any religious dogma. Awakening to all sorts of forces in the world and discovering the cause and effect reality of the world around us. It is also related to the element of Fire, along with the first three chakras on the human chakra system (Red, Orange & Yellow). Starting the fire on the path of Awakening which is The Decadent Requiem.
Nattsol: All your releases, may be, except Articulate Lacerations and Vatican Demonica, are very different. And your last album ‘The Cold Caress’ proved it one more time. So what’s actually that? Is it progress in music, or it foremost depends on your perception of the world?
vISION: We will keep making CD’s related to different elements of the world and human chakras. The Decadent Requiem was the Fire element and red, orange and yellow chakra CD, this is why the lyrics and sound is so fiery. The Cold Caress was the water element and the blue chakra CD, which is why we made it more fluid and melodic like water. Next we plan to create a Earth element and Green chakra CD. The sound there will be larger, like the world, and fleshier. The lyrics will be written differently, I’ve already started actually. Instead of me writing all the lyrics, this time I’ve reached out to the whole band, including our amazing graphic designer (Jordan Livingston) to give me lyrics, ideas, and themes of what we should sing about. The idea is to write music we all feel connected to, band members and fans alike, more so than ever before, after all it will be the Earth CD and we are all a part of the Earth.
Nattsol: What can we wait from future releases of ‘Tragic Black’? Will they follow the way of the musical evolution of ‘The Cold Caress’?
vISION: I’d say maybe a little, but we don’t want to release a CD with the same sound and attitude twice. We have two guitar players now (Stich & Hex), so it will be very guitar driven.
Vyle is an amazing bass player and he’ll add a thick, earthly bass tone for the Earth cd accompanied by Seputus’s improved drumming. For me I’ll push myself to achieve the most dynamic vocals I’ve ever done before and also push the rest of the band to play a bigger role singing back up vocals, so again it will be something that the whole band feels even more connected to, which will hopefully sound transparent to the listener so they feel more connected to what were singing about.
Nattsol: In one interview you said that you were influenced as the text writer by the surrealist movement. Tell me more about it.
vISION: I like getting out of the ordinary mindset, entering a more natural place where pure fluid writing happens. It feels very honest and artistic to just let the words flow from your fingertips and discover the meaning later. Also, writing in that fashion enables the listener to hear it in a way that is personal to them as well.
Nattsol: And once again about lyrics. I read the lyrics of your last album, and found them rather typical for ‘Tragic Black’, but they have plenty of differences as well. So what do you think has changed?
vISION: Instead of singing about the world around us and the way it could be, in The Cold Caress, we escape that world of religion, politics and etc and instead enter a world full of limitless possibilities. I just finished the book “In The Cold Caress” that inspired the lyrics of “The Cold Caress” cd, and once it is finished being published, you’ll be able to gain a new perspective on where the lyrics came from.
Nattsol: Now the question about your promo videos. Your website says that you have ‘Faith in Decay’ and ‘Surreal Catharsis’ videos, but it keeps silence about ‘Circuit 3’. So is it the official video? Tell me more details about their creation. And all of them are from your first album. Will you make a promo of a song from ‘The Cold Caress’?
vISION: “Circuit 3” video is official, we just need to update our website with that, thanks for the reminder. We made all three videos with The Rose Phantom. Surreal Catharsis was filmed next to the Great Salt Lake at this abandoned building called “The Temple of the Birds”. Faith In Decay was filmed at a few locations; my haus, the Cathedral de Madeline, and on top of a mountain overlooking the Salt Lake City Valley. Circuit 3 was done at a few locations as well; behind a venue in a dirty alley, the Lime Kilms, and Hex’s practice space. We had a line up change during the making of The Cold Caress, when Hex left and Jesse James joined. Then Stich joined and since Hex wrote the guitars on The Cold Caress with additional recording performances by Jesse James, it didn’t accurately reflect who wrote what for those songs, plus the addition of Stich. Besides that, we wanted our next video to be a step up from the videos we did in the past and since we have not yet had the chance to do a higher quality video, we decided to wait until the next CD.
Nattsol: Which bands in your opinion are close, or may be even related to ‘Tragic Black’?
vISION: Besides our related projects (Corvid, Redemption(bound), Disruptive Creatures, A Lilac), we are friends with and close to bands such as; Bella Morte, Cinema Strange, Frank The Baptist, Blood, Death In Dresden, Gorgonas, and don’t forget about all our local friends; Redemption(bound), Domiana, Negative Charge, DieMonsterDie, QstandsforQ, Cavedoll, Riverhead, Carphax Files, Subrosa, I’m sure there are I’m forgetting, but we love the SLC scene.
Nattsol: Now let’s talk about your new project ‘Corvid’. Tell me the band’s original idea.
vISION: Stich had extra time on his hands since Tragic Black wasn’t as busy as we were in the past – he seeked to create a new project. After looking around for a while he found an amazing Drummer (Seigh), but didn’t find others who shared his vision. So in time Vyle & I eventually suggested he do the new project with us, because we too, needed/desired to be more active than Tragic Black has been for a while. Corvid is a different band than Tragic Black, even though we share a lot of the same members. We all have always loved rock n roll, punk, metal and other hard music, we wanted to create some music like that. So we began practicing and just after two weeks we went to Kitefishing Studio to record. After ten hours of recording and two hours of mixing and adding the finishing touches we created “Ambers Artery”.
Nattsol: So the band released the demo ‘Ambers Artery’. What’s the stuff there?
vISION: Here are the songs on it; “Ambers Arteries”, “Saturated With Innocence” and “Slop it to the Side”. “Saturated With Innocence” was originally going to be a song for Stich’s solo project “A LILAC”, but he decided to use it in CORVID instead, and I’m glad he did, because it’s great and gives us a more diverse sound.
Nattsol: What are future plans of ‘Corvid’
vISION: We have three new songs and we will record in Mid November 2008, and every time we create 3 songs we will record until we have enough material to play a live show and aim to release a full length album with a record label. So that’s the plan, keep writing, creating elements for the live show and aim for a record deal. Then, after that we will begin to tour!
Nattsol: Apart from these two projects – are you involved in any other music action?
vISION: Yes, we are all busy guys. Stich as I mentioned earlier has “A LILAC”. Our drummer Seputus also plays drums for “REDEMPTION”, I sing in a electronica/new wave/minimal project called “DISRUPTIVE CREATURES”, we have a few songs recorded already, but we have a few more things we want to do before we release it online.
Nattsol: You call your music ‘goth’ music. But for now there’re plenty of absolutely different ‘goths’ and ‘gothics’. So what does this term mean in your opinion?
vISION: I think it’s a word each “goth” or “gothic” gives their own personal meaning to. It is an ever evolving scene of people, art, fashion and music. I think those who associate with goth make it what they want it to be for them.
Nattsol: And the final words are yours….
vISION: Thanks so much for the interview! You had some great questions, we really appreciate your support and hope to do this again in the future!
Questions: Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
“Grave Jibes Fanzine”
