Interview with Acid Bats
http://www.myspace.com/acidbatsmx/
Bars-Ursula: Tell us, please, where and when your band was formed? How has the collective structure been formed? What made you to play death-rock? And what is the conception of the group?
Acid Bats: Well, we started the band in October of 2007, since the beginning we three composed the band, Edy bat at voice, Gregor at Bass and johnnywitch at guitar. All of us are originally of Mexico City, more exactly from a part of the city which’s called Nezahualcoyotl into the metropolitan zone of Mexico City. Maybe is no important talk about, but it is a marginalized area of Mexico, it’s very difficult to live here, maybe that’s one reason, why we make post punk deathrock music, we have very difficult lives, and we see the world with punk eyes, with deathrockers eyes and with post punk eyes.
At the beginning, the idea was play some kind of post punk, but no one of us can deny the influence that we have from the deathrock hehehe(laughter), but we don’t like the etiquettes or being classified in a kind of music, we just want to make music, to develop the darker thoughts of our mind and to denounce the evils of society in a subtle way, we feel really connected one to one for give a message, not only for deathrockers, even to all individuals who seek an alternative thinking, we don’t close ourselves, to the deathrock, we all the days want new concepts to make a good music and make a new good message. The proposal of the band musically speaking lies in the sound mix of the old guard with more current sounds, created with the help of technology. On issues such as my coffin or slaves these elements can be strong in the sequences.
Bars-Ursula: Your demo – record contains qualitative and very interesting stuff , what is rare in the beginning points of most groups. How did you manage to reach such level on the demo-record?
Acid Bats: The work with the demo was very hard, because we don’t have a good equipment, just a computer, a console, and all the energies to make this work, but at the same time it was easy for us, because we had many songs before to concretize the band (acid bats), we played in other bands and we had enough experience at the moment we made the demo, in addition we really love the music, and although curiously none of us is a musician by profession, we always want to make a good stuff, with quality and good composition.
Bars-Ursula: Your EP «Exhumation» appeared in 2008. When and how the release was made? What is the cardinal difference between the demo – release and EP in your opinion?
Acid Bats: We made the EP in the mid of 2008, between June and August, we made the EP like the Demo, with a computer and a console, in the house of Edy hehehe(laughter), well, there’s not so much difference, we see the same music quality, but the subject changed.
Bars-Ursula: There is a cover on «Exhumation» of Paralisis Permanente’s «Quiero ser santa». What has induced you to make a cover on this cult post-punk formation? What other groups, besides Paralisis Permanente have affected on you?
Acid Bats: Paralisis Permanente is a cult band in all the world, especially for the Latin-Americans, many people think that paralisis is the most important band of post punk of Spanish language, and there is the major influence for many bands of Mexico, they had a single subject and a very unique sound, which we believe no one could match, and of course, it was a great influence for us; that cover, was a somewhat curious, since a version that emerged from here to Alaska this issue, and this version is very inspiring us to create our own version. But paralisis doesn’t have the unique influence for us, we have more musical influences like, Madre del Vizio, Bauhaus, Christian Death (With Rozz Williams, of course), Mephisto Walz, Corpus Delicti, Euroshima, Specimen, Toys Went Berzerk, etc… etc.. all the classical post punk and deathrock bands.
Bars-Ursula: The most of your songs are on the native language. What themes are mentioned in your texts? Are you going to use English?
Acid Bats: We talk of many subjects, for example in parasites we talk about the politic, the song begins with the sound of speech of Vicente Fox, the Mexican President, who was in the midst of constant scandals, and he was the most unpopular president that Mexico had before, all the song is the critic against the Mexican politic. In “Esclavos” (Slaves) and “Mi ataud” (My coffin) we talk about the self-destruction of the human’s being, in slavery the human is looking like a slave of himself, like an animal dominated for thinks, that they cannot see, and this is any destruction, the human been without feelings without thinks, without brains. My Coffin is about the global destruction, the end of the days, we say, “talking with the death, about this decadent word, I can see we are sentenced, at the horror, at the horror” most of all talk and tell the realities of the world as internal problems in the minds of human beings to political dissent, until the metaphor.
And we have one song in English, it is called paranoia, it is in the EP, and talks about an addiction, but we are thinking make more songs in other languages, for example we have a new song, which is called inquisition and the lyrics are in Italian, we are very versatile in the subject of the language texts, in the future we will make another songs in English, German and some dialects from Mexico, like the Nahuatl (Dialect of Aztec people).
Bars-Ursula: There are a lot of remarkable bands in Latin America, but unfortunately badly known in the world, playing a post-punk,death-rock. Besides such music has been played on your continent since 80th years of the last century, we can remember such cult Brazilian formations, as Muzak, Kafka. Are you upset with such injustice? Do you feel unification with the whole Latino-American scene?
Acid Bats: Yes, we feel a little angry about the badly known, but if you see in another corner, the underground music has not much diffusion because it wants to be out of the commercial corners, some bands like Joy division, Bauhaus, or Siouxsie and the banshees, are of the line of post punk music, however they are in a more commercial line, we like too much this bands, but the most of the groups are wanted to be in underground scene, maybe that’s a reason for not knowing about the Latin American bands. In other corner, another problem exists, the poverty in which the majority lives, we haven’t many resources to make many things, as I said before, we make our disc by ourselves, with a computer and a console, and the instruments of course, but not everyone has the possibility to record in a special studio or make great productions for the records, here in Mexico and many Latin American countries, the underground music is considered a bad music, because, the government, the institutions, and all the society havs a Conservative Thought, with many customs from the catholic church, and another institutions like that. In fact in Latin America, it hasn’t got much unification, because the scene is not too big, or is censured. There’s the small unification of the scene on a continental level, it cannot be looking at the simple eye, at least not at this time, but we hope to see a real unification of the scene in the future, and that the people will know more than the television gives to them.
Bars-Ursula: So it has turned out, that thanking to Hocico, the majority of admirers of dark music worldwide associates your country with dark-electro. But there are you and Gorgonas in Mexico . What do you think about Gorgonas? Whether there is a competition between you or friendly mutual relations? Which band could you mark within compatriots?
Acid Bats: Yes, that’s right. Unfortunately, Mexico is known for Hocico and many people associate Mexico more with the dark-electro, we have not anything against the dark-electro and the synthetic music, in fact, we like too many bands of that, but Mexico has many things, apart from the dark-electro, and we are really sad, that post punk and deathrock scene is losing for this musical genre. We just hope that the scene will survive over time.
What about Gorgonas, they are a great value friends of us, we have a great friendly relations and we admire them for being pioneers of deathrock in Mexico, we never considered our relations with Gorgonas as a competition, because they are a good persons, and make a really big quality music. In fact, we played with them in the same setting, and we have plans to play again with them.
What about more bands, the scene has many of them, but the bands that we can mark are: La Voz de Tus ausentes, Nietzsche’s Bitch, Cyteres, Orlok, Aves a Veces, etc.. etc…
Bars-Ursula: Do beside musicians took part in Acid Bats?
Acid Bats: We only have two besides musicians, one is call Fernando (Grave) for put the sequences in live, and Owald (Mishi(Cat in nahuatl)) in the keyboarding, they are good friends of us. But we didn’t have participation of other musicians from other bands.
Bars-Ursula: What can we expect from the band in 2009? When a new release will appear?
Acid Bats: We are planning to record a new material in 2009, maybe for May – June, we have enough new stuff for a new album, and of course we will announce on the space of the band about it. As we said before, we will try new ways to talk to minds, for takeout the things that we have in our minds, and put it in a song. People can expect the best for the 2009, we are really energized for make more music, we have many things to say to the world.
Bars-Ursula: And your Final words
Acid Bats: Finally we want to thank all the public for support from Europe and especially thanks to Bars-Ursula for the interview. And we want to emphasize that the music, especially Deathrock means expression for all those who are not in conformity with the society that enslaves us every day. We must rid ourselves of slavery corporatism, and have own minds, free of garbage that we seek to introduce, these is the reason that we and other musicians choose the music to talk about the world. Cheers with love from Mexico to all Russia.
For all European community, you can download our albums in:
http://zorch.free.fr/label/acid_bats/index.html
Questions: Vadim ‘Bars-Ursula’ Barsov
“Grave Jibes Fanzine”
