Interview with Deadchovsky
http://www.deadchovsky.com/
http://www.myspace.com/deadchovsky
Nattsol: Let’s start from the beginning. Represent yourselves, please, and tell some words about your coming into the music and your musical experiences before Deadchovsky.
Afterglauk: Hello, my name is Afterglauk. My first musical remembrance is Michael Jackson’s Thriller as I was 4 or five. Before Deadchovsky, I used to play in many heavy metal bands, then I played in cold wave bands as Trespass or Malaise Rouge. This was before the first revelation…
Lois: Hello, i’m Lois. I don’t remember when I started music. I only remember that I was lost in a desert in the middle of nowhere, I found a guitar and heard some chemical sounds (industrial birds, feedbacks, flash waves), and I tried it. After a while I met the guy of Trespass (a French cold wave band) with who I’ve played for 2 years with Afterglauk and Divarre.
Hellebore: Before Deadchovsky, I was already composing my first songs of Crimson Muddle on my own. Then I met Zorch (Zorch Factor, Sleeping Children, Camp Z), and we created with Tom (Sleeping Children, Violet Stigmata) a band called “The Vertigo Smile”… We’ve been really creative during six months, we recorded some demo tracks, but nothing official, and stopped because of the distance (I was living at this moment in the south of France). And then, I met a good friend to Afterglauk who told me that Deadchovsky was searching a new keyboardist… So I met the guys at their concert in Marseille, and few months ago, I joined the band.
Divarre: I started listening to rock/metal music when I was young, mostly because of my older brother. He was playing the drums, I wanted to play the piano, but I played the guitar, then I gave up and chose the drums. Logical, isn’t it ?
Nattsol: Tell me, how Igor appeared in your lives.
Afterglauk: As Lois John Slut (guitar) and I were playing in Trespass and started to get bored of it, we had a lunch in a forest. There appeared the voice of the prophet Igor inside of us: «leave Trespass, build your own band, play the most demented batcave ever, go home and record the song «Falling Curtain» as a tribute to Eastern Europe, so be it». Four hours after that, Falling Curtain was recorded.
Lois: In 2003, Afterglauk and I wanted to play something more batcave. For personal reasons I left the band Trespass. I remember having a lunch with Afterglauk where we have a common “flash” talking about vodka. We heard the same “voice”. It was our first met with Igor. This voice guide us to play the craziest batcave music.
In our lives? Igor is in all of us, sometimes hidden in a bottle of vodka, sometimes he took control of our mind. I’m sure you already met him getting high after a drunk night.
Hellebore: He appeared one night on my sleep, before to join Deadchovsky, and told me that the decadence revolution was on her way, that it will be a big cataclysm in the actual music, that I had to join this chemical formation, to stop the invasion of the craaloïds… So I listened his advice, and joined the team!
Divarre: Igor asked me to play for him, and before he wanted me to achieve a kind of quest. It’s been a long and hard journey, but finally I did manage to play the drums with vodka bottles instead of sticks. My story with Deadchovsky could then begin.
Nattsol: Now about the band’s foundation. How did you catch the idea if doing what you began to do? What were your references except vodka?
Afterglauk: We caught the idea by listening to Neva, Cinema Strange, Sex Gang, Virgin Prunes, Christian Death, Proton Burst, Sophia, Eros Necropsique, Iron Maiden, Sopor Aeternus and many others. We wanted to build the ultimate batcave tribute band, with some other influences to make it even crazier.
Lois: We took different ingredients. 400g of Batcave, 300g of Punk, 100g of Industrial, 50g of ColdWave, 50g of Metal, 50g of non listing music, 4l of vodka, 2 pack of beers, some Igor spices, and all our craziness. Put it in the oven for 4 hours.
And then Deadchovsky was born!! (time to drink one or two bottle of vodka!!!)
I think we tried to play a mix of all our influences guided by the Igor voice. We just tried to be ourselves. We never wanted to be the “number one” band. Afterglauk and I had a dream at the beginning of Deadchovsky, it was to create a “batcave community” where all the bands / artists could work together. I’m getting crazy when I see bands who only want to be “number one” and who bring nothing to the batcave scene (I mean bands who play EXACTLY the same as already existing bands).
Hellebore: No concessions, we put whatever we wanted in our music… We didn’t want it to be planned. Mixing punk, goth, coldwave, psychedelic, ska, cabaret, progressive rock … and we could have been more far, and mix folk music, reggae, ethnic music…
Divarre: The sound of empty bottles and broken drum kits.
Nattsol: In your opinion, what did the band get when Le Bab and Albator were replaced by Hellebore and Braen X. Divarre?
Afterglauk: I think this was necessary because Le Bab and Albator were not really into the batcave thing, but more into new romantics and cold wave. Hellebore had the technical level of Le Bab with more motivation and Divarre overpassed the Albator’s drumming level. We needed that change to give Deadchovsky new dynamics. And Divarre should have been Deadchovsky’s first drummer but he did not want at the time!
Divarre: I can play the songs two times faster!
Nattsol: Now Deadchovsky is one of the most interesting and important bands on the French (or even the world’s) batcave scene. It’d be really lovely to know more details about the band’s first steps. How did you join this scene? What was the reaction? Etc.
Afterglauk: As the first track Falling Curtain was recorded, we sent it to every gothic VIP and so on around the world. Mick Mercer immediately liked it! Then we went to see Lionel from Manic Depression Records and we gave him that track telling him it was a new band from Eastern Europe. He listened to it and told us he wanted to sign the band!! We had a very naïve ambition but it worked out.
Lois: At the beginning after the first time we met Igor in the forest, we got back home and started to record our first track Falling Curtain (written / recorded / mixed in 4 hours). We started to make “promo” of this band but as a joke at the beginning. I remember when we gave the demo with Falling Curtain to Lionel of Manic Depression records, we told him that we had found a band from Eastern Europe called Deadchovsky. He listened to it and was really surprised, and wanted to meet them. Another funny step was the meeting with Sleeping Children. When we were playing in Trespass, there was a stupid competition between Trespass (French cold wave) and Sleeping Children (French deathrock). When we recorded our first track (Falling Curtain) Sleeping children was just looking for a new singer. So we created a new email address (Igor Kalaransky hihi) and sent a mail to Sleeping Children saying “Hi I’m Igor the singer of Deadchovsky… I love your band and I would love to play with you if I manage to get a Visa”. They answered us that they were interested!!!! Really funny. A few days letter we answer him that this was a joke and Igor was just our Prophet. Six months later Sleeping Children asked me to become their new guitarist. Really funny isn’t it?
Divarre: From the time I wasn’t part of the band, it was great to see these guys who knew what they wanted. It all happened pretty fast.
Nattsol: Well, if a one asked you to represent your music (and your lyrics) in a few words, what would you answer?
Afterglauk: The lyrics of the first album were about the decadence around the world who would lead to a revolution, because the world needs a change. The second album was about people’s false idea about God which leads to war and decadence. Our music is the mad reflect of all this. If someone asked what kind of music we play, I’d answer manic-depressive psychebizarre chemical dadaist drugdrunken death-rock/batcave.
Divarre: Psychotic, rusty, groovy, dead.
Nattsol: As I noticed, there was really long way of the band’s evolution. You changed your image from deathrocky to more psychic, your second album is more obscure and uncompromising in comparison with the first one. So what the difference do you see between the first band’s years and the last ones? Between the first and the second album?
Afterglauk: We got more mature and started to think that gothic music was not the only way.
Hellebore: It’s question of persons, and evolution… We wanted to put all our different influences in the second album. Maybe the second one is more mystical and we tried to create a unity with the graphism of the album too.
Divarre: The second album is more the result of an alchemy between the four of us, playing, jamming and trying new ideas for songs. We also changed a lot in our musical tastes between the first and the second album.
Nattsol: There’s the track on your second album, called «I wanna look like the new dark age model…». Could you tell a few words about it? ;-)
Afterglauk: Well it’s about people who want to look like the guy of the «NDA compilation» by Strobelight records. We’ve been meeting too much of them!
Lois: Because we love him, and we like the new dark age model army.
Nattsol: Your albums have very interesting and original artworks. Could you tell me about them?
Afterglauk: The first album’s cover was made by a mad punk guy called Dave Doboin. And the second one is a painting by Stel who’s Norma Loy singer’s girlfriend. They were perfect with each title.
Lois: I think the cover of Decadence Revolution represents all the icons that we have used to record it. If you look closely you can see that the cover is over a wall, something like old Punk’s graffities of the 80′s. And that’s it, the first album is very punk, direct and spontaneous. The cover of Spritus Sancti Bizarre is more psychic with a strongest atmosphere. With this strange psyche-bizarre-bird-prophet.
Nattsol: What are the reasons of the band’s brake-up?
Afterglauk: I’d personally say that I want to explore new musical horizons. I’m actually not into rock n’ roll anymore. And a second reason is that playing in a band has become difficult for me: it’s a lot of work and as it’s not my priority anymore, it’s better to stop here in my sense.
Lois: A lot of things has changed in our lives and I think we all want to explore new kind of musical experiences. For me, the main reasons of the band’s brake-up is that we have lost the “group” spirit. And that makes me really really sad. Maybe I had been too laxist for a few months and that demotivated the others, I don’t know :/ Maybe we should have gone more in the forest (cf. the beginning of Deadchovsky) to keep this “band” spirit.
Hellebore: Many reasons… but I think the essential reason is that we are all more involved in our lives to other personal, musical or professional projects. It’s hard to manage a band, a career, and other projects in the same way. Me for example, I’m actually more involved in my professional life, and my other band Crimson Muddle, and other plans’ growing in my head…
In another part, we didn’t all have the same idea of what we wanted to do for the next Deadchovsky.
Divarre: It was becoming harder and harder to get the four of us available, and in mood for making music at the same time. Our lives changed a lot since the beginning of the band, and this is nothing more than the direct consequence of all the choices we personally made through the past five years.
Nattsol: So you played recently your last gig with Jacquy Bitch, Castrati and The Cemetary GirlZ. Tell me about this gig, please.
Afterglauk: I think that people who came this night have seen 4 of the best actual French batcave/death-rock bands.
Lois: It was a really nice moment, Le Bab came on scene to play Der Verfall. And the others bands were amazing. I think it will be one of my best memory of Deadchovsky. Even if the sad reality of “the end” has come :’(
Hellebore: It was a really great moment! We had a lot of fun, and it was fun to play keyboard with Le Bab. Great to play with Castrati, Cemetary Girlz and Jacquy Bitch!
Divarre: An unforgettable night. Castrati were a great surprise for me, I am definitely waiting for their album ! The Cemetary Girlz and Jacquy Bitch were perfect as well.
Nattsol: At the moment, the French scene seems to me very unified. Is that so? Do you have friends on the French scene and apart from it (as I could notice, you had the gig with Eva O, for example). Are there some bands with the style related to yours?
Afterglauk: One can say that the French scene has never been that much unified now. This is true that the fact that members of different bands know each other, work together, exchange musicians… But there is a bad competition spirit. It’s just like those stupid TV games: everyone wants to be a star. And maybe there are too many bands now. Since our beginning we’ve tried with Deadchovsky to unify the scene but it never really worked out. We may have good contacts with bands from abroad: I think of Quidam in Spain, Abattoir Rouge in the Netherlands and I still have a good contact with Cinema Strange. But bands like Eva O often ignore the bands they play with!
Hellebore: I’m not sure that the French scene is so united, but Manic Depression, and other associations tried to unite more the scene. But sure, we have some friends in the scene, and apart the scene too. I would like to recommend you Droserae (a new French post-punk band really good)
Divarre: Well, I’d say quite the opposite. I think we have an united scene here. Of course, there’s always a competition spirit. But that’s human, and may even be a good thing. Still, it’s pretty easy to know everyone, because the scene is pretty small and there’s not that many people involved in it. When a new band shows up, the rest of scene is here to listen and give advices. Speaking of non-French bands, I don’t know many other ones. Strange Dolls Cult is pretty good, there are my favourite, along with Boggart Lebrel who are from Mexico but I never had the chance to see them. I was a big fan of The Phantom Limbs too. And Cinema Strange’s third album is great.
Nattsol: Now, when Deadchovsky disbanded, your fans wait for something new. So what are the musical plans of the band members? Is that possible to see your collaboration under another name, or you’ll separate anyway? Will you keep the psycho-batcave spirit, or you want to try yourselves in other kinds of music?
Afterglauk: At the moment I’m doing totally different things like composing for dramas and short movies. I continue my learning of sitar. And maybe some surprises. But definitely not into batcave… but who knows…
Lois: I don’t know yet, I would like to create something more related to 70′s rock / psyche-rock maybe with some punk influences or influences of Eastern Europe music. But not related to batcave/gothic scene. Who knows…
Hellebore: It’s hard to say for the moment. I’m sure there will still have some collaborations between each other. In fact there are already some plans, but I don’t want to tell more for the moment… We’ll let you know. But I’m not sure that, if there are some collaborations, we keep on doing psycho-batcave… We listen too many things to focus only on batcave.
Divarre: I’ve started recording some songs with Camp Z, an album should be released in September 09 or something like that. I’ll probably play some gigs with them next autumn, on drums and synths maybe, we haven’t decided yet. It’s going to sound like some heavy psychedelic cold post punk! Besides I am still playing with my other band, Liturgy Of Decay, in a gothic and metal vein, and we’ll be making some new gigs in April or May. We are still working on our album as well, which is once again delayed because of line-up troubles. At last, I am working hard to release the first songs of my own project, Alternative.Zero, which is just me with synths, computers and drums. I might join another project as well for live drums, but nothing’s been decided yet. Anyway, we’ll still be using our myspace page to advertise any new projects we’re in (www.myspace.com/deadchovsky).
Nattsol: So that above-mentioned gig was your last farewell to your fans. And what about those ones, who missed the show? You made two unofficial bootlegs (Live au Klub and Les Caves), and the audio version of Les Caves seems to me the best Deadchovsky record ever. So is that possible to see an official band’s release in the future? Or some other plans?
Hellebore: We didn’t think about it for the moment. It’s too early to say, but why not…
Divarre: I am feeling terribly sorry for all those who would have liked to see us. It would have been great to go everywhere people like us, but we really can’t make it now. The bootlegs you’re talking about were home-made, and it’s great that we were able to make them sound that good. There won’t be any official release anywhere else than on the net. If anyone’s interested in a higher quality version of both, we’ll consider sharing them on torrents and sharing servers for free.
Nattsol: What would you like to say about yourselves personally?
Afterglauk: We all keep changing in life.
Lois: I miss Deadchovsky.
Divarre: It’s been an unbelievable experience to be part of this band. And I’ll never forget all the wonderful people we’ve met on tour. Vodka will never taste the same.
Nattsol: Hard to ignore the next question. Your first album is called Decadence revolution. Do you consider yourselves as decadents? Revolutionaries? J What are these words for you?
Afterglauk: My answer is only my personal opinion: the first album was more a critic of decadence that would lead to a revolution. Things need to change around the world. If I must choose, I’d prefer revolutionary. It makes the things change. Decadence rots things.
Divarre: I agree!
Nattsol: For many your Russian fans Deadchovsky seems quite related to Russia (and not only because of vodka, hehe). So is there any truth in it?
Afterglauk: Of course! Our Prophet Igor has learned about his prophecies in Russia. We would have LOVED to play in Russia. Russia as well as the other countries in Eastern Europe has been a great source of aesthetic inspiration. No Russia, no Deadchovsky!
Divarre: Yes we would have loved to play there. I truly love life in Russia, and other Eastern Europe countries as well. It hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism, commercials, consumerism… yet. I was very lucky to go to Peterhof / Saint Petersburg last summer. I’d love to go a little more in the East next time, maybe near Kazakhstan. Your country is so huge! Speaking about music, I love the works of Theodor Bastard, and the only few bands I know. Romowe Rikoito, The Guests, Dopelganger…
Nattsol: And your final words….
Afterglauk: Thanks to all of you for your support, for appreciating what we’ve done and for allowing us to exist… simply. Scpiednitroshkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Hellebore: Thanks for your support, too bad we never played in Russia, but we’ll sure that you’ll take care of our prophet Igor!
Divarre: Paprika!
Questions: Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
“Grave Jibes Fanzine”
