Interview with ‘Holy Blood’
http://www.myspace.com/hbproject
Nattsol: First of all, tell me how the musicians met each other. What interests and influences did you share?
Dezbut: We live in the same small town. Héloïse and I met Acta in 2003 during a party organized by his brother. We had the same tastes for music and movies. I’m a guitarist, him a bassist thus we decided to try to play together.
Currently, our musical influences come especially from Rock. We like rock from 80′s, post punk, punk, batcave, deathrock… but we can listen to modern rock sometimes.
Moreover, we watch often horror movies together including B-movies and Z-movies.
Nattsol: What things did the project get from each of you personally?
Acta: We are complementary. Dezbut brings unquestionably the rigor in the band and the technical knowledge we need for recording, etc. Héloïse and me don’t know it well. Dezbut is a perfectionist.
Héloïse brings us the joy we need to progress in our music. She’s our inner voice and our melody: she’s the core of our music..
In my case, I think I’m the moderator between Dezbut’s perfectionism and Héloïse’s enthusiasm. I bring maybe some serenity and simplicity to our music while having a look into the originality of our music. All without excess.
Nattsol: Tell me the history of the band’s name.
Dezbut: We played several times together, only existing songs. I believe that we chose to have one when we decided to play our own songs. We wanted to use a religion term in our name. We aren’t religious, it’s ironic. The second part comes from our affinity with horror movies.
When we chose this name, we didn’t know that a Ukrainian metal band had the same.
Nattsol: What were the first steps of the band?
Dezbut: Holy Blood is born in 2003. I believe that our first song is born in 2003 too, it’s The Dreadful Cycle». At the end of 2004 we released our first record. The demo-cd is called «Genese». After a long pause due to my studies, we came back. In 2006, we released a new song called «Food Story» after I met Zorch from Camp Z on MySpace and on a French batcave forum. He helped us a lot. This song appeared on the compilation » The Sexy Zombies». In 2007, I met Dj Alien S Pagan and discovered the Cemetary Girlz. During 2008, Divarre from Deadchovsky helps us and encouraged us. Finally, in 2009 we played our first gig thanks to Dj Alien S Pagan. It was January 10.
Nattsol: Well, so you played the first gig. Does it mean that ‘the ice has moved’ and the band’s development will go faster now?
Dezbut: I think our first gig is a first step in order to move the ice. The band’s development may be faster now because we worked a lot for this show. We are now used to regularly work our music and we really want to go further.
Acta: Go further by recording our first CD for example…
Nattsol: What persons and which bands except already mentioned you can call your friends and colleagues? What is their participation in the life of ‘Holy Blood’?
Dezbut: In my mind, we mentioned before the main persons and bands that we know. We are too in touch with Blood Orange. Recently, Droserae and Crimson Muddle have contacted us for our second gig. Generally, we share our point of view on music and we support ourselves.
Nattsol: And which bands apart from the local stage you’d like to play with?
Dezbut: I would like to play with Bloody Dead and Sexy, Cinema Strange, Strange Dolls Cult and Miguel and the Living Dead.
Héloïse: I agree for Bloody Dead and Sexy and I want to add New Days Delay.
Acta: My dream would be to play with Cinema Strange and if we could go in the past, I would play with Joy Division.
Nattsol: As I know, your music style has changed from the beginning. How can you describe this evolution?
Dezbut: When we began to write our songs around 2003, we played music between rock, metal and gothic music. Acta discovered in first Batcave, Post Punk, etc through a compilation called «Obscur» around 2005, I believe. He lent to Héloïse and Me the CD and we fast liked it. My favorite bands on this CD were Joy Division, Bauhaus, Jad Wio and Corpus Delicti. After the pause due to my studies, we decided to play music between Batcave, Deathrock, Punk and New Wave.
Appart from our style’s change, I think our music has more maturity than before. It’s more structured and less monotonous. It’s a little bit like in our own lifes.
Nattsol: What is music for you?
Dezbut: Music is many things for me. When I listen to a CD, that’s often for being concentrate or for not getting bored. And because I like it, of course! When I’m a music player, it helps me to forget my problems and to relax. Without music, I’m less dynamic, I cannot relax and I’m more stressed.
Acta: Music is a way to temporarily escape reality, an incitement of travel. It is also an invitation to share emotions.
Héloïse: Music is for me a way to share feelings.
Nattsol: And what are you apart from the music?
Acta: Beside music, I’m passionate by horror, black humor and zombies movies! Sex, zombies and UFO!
Dezbut: Acta has all said before. That’s what we appreciate. That’s why we are still together: we really have the same interests.
Nattsol: Many batcave bands concentrate not only on the music, but on visual effects too. What about you? Is an image important for you?
Dezbut: I think we have each our point of view on this subject. Concerning me, clothes are not my priority. However I like thinking to our visuals for our MySpace page or for a video clip. I prefer working on music, pictures or video.
Acta: I agree with Dezbut, our priority is music and it must not change. In fact, before our first gig we haven’t really thought to our visual. However in the future, we should think about it in order to propose a coherent musical concept. We will certainly work on a horror style, that what I like.
Nattsol: So tell me about your recorded songs. What are they?
Dezbut: We don’t have a lot of recorded songs, not enough for a CD, maybe the half. On our MySpace page, there are three of them: Bewitch Jitter and Botox Lover. The other songs aren’t yet mixed. After our second gig, we want to record some songs again. Generally, that’s not very fast, because we record the new songs in my house and I’m not a professional. That’s very fun in my mind to resume the recording. I like it because each time we work in order to have the best version of the songs. Moreover, it’s during recording that we decide how the song will be. It’s a technical and artistical step and I like it.
Nattsol: You mentioned your future album. What will it be? And when should we expect it?
Dezbut: We want to record a complete CD this time, not a demo. I cannot say more on this now. We still have to discuss on several points. As I said before, we are very slow. Thus we cannot schedule the release. I want to say before 2010. That would be better, but I’m not sure to be able to keep this date.
Nattsol: And your final words….
Holy Blood: Thanks a lot to you for this interview and thank you to all the people who support us and help us.
Questions: Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
‘Grave Jibes Fanzine’
