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- I think there was an explosion at that moment...
Right, it was born at that moment, and growing, that’s why it was a big explosion..
I don’t know, you were in touch with lots of people from, you know…
Pontevedra, Santiago, from here... There were many bands here.
- It was all through fanzines...
I mean, the contact between bands was different.
And also a little bit smaller, there was no Facebook, Twitter or that stuff.
- Right. And here basically all the people that made this kind of music,
Well, we know each other.
- Yes, and in the end, a lot of times, many bands share the same musicians:
The one that played the guitar in this band played also the bass in other band, or…
the drummer played in several bands at the same...
- It was fine for me. I saw Galician bands were really aggressive.
At least the ones from here. Because the other ones, I say it was not.
But... we didn’t have nothing to envy other bands that played around here. Nothing.
- For me, it was a... a music style that really caught my attention.
Because of all the complexity many things had.
And further complexity, that went apart from...
what was the original idea. Music you where listening to at that time, right?
It was something different. New. Fresh. Wasn't it?
- I think it was more about the whole of what came out at that moment, you know..
All that... the Death Metal genre there, and that explosion, nothing…
nothing special.
You know, you were used to listen to certain kind of music,
and suddenly this came out, and it’s like:
"My god, what’s this?"
- It was like always, something like "Ahh, that music you are listening to is noise...
this... this is ***... " And it was like: "So it’s ***? Listen to this, kid. "
You know, it was like "When you play like that fellow...
who’s humming there, you could tell me about it. "
And people took it on, because it was something international,
like "These guys are really cool, you know?"
-1990, '91, earning money for making Death Metal,
that is: You’re going up there and growl...
GROARRRR
And play cool as god, a way that nobody understands, full speed solos...
and play a bizarre music, with weird rhythm...
for people, and you’re going to get paid for that.
There are people that nowadays still don’t understand it.
- No, Galicia in comparison with Spain, talking about band quality and ***,
we were at the top.
Honestly, I think we were fine.
- If we go back to '91, '92, for example, that was when Absorbed came out,
In '92, at the end, Dismal...
Then there were... In Ourense we had Detestor, And then Sepulcro appeared...
And we had S.O.K...
- Frustradicción, Sepulcro, Mol... Lots of people, there were really good people.
- And then, well, Unnatural had a sound...
Very particular, I think I remember.
No... I didn't dislike them.
- In Ourense, Unnatural, amazing. Besides there was Sonia playing drums...
It was very... very strange to see a girl playing drums in that style.
Moreover, she did it superbly.
- In... well, here in Galicia… Besides from Absorbed, Dismal, Unhallowed, or...
How were they? They were Sepulcro, didn’t they?
Sepulcro. Yes, it was what... what we had.
- Someone that caught my attention when I saw them? Suffer Age.
Someone that caught my attention... I remembered something...
like more nordic and something like that.
A band with good skills for that moment that attracted my attention?
Well, Absorbed, with their demo, with Unreal Overflows.
A band that play forcefully and in a precise way?
Unnatural.
Unhallowed, because of obvious reasons, and then, well, you know the people, later...
years later, most Edu, with the other guys I didn't know them, but years later,
with Edu and such...
And they were almost... and well, Dismal, when they did...
Something more... Something darker, more agressive.
- There were... well, I think we weren’t too demanding as today,
But... I liked them all,
from...
from Deface to Absorbed. They were a reference, of course.
Dismal too, and in Coruña S.O.K. and Frustradicción...
- In Coruña, S.O.K., Frustradicción,
Machetazo, Deface, and...
Mol.
- Then there were Unhallowed in Vigo, in Pontevedra there were...
They still play; they are called To Nowhere now. And in '96, a compilation came out...
I have it there, Millennium Compilation. They were there too.
They were called Nowhere at that moment.
- There wasn’t much more in Galicia... Nothing more.
I mean, there weren’t...
50 bands. Because there weren't so much bands in Galicia.
- That is, I couldn’t say:
"Well, look, our bands are second generation ban… I mean, second division bands".
Nothing at all. I think they were very very well placed.
They may were out of support, but they were fine.
- The thing is that Galicia was always the end of the world, man.
There was never anything in Galicia... We couldn’t make anything.
Because... The... The ones who go to Galicia are the Galicians. Nobody goes there.
It’s not a place to dwell. So we found it difficult to do something, because...
there were not so much and if we go out, we had to go far.
We, Galicians, were always a bit... like if ours were always the worse.
But nothing at all, in this case...
There was scene and there were amazing bands.
- Well, you know, there were real people. You know?
That is, who worked on it.
And these people played and had a good show, I think.
But of course, we were at a level behind from...
From that, when you don’t have a *** rehearsal room...
a place to record...
When you have nothing...
When for buying a Marshall or a Jackson...
it seems you go to shop and despite having the money...
You have to beg... You have to go to the church and pray, bro...
- And having bands as we had, like Sepulcro,
Unnatural, Absorbed...
There was nobody even fit to tie Absorbed's shoelaces, technically speaking.
Another thing was that you may liked the style more or less.
Or even maybe, me at that moment, ***, listening to this...
I said "What are these guys doing?"
I couldn’t understand it... or notice it.
And after all, I liked it.
- Technically, I would choose Absorbed too.
- Absorbed, no doubt.
- It was more or less what you covered. - It was a very very advanced thing.
In a technical level so high, and in a very complex composition,
that if you’re not at the same...
no, you’re not going to do it right away.
- When Absorbed played, you weren’t off the hook, you stared at them...
- Yeah. - "And that, how can it be done?"
- You stared at their fingers, at the drummer, how they were doing it...
- That is, you were like... - Other ones... such...
- Absorbed started because of Javier Zarco, who plays the bass, contacted...
with me, in Santiago.
I was playing around with a Spanish guitar...
Master by Metallica and that stuff...
And he was studying in a school near fairground area.
So, that was where we met,
and we decided to start a band.
That was around 1990... Yes, 1990.
I came from playing in... I didn’t have too much experience,
I came from playing... I recorded two demos...
With a band that was called Fame Neghra,
With some people that today are Samesugas.
And we decided to start a band...
playing the music that we liked at that moment.
We listened to Hellhammer a lot, Celtic Frost, Possessed... that stuff.
A step further than where Metallica or Slayer were.
First, we started the band in Santiago,
and we rehearsed, curiously,
at Sar Collegiate Church.
The priest interviewed each of us personally, he saw that we were...
formal people, that we didn’t take drugs and that our interests were on music,
and he left us a rehearsal room that was there, in the church.
And that was the place where it was born, the first germ of Absorbed.
Then we had a concert, we made it...
in Cangas. And from there it came everything else...
going to Cangas to play in a show.
Take into account that by then we only had two songs.
And we had even concerts.
- At that gig... It was a gig where...
There was a band from Cangas, which was ours and was called Deadness...
And then there was... a band from Pontevedra that was Septic Vomit, named Dismal later...
And the other band that was Absorbed.
Absorbed were, well, Javier Zarco and Óscar 'Jumpin'...
And then two other guys from here, from Santiago.
And the way they looked the playing,
for example when they saw playing Lino Cordeiro, the drummer...
then they saw him, "***!" he caught their attention.
They were mainly attracted by one thing:
He had a t-shirt that said: Dynamo.
- I saw him and I said "holy ***, that drummer...
It would be cool to have him in the band... "
He was young, blond, long-haired...
with... for that time... remember that this is 1990...
with a cap that said Obituary.
And I said: "- *** man, do you like Death Metal?"
"- *** Yeah! We... we play Death Metal covers. "
And this guy was Lino Cordeiro.
- Then they started to get in touch and talking and all that...
And from that moment they began with the idea of setting up Absorbed with them.
And well, Absorbed began...
with Lino and... well, Lino brought his brother too,
who played the guitar, he was Mario.
- And Javi and me, Absorbed’s bass player and me,
we went there to see them playing and they played songs from Death's Spiritual Healing,
And well, you could have a guess about the impression, could you?
You have been listening to those songs on a record during your whole life,
All those years, three years.
They’re classics now.
And you saw them playing at that moment and said:
"Wow! This is what we need. "
And then it can be said that the fusion between
two from Santiago and two from Cangas was made,
and then it was the well-known line-up, known by almost all the people.
We released a demo, a promo tape,
And I wrote a letter once...
to David, that was David Rotten at the moment, from Avulsed,
very famous today, a fighter for the Death Metal scene in Spain since the beginning,
and he had a record label, a little one, that was Drowned.
And I wrote him a formal letter...
I remembered it well, saying to him: "Look sir, we are a new band,
and we want to know if you could give us a help...
help us and that, Blah blah blah... "
This man said: "don’treat me formally, man, I’m not a lawyer,
and send to me those songs and two more well-recorded,
and I'll release 500 copies. " It was for us like...
like today for Angelus Apatrida signing for Century Media.
- Absorbed went to Valencia to record their first demo.
They went there because...
They listened to a demo from... - Obscure, it was Obscure’s demo.
- And one more demo, by Chococrispis, And they liked how the guitar sounded.
And they said "***! We have to record At those studios because...
bands sound great there". And so they went there.
Thing was that the drums didn’t sound good.
- We packed and went all of us a whole weekend to Valencia.
That... was fine to be 1991,
You know? You say today: "I want to record a demo, a Death Metal record.
Well, look, these studios do so. "
But at that moment there were no studios capable...
of recording Death Metal in a decent way.
So Absorbed dropped from being unknown for everybody,
It went up, and then, from that moment,
the demo started to move, 500 copies were made, but...
it is very well-known that there are more than 500 copies,
Although the band just got 500.
And it was distributed everywhere.
- And for me, even nowadays, It’s one of the best demos that...
in my opinion, was ever made in Death Metal...
worldwide. And it was a band that was on the same level...
that any foreign group and even at a better level from the majority.
- One of the charms, let me say...
because of what Unreal Overflows, the second Absorbed’s demo,
attracted people,
and why today is well considered,
is because, at that moment in Death Metal in Spain, nobody played solos,
no one was getting complex and was so concerned about certain parts,
let me say, musical parts.
And then Absorbed did it, we did it and that demo was released...
and we didn’t have... I mean, we weren’t aware of that, and then the band...
the band, you know? get a profit from that and people said:
"Look, these people play solos... "
that you listened to them today and they are solos that...
I don’t know if they were mediocre, but they were normal...
- When you make something, you don’t realize...
About the repercussion, you know?
I think that… I played in the band, we set up the band,
And I suddenly went away...
A lot of people say to me: "Come on, don’t you regret your leaving?"
I don’t because it wasn’t the same for me...
and I couldn’t do the things I did...
with the same importance, or even better for some people...
If I didn’t go away.
- I started to join them,
to listen to them, to go to their rehearsals and that stuff...
and one day, 'Jumpin’, I don’t know why, stories of changing...
he decided to leave,
And then, well, in that moment they relied on me...
because of that contact and the friendship we had,
to take the place of 'Jumpin'.
We would place the figure of...
Lino, who was an awesome drummer,
and he’s still an awesome drummer,
And of Javier Zarco whose, I think,
way of playing, of looking and of going ahead the music,
and above all the composition was great.
At least for me.
- And after Unreal Overflows, Absorbed recorded a miniLP,
that is Abstract Absurdity, from which only a song was taken for a Belgian compilation,
called Sometimes... Death Is Better.
- It was recorded in Barcelona, at Metal Pesad.
With Xavier... - Yeah, but I don’t remember how it was.
- Xavier so-and-so.
And they went there because the drums sounded so fine.
And they liked the sound of drums, but I think it was a drum machine what they made.
But guitars sounded horrible.
- Abstract Absurdity, that was... four songs that were going to be in a split vinyl...
with Altar, a Death Metal band from that moment...
inclining towards Black Metal.
- Avowals was a thing made by three groups,
they were Dismal, and in this case Absorbed and Unnatural.
- And at that time we made a record label parallel to the recording studios...
where we worked, that was Fussion,
and the label was Man Records.
And it seemed a good idea, I mean, a good experiment.
At that moment we were on that, experimenting...
with alternative music styles,
with a certain underground nature,
because we already had the classic recordings,
the standards for companies and so,
and we thought it was interesting making experiments with other music styles.
So that idea came to our minds, it was interesting and we got inside it.
- I was in Absorbed until...
nearly the beginning of Avowals recording sessions.
I think they were two and a half years, or almost three with them.
And well, later...
It emerged a series of... well, when we are all young...
These kind of clashes with each other, in that case...
with Mario Cordeiro, who was the other guitarist and me.
And those differences...
I standed to lose...
I didn’t rehearsal at my house, we did it at his.
so... also they had been together for more time,
and that was the beginning...
the beginning... we got off to this bad mood,
and the end of that stage.
- Later, the band released...
went to the Villa de Bilbao Fest, I wasn't playing with them anymore...
they went to the Villa de Bilbao Fest and they won the Villa de Bilbao contest.
Winning the Villa de Bilbao at that time was truly important,
it had a great impact in newspapers, and the Internet was just starting,
and they won the Villa de Bilbao, in metal category.
- And among 2000 bands from Spain we won the Villa de Bilbao...
With the largest difference in history at that moment.
And we played, we played with Elbereth at the final,
And we only had half-an-hour to play.
If you exceeded it for one minute, you’d be out of it.
We played 28 minutes.
So Elbereth played after us and they did it during 40 minutes...
Because they realized it was impossible. That stuff, we were...
Absorbed was an absolutely superior band, that’s why I’ve never felt...
I didn’t have any complex.
- And the prize was to record. This record was Reverie,
well, the one which was called later Reverie.
The record... they got inside the studio and I went because of our relationship and...
well, because of affinity and of having been part of Absorbed too,
They asked me to record two solos, and I recorded the 90% of them,
as the band went on recording,
it was getting worse,
and at the end it was dissolved, and the record was never finished.
Lots of people, as the time goes by… the band took the place of...
of a cult band, and people talk about it,
"man, that band… blah blah blah".
- Not to me, but I know that it was...
a before and after within the Death Metal music, even at a Spanish level.
That is, at a national and European level, because I think it had an impact,
and lots of people, lots of bands...
have Absorbed as a reference today, you know?
I took part at a very specific moment, I was part of them, but well,
if you talk about it even today...
and you talk to people...
they really have it as...
as a group that made history.
Well, I don’t know if making history,
but of being forerunners, you know? of having made something different.
- And you listen to them, you know? people listen to them and say:
"***! they play solos, look, listen… this part... that part... and so... "
And this made the way. Because Death Metal bands,
played Death Metal music, but...
they were kind of afraid to make something technical and so.
Anyway, I would like to mention something about this,
people have the idea that Absorbed was a technical band,
and yes, they could have been a technical band.
But not in the way people think they were.
I mean that the band didn’t get in a room and said:
"No, we have to play this part like this, because this is the way it sounds good... "
No. The band went to rehearsal, we wrote the songs that meant something for us,
if it was technical, it wasn’t on purpose,
it was because at that time we played those things well,
and they just went like that.
But we didn’t look for it, "No, not this part... "
to be complicated, to be different,
no, it was something that came out naturally.
- I say it, playing in Absorbed,
and I was singing in Absorbed,
I felt like...
I know that it seems... I don’t know, but it’s totally true.
It was... we had to know about the dimensions.
Most of people had Death Metal bands,
you had a band, we lived it as Dismal,
you try to make music, to make it the most technical possible or...
to sound the best you can but Absorbed were...
They were exceptional musicians,
and being at that band, I didn’t have nothing to envy.
- It’s a funny thing to mention in the video.
I bought it, and I see the guy who made the interview...
They were Absorbed, a Swedish band. They had the same name,
and said:
The interv... you know, the interview started:
"When I found this Absorbed’s CD I thought they were the Spanish band. "
so the people remembered...
the story. And at the end of the interview...
the Swedes were asked about if they knew the Spanish Absorbed band.
And curiously they said: "yes, we had the demo, Unreal Overflows, it’s amazing. "
You know? With those things you say:
"Where the *** did they get it from?"
Because there weren’t lots of them.
- In Coruña, S.O.K. and Frustradicción, S.O.K. especially,
well, they really were one of the most aggressive bands in Galicia,
at that moment... they were, man, I could say, "***,
there are people that prefer... hard things. "
- When I listened to S.O.K. and... for example,
I said: "What the ***, man", you know?.
"They are from Coruña, they play damn good, what they do is amazing...
I don’t know. "
- We always were really raw.
At the beginning it was Heavy Metal. It was what there was.
Then, as the music became more aggressive, we made it.
And I don’t know, at the beginning a little bit of Thrash Metal,
then a little bit of... a harder Thrash Metal,
like S.O.D., Sepultura, this stuff, Ratos de Porão, something more Hardcore.
when we were the first line-up,
we recorded a demo called Return To Inferno,
that was like going back to hell, you know? because...
we left Rock to get back again to what we liked.
And then, well, what I’m saying, we made it that way...
like Sepultura, that stuff.
The thing was that we were starting to listen to some harder music,
*** Death, and this kind of stuff very much more raw, Suffocation, Cannibal...
and then, the drummer we had was too slow for us.
And that was when we called Tito, who was Non Hai Sentidiño’s drummer,
he was very fast, he liked a lot the 'ratatatas'... all of us were crude.
We were crude, and it was when we set up the band seriously, and at the end...
when we recorded the Cannibalism demo,
we got in touch with some Barcelona guys, who were from Cannibal Productions,
who were also who made the distribution, here, in Europe too...
and well, we recorded the demo, in some studio in Coruña and...
well, they were, I think, 4 days recording.
They freaked out because, you know, they had never heard anything like that before,
people from the studio were recording, they were used to record Rock and those things,
and when we arrived there, they freaked out: "but what is this thing?"
You know? they told us: "- stereo guitars"
"- no, no, what are you saying? It is one per channel and so-and-so... "
And the man couldn’t believe it, "- what? but what’s this?"
"- the bass drum like that" "- no, not like that, like this"
And you said: "ok, we'll make what you want"
They had never seen anything like that before. I don’t know...
At that time, nobody listened to that except for bizarre people like us.
- That was, like suddenly listen to a band...
just next to us,
that played in that way...
like Brutal Truth, something from Suffocation, from the old Nyctophobic...
You said "uff!
This is... awesome!"
Besides they sounded very good.
- I had good memories about S.O.K.
They sounded... I remember that...
when we listened to...
I don’t remember the title,
it was a cassette,
and it really sounded...
We did already had...
World Into A Dream, and...
***, these, these guys sounded... they had a real sound.
It sounded, I mean, it sounded very good.
It sounded... real.
- We liked more the style of... American music style.
Ehm, it was not necessarily to be American, right?
But from this style we liked,
as I say, Suffocation, Cannibal, Brutal Truth, Pyrexia, Gorefest...
some kind of newyorker stuff...
with a growl voice and...
very fast. Above all it was very fast.
That stuff, very melodic, with voices...
we didn’t like it too much.
Let’s see, there were excellent bands, that is, it was easy to recognize what was good,
but we didn’t like that.
We liked it more raw. The more raw, the better.
It was very difficult getting gigs, getting performances, getting contacts...
get... because, if it is difficult for a band that is starting,
to play at... Imagine for a band like us.
It was impossible.
We were so, a couple of years, we did...
like 4 or 5 songs that we recorded but never got released,
and then, well, at the end we gave up because...
it was very hard. The truth is that we rehearsed...
4 hours every day, and finally, you know? we don't...
It was very difficult for everyone.
Since we grew old and we didn't...
we didn't really wanted it at that time.
I think we have rocked a lot, and that's why we consume ourselves so fast.
We were a few years, and … puff…
We couldn't do it anymore, because in addition this style of music is very hard.
You must rehearsal...
Like that, every day, because it is very fast, and with many changes and...
and either you rehearse a lot or you do not play it well.
Then at the end we were stuck there everyday...
and play, of course, it was so hard, so at the end...
we said, look, each one to their jobs...
that... you know? we had to eat.
So... But well.
- I think Deface was a big thing.
I remember good times, having a great time...
Having that yearning to create things,
to be active...
of being a band...
not about... now is... I don't know if it is the age too, but...
each one has other things, but...
There are much people who now say: "Let's go to the rehearsal place...
and go out as soon as possible. "
At that time, I do not know, I remember it as more: "Let's go to the rehearsal place"
- "Yeah, let's go there to rehearse. " - "Come on, come on, go, go... "
- Again and again and again and again.
"And this passage did not come out? Let's go for it. "
And at the end it ended up coming out, of course.
- Sure, it was...
And ending up forming a block, too...
among musicians.
Sounding compact as a band.
Sepulcro had more concerts when they were in Ourense.
When the band was settled in Ourense.
- Of course, because in fact, Sepulcro,
came because of him.
Sepulcro was born in Ourense. - Sepulcro,
I had gone to a concert to sing that song because we had recorded it at the demo,
Eternal Grave, I still have a t- shirt.
I have still kept around there.
They recorded... and Frisco, right?
He called me, he was great.
He called me, and, in fact, someone from Sepulcro,
ended up playing in some of these super-known Spanish Heavy bands,
Avalanch or something... Well, not Avalanch, we played with those.
One of these well-known bands, a well-known Heavy bands.
Over the years as well.
Well, with Sepulcro,
what happened with Sepulcro was that they were in a period...
there were in the 92-93...
of course, it was a short time.
Detestor, Sepulcro... there were certain bands there...
they were at a short period, of course.
I sang with many groups as collaborations,
because everyone... that's why I ended up singing in Absorbed.
because all... well... I had the voice I had,
I was super gross singing and such,
and at that time there weren't a lot of singers like that,
it wasn't easy to find a singer you could say:
"Of course" to sound like that...
and he said to me, "***, why don't you come and sing?"
Of course, I went glad, of course. For me it was...
I’ve never recorded anything, and it was a *** great experience, I still remember.
- I think that Deface is an evolution from Sepulcro, so...
I don't know, yeah, maybe that...
Sepulcro '93... 4 years, 5.
Everything.
- Among Sepulcro and Deface... about there.
'93 to '96 or '97.
- Approximately. - Approximately.
- Yes, more or less.
- At the Ourense time we really had shows,
because we had an association, Ovella Negra,
with we used to... to move...
national bands and... metal bands.
And all the bands we brought to Ourense to play,
then even we did a...
an exchange with Coruña,
or with other cities, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Mallorca, Sevilla...
depending on the bands that came to Ourense, after the Ourense people...
also took advantage of the pull,
and we were going to play to...
those cities from...
we brought the band in question, right?
We finally decided to separate a bit from Sepulcro,
because of the variations of...
of taste that we had back then.
Maybe Sepulcro had a style more...
Death, right? more primitive, more like Obituary, and...
heavier.
And we assembled Deface in a style more...
like progressive, like...
- Yeah. That was basically the same,
well, the same people, you change the name, and a bit of the style.
Well, quite a lot of the style.
- The style itself, but people were the same,
without Carlos on vocals, Carlos had... - There were some rehearsals...
there with Carlos, I think. - Well, about that, I don't remember.
- Yes, I think so.
But well, maybe only at the beginning. Then you began with the vocals,
and it remained as a quartet, right?
That's who recorded the demo.
- Yes, in '95... '94-'95...
Yes, in the late '94, early '95 was when we recorded the...
- Everyone was looking for a...
for a style.
- Of course. - Jose was...
more Thrash Metal, Death...
Marcos was more...
- Very Swedish Death Metal, there... - Nordic Death...
Gabi liked the... Steve Vai style...
that kind of thing...
and I were...
a little bit of everything. - Yes, a little bit of everything.
Basically, each one contributed, I don't know...
their own thing, right? At the end...
- Yes, more Heavy, more Symphonic, more...
- But hey! they were...
we can mention very different influences of each one.
The fact is that there was a place in La Falperra, that's not exactly Los Mallos,
but it is very near each other, and there was where S.O.K. was, we were there also...
Frustra, too... - Frustra was there.
- Machetazo was born there...
I don’t know, there really was... - And after that bands kept...
passing through there, but well, I particularly lost contact,
because I basically stopped going to the rehearsal room.
Midimaster was that of 'Sergeant', yes.
I don’t know what happened to those studios, I have no idea.
- It would disappear, I don't know.
- With 'Men' at the sound board... - Yes, at the sound board.
There was a studio here,
basically we could say it was...
- A studio that was... - A studio that was here.
- A home studio. - Where we record?
Here's a studio, let's do it here.
Basically it was like that.
- There wasn't the thing of... of choosing.
- Of course, there was no...
great economic potential to choose.
Sure, maybe there were studios but, of course, at an economic level...
that we couldn't afford.
- Here in Coruña... - Pirámide, right? but I don’t know...
if it was before or after... - Well, I have no idea...
- Midimaster. And I don’t remember anymore. - And you can stop.
Rúa Records...
- But I don’t remember...
- Quality studios in Coruña at that times neither...
neither... that I can remember.
- Sure, I cannot remember either.
- You can see it when...
you listen to recordings from...
from that time, the bands...
you stay more with their essence and with...
instrumentation and composition,
not with the sound quality.
That is, if we... we judge the sound quality,
I dare say, 99% of the bands in Galicia,
the sound of those, was... the one which was.
That is, surely every musician wish there was another sound.
But in the end, you had the recording in hand that...
Look, you paid for this, there was this material,
the result is...
There was no chance of a better quality result.
- I think that is what we forwarded before, right?
It was something that was exploding, that was new, it was...
Sure, it was like to arrive and say...
- And you could talk with studio technicians about Deep Purple or Zeppelin or...
not about Obituary...
"And what is that?"
Or you couldn't talk them about *** Death. "And what is that?"
- People, in that sense were... I remember a story,
with 'Chinin', not with Deface, with Use Of Abuse, another band I’d been later,
bearing distortion on bass, and once we went to play live,
and the guy said, "try the bass" and of course, bffffff!
"No, not the guitar, the bass!"
Do you understand it? It’s a bit like...
people, of course, were like... "what is this?", right?
Today, well, a distortion in the bass, or whatever...
but at that time it was like, "Holy ***!"
- Yes, then there were bands like Asia,
that had nothing to do with Metal,
that used the Overdrive on bass.
- Of course, but they were...
- The "lack of knowledge" of musical culture...
by these "technics"
was quite extensive.
That is, well maybe they did not think that...
in the 70's there were bands like King Crimson...
or people like Jeff Beck...
who were doing that...
that kind of incursions in instrumentation.
- In '88 started... we started as...
as Factoría 0.
- The late 80's were our beginnings in music.
That is, when we started to...
When we had a first instrument, right?
And... Well, we started from zero, that is, we don't...
We also were self-taught all,
musically...
And we started with a project...
called Factoría 0,
it was Heavy Metal...
Those were the beginnings.
Wisdom itself,
precisely at this time it is the 20th anniversary.
It was born after the summer of '91.
That's when we took the name of Wisdom,
when a singer joined, right?
'Kerry', to the band.
And that was really the birth of Wisdom.
And let's say...
in that impasse was when... well...
the band evolved a little, from a classical Heavy...
to Thrash Metal, right? We took that step.
And in a year, then...
we began with a music...
more extreme, right?
- From the Heavy Metal we did, or we wanted to do,
we began playing Thrash but it was very brief.
Then we began to listen to...
Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation, Pestilence, these things,
and *** Death.
Yes, in '93, in late '93...
I think at the end of '93, or February '94,
it was when we recorded...
- World Into A Dream - Yes, World Into A Dream, it was already...
Grind, Grind/Death, right?
- We are talking about...
from '93,
we began to prepare what was already...
what is Wisdom, as it is today, so...
the material... The kind of music we do.
And perhaps in the '93-'96 therefore,
- Were the most...
the most active years.
- Yes, it was... we played a lot,
- Well, by the 90’s…
around '96-'98,
we pass through the Dark Ages of Wisdom,
at that time... you get tired a little...
of making this music,
and maybe influenced by bands as Machine Head,
and stuff like that, we tried a bit...
to put some of that, and actually we recorded something.
But it doesn't... - But it never saw the light.
- It didn't pass censorship.
- In any case, we...
weren't a band that...
had a lot of relationship with another bands.
- Yes, we... had a rather limited scope.
- Rather short, yes.
Well, I have no doubt that Ferrol was always a...
an area plenty of bands.
As Moncho said before, reference bands in Thrash, like...
like *** or Hatred,
who pioneered and of course,
when we started they were already...
they had been there for a long time.
But in the most extreme metal, or maybe not.
For example, in the late '90s,
there was another band,
also with...
- People from *** and Hatred, Consumatum.
- Consumatum Est. It was more...
well, more Grind/Hardcore, with Grind parts but...
but more focused into Hardcore, right?
No doubt it was another band very very good at that time.
- Yes, there was a time when really...
you had places to play in Ferrol.
You could make good gigs.
Places to play where, well, people answered...
We played in places with...
that is, I mean, to be satisfied with the amount of people there,
and we have played maybe 2 or 3 bands, and play for each other.
But that happened to us before, and it happens now.
- What was funny was when you played...
when you played outdoors in a stage in a...
- At local festivals. - For a bunch...
or at a party or such,
in a concert hall, well, people who went, people who wanted to go to the concert,
but of course, when you were playing at a stage outdoors, then everyone could see you,
all kind of public, right? Then, of course,
there were real surprised faces, right?
- One time we even had protests...
Once we played in Ares, at Ares' festival,
I don’t know who came up with, or who got it...
we played the day of the festival...
but someone still remembers that.
- The next day there wasn't another talk throughout the town.
"They looked like demons, shaking their heads. "
Yes, it was curious.
Other people saw you and asked you: "But, is it a new style?, What is it? What is it?"
- No, the classic thing that they say to you, "The music is fine, but the voice... "
- The voice, yes. What's more... - Those words, even today...
- Groups from here? well, Frustradicción, S.O.K...
- ***' Family, Mol, and...
and we don’t remember anymore…
No, I don’t remember the others.
We started playing in ‘95, by myself,
before meeting this band of offenders,
we were a part of Hashassin offenders,
and the other half of criminals as such...
some were from Elviña, and others from Los Castros,
and the others were from Los Mallos.
And before we know the Mallos' effect,
well... it was in '95,
until '98, when we went to Los Mallos, right?
More or less... - Yes,
- '98 to '99 we entered Los Mallos, we met each one and we decided...
we had to play the fool more than we did, yet.
And after the end of it more or less, we are all the same people, with the same style,
all more or less, our old men work... they are from the same social class,
there is not a multimillionaire with a child...
with a father... philosopher or political,
I think we are all children of workers...
It is also why we play this music,
because of course when you are poor, you are ***.
Bands... Let's see, the first band...
it was initially called Reconversión, later called Natividad,
it was like... Industrial, Industrial Rock it was, or...
well, or we tried, as all we have done.
And we were 3, with a drum machine,
and... Well, no, we weren’t 3... we were 3,
then we were 2, and...
and then we returned to be 3? Yes. - Oh, I dunno.
- Yes, after that we became 3 again. - I wasn't there.
Look, I started playing the guitar because I studied with 'Moki'.
He had 2 shelves at home, fitted with a bucket,
and I bought a guitar and we started playing.
Hence we set up a band called Mortis Causa,
and soon after we broke up. 'Moki' started playing with other people,
in a band called Organic Remains,
and then the guitarist left them,
and finally I went in and we assembled Rotten Animals.
Well, influences?
What I’ve said before, a bit the same as ever,
that is, *** Death...
because basically that was it, it was Death/Grind at that time.
That was what I wanted to do.
That began in ninety... in '96,
and well, the truth is that now we've been still playing. Line-up has changed a lot,
as influences and style the band plays today,
and well, I think we are now at a good stage.
- Then we were combining it with Hashassin...
when we met these crazy guys from Los Mallos,
for a couple of years,
after that the Industrial band rot, we were left with Hashassin,
and after Hashassin got rotten too,
then we assemble a band of Stoner... bah, not Stoner,
well, Rock, Heavy Rock, like...
going back to the origins, Black Sabbath, then... and those things.
- One of the bands that we also made contact with,
was a young band, that was starting, called Septic Vomit.
That was a band that later came to be Dismal,
a super-known band in Galicia,
with a well defined period of...
Death Metal first and then already changed to other things.
- Well, I...
everything was here... a neighbour from here, I was 13 in '87,
then in May, and I still remember...
he lived in Hamburg. Sure, I was 13 years old and...
at that time... you must see the times,
now everyone...
well... have more weight... at the Internet you can see 40,000 bands...
but at that time we knew nothing.
I didn't listen to music and I ignored music,
and then that guy played to me Slayer's Reign In Blood,
and Possessed's Seven Churches, I remember it, and for me it was...
it was an absolute shock and since then, Reign In Blood, even today...
is my favorite album, and possibly Seven Churches is the second.
And then I wanted... I knew I wanted...
that was that what I wanted to do, of course.
What happened was that I didn't know how to play or...
here in the village, one thing is to live...
we were a super-humble family and...
and to have the things to play... But hey!
me and my brother went there searching,
Me and my brother began working with 14 or 15 years,
to buy drums, a bass and such,
and we decided to start a band, we met a boy from high school, Iván,
there, I met him, and the following week we assembled a band.
So this, I'm talking from a month to the next one, but...
we didn’t know how to play, and we recorded like that...
We called it Septic Vomit,
and we played Grindcore. We had songs of 1 second, 2, 10...
Well, we did... in 2 months we did about 20 or 30 songs.
The first concert of Septic Vomit was June 8th...
1991 in the Praza da Ferrería, Pontevedra, playing Grindcore,
in fact it went into the newspaper and all...
It was a scandal because it was unthinkable, that is, people...
it was unthinkable in those times that...
and also coming out from here in a village, and
being some poor peasants as you can say, but...
it was something super special.
We had these 2 years there with Septic Vomit,
until the time that entered... Well, we met another friend, Isaac,
Later he and my brother began making a fanzine, the Exorcism.
And we decided to create an even broader Death Metal band,
which was what we really liked,
and something more so... well, not so crazy, because Septic Vomit was...
we even improvised at concerts, as they say.
And we decided to start Dismal. Our reference was specially...
Scandinavian Death Metal,
specially bands like Carnage as well,
Grave, Dismember, which I liked a lot, Entombed...
Well, bands like that. The first album from Darkthrone,
Soulside Journey, which was Death Metal, and things like that.
We started there and then we assembled Dismal...
it was in September, actually the first rehearsal was in September 1992.
There we did 4 songs in one and a half or two months,
and we went to record them to Barcelona.
We met a band there called... a band like Suffocation and so...
that was called Terminal Disease, and we released a split demo.
You know, it was a way to go to double public.
Where we went with Xavier Navarro in Barcelona...
was in his flat, his parents' flat.
His parents were on holidays, and you recorded there at the living room,
with a voice paper there, nailed there with a spike...
that he took off from a picture.
Upstairs neighbours must were freaking out,
because he put on everything and only voice was heard with headphones,
and I was screamimg like hell there,
and yet at this studio from that guy's flat,
now I guess the guy has a studio because he was recording Hardcore bands and that,
well of course, the guy recorded a lot of bands there.
From that he became famous because he... he made 4 things with a computer,
and suddenly he pulled out a super-clean sound, but of course,
drums were all programmed in the sense that...
you recorded them with an electronic drum...
- The first demo from Dismal,
I remember that I had loved it, I had spoken to them a lot.
And I congratulated them because, of course, it was the first time I heard a band...
as more or less apart from here, near,
sound with such a sound as... more or less professional because it sounded really good.
They sound very heavy, we went to see them at a rehearsal and we said:
"Wow, these people, they... "
"wow, if they continue in this wave, the truth is that they can...
give a shot and be known. "
- We were there at the times of the demo, In Our Dark Paradise,
I think the four songs had a very well defined style,
taking into account we never tried to copy any band, nor...
get it, because I never wanted to play a song...
I was never interested in playing songs from anyone because I always...
I always made my own songs.
And then, maybe following bands such as Supuration,
The Cube album, a French band that was already beginning to use clean vocals,
sometimes, they had a couple of tracks on The Cube album where...
they used clean vocals, because of that I started already in the Avowals to use...
I always liked to put more atmospheres from keyboards,
influenced by Bathory, things that, well, I liked music like that.
- With Avowals we tried to do it like that:
At Fussion Studios, Javier Abreu,
he wanted to do the typical record, get some bands,
then making the bands to put some money, to release a CD for nothing...
he had the studies so he could record, charge for that, and release the CD.
The thing is that we eventually spoke, the idea grow up...
There were some possible bands but in fact we were...
Absorbed over all the rest, later Unnatural, and, then...
We proposed Dismal or... I think it was like that, well,
the thing was that we had decided that there were the three bands,
one day we went there to talk,
and at the end, of course they did not charge for recording.
We recorded and so,
a record label was created, named Man Records, and in fact it was the life it had,
plus a couple of issues that they did...
for the CD. And of course, it hadn't ever been done...
splits CD's were made...
always... I remember a Belgian band, Agathocles and Drudge, or things like that..
split CD's from that time.
But it had been ever released one with 3 bands...
Then, also we look for a title, that Zarco found, of course,
because Zarco was the brain.
He was always thinking about it, he had no adolescence.
Besides from Death Metal.
And of course,
we decided a cover, a title for everyone,
and truth is that it wasn't hard at all because...
all of we were adding, it was... we were all in the same direction,
that was helping one another, and try to do something...
the illusion, to be like the bands that we liked and all of these things, then...
it was pretty easy, really.
- We made a first printing of 500,
that we distributed, I think, very fast,
and a reprinting of 500.
Sure, it worked great.
Yes, I believe that at that time, it was a good...
it was an incredible result, because in fact we are talking about a circuit...
very, very underground.
But I found that the 3 bands had... a very interesting proposal.
And I think, therefore, that over time,
it was demonstrated that they actually had something to give, right?
And they made it.
The running of the label...
was based on exchange by mail, right?
We printed flyers with prices, in Spanish, in English...
we distributed flyers all around the world,
and exchanged discs with distributors from... that is, worldwide.
I remember one from Madagascar...
a distributor with whom we exchanged records,
even Honolulu, right? ie, Hawaii, or...
California, New York,
London, France, Portugal...
I remember a distribution,
was not really a dealer, it was...
a couple who... they had a radio program,
I think I remember that it was in Lithuania,
and then they sent us a handwritten letter, right?
saying, "Hey, we have a radio program here, and we really liked the album,
We want to air it, and we believe that we can distribute a few prints here,
because people want it. "
But the price, that were, I think, I do not know if...
$10 or $12,
"the price for us is like a monthly salary, right?"
"So we can make a exchange", then they,
proposed us to do a trade for...
Russian army caps, Russian military watches...
and because of our ignorance at that moment,
we said "hoo guy...
what it matters to us and such... "
And then Zarco made a couple of negotiations here in Santiago,
with a collector, who collected that sort of things,
and was the collector which bought our records and made the exchange.
Then of course, with the looking that time gives you, you say:
"***, truth is that we could had exchange for us and now...
we would have a clock... *** great. "
- We did a tour,
of 3 concerts in Ourense, Vigo and Coruña,
there in Coruña we played in the Playa Club,
at Iguana in Vigo, and at Rock Club as it was called, in Ourense.
With the 3 bands, I had to play with...
We always put Unnatural in between, because I had to play...
with 2 bands on the same night, and so I could rest.
The New Bomb was a thing that at that time,
we started playing with the keyboard, then we bought a sampler,
we discovered electronic music, we tried to experiment...
with new voices, that sort of things,
as in us there is a...
at myself for ex... I can speak for myself,
a yearning to research and a desire to be different, not to repeat myself,
of course I didn't want to do... and in fact we didn't make another The New Bomb,
because we never were intended to, at least to make the same record.
And then we published the record in Portugal,
with a record label from Portugal... I sent it to a *** lot of places,
but at the end the only really concerned was a Portugal label.
Concerned, because I wasn't looking for a label to tell us,
as we recorded the album ourselves,
we had an exchange by... I remember myself, we had painted Fussion studios,
and we exchanged painting hours for recording hours.
We were there, we painted the walls 5 times,
because of course it was the more days... and as it was recorded by 'Gonso',
later, when Javier Abreu was on holidays we were stealing days.
We stayed there a year trying to record the album...
Well, if Javier Abreu finds out that... But *** him off.
Let him to find it out.
In fact I get along with him.
We published that album and then we recorded the Blanco.
And we paid... we paid the Blanco ourselves,
we did it like that: we said to pay a half, but we found a recording label...
from Portugal, that paid the other half,
and then we started with a bigger label,
it was interested, published it in Spain, of course,
we started to work with a manager. It was there...
with the Blanco it was the first time we had a manager,
we always found the shows by ourselves,
to travel... we had a Peugeot 205, and we went to Barcelona the 5 of us...
we went to Andorra, to San Sebastian... with the 205. We slept in the car...
Once we slept in one of the places with Aposento, in Logroño,
another day we slept there on... Well, with a lot of bands,
with Necrotic, from Leon, another one that... Well, you slept where you could….
then we went there, as a band that was called... well, also in Madrid,
with Sacrophobia, then we slept there at someone’s..
house, at another one's house, well, as it was done at that time.
But there we began to be... Sure, with manager, we started playing well...
The album, well, it succeeded enough, the label gave us money to film a video clip,
I still remember that they gave us €3,000 to make a videoclip...
of Destroyourself, from the disc Make Your Mind Up...
Sure, there were things that we were there saying, "God!"
and my dream, really, when I began playing music,
was to record something, to have a recording on tape,
when we recorded the demo, we arrived from Barcelona saying, "My God!"
with a tape there, and to record a CD was a dream, and play with bands such as...
Testament, Sepultura... Well, a lot of bands like that we played with,
it was a dream for me, that's something that I don't... of course, that sort of things.
It begins, well...
It's not like before, going to play 4 guys,
you've already got a technician, you have people to help you...
you already have a manager, you get into hotels...
It is something whith what, of course,
you lose some essence that it is very difficult not to lose.
When things go well, everyone gets into it, but...
When you have a...
When it seems that the band has an impact, because from the outside it has, I say:
"Oh, you are playing with this band, or you are playing at that... "
But of course, economically, you have to be there,
and also we invest there, in the equipment and everything,
and it is hard to keep it right, to keep 5 guys in a band...
in the same direction. Specially when you're not...
you are not the same 5 who started, because of bad luck you were changing,
and of course, hence the group lose...
We stopped for 3 years to record Neptuno, because we said:
"Let's stop everything and get out from people. "
Because people were obviously all giving you...
a clap in the back when you're out there and you are a bit known and that stuff but...
I did not care about it, everything I cared about is...
to create... to create good songs, and for me it is super exciting,
and we published the Neptuno, we stopped for 3 years but hey, really,
we missed something, especially with Dismal, the essence...
that I want in music. To be everyone...
in the same direction, and do what you like...
what you like, independently if no one listen to it,
or fifty million people listen to it.
To do it because you really feel it.
That is, *** off the money.
I've always done things because I really felt it like that,
and money was never a priority. Only, to have money to record a good album,
or to have good instruments or so.
But hey, about the personal thing,
it was never in our edges... at least in mine, or that of my brother.
Ivan neither, of course.
I think that all we had to say with Dismal is there.
And I... Dismal always was my band, always...
most of things came out of my mind and...
But I think it's right to here, and it's well.
Also you need to know... well...
go back again... that is, do new things, or keep going,
no looking back. Look back, one way...
because looking back with melancholy is good,
and sometimes looking back with affection, but to learn, and not...
I do not know, I think Dismal came to here.
So, for me it was something very special, and I would never change it,
in fact, I always did the best, and...
and for me it was something that helped me to become...
what I am now and I'm very proud...
in the sense that I always thought for myself,
or we always think for ourselves, if I pluralize,
We always been ourselves, and we never really care what anyone...
could say...
and we really went behind our dream, you know?
And I know that very few people do it in life.
I know that people live their lives...
in the way they are educated,
or about what they've been given or what they've been ordered,
and they do nothing for themselves to go someplace.
And we absolutely did that at that time.
- The way we started with the fanzine...
was like that, we began having contacts with people,
so what we tried, well... was to begin to...
to read another interviews in other fanzines,
also... you began to be interested in asking questions...
to bands you like, bands that you begin to have contact with, and all that.
At that time you had national magazines or local fanzines,
and from there, you started knowing.
You... the magazine reached you...
with 4 or 5 bands, then, either...
one Swedish, one from Valencia and another from Bilbao,
and so you said, "well, first I will write here the first two...
the Spanish ones and such. "
Sure, maybe writing to the Spanish ones,
suddenly they told you that...
"man, from the area you are,
we know that band. "
And of course, you asked them the address,
"Hey, well, look, if you can leave me the address... "
At a Galician level the first person which I contacted with was...
Javi Zarco.
Because at that time...
Absorbed just had published their demo,
with Drowned Productions,
Absorbed began being a well known band nationally,
even began to have a little impact at certain fanzines...
internationally.
Whereupon, knowing Javi,
you could start knowing more.
Knowing Javi, too...
people very close to them, to Absorbed, were...
the Dismal boys.
We also met people from Dismal,
*** great people…
and we were, too, with Isaac,
or with Jose, or with Javi...
We were also given information, they recorded some tapes to us,
we learned about the fanzine that they had, the Exorcism 'Zine,
and through that, we also started a little...
being interested in that. It was about...
year 92-93...
they began to... they also gave us...
the desire of doing that.
Once you have the contact with all these people,
more or less that you are exchanging letters,
because you are also interested in...
saying, "well, look, as I have such thing, look,
I'm getting you an interview, you answer to some little questions and... "
and you start getting together 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...
interviews and you began to see it achievable.
You say, "Well, look, I don't see it so hard, and...
I have more or less contact with...
7, 8 bands that I like,
and I think if I can have 7 or 8 interviews, I can gather them together more or less,
and hey, I can do a fanzine and more or less... something that people could like. "
The problem we had with, for example, Innards Decay,
was that we started having contact with a lot of people.
So we never were able to close the fanzine.
And there were interviews that were beginning to be a little outdated,
thus, what was our first issue...
eventually we found that we had there about...
20 interviews,
plus reviews, plus some commentary we had,
we said, "thing is that this is... buf! it's huge!"
Whereupon what we decided to do, not to stay everything outdated,
was to make a first number/second.
In other words, a double issue, right?
So it was a pretty large fanzine,
and it was... especially as I said, about '94 or so.
Man, something would have when more or less,
there are still people...
who remember it.
That is, there are people at forums who still remember that there was...
a fanzine that... in Spain, called Innards Decay, that was very good,
or people who...
maybe they see the cover and say, "Hey! I have it".
There were not many units done, I think they were 150 units,
of which, as I said, I think...
Dave Rotten moved 60,
that is, he was almost who moved the majority,
then we moved the few we had in orders for people,
and then some well, to the typical,
to... as they say to pay favors to bands that appeared.
- Although I think there were 500 copies, right?
- 500? - I think so.
- Nah, man. 500... Where are you going with 500?
There was no money to pay 500, Manolo!
There were fanzines, of course, because for example we were talking to people...
like Isaac and Javi, when they made Exorcism 'Zine,
maybe they did many more units than we did.
I don't know, I think sometimes they told me...
about 200-300 units. Of course,
200-300 to us, of course, we had to pay by ourselves,
we had no money, and as usual, we said:
"Okay, we'll do 150 now that more or less brings us money,
and then, later, we'll do more. "
What is the matter? that a fanzine doesn't give money.
This is an altruistic thing.
You do it because you like it, and not for seeking to gain money.
Because even the units you sell to people,
usually... yes, you got paid, but between...
the cost of doing it, and all,
if you start thinking about the costs that were...
from making an issue,
it doesn't give money to you.
So... when it comes about distribution...
the most of it always were made for exchange.
So I send you... okay, in fact this one...
we did with Drowned Productions,
when it was about the distribution, was that, an exchange.
It was: "I send to you X fanzines,
and you send me...
some CD's. "
And it was over. It wasn't...
- Let's see, at the beginning,
the music that... that, well, that I was listening to as a kid,
with 12 and 13 years, as everyone started,
with Heavy, with Thrash, and others,
and then perhaps when...
I had found a store,
that was a meeting place for many people,
in Vigo, which was The Bronx
it was a shop specialised only in Heavy,
but in Heavy, in Thrash, in Death...
time after that in Black...
it was more like a meeting point.
Then you got there, you were always...
listening to something that caught your attention,
and there were always people there.
- What we were looking for was musical material,
and there is where we see a shop, which must be mentioned here,
because without it many people couldn't...
listen to the things they listened to.
and music for me, in Galicia wouldn't be what it was,
if it wasn't for that store.
Which is the Bronx in Vigo.
It was a shop near the train station, and we got together...
we could get together 30,000, 40,000 pesetas, being 20 years old,
and we made pilgrimage...
we got together, "hey, we're going to Vigo" and we did pilgrimage...
and we got there and we bought Entombed's first album,
Carcass, Carnage, whatever. We bought them there,
and we got home and we played it and that's what was inspiring us.
That's what inspired us and pushed us to...
We want to do this music, because it was that what we really...
we did not want, with all respect,
we did not want...
Slayer's Reign In Blood, which we already had at home,
we wanted that extra thing.
- So, well, in the Bronx, there were these people who did fanzines,
they usually left their fanzines and so...
And one of them that caught my attention was Orfismo.
In fact it is almost the oldest fanzine, I say, active, from Spain.
Well, it caught my attention.
Because all that...
which was in there was extreme.
It was all extreme metal. And at that moment.
So imagine it, at early 90's, seeing bands there that...
that you freaked out and you didn't know anything about them...
or maybe there was some you knew this far, and you saw them there,
and above all, it was done in your city,
It caught your attention.
After that, maybe I met in college...
a bunch who liked more the...
Thrash, Death Metal and so on,
and came out the idea of making a...
a fanzine, among some of us, that was the More Beer!
And that fanzine was about music,
beer, and comics.
It was a bit different... it approached a bit some different things.
And in music, well, it approached a bit of everything.
There you could find...
everything, from bands like Hamlet interviewed,
as well as bands like Unnatural, bands as Unhallowed...
and well, it was funny because for example Unhallowed, the first time...
I heard about them was precisely by a review...
that appeared in the More Beer! of a show they had been given at...
at a squat house from Vigo.
And it happened that it caught my attention,
a Death Metal band, from your city, which... well...
- There were bands like Unhallowed,
they also released a demo that was *** great...
There was... there was good ambience. I remember a Thrash band from Vigo,
the Thrashnos,
I also liked them a lot, they were overwhelming and such...
- But it was a band that their demo moved like hotcakes, I think.
In fact they do not know how many...
They were with Anaconda Records, from Barcelona,
and ran out the...
the first pressing, made more, and actually you can talk to Edu,
in fact me, talking to Edu sometimes,
"Hoo, how many copies were printed?"
and they do not know. They do not know.
They... I do not remember how many copies could've been given to them...
200... as many as they were. But Edu told me no,
that he had a lot of mailing at that time,
because, of course, letters came from around the world and such,
A lot of mailing... was all tape trading and...
and letters,
there wasn't the Internet or anything...
and he rememebers that there were a lot.
And then I'm telling you, about Unhallowed, I remember the shows,
to see them around here, in a couple of times I saw them,
But...
but they caught your attention at that time.
They were the only band that was from here,
they always had some support here in the city,
because they were a band from here, had their friends, their people, their...
their followers...
And well, as I'm saying I...
I met them through the demo, Something In My Inside,
and then, as you saw before they had there...
an unreleased track on the compilation of Bambán...
and another one at the Millennium Compilation.
But well, it was...
another style.
I think the first band...
I interviewed, was Unnatural.
It's like everything, you always had the illusion, at that time, I'm talking about,
which still had mailing by letter,
and you were very excited, and very inexperienced also, you know?
You saw those people... today most of them,
are people like Franco or Sonia, people who...
you see at a concert, and you meet, with more...
people with whom you have more relationship, people you have less, of course,
but back then, when you were a kid,
you thought it was impressive, you know? "Hoo, great,
he plays at this band and...
I have the mini, and I have the demo, wow... "
and you freaked out because it was your illusion as a kid.
Returning to the issue of the fanzine,
that... so, well, the...
the More Beer! as I said, there were...
interviews with some of the Galician bands from...
from that time.
And soon after that, well...
when that fell apart,
or rather that the More Beer! went...
into another... into another level,
it became a free magazine and... well.
It was when I had still the urge...
to say, "well, then I will try to do something by myself. "
"Something... on my own. "
And it was when I realized to do my own fanzine,
and, well, since then,
that at the end it was at 97-98... when it was conceived everything,
until today, that it is still there the...
the fanzine. Thing is that as you know,
well, it approaches every kind of extreme metal.
Black, Death, Thrash...
Then time passes and, pfff...
What can I say?
Imagine, you're a Morbid Angel fan and...
in a few years, a Morbid Angel interview appears on your fanzine.
Or Suffocation. Or Cannibal Corpse.
Or Deicide.
It is not... what can I say? You know?
There are things that you say, "holy ***!,
it is amazing. " So, a couple of years ago I was freaking out...
watching Morbid Angel videos, and now, you have the chance to interview them.
The beginnings of Black Metal here in Galicia, at first were...
were... very...
You...
Of course, if you compared it with a scene like for example, the...
to say something very excessive,
with the Norwegian scene,
from that time,
and you saw what people wanted to do here,
and no. No way.
Towards... late 90's, at best, people, when they were starting,
Mydgard, Immacula Mortem, Vórtice... all these people,
well, look, there was a small movement, and such.
The thing is that it was... you know?
It was quite a... it was still very new, very recent...
In Galicia, I think the whole Thrash and Death Metal...
was deeply rooted...
deeply rooted because there were many people who was involved in that stuff...
and yet...
Black Metal hadn't been liked very much.
Is something like... I do not know, the sound...
People came from hearing good productions, powerful productions,
and if you passed that sound there... more cheesy and such, people did not...
did not like it. I think that now there is a Black Metal scene...
more consolidated, more serious...
and more important. However, the beginnings with Immacula Mortem, as I remember,
I can only say that to you, what come to my mind are those,
at this area, Immacula Mortem, Vórtice...
and Mydgard. And then from there, well, it raised ramifications...
and most of them became bands...
which are more serious now and they have a musical background more... more powerful.
- When we started... well, when...
we created Scent Of Death, we could say,
Well, the reference band was Unnatural,
- Unnatural. - Earlier ones that had been?
Well, Suffer Age, Episodio Psikótiko,
a Hardcore band...
in a very Newyorker style, called Prap's,
that we all liked,
it was very powerful, very... very dry riffs, with *** fast drums...
- But hey, it was Hardcore. - Yeah...
- It had nothing to do with Death Metal. But it is good.
- And before it all, Sepulcro, Detestor...
They were the bands that were around here, it wasn't...
- Nah, but the reference itself was Unnatural.
- The reference was always Unnatural - Unnatural...
It was the best Death Metal band that Spain gave.
From ever. So...
It's what it is.
From those years and from these. Even today I...
You can see bands who play...
who play very fast, they play things I don't know.
Technique and the whole ***.
But about the composition thing, there isn't any.
- With that pleasure in doing things. In composing the songs, everything.
They weren't fast...
They weren't fast at what we understand now as Brutal Death...
but it was a pleasure...
- I do not know, if they were an American band,
they would be high, would be like Suffocation, or something like that.
- Yeah, yeah. - The Mini that they released,
Throne Of Anguish... that... that...
In those years is unthinkable someone doing that.
They were light years ahead of everyone.
Even today, over the years that have passed since the LP was released,
it still sounds good, dammit. It's a record... that... makes you go...
- In Ourense there was a band, which were Dolmen,
it was a band that played conventional Heavy Metal.
And then they were like half wasted and then Sonia began to play with them,
Pedro, I think Fran were there too...
It was like a...
A remake. It had no name or anything, but it was a continuation.
And I started afterwards.
What happens is that...
from that continuation of those Dolmen,
we were listening to another music.
We were totally at the wave...
of Kreator, Slayer... pumpún... on another things, then...
that became in what was Detestor.
I think we started with Detestor at '91.
Or at '90...
Basically... More or less then. Around that date, yes.
Unnatural, when...
Detestor fell apart because, well, there was...
tenseness between some people and others in the band...
and we decided to break up.
And we said, "Let's start again. "
Because we weren't going to stop.
"We will break up this, but we will start again,"
And it was like... fum! we sweep for one side and...
zero!
And we started again with another idea.
Then... more or less with the idea... it had been worked out...
over the years it had been worked out slowly but...
actually,
we start with the idea that we would do another thing.
It was evident.
And we started...
Sonia and me,
we started, and we... I do not know, it was... Of course, we went looking for...
people who we saw at concerts,
we knew they were playing...
we got contact whit them...
"Hey, do you want such and such?" to people who more or less...
we knew that they like the same as us, and that they would...
fit well.
And it was all squared.
You: yes, you: yes. Fum! and we began.
And so we started with Unnatural, yes.
We released a couple of demos...
I think the first Unnatural demo is from '92.
- Yes. - There were, Carlos, from... Santiago,
who was also...
was also in...
in The Dismal.
And Rafa,
and then of course there was a... it was complicated.
To continue with it.
We played a few times, everything very cool...
getting better, but people was from outside the city, and...
and it was very hard...
every weekend they were travelling up and down and...
they opted for... a bit...
by mutual agreement, "this can't be. "
We never said: "We will break up the band. "
We said: "no,
we must look for another people. "
And well, I don't know, by chance,
"Yeah, well, come in. " - Yeah.
- They were with Osmosis back then
and then 'Mingos' started playing with us.
- I started playing about 19 years old,
in the early 90's, I won't do accounts, elsewhere I'll be bad looking...
With a band called Osmosis,
that... well,
there played Carlos, Axel, Franco's brother, Nóvoa,
and... those were who were.
Well, then... I had no idea of playing,
as I said, it was an absolute adventure.
The truth is that it went...
pretty good... Well, locally, because we didn't go out from here,
but hey, we recorded a...
a demo,
after a part of the band left us,
well with... I think it had 3 song, uh, yes, 3 songs.
- I had joined 'Mingos'
Franco's brother also, and with another drummer,
and we made Osmosis.
We recorded the demo, in which was playing the brother of...
of 'Mingos'.
We recorded the demo, and it were something serious.
With a lot of illusion, more than anything else,
- Tell him where we rehearsed with Osmosis.
- We rehearsed under the altar of a church.
When there were a funeral,
you had to wait until the corpse were taken off,
you talked to the priest, " - can we now, Father?" "- Yes you can. "
He never charged us anything.
- And there you were still there when I... - And he began to...
- Yes, I started there. And... well, it was a room...
that matched just below the altar, - Yes, just 2 square meters,
we got into it, if you did this you could hit someone, but...
- It was a corridor. It was like a hallway. - There were. Yeah.
There we were. - With the acquiescence of the priest.
- Exactly. If he had knew what they were singing...
- Good thing he didn't know English.
- Yes, or else... - He didn't care.
Shows, how much we take, 3?
- Yes, maybe. - Maybe we take 3. One in Ribadavia...
- Other in the Faraones. - That was *** great.
- That was *** great.
- The Ribadavia also was *** great. It was a cool one.
And I think 2 in the Faraones here in Ourense.
- It was more like Nordic Death Metal, more melodic.
A little easier,
but hey, at that time,
it was the most affordable to...
people who were beginning to play.
- When we recorded that demo, after recording the demo, soon after,
we ran out of rehearsal place,
and from there already...
It was when he entered Unnatural and...
Osmosis became a nice remember,
and goodbye.
- Then Unnatural came,
it was a brutal change for me,
at a technical level, it also made me play...
in a more serious way.
I think the influence of Unnatural specially...
It's heavily influenced by American Death Metal.
Basically.
There isn't anymore than that.
- I couldn't tell you.
At ears from other people, apparently it sounded a lot like Gorguts, Immolation.
- It sounded like that. I think... A mixture. I think so. A mixture.
- Unnatural were very good people.
Specially catched a lot of attention Sonia playing drums.
It was a...
Everyone was struck because she was a woman and...
she played very hard... then...
They were people who played very well, right?
And at that case, Franco, too, who later...
left to Barcelona to make some other bands there...
Yes, there were moods.
- When you saw that they were people who cared to do songs well done,
To sound like a song, not a medley of touches, as it happens today,
- Yes, that is, they were... - Now everything is to tangle the songs.
- Those were rhythms which were maintained for themselves.
Maybe not by technical difficulty, but they did you move your head.
- Yes, they sounded. - That was the point.
- They were songs... that is, they were the concept of song, dammit.
- It was well played, well composed... And it sounded right.
- Unnatural were very good at that time, what happens is that people...
I think they didn't understand them.
- In what year or so, when we stopped? '97...
'97.
On '97's Christmas. Or in summer?
The day...
- Ugh, I do not remember now.
- ***, now I do not know it, man. Well... 97-98, you know what?
I remember... Damn, that just at that moment it began to...
a lot of concerts began to came out. It was... It was like...
Something like: Holy ***!
They start calling you from all over to play,
and everything blow off.
I remember that there were local festivals in Bilbao,
and we were called to go to play at the *** festivals.
I say, "***! I can not believe it!
We're going to play at a festival and this and that... " We couldn't do anything.
The band went down fast.
First pa...
Sonia had a back injury,
and she decided...
each time it was worse, worse, worse... and finally she decided to stop playing.
And remained so for years.
And we,
confronting the impossibility of finding a drummer...
to replace her,
finally the band eventually broke up, I think, a little because of that.
Because don't...
Because there wasn't continuity because there wasn't any drummer here.
- I think that... - I think Ourense for how small it is...
and the whole bit, always get out *** great bands from here.
Dolmen would be the first, always, right? - Yeah. - Yeah.
- Of those we can remind Dolmen would be the first. Then just don't know if there were...
Episodio Psikótiko and...
- Detestor - And Detestor maybe were in the same...
- Yes. - Yes.
And there wasn't more than that. - In a fringe of... of time.
No, but besides here in Ourense we also had...
the handicap, damn, if it were a big city maybe you had more...
even at level of access at instruments or to can try things, you know?
Here in Ourense you had nothing. Here... pfff.
- No. - You could kill to have a Metal Zone.
If you had a Metal Zone you were the king.
You know? Then, of course, that also influences
sometimes in the development of the bands. No...
- At that time, maybe you had to ask up to Madrid.
To get a Metal Zone. - And even in that we were exiled, you know?
Here there was no way, no... This amp, you see the pictures in the catalogs...
Well, catalogs, neither catalogs we had at that time.
There was a flyer in a store. - "And then what is this? -Such -Good,
then we will have to buy a Marshall because everyone has one... " you know? no...
and so, ie, we were in a... actually in complete ignorance.
We had no *** clue.
You know? It was... "Well then, we'll try to see how this works and...
Metal Zone? we'll see, buah... holy ***!"
You know? but we hadn't the advantage that may exist at big cities,
where you can have great music stores,
and you can try out things. And here there wasn't that... that option.
Just then, a band that was from here in Ourense,
Episodio Psikótiko was called,
well... one of the guitarists left... I do not know what happened...
So they were looking for a new one. And I said "hoo, well, I'll try... "
I got there, I did a test,
and I think it shouldn't be a lot of candidates because... they chose me, right?
Then I went there, and of course, I was freaking out, hell, because I was a kid,
compared to them, right? There was a little difference in age...
Well, when I entered to this band, really...
I was surprised, no? because I thought... I went with the idea...
of being quiet, do what they say and that's it, you know?
But... instead there wasn't anyone composing, you know?
The one who was supposed to be the principal composer, he didn't... he didn't do it.
So I began to make the music. Then of course, style went more...
Swedish Death Metal, melodic... this kind of thing that I listened at that time,
and it was then when the band was renamed from Episodio Psikótiko,
because it hadn't anything to do with the musical style... with what was done before.
And that's how Suffer Age was born.
Then Suffer Age lasted...
I think 2-3 years.
Something like that, more or less.
We recorded a demo...
that was never released...
and also was recorded in the tallere... in a study that was here in the...
in Ourense. There you registered at a list...
as well as Franco spoke before, right?
you were paying nothing and you had right there...
I do not know if they were 15 days of recording,
- Yes, it was subsidized by the council,
Taller de Música *Music Workshop* was called.
Mythic. All bands from Ourense... - All recorded there.
of every styles, their first demo, certainly came out from there.
- Sure, sure.
And... Well, as I said, it was recorded, and at the time of recording...
Typical frictions began,
one something, another something else... blah blah blah...
The drummer was playing with...
How was it called? A band from Cáceres I do not remember the name...
- Sadok. - Sadok.
He had... well, something like that, and then of course, it reached a point...
we could say that...
people from here in Ourense,
wasn't too much involved, and he said, "***, coming from Cáceres to...
to get here and that one I don't know what, another one something else... "
so he left the band. And the usual thing, if there is no drummer...
story ends, right?
Then Suffer Age broke up. The demo remained unreleased,
I had to end the recording of all the guitars,
with what I had at that time,
and everything left that way.
Shortly after... as Suffer Age broke,
I was thinking on make another...
another band, right?
We are already talking about Scent Of Death.
Then, well, of course, while I spoke with...
with Sonia, I had already spoken to Carlos also,
then we did the first rehearsals, we were the 3 of us here.
That lasted a few months until finally...
Well, I found... - This one appeared,
- I met Bernardo,
and already more or less the lineup was running like that.
Sonia then left,
- Nuno entered. - Yes, Nuno entered.
- In '98... - '98, we started.
- It wasn't before?
- Official date is September '98. - September '98.
It had rained since then, eh? - Yeah.
- It had rained and it had been sunny. - In fact when I came into Scent Of Death,
Well, Sonia...
in the band there were them, with Sonia, who after leaving...
after stop playing with Unnatural because of her back problems...
she said "well, I'll try again".
Well, she was in for 3-4 months, - Yes, and then nothing.
- And she didn't stand, that is, she could not handle the back and...
eventually she had to quit.
Until Nuno entered.
- Man, my idea when I started...
with Scent, it was a bit like it was the continuation...
of Suffer Age.
You know? I still had the idea...
of melodies, of acoustic guitars, of keyboards, of ***.
And as this man entered,
everything gone.
Tatatatatatata.
And then it evolved in that sense.
But my first intention was not to make a...
Brutal Death band or anything. This is a kind of...
a hybrid, with a bit of melody, faster parts, parts such... right?
Well, in the end it evolved to that. So... that's something I do not regret either.
- Yes, there at Ourense, truth is that...
they made a Death Metal festival for 2 years...
it was very very good,
and truth is that there you could see that there was a little movement, you know?
Besides that they started to grow out bands,
truth is that there were people,
you got to those festivals and there were a lot of people.
You was surprised because you said, "wow,
elsewhere around here we go to see a Death Metal band and there is nobody. "
- Ovella Negra. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know, we were a bunch...
In fact,
a colleague of 'Pacho', which 'Pacho' had,
vocalist of...
- Ankhara - Countless number... of Heavy Metal bands,
he had a bar here and there was where we met.
And more or less almost the whole bunch at that time...
it was... we decided, "***, we are in the Casa da Xuventude *Youngsters' House*,
making no association,
so we will attempt a nonprofit association"
because that was the only way we had to get some kind of grant to make things.
And in the Casa da Xuventude they let us the local...
I say: "Great. *** yeah. "
We met the... all the...
the little bunch who liked the whole thing,
and we started contacting bands and bringing everything we could here.
Sometimes losing money, and sometimes...
losing money.
- In Ourense there was a thing that...
the council supported a lot, and they had a place to play,
that's where we went with Septic Vomit the first time, to play there with Detestor...
there were 200 people... to us that was like playing... well,
at Rock Am Ring or elsewhere, of course.
And we went there and they had a studio, in which was
also the guitarist of Los Suaves working at that time,
and there the bands recorded, free, of course.
- In fact there was a very good connection among them at that time, and...
that meant going to play there many times,
to... how do they called it? they had there the...
The Xuventude's Stadium or what was the Xuventude's Pavilion,
they did it behind the Town Hall of... Ourense, right? So...
they organized Death Metal concerts that filled full, pavilions of...
a pavilion that they had there.
- Well... yes, I remember...
when it was the subject of Taller de Música,
on the other hand was also the Casa da Xuventude,
that I think they commented before,
and there were concerts, here came to play Doomsday, came to play Unbounded Terror,
- Many people. In those... - A lot of people.
- In those years it was a total madness.
And besides people who had nothing to do with the scene.
Nothing, they were not about Death Metal... no no, people went to concerts.
- Yes, but at that time people went to the concerts.
They went to the concerts. - But till' you couldn't enter the hall.
- You could like it or not, but maybe got there...
people who liked Rock n 'Roll or were punks...
and came in to the concert. For those who liked Hardcore music, they came also.
You could go to a raw music concert and so you went to a concert.
Today it's... those who listen to Black, if there is a Death band they won't go.
And those who listen to Death, if there is a Black band, also they won't go.
- Yes, indeed. - Then, everyone went.
- Thing is, today people have much more difficulty to spend €5 in one ticket.
- No, but then it was too... it was a bit...
what there was. Were coming few bands, we were all freaks...
and well, you attended what... to everyting that came out.
What I'm saying, in that show of Unbounded Terror...
Hall of the Casa da Xuventude was... totally filled.
- We tried to bring those that we knew or that ones...
we picked their demos.
At the time when we started,
what was working very, very well was all that came from Drowned.
From... From the label Drowned, of Rotten, from Madrid.
And... what we could bring, came.
I don't know... Human Waste,
Unbounded Terror, I remember. - Yes, Unbounded...
- Absorbed. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well...
Bands from the south as well, Lightning...
We were getting a bit those what... the bands we could...
Those from we had the contact...
The contact you had before, you know? from...
from you to me by mail...
the trade with the tapes and other...
all those people who...
you maybe reach an agreement,
or the guys were willing to move their *** for few money...
and wanted to come, we brought all we could. I don't know...
Many bands came. A lot.
Even some festival and...
Every year we did a fest, yes...
One or two. In fact we were doing 2. One in spring and another in autumn. That's true.
Well, there was a store here,
which also did much to the scene, because there was...
was... a little...
the one which had Flores, Spiral Discos. - Spiral.
- He was a bit the 'Euronymous' of Ourense.
Where would gather the whole gang, and there...
was almost like a... as in Sunday going to a Metal Mass.
You arrived there, and you knew what day the salesman from each seal came,
and you were going to hear directly the new albums arrived.
A ceremony.
- It was a ritual, the ritual of all the week, "Let's see what's in Spiral. "
"Of course, that arrived, or some one else, let's see what's at second hand...
Play this, pam!."
So, it was... - But that was more than a ritual,
I studied... BUP and COU there beside, and at all breaks, ***.
- I truanted class directly. - I did not.
- I truanted class. - But you went at break...
- After that I went into school with Spiral Discos' bag.
- At break you went there, and after school, then...
You were also going. And in the evening. - And in the evening you went there too.
- Although it was only to listen to this or that...
You didn't have money, you couldn't buy it...
- So you kept it... - You cursed everything...
- "Flores, kept me that, I'll buy it... " - Maybe...
"Flores, keep me this,"
so, maybe you bought it within a month, when you'd get...
1,800 pesetas...
- But you bought it at the end.
- Finally you ended buying it, typical. - It was all... all vinyl.
When CD's arrived, ***, they were really expensive.
- Yes, it was typical that each one buy...
***, I remember one time that came out...
came out...
one from...
from Suffocation, from Benediction, from Malevolent... were released all at once,
I give them out there, "you catch this, you this, you this, you this. "
- And then you recorded it. - "Ok, I'll take this one"
after that you recorded among all, pirate-way.
- That came at remittances, "today there are new records at Spiral"
we went there to look at new releases, "Let's see, where will you pick?"
and dealing. Each one was taking an album, and the remaining record the TDK.
A 90' tape, a disc on each side...
- You bought the original disc,
and you were going to the appliance store...
to buy a TDK-90. - Yes.
- This guy, really, is a guy who was very involved in the scene.
He always worked a lot, and he was the one who went into contact with the bands,
he had more contacts at...
- Of course, once came Pungent Stench, Macabre and Brutal Truth to...
to Ourense. Unnatural played there too, and we were there,
and there I were with Dan Lilker, who for me, of course... I loved Nuclear Assault,
also S.O.D...
- I think it was the only tour so powerful that ever came to Ourense.
- Pungent Stench - Macabre, Pungent...
And Brutal Truth. - Brutal Truth, indeed.
- Yes, many people had moved,
because it was one of the first... In fact I didn't know Brutal Truth yet,
and I was blown away by them.
I was blown away. I think they had just get the second disc at that time.
- Yes, they had released the... - I think they had just...
released their second album.
And I was blown away. And Pungent, it was one of my favorite bands at that time...
because of my colleagues and such,
and well, see them live...
Suddenly, and so they brought them, because they knew people...
here was more or less what we was hearing.
And then concerts, yeah, yeah, yeah. We make a lot. Then too...
when it opened a mythical hall here, which incidentally is now closed,
the Rock Club,
It was when we started...
to organize a lot of things,
well I more in a personal level. After that the organization fell apart because...
each one began to pull to one side and...
"No, but I want this, I want that," Well, tensions,
and all of it went to hell,
and I went... I think I was the only one who kept doing things.
Always putting money from my pocket and working a lot.
- The bands from here were very good. - About what was in '94-'95,
I think we could be very, very, very proud.
Very proud of what we had here, because...
I remember...
that I listened to bands from the Spanish scene,
and there were good bands. And people who played well.
But...
bands, as I said, of... as we mentioned before...
as Absorbed or Unnatural, there weren't in Spain.
In other words, there were good bands,
but not anyone that sounded well in that style.
- I do not know, no... there wasn't show-off people like...
people you see out there from Galicia NS and I don't know what,
as this is already the world upside down: "I speak Galician,
but I'm a Nazi, because the Celts... " is like: "*** off, man"
you know? that is, you don't tell me ***, if you have lived in Galicia,
there are no Nazis anywhere.
Neither Nazi or Celtic.
Well, Celta, in... Pontevedra or Vigo.
Here, Deportivo.
- At that time it was really hard to get a guitar,
very hard to have a Marshall amplifier.
I'm not saying a Mesa Boogie, well, this was already after that.
Everything was done out from love, actually what we were...
I now see it all more superficial today.
I do not mean the Death Metal scene today because...
I do not know it and I really think it can preserve that essence.
Because... it must be like that because if it wouldn't, it wouldn't be Death Metal.
Because from the time that culture is aided it is not culture, because that sucks.
Because culture has always been regardless the state, the system and all that ***...
rot them all, you know?
I always see...
music as something that has to be free around the world, period. So clear.
For that we must seek alternatives to live, such as concerts, such as...
Well, as there it was... like Middle Ages' minstrels were, such, but well...
money makes me sick.
- But yet people do not have the illusion that had before.
At that time, you sent a letter with 500 pesetas inside...
and it took the mail from 2 to 3 weeks...
to bring home the demo. It arrived to you, you listened to it, put it one time...
once again, once again, after that you wanted to continue contacting that people...
and you sent a letter, you had to wait for it to arrive...
It was a complete different thing. Very, very nostalgic.
Something that won't return... it won't return, never.
That is, you send an e-mail, but it is very cold.
The scene at that time was a bit underground. There was not...
There was nothing, no important distributors,
there was no significant magazines, there was nothing.
It were all homemade fanzines,
made by people like us who liked the scene and that is.
So between us, a little bit we used to connect, but...
but there was nothing else to do besides from doing it like that.
One on one, tapes, I give this to you, you give me that...
I think the issue that it was something underground or something...
difficult for everyone, it united us more, you know?
Only the fact that there was someone who liked this kind of music,
was like... someone you liked, you know?
Someone who was welcome.
- And what we did to meet each other?
Well, you sent the...
the letter, or they sent it to you this, the interview, and... by letter,
you answered it, and then inside the envelope, you stuck...
a lot of... - Of flyers.
- Of flyers from... from bands. - Yes.
- If the letter was two pages long,
it weighted almost half a kilo.
And at the end of the letter you always wrote: "Return the stamp. "
Because obviously, we cheated the stamps,
And then, once they were returned,
we got them into the water and we reused them.
That is, we were... we "deceived" treasury but...
licking what... because...
- Of course, now everything goes easier.
Now everything goes through e-mails. From that, I must tell you...
we were working through... ordinary mail.
And it was not only the mail. There were, besides, problems...
about how much will it cost you to send a letter.
You were sending letters to all around the world.
Including current flyers, giving weight to the letter and... and it cost more.
A letter to anywhere in the world, with flyers, plus something I don't know...
And another thing that was important, most bands asked you, maybe, for the...
what they called the International Reply Coupon, the IRC.
For you to send it and so they respond.
You started to cast accounts, that during a week you had to send 6-7 letters and...
a 17, 18, 20, year-old boy,
without money nor work,
a time comes when you start to see it difficult.
In other words, a letter instead to can be sent this week you had to wait...
the following week so that it can be sent.. to have some money...
- The... lack of resources,
helps to grow up inventiveness.
Not having things, or when it costs you a lot more work,
Hell, every... mail, all, all, all, all... Everything was so elaborate,
that... you... you had to be much more involved in the issue, ***.
Today is everything much easier.
Plap, Plap. Click click click... It's like Enjuto Mojamuto.
It's so... it's super-easy, you know? you don’t have to burn your brain at all.
At that time, you had to work a lot on it.
- The issue of...
it had its romantic thing,
when you got the envelope with a handwritten letter.
And I think we have everything in a box...
all the material that... - Yes, yes, yes, you will definitely...
with the band... - Someone that came from Cuba, I think...
- With the band, with people with whom you sent letters, you had a closer...
relationship than today. Today you get an e-mail, well,
you get... you get a lot, right? But...
But no doubt, well, it was... it was another kind of thing, it was more...
more personal, if it's possible.
- No, but certainly it's better...
better this way, much more...
much more projection, and more... and faster and more...
in short, much higher quality of...
- I tell you, at that time the good thing it had was the issue of the contact.
Some people, you know? being there sending you a letter,
even waiting... "I send you this, you send me somewhat... "
and then you could be one week waiting to get a cassette...
that you wanted to hear from a band that had somewhat, such...
or they were sending you a bootleg show from Suffocation recorded at some place...
And, of course, things you could not get more than if someone had send it to you.
So the contact was good, there was more... more friendship.
- It was better or worse? I do not know, it was different.
I think that...
changing is unavoidable.
Anyway,
there is still people who preserves the old thing and I feel it *** great.
If, either... Moreover, I think that...
they must live both of those things.
- Well... Internet? Internet is good. Because say that it's wrong,
is to be like a wildebeest, a fool.
But really it's bad. At the end all is *** ***,
- Man, a lot of *** comes too... - To control us, to take us our money,
and to meet morons.
Because finally it was like... Then, if I didn't want to see a moron's face,
it was easy. And now, unintentionally, you have to see it. So...
Well, anyway... Because you even get bomb mails and whatever I do not know, like:
"Leave me alone, boy. "
- No, it is obviously a... it has very good things.
What is the problem?
That too many info... Too...
much information all at once. I mean...
in those years, the information that came to us was reached stepwise.
You had time to have a bit of a evolution, right? You began listening to Heavy...
you listened to someting more... another things.
And now people are suddenly going to listen one day to Melendi,
and the next morning they listen to Disgorge.
And they are the most brutals from Death Metal and they know everything...
and they control everything, and all so-and-so, and this is ***...
- They are the truest. - Within... yes, they are the truest.
And after 2, after 3 years they are out from the scene. You know?
So that's the thing, there is much flashy type. So, the problem with the Internet,
is that all flashy type, they all have great opinions. And everyone knows.
So often people speak without actually viewing the...
what is reality, this kind of things. They think that to record is very easy,
or they think that playing is very easy, that a gig is organized from nothing...
That here we are all gaining money, or perhaps, bah...
you do things altruistically, obviously. Because with this we will never make money.
You know? but there is also a point between doing things altruistically,
and another thing is that they take you as an ***.
So, a lot of people can't understand that.
They think that to record is to record and...
and that buying the instruments doesn't cost anything,
or to make a sound, or to create your own sound in the band,
or try to rehearse... So... Many people do not... they really have not *** idea...
But they know about everything.
- The Internet provides a...
a facility to get anything,
that makes you to don't value anything at all.
In other words, it is rare to value music from a band...
because you know that tomorrow you'll get another one...
that sounds like you want or... there are millions and millions of bands, now...
time ago, knowing a band, pff... it was very difficult. Now it's very easy.
- Time ago I think people moved more. Because you had to move.
I mean...
To get anything, economically you weren't able to get...
Then, it was a bit among all, it was...
exchanging the usual demos, exchanging the usual records...
Today, I think people are more comfortable.
In that sense.
It's also reflected at concerts.
There is a lot fewer people today.
That is a little bit contradictory because there are...
I think there are more bands today than then. Really. At least here in the city.
- But... then it was nicer to...
to work the issue, to send a letter...
Or to cut out a flyer, or a thousand flyers at home with a cutter,
we did zillions,
- And to do drawings by hand, to decorate skulls with hand,
- And cut, paste, copy... - Or cut something, trim, paste...
- Bar-Glue, paste and then you wrote in the letter: "P.S. Return the stamps. "
- Yeah, yeah, yeah... - That mythical phrase.
- Mythical to reuse the stamps... - To everyone...
The one that you received "P.S. Return the stamps,"
and the one you sent, "P.S. Return the stamps"
It was more... I don't know. - Sure, it was... was much more difficult.
Now, with the Internet there is no such of...
- And in fact, things you have... you can have at home,
the demos you got that way,
are those...
you like to have, the more... - They are the more mythical.
- They are the more mythical.
- Yes, we've lost a bit of eagerness... the collecting yearning we had...
you know? Now everyone...
have collections of records on a hard drive.
- Now it can be more moved the...
well yes, people goes with their Death Metal and Black Metal looks...
down the street without a problem,
and everyone is normal, and no one is bizarre,
and none of that,
and they let you in on a trendy pub with Death Metal looks,
because everyone knows what it is,
But... I do not think it has made anything to ideas or feeling.
Maybe it's because I'm already rot and tired.
- I think that now...
I do not know, I see less illusion, right? in people.
Well, actually isn't that I see less illusion, there is less...
enthusiasm even for people who...
who has a band, right? ie, it is very...
very disappointing to get to a concert,
and see that there are 30 people. Or 20 people.
For me... it's disappointing.
- So, there was more feeling.
Then I didn't noticed how this or that man played. I liked it and it's done.
And that's the thing.
And people went to concerts whatever they liked.
- Yes, maybe now there is another kind of people,
by the things we were talking about the Internet,
but people, I do not know, then there was more hodgepodge.
In a Grind concert there were punks,
there were people from Black Metal, from Thrash...
and you were going, and maybe this Hardcore band...
more American, more Newyorker as it was called then, I don't like it so much.
But well, I'm going either, why? Because I don't know, they rock, and you...
went because there were 4 *** gigs. Now people think they are elite, and so...
and if such...
no longer... if you're not a star of that particular move, you can't...
- Well, I'll stay...
with the concerts, concerts where you could see many people,
with, with... and above all... with the...
illusion that many people came, right? And that they listened and appreciated you.
So, as you all that...
spread, really were those cassettes we recorded in our house, pirate plan,
with... with double deck, and you put into a letter and you began to send it worldwide...
to Malaysia, USA, and all around, you spent your money on...
on stamps and all that, but it was good.
At the end, they reached the people because acknowledgments came finally,
years and years later in magazines, fanzines and all that...
where you could see that it reached people and they liked it right?
- And I know a lot of people who fell in love with that time.
Early 90's, old school Death Metal and everything.
And I like it, and I hear those bands...
Time ago I was listening to all bands that came out,
and now I stay with 10 or so, the ones that make me feel something.
Morbid Angel, Death, Entombed and some more that really meant something...
At that time they meant a lot, and now, as time passes,
you make something like a bonfire and disappear what was less...
At that time you listened to everything, you had a 90' tape,
a band on each side, fumfumfumfum, you were a sponge.
We were Death Metal sponges at that time.
And we listened to everything.
- To find the distributors that there were then, Anaconda, Upground, Ironía...
and... I do not know which more... I think I knew those 3.
- And Repulse. - And Repulse, but Repulse...
I... no, there I didn't buy.
and... then that's it,
fanzine, fanzine photocopied sheet,
with 10,000 reviews and...
send me a letter and put me an alternative for the case I don't have this demo...
and I'll send you another one. Because obviously, things were like that.
You sent money, your 900 pesetas saved with no drinking and don't getting high,
to buy music,
and then they sent you the recorded TDK, and all that *** that had its charm.
- As this is a global crisis, it makes that...
those bands that before seemed impossible to see,
they come here, as it has happened recently...
with Obituary, Vader... these bands, it's wonderful that they come here...
now, and that you can see them. If in 90's you have said:
"Holy ***, Obituary playing there!" you would have a heart attack, you would die.
But now those are the good things we have.
The Death Metal that I stay, is that one from that time.
Sometimes I listen to new bands, and I like them. But I do not follow them.
I don't follow them, and I listen to another things.
- It was harder, and it was like you were doing more research, right?
- Of course. - Now it's like... like as...
if everything was much easier.
I mean, access to information, it's easier, it's more immediate,
I don't know... what is better or worse? Well, I don't know.
- Well, the information... information is better...
today. Logically. - Now, of course.
- That is, the material is much better...
the material you... - Of course.
- You can have access, or... to...
at information level and... when you want to buy an...
an instrument. Or... Some classes.
- I remember it with great fondness, especially after living the time of the...
of '00's, of the 21st century...
of the music's hypocrisy and the vacuum and... of the search for...
free charge fame.
Well... I remember that things like...
love among each other, everyone loving each other, all of us helping,
always add, never...
try to take to the other to benefit yourself...
Among all bands, and at... at a national level, you know?
I'm not saying that there wasn't a guy like that.
But counted, ie, 1 or 2 between...
20 or 30 bands. It was always wonderful, and... it's like...
I remember it as... a time of learning, of... wonderful.
- Truth is that... man, everything has its charm.
It's a bit different... So the nostalgia. In after so many years,
of... be without... without thinking of those years and such,
and suddenly you remember...
you were a kid,
and you were starting to...
making music... - He's saying the kid thing talking of him.
The kid thing is about him.
- The wonderful thing is that some bring, and the new is old and the old is new.
"What's up is down", as they said...
Subtitles English Chucketta Entertainment