Interview with BLOODRAIN

My relationship with the band BLOODRAIN began in 2013, when Possession, together with Satanath, published the collection "Ultimatum & Nomen Nostrum Legio". After 2016, the contact weakened a little, but this year there was an opportunity to do an interview, and I thought - why not, especially since this idea was spinning in my head already back then? BLOODRAIN has successfully passed through my ideological and political filter that I set for Russian bands, and today I invite you to read my conversation with Jan - one of the founders, frontman, mastermind and the only constant participant of BLOODRAIN.

Hello, Jan! I know that all musicians hate this question, but still, tell me about how, for what purposes and under what influence the band Bloodrain was founded. Am I guessing correctly that the name came from the Slayer song "Raining Blood"?

Jan: Greetings, Raman! I don't think that initially we thought about any purposes, there was a subconscious desire to create, a kind of "creative itch". What was really important was that I wanted not only to play heavy music, but also to carry a certain spiritual message, i.e. that the texts must be meaningful, and not just about blood, guts, all sorts of horrors, etc. If we talk specifically about musical influences, then definitely Slayer and their masterpiece "Reign In Blood" were the main influence. The name of the band is taken from there, that's right.

What did the extreme metal scene around you look like at the time when Bloodrain took their first steps? What has changed since then?

J: When we started in '95, there were several large thrash bands in Tver: P.O.S.T., Воланд, Disastrous Sound, and several smaller bands. There were 2-3 Death/Grind acts, all of them have sunk into Oblivion, which is probably for the best. At that time, we were performing a dirty Thrash/Death, quite primitive, to be honest. This is clearly visible in our first demo «Смерть Стучится В Дверь» (1995). But we progressed quite quickly, and by '98 few people could compete with us in terms of status and attendance. To be completely honest, perhaps, no one could.
This situation lasted until 2007-2008, when all sorts of nu-metal and modern metal bands began to appear, and some of the so-called informals shifted to more fashionable music. However, we did not grieve much about this, we were quite satisfied with our audience, and still are. Yes, in those years we gathered about 400 people in Tver, and now 100-150. Of course, times are changing. It's not about the number of people in the hall, but about the impact, right?

In the same period, the Iscariot band was founded in Tver, where 3 of 5 members also played in Bloodrain. After releasing just one demo, it broke up – why?

J: Iscariot initially had a difficult situation, where everyone pulled the blanket on oneself. There was no unity and mutual understanding. Let's just say that both guitarists and I understood what we were doing, and the bassist and the drummer were the "white sheeps" of the band. They didn't listen to Black Metal, they weren't interested in the concept of creativity at all. It was later that Angam, when he came to Bloodrain, finally began to understand it. And during the Iscariot period, the rhythm section just wanted to go hard. The bassist was especially annoying, we didn't get along well with him, he constantly provoked conflicts, for example, he could wear an idiotic white jumper, a colored T-shirt or bright yellow sneakers to a concert (!!!!). It was impossible to put up with this, especially if you know my explosive nature. Therefore, despite all his musical talent, he was kicked out with a bang in less than a year after recording the demo album. But since he and Angam had been friends since high school, the drummer also left. And drummers have always been in short supply in Tver.
M. Frost and I tried to keep the band together until the last; I picked up the bass, we hired a funny drummer nicknamed Vortex, but after several rehearsals we decided to close the shop anyway. Moreover, by that time the line-up of of Bloodrain had stabilized, and I was not going to leave my main band. But I can tell that Iscariot were a very promising band with material at a very high level. Moreover, we already had 5 fresh songs and wanted to record a full-length album. However, with the permission of M. Frost, I took some fragments of these new songs to Bloodrain. Why should the good go to waste ?

We live in a time when absolutely everything old is reissued, regardless of its creative and cultural value. And it so happened that Iscariot's only demo "The Black Square" was reissued on CD, but none of the three Bloodrain demos received such an honor (only some tracks were included on the anniversary compilation "Ten Bestial Years"). I haven't listened to these demos, so I don't know if they're good, but don't you think they should be re-released at least because of the historical context? After all, it's part of a very early post-Soviet extreme metal underground.

 J: The situation is slightly different here. Iscariot "The Black Square" was originally conceived more as an album, or as a demo album. By the way, it was already published on cassette by the Ukrainian De Profundis Prod, I don't remember in what year, though [2003 – F1sher16]. But I also wanted to release a CD. It was a pity; such cool material is gathering dust, although it's not only technical and sophisticated music, but the lyrics are also very good. Even by my current standards, although everything was composed almost 30 years ago. However, we did not print the lyrics in the CD booklet for some reason. M. Frost slightly cleaned up the recording, we found several archival photos, and the CD was released by Dark East Prod after many years.
As for the three Bloodrain demos, the first two are not really good in terms of quality, and we played several songs from there on albums, for example «Изгнанник», «Зазеркалье», «Пытка Жизнью». And there is no point in re-releasing the demo «Сердце Тьмы» (1998), because it's 70% of «De Vermis Mysteriis» LP, only performed a little worse and sounding even more raw. For a narrow circle of those interested, all three demos are posted on our VK page with detailed comments on how all this was created.

 

It doesn't make sense to ask about musical sources of inspiration in general, since everything is obvious with you thanks to the covers available on each album. Let me ask differently: have any Russian or post-Soviet bands influenced you?

J: I'm not at all ashamed to admit it. I am still a fan and collector of Soviet metal: Aria, Master, Kruiz, Shah, Джокер, Август, Trizna, Железный Поток, E.S.T., Чёрный Обелиск, Тяжёлый День, early Коррозия Металла and so on. Plus, I was very lucky in the sense that I managed to see most of these bands live until the musicians died, or the classical line-ups changed, etc.
And Aria is generally like first love, I accidentally bought the album "Герой Асфальта" almost on the day of release and since that moment I have been a devoted fan, I go to concerts, buy CDs, etc. I still love all their work, although they have frankly weak albums, for example, "Химера", which is bland and soulless. [totally disagree! - F1sher16]. So, if we talk specifically about Soviet/Russian bands, first of all for me it's Aria. And of course an important point is the magnificent texts of Margarita Pushkina. Already being adult, you catch up with how brilliant everything really is lyrically.

How do you feel about the existence of other bands with the identical names (I think there are five in total)?

J: Here, remember, as in the joke about the Institute of International Relations. "Firstly, "niggers" starts with a lowercase letter, and secondly, "don't give a fuck" is written with an apostrophe".
We have been playing since the beginning of 1995, the rest of the bands with the same name were formed much later. Another thing is that 2 of these groups are quite modern. What kind of shitheads you have to be to not be able to use Metal Archives before choosing a name. If we lived in the West and were rich enough, we might have filed some kind of lawsuit, but since we are not, we can only ignore such an infuriating situation.

Despite the periodic ebbs and flows, Bloodrain has remained a radically Satanic band throughout its career. I remember in one interview you said that you became interested in Satanism at the age of 13 or 14. How did it happen? What is Satanism in your understanding? Did it have any expression other than musical (interaction with Satanic organizations, ritual practices, etc.)?

J: I think the socio-historical situation in general played an important role. The beginning of the 90s, the collapse of USSR, informational chaos, fermentation of minds. A complete spiritual disorder. Many of the older generation broke into the church, various charlatans, such as Chumakov and Kashpirovsky, poisoned the minds from TV screens, a bunch of sects appeared, all sorts of white fraternities, Doomsday Adventists, evangelicals of all kinds. Young people were lured into these sects, after which they walked the streets with bibles and empty eyes, as if they had been hit with a dust bag. Even sectarians from the USA did come here. Moreover, in our case, they lived in a dispensary, next to the place where our metal party gathered. And we periodically went to ridicule and mock them, and they tried to introduce us to the faith. A lot of drugs appeared, some got hooked on shit, however, such people were kicked out of our community right away. It was a time of troubles, in general, but we were 13-15 years old.
Satanism was a kind of spiritual shield from the ongoing mess. In addition, it seemed to many of us that this was a very promising path to personal development. We liked being in opposition and at least we didn't consider ourselves part of the herd. Later, some began to study Satanism more seriously, and some ideological literature began to appear slowly. Moreover, heavy music played a secondary role in this, rather than the other way around. For me, anyway. Although at that time we were already listening to Deicide, Hypocrisy, Morbid Angel, Unleashed, Nocturnus, i.e. in any case, bands with dark and evil lyrics. A little later, in about 96, we discovered Black Metal. This was a turning point in the lives of many of us. At that time, of course, there was no Internet, records were obtained through hundredth hands, the news was mostly transmitted orally and often beautifully embellished and distorted. At least Tver is located between St. Petersburg and Moscow, i.e. it's not really a village. I can't imagine what it was like for those who lived at a distance from both capitals.
In '98, we came into contact with the Moscow Satanic crowd, it was a very important moment. We, in general, found ourselves in the middle of a movement. There were a lot of smart and savvy people around, access to book and music information, a huge incentive for development, in short. The next 5-7 years were very eventful, so I will try to be brief. Yes, we have participated in many rituals and interacted with Satanists from a wide variety of circles of society. Curiously, many of them did not listen to Black Metal at all, some even had a negative attitude towards such music.
After a while, the Moscow faction began to slowly disintegrate, and we got the impression that we got everything we wanted. There was nothing more to learn from the Muscovites, and we had to go on our own way. Personally, I was already no longer interested in the occult side of Satanism, and at the moment I practically do not perceive Satanism in a religious aspect. Rather, for me it is an established system of views plus accumulated experience. A strong spiritual core and inner freedom.                         

Bloodrain's lyrics are such a stumbling block for many listeners. Putting aside those who simply can't stand extreme metal in any language other than English, we have those who appreciate your lyrics for their sincerity and expressiveness, and those who consider them simplistic (apparently due to the lack of high-minded and prolonged quotes from occult books), comical or even indecently intimate (in terms of your "relationship" with Satan). It is obvious to me that lyrics play a huge role in Bloodrain and are written for a long time, as they are very diverse, non-standard and rhymed. What inspires you to write such lyrics? How is this process going? Did you have a desire to translate the band's lyrics into English?

J: I've seen negative reviews of our lyrics – not much, but I have. Well, you can't please everyone, we don't play pop music, which should appeal to listeners and reach the widest possible audience. If you are not happy, move along, no one forces you to listen, there are plenty of other groups. If it finds a response and understanding in the listener's soul, for me this is the highest reward, which means we are not doing this in vain. The same applies to music. Of course, lyrics are just as important as music, and that's what I said at the beginning of the interview.
The writing process can happen in completely different ways, I don't have any template or universal recipe. For example, the album "Resurgam", which I consider the strongest lyrically, was almost entirely composed on buses on the way to and from work. A cool idea came to mind - here we go! And I rush to text myself on my phone faster. Then another one, and another one. Then I worked on the drafts at home.
Sources of inspiration can be different: books, movies, just reflections, conversations with friends. Here's a funny case. There is a song "Chains of Religion" on the album "Resurgam". It was like this. We performed in Tver with our homies from Смертокрест. And they used such huge wooden inverted crosses that hung on rusty thick chains. They finished their set, we sit in the dressing room ready, the guys come off the stage and start throwing off their props. And then – bang! These rusty chains fall to the floor with a crash. Like in the movies, you know, when the anchor on the ship is given away, that's about the sound. I looked grimly at this pile of chains and said to my friends: "Yeah, the chains of religion are heavy...” And then I realized what a great title this is for a song. And so it turned out.
Well, as for texts in English, it is definitely much easier to write in it, I know it from Iscariot period. But we have never really tried to conquer the Western market, nor to monetize our creativity in general. I would make it much easier for myself if I started writing in English, but we are not looking for easy ways, as they say. Another thing is that on the sixth album, I raised the bar of lyrics so high (my subjective opinion) that the lyrics for the new one are a bit difficult. So far, there only two of the seven new songs have words.

Bloodrain line-up has undergone a lot of changes over almost 30 years, and at the moment you are the only one who has been in the band from the very beginning. Obviously, there is a lot of musicians in Tver, because if you count everyone who was a part of Bloodrain before, you can compose 4-5 bands from these people. Most of them did not stay in the band or a long time, but there are two people whose departure cannot be ignored: the bassist Set (played from 1996 to 2021) and the drummer Angam, who worked with you from the times of Iscariot and up to 2008. Why did they decide to leave Bloodrain? How did this affect the band?

J: Yes, about 15 musicians have changed in 30 years, I maintain relationships with some, some have disappeared from the horizon. Set's departure is certainly the greatest loss, because we were together almost from the very beginning, went through everything. He just burned out, creativity stopped bringing him pleasure. He had already raised the issue of leaving several times, saying that he was tired, etc., but somehow he was still in the band. Another thing is that he decided to leave a few months before the big concert for the 25th anniversary of Bloodrain. That broke me off the most, I tried to persuade him to play at least the final concert, but it was in vain. I probably didn't talk to him for a year, if not more. Now, of course, the relationship has already stabilized, but then I was very angry, and in general I felt betrayed by my best friend. We had to urgently look for a replacement, and considering that our songs are quite difficult, it was extremely hard to find a bass player, especially in a fairly short time.
Fortunately, I had a friend who played in the heavy metal band Saga, and he agreed to help out. It was hard for to replace Set, really hard. Subsequently, Saga died out, and Sergei, already under the pseudonym Tchull, stayed with us permanently. As a result, the concert, to be honest, was unsuccessful. I had too much alcohol on my nerves, Sergei was also worried and fucked up, although Antotz and Pablo somehow kept the situation together. But it still sucked. I don't like to remember that performance, for the last 15 years I consider it one of the most unsuccessful.
Angam had an unpleasant situation on a personal level, which had nothing to do with the band at all, and he had to leave. This had a negative effect on the band, of course, because the 4th album had already been fully rehearsed. "Hostis Humani Generis" could have been recorded back in 2008, and everything could have turned out differently. I had to make the album almost anew, so there was a long pause between the third and fourth albums. I wish I knew what would happen next.

Bloodrain is part of the Tver Legions. Tell us more about this community.

J: The idea originally arose in 1998, if I'm not mistaken. We met the band Night Reich from Vyshny Volochok, this is a city in our region, about 2 hours by train from Tver. And the guys from Night Reich turned out to be very knowleadgeble. They worked as train conductors and constantly brought us heaps of books, magazines and records, of course. There were Bloodrain and Iscariot in Tver at that time, and In Death's Embrace made their first steps. There was still a very young band called Althotas, but they fell apart before they even made it to recording a demo.
After reading “The Horned” and "Sotsirh Susii", we thought, why not also name our Black commnity somehow ideologically? At that time, such a trend was popular in the West, remember: The Horde, Black Metal Mafia, Ross Bay Cult, The Black Legions, etc. A lot of different organizations, mafias, syndicates, fraternities, etc. Then Artyom joined us with his band Thalarion Lati, and later he became our drummer. Thalarion Lati managed to release an album on Othal Prod before the breakup. Very good one, by the way.
Now it may seem like a kindergarten, but then what was happening seemed quite normal to us. Once every couple of weeks, we all went to a friend's dacha near Tver, collected booze and had various discussions at night, talking about books and new albums. Rituals were also performed there out of necessity. That is, we did not just stupidly get drunk, although this happened sometimes. Later, the idea of the Tver Legions somehow outlived itself, the paths diverged. Although we still maintain relations with some former legionnaires.

Bloodrain positions itself as a Black Metal band and has existed since the days when corpse paint, leather and iron were mandatory attributes of the genre, however, I do not recall that you have ever painted faces. Why did you decide not to use the traditional image?

J: No-no, wait a minute. Already at the third performance at the beginning of '97, we were in makeup and performed like this until about 2005. Then the drummer and I stopped using makeup, and Set and Pablo wore makeup for about 15 more years. Many factors have converged here too. It would be possible to blame everything on the trend, but to be honest, I just hated messing with contact lenses and dirty hands after applying makeup. Your guitar is covered in this shit, you can't wash your face properly, because not every club has hot water, you lose the lenses, everything around you is splatter with this fat substance. Fuck it... And it takes a lot of time to make up, I'd rather stretch my hands before going out for an extra 15 minutes.
I remember we played in Moscow with Nargaroth, and they were soundchecking, but Kanwulf was absent. The guitarist had to set up his microphone, even. And then, 5 minutes before the performance, he arrives by taxi from the hotel already in makeup and spikes. He quickly nodded to everyone in the dressing room and immediately went on stage. We're like, yeah, now that was masterful... That dude, damn it. Answering the last part of the question, I think that by giving up makeup, we began to look less theatrical, but more natural and certainly no less evil.                  

Let's go through the Bloodrain discography. In the following questions, I will make value judgments based on my own impressions as a listener, reviewer and publisher, as well as other people's impressions gained during conversations on musical topics. And you can argue with me or agree.
So, "De Vermis Mysteriis". You recorded it in 2001, at the height of the early digital era, when everyone happily recorded plastic triggered drums and messed with harmonizers. But it seems to me that on the first album the recording is old-fashioned, analog, with a minimum of editing, which makes it sound sloppy in places, but very honest. Tell us about how your debut was created.

J: "De Vermis Mysteriis" was recorded according to the same scheme as Iscariot "The Black Square". At first, drums were recorded on several microphones at the rehearsal point through simple cassette deck, but on expensive chrome tape. Of course, without any clicks, metronomes, etc. Moreover, Angam played everything from memory and from one take, without any glues and edits. I.e. he didn't even have a guitar in his headphones. By the way, pay attention that the sound of the drums on Iscariot and the debut album of Bloodrain is very similar. The drums for both releases were recorded in the military barracks where we were rehearsing then. However, the sound is better on Iscariot album – apparently, M. Frost and Angam hung the microphones in a different way then, or I don't know.
After that, we went to a friend who had just recently bought a portable studio. There he somehow extracted the drums from the cassette, and we put on the bass, both guitars and vocals. The most difficult thing was with the vocals, because no one took care of any sound insulation, and I had to yell all this stuff inside the regular multi-apartment building. The neighbors must have been very happy. Next, the owner of the studio, together with Angam, formed a candy out of this shit, and, as a result, we have what we have.

 

"De Vermis Mysteriis" was originally self-released on cassettes, then on cassettes in Latvia, then on CD-R in Ukraine, and only in 2008 a normal CD was released ... in Canada (this was your first and until recently the last release in the conditional West). How did you get on Morbid Winter Records? Before Metal Race in 2017, there were no offers on this album from the Russian Federation?

J: Almost everything is correct. 225 cassettes were made by self-publishing, then Juris from Beverina Prod printed 500 more cassettes. There are also 2 bootlegs from De Profundis Prod and Funeral God Prod, but I don't even want to talk about them. Negotiations were underway about a CD with Czech Pussy God Rec; Barbarud liked the album very much, but at that time he was experiencing a creative crisis and temporarily froze both the label and his band Maniac Butcher. The process has been stuck for quite a long time. Then Ilya from Stellar Winter Rec advised us to write to the Canadian from Morbid Winter Rec – to my shame, I don't even remember his name. He liked the material, released 1000 CDs and immediately sent us our part. Somehow everything worked out very quickly. Another thing is that the sound on this CD is absolutely underground, we had no idea about any mastering at that time.
Before reissuing the album on Metal Race Rec, M. Frost worked on the album, cleaned up all the noise, did something with the equalizers, and, as he puts it, "inflated" the record. Pulled everything to the maximum, as far as possible, without having the original tracks. As a result, if you compare the sound on the Canadian and Russian editions, the difference is very noticeable. It isn't really good anyway, of course. As for the reissue on Metal Race Rec, we somehow paid more attention to the new albums, since "De Vermis..." has already been immortalized on CD. And then it occurred to me that the Canadian edition was practically impossible to get, and there was some demand. We consulted with Tolya and decided together that we still need to release the album again. Which was done.

"Ultimatum" has already been released in Russia. In my opinion, this is your best album: bright, angry, crushing, diverse. The clean-voiced chorus from "Под звездой Люцифера" is worth its weight in gold! Despite the distance of only 2 years, it was not a step, but a whole leap forward compared to the debut in terms of sound quality, performance and all components in general. What is the reason for such a dramatic improvement?

J: First, it's about the material itself. When "De Vermis..." was composed, we were very impressed by Scandinavian Black Metal. I remember that we listened to 3 albums all the time: Mayhem "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas", Dark Funeral "The Secrets Of The Black Arts" and Dissection "Storm Of The Light's Bane". Therefore, the debut album sounds with an eye to the Norwegians and Swedes. At Ultimatum, we expanded our horizons, remembered our favorite Death/Thrash bands, and we didn't listen only to the Scandinavian black metal anymore. In addition, as already mentioned, I took with me some riffs from Iscariot, from those songs that were composed after "The Black Square". So M. Frost is rightly designated a co-author on 3-4 songs, and he has a very peculiar composing style, different from mine. Secondly, "Ultimatum" was recorded already in a normal full-fledged Arsenal studio with a good sound engineer Ivan Zavalkin (R.I.P.). And thirdly, we not only got drunk these two years, but rehearsed hard, and the concerts were on average once every couple of months, i.e. the material had already been tested. Traditionally, the album was mixed by sound engineer and Angam. I think M. Frost helped, too.

 

"Ultimatum" was the first release under Hexenhammer Records, the sublabel of Ilya Babin's Stellar Winter. Although Bloodrain has never been a political group, your first statement on a social topic appeared on Ultimatum – the song "Тучи над Россией", directed against, ahem, guests from the Caucasus. Why did you even decide to speak out about this in the framework of Bloodrain? Perhaps it was this song that hooked Ilya Babin? How did your collaboration work out — Ilya initially created a label with more wide ideological content for the publication of your album?

J: «Тучи Над Россией" was written back in 1998 for Iscariot, it is just one of those songs that were made after the recording of the demo album. At that time, all this dominance of the Caucasians began to take on a massive character. And by the way, in the second part of the song, the Americans also get some shit, so it's not about caucasian apes only... As a result, I rewrote the lyrics in Russian, took the song to Bloodrain, and in 2003 it turned out to be even more relevant! We weren't particularly active nazis, that's right, moreover, Stellar Winter crown never liked us. In fairness, it should be said that we did not like their company either, with the exception of Ilya Babin himself and, perhaps, Boris Kaldrad.
Initially, Leonidas from the Greek ISO666 wanted to release the album. That was before he gained a reputation of rip-off. There was also an offer from Yuri Vasyura from Ukrainian Griffin Music. But there were no specifics on the timing, in addition, we wanted the label to be closer geographically in order to be constantly in touch and somehow control the publishing process.
As a result, they did this: I wrote Babin a paper letter, said that I had heard a lot of shit about him in the Moscow underground, and based on this, I concluded that he clearly must be a fucking great dude. And he was, generally. After a while, he called me, we talked quite closely and agreed to meet at our concert in Moscow in a couple of weeks. Well, we met, a whole crowd of them came, they went to our concert, Babin seemed to like everything, and the next day we went to visit him to discuss the release of the album. Ilya assumed that we would continue to move in the Nazi direction and move away from Satanism. But I made it clear that "Тучи над Россией" is just one of the components of our common hatred of humanity as a whole, and there is no change of concept in sight.
In the end, this did not prevent us from agreeing on the release of the album. However, the Hexenhammer Rec sublabel was created specifically for us, since we did not fit into the ideological framework of Stellar Winter. By the way, I still have a very high opinion of Ilya, no matter what they say about him. He did a lot for the band, and in general he was always very honest and decent with us.

I listened to the third album, "Nomen Nostrum Legio", when we (Possession Prods) released the compilation "Ultimatum & Nomen Nostrum Legio" together with Satanath Records. And against the background of its predecessor, it disappointed me a little, because it turned out to be not so explosive at all. The musical and sound palette turned out to be a little muted, although it was recorded in the same studio. Do you agree with this? What is the reason for such changes?

J: On the third album, the message was: let's do our "Reign In Blood"? Short, angry and concise, just so that there is nothing superfluous at all. But Angam fucked it up somehow. I think it was during May holidays, everyone was drinking and hanging out, and he went quietly to record alone. And again he played everything from memory without a guitar in headphones. As a result, he pushed the tempo to such an extent that when we heard the drums, we couldn't believe it. Well, we managed somehow. I remember that I had to record some parts for Viy, because he couldn't play at such speed. Despite the fact that he was a very good and precise guitarist.
Compared to "Ultimatum", I like the sound on "Nomen Nostrum Legio" better: it's cuter, and not so death metal. Ivan Zavalkin and Angam also mixed the album, we didn't interfere with the mix at all, they worked well in tandem anyway.

 

"Hostis Humani Generis", your fourth album, is by all accounts the most unsuccessful. The disadvantages here include almost everything: not very smooth performance, not the most impressive songs with Heavy Metal flavor, lyrics on the verge of foul, weak clean vocals. And even the atmosphere of the album is kind of strange. I got the impression that — forgive me for being blunt — you recorded it being very drunk or suffering from severe hangover. Tell me, what was it really like?

J: Yes, with "Hostis Humani Generis", everything went through the ass from the very beginning. We lost half of the squad: first, Viy left, then I had to part with Angam. Fortunately, the change of guitarist was painless. Pablo managed to play a little bit in Thalarion Lati with Artyom, so despite his youth and lack of musical experience, he already understood what to prepare for. Plus, he and Seth were siblings after all, so there weren't any problems.
But with the drummer, yes, everything was more complicated here. We didn't have any candidates other than Artyom, but playing Angam's parts is hell of a task. Artyom impressed us very much as a person, and his enthusiasm was off the scale, but nevertheless it was immediately clear who was the weak link in the group.
The second point is the change of studio. Instead of the already familiar Arsenal, we went to the Craft studio, the owner of which was dealing with such extreme music for the first time. I reassured myself that, on the other hand, the sound would not be as slick and commercial as on the 2nd and 3rd albums, and even if we make it a bit dirty, it will be good. Well, we overdid it.
The recording took place in forty degrees of heat, even the booklet states that it was "Dirty Black Summer", as in the Danzig song. Artyom tried his best, we recorded him in very short pieces, with a bunch of takes, it was such a hassle. Plus, the temperature outside was like in hell, and I was constantly intoxicated by strong alcohol. It was easier with the bass and guitars, everything was played almost flawlessly. But by the day the voice was recorded, I was so exhausted by the heat and alcohol that I was far from a normal vocal form. At the same time, I also went to work somehow. In general, it sucked, there's nothing to be proud of.
So, when I went to record vocals, my buddy gave me 0.7 litres of 40% tincture with horseradish, honey and ginger. It was hot outside and in the studio, so I bought a cold beer as well. How I managed to sing everything is a mystery, since by the middle of the day barely felt my tongue. Fortunately, almost everything was done. The most difficult place is the clear-voiced piece in "Былина"; well, I couldn't sing it better, they did a lot of takes, and to no avail. I had to leave it. Anyway, when Seth and Pablo arrived at the studio in the evening, I was lying like a dead weight on the floor in the vocal booth, and the sound guy was completely fucked up by what was happening. It's such a creepy, but true story, not one that you want to remember often.
Accordingly, Angam used to do the mixing, but now we had to do everything by ourselves, with a sound engineer without the appropriate experience. As a result, "Hostis Humani Generis" sounds dirty, the bass sticks out, and the vocals and drums suck. Nevertheless, in defense of the album, I will say that it is very sincere, albeit rustic in lyrics and music. I still love playing «Изгой» and «Злой На Весь Мир».

 

On "Hostis Humani Generis" your lyrics gave a sharp tilt towards misanthropy, culminating in the final song "Angry at the Whole World". Were there any specific reasons for this?

J: This is a continuation of the previous answer. At that moment, everything in life went wrong somehow, a lot of problems piled up. That's why the album turned out to be so very personal, full of despair and hatred. Well, the name matches. "Hostis Humani Generis" means "Enemies of All Mankind".

On the album "Adora Satanae" you are back to your best form, and this is my favorite Bloodrain album along with "Ultimatum". Bright, cheerful, with great songs. I have only good memories of working on it, and I listened to it more than once before and after the release. I remember that we even managed to make a good promo for the album, after which both Bloodrain releases made with Possession began sell abroad pretty well. The break between the 4th and 5th albums was very long, but it clearly benefited the band. Tell us about how "Adora Satanae" was created.

J: During this period, many events took place, including the murder of our drummer by caucasians. What is True Black without killing? In general, the long pauses between albums is explained by problems with the drummers, it is difficult to find one in Tver.
So, on the fifth album, despite the fact that we recorded it again in Craft, we tried to take into account the mistakes made on the previous release. We were absolutely sober while recording it. It was only when we started mixing it, Pablo went to get a beer. We trained the new drummer Ruslan for ourselves for a year and a half or two, it was relatively easy to record him, although it still took at least three days to edit the drums. Yura Kravchenko, the owner of the studio, bought more equipment, and in general already understood who he was working with. But, unfortunately, at the same time he became very lazy and relaxed. If on the 4th album he was just burning with the desire to do everything better, pointed out mistakes, forced to rewrite something, then on the recording of "Adora Satanae" he did his job very sluggishly. He was sitting with a bored, sleepy look, like “it'll do.” Despite the fact that the prices for studio time were not cheap.
By the way, it was also not perfect with Ruslan. He learned to play very quickly, "sprinkled peas", but all this to the detriment of melody. I.e., by and large, he also "drove" the album. Yes, it was played normally, woth a lot of interesting things, but some of the beauty and soulfulness of the songs was completely gone. Now Antotz is playing the same songs, and everything sounds different, much more pleasant to the ear, somehow he feels them better, or something. As a result, the sound turned out to be quite good. Not polished, but also not dirty like on Hostis. Maybe a little deaf, for me.
The physical edition is done quite well, although there is a problem. We measured all the pauses very carefully and sent the master tape, i.e. the CD-R, to Metal Race. And Tolyan didn't pay attention to this particular moment, took the album from the cloud storage, and the discs were cut with factory settings. As a result, our whole idea with different pauses went down, but the worst part is the hole between the Intro and the first song. In fact, on the master disc, the first two tracks smoothly merge into one another. That's a fly in the ointment.

 

And finally, "Resurgam". The album is more accurate, consistent and, I'm not afraid of this word, literary (you just have to look at the subject matter of the texts). Why did you choose such a name for it ("Reborn")? Is this related to the departure of your long-time bandmate Set? How do you think this album differs from the previous ones?

J: The name is not only associated with the rebirth of the band, although this is also implied. Personally, during these 5-6 years that have passed since the recording of the previous album, there has been a certain rethinking of both spiritual and life values in general, if I may say so. A lot was thought through, I tried to eliminate unnecessary people from my environment as much as possible, more or less learned to control the problem with alcohol, etc. Some kind of Resurgam, indeed.
On the sixth album, as they say, the stars came together. It started with the fact that M. Frost recommended us a new studio "Paper Lakes". In general, judging by the frequent mention of him during interviews, Frost can probably be called the unofficial fifth member of Bloodrain. He has done a lot of useful things for us, and he is still doing it.
The sound engineer Alexey Levin also dealt with Black Metal for the first time, but in this case it turned out to be a huge plus. His non-standard and responsible approach to recording was only beneficial. And in general, it was very pleasant to work with him. He also now works on our live sound and tries to do everything for us to the maximum. Pablo and I were most worried about the recruits. Antotz and Tchull were in the band relatively recently, and the albums is a huge test. It's not like playing a concert and relaxing. The album is completely different. We were worried in vain: they both recorded their parts in one day. i.e. 4-5 hours, and almost nothing had to be edited, if only for very small things. Pablo and I also went off without a hitch, M. Frost did an Intro/Outro, and Alexey Levin started mixing. It probably turned out to be the most relaxed recording in all the years of the band's existence, there was a very positive atmosphere in the studio. Then M.Frost and Alexey Trakhachev (R.I.P.) did the mastering, and the album was ready.
The next success was meeting the artist V.V. Tolya from Metal Race recommended her to us, and she did her job flawlessly. It was very easy and comfortable to work with her. We have been very good friends ever since. By the way, the Phoenix on the cover, or, as we call it, the Firebird, also directly intersects with the album title. The edition is also done superbly, Tolya did his best. Overall, I am very proud of this CD in all respects, and for me it is undoubtedly the best in our discography.

 

"Resurgam" was released in Russia on Metal Race and in Germany on Ketzer Records. Whose initiative was the latter?

J: The idea came up somehow spontaneously. At that time, there was already an agreement with Metal Race about the release of the album. On the other hand, during my years in the underground, I had a lot of connections with foreign labels, and I thought it wouldn't get any worse if I give it a try. The album is really good, what if someone is interested? Let there be a parallel circulation, it's not a big loss for Metal Race.
And luck again, I didn't have to look for long. Alex from Ketzer Rec listened and immediately said: we are releasing it. Hell, he's a true German, sharp as a scalpel. The only thing he asked was to replace the cover version from Running Wild with Von, because Running Wild is a German band, and you never know if they will claim it's illegal or something. Everything was done so quickly that we didn't even have time to gasp. Moreover, even during the sanctions, this cunning man managed to send us our part of the circulation in such a twirly way that we were truly amazed. Tolya, of course, was not happy with this arrangement, but, fortunately, it did not come to a conflict, the situation somehow smoothed out.

Today it seems that in the face of Metal Race you have found a stable publisher. How did you meet Tolya?

J: I saw it on the website Headbanger.ru: the news is that a young label unknown to me is reissuing the albums of the band Железный Поток on CDs. And as I said, I'm a big fan of soviet era metal, so I wrote to the label and bought a CD. Then it came to the dialogue about our publications on Metal Race. That's how well it all worked out. It happens that we sometimes argue, but in general we are satisfied with the cooperation with Tolya.

How would you rate the popularity of Bloodrain in Russia and abroad? I got a rather strange impression: on the one hand, in this part of the world, everyone knows and respects Bloodrain, but at the same time I did not notice that you went somewhere with tours.

J: Most of the author's copies have always been spent on gifts and exchanges. As I said before, I've never tried to make much money from our music. I have a kind of Lovecraftian approach to my work: like, it's humiliating to create for money. The reviews from Western labels have always been good. Sometimes, just some fans from abroad write to the mail, thank us for what we are doing, wish us success, etc. Not very often, but it happens. And I am much more pleased with such a feedback than with getting 500 rubles for a disk, for example.
And as for tours, we have never positioned ourselves as a tour band, singular concerts are preferable for us. And I don't believe in the possibility of earning money with music, unless you are a large Aria-type band, for example. We all work regular jobs, drummer has yet to do this, since he just graduated from college, and, of course, we invest money in the band, equipment, etc. This is normal, I think.

Have you ever played in Belarus? Do you listen to any Belarusian bands?

J: No, we have never played in your country, there were no offers. If someone ask us, we'll consider the offer, why not? Of course, I have an idea about the Belarusian scene, I have a lot of records in my collection. The best bands, for me, are Niezgal (R.I.P.) and Łatanu. The first album is very good, the new one is not very impressive. Zmrok, Šturm, and early Pagan are very good. There are also Kruk, Pestilentia, Verwüstung, Krumkach, Khandra CDs, I like these bands less and I listen to them less often.

Do you have any musical projects besides Bloodrain?

J: I only had Iscariot in 97-98. As it is, we have a gentleman's agreement. Nobody plays anywhere but Bloodrain. Angam annoyed us at one time by participating in various projects, i.e. he took advantage of the fact that we couldn't kick out the best drummer in the city, so he played in a bunch of different shitty bands at the same time.

Have you or other Bloodrain musicians been involved in any kind of near-musical activities (music publishing, fanzine, etc.)?

J: No. Bloodrain is in my head 24 hours a day.

The band has played about 100 gigs. Which one was the best?

J: Most of them were good, except for those when we played very drunk, and this used to happen quite often. More often than I would like. And the best one? Perhaps it was a concert in St. Petersburg in 2007 or 2008, the organizers were the guys from the label Helvete.Ru . We were headlining with the Finns Gramary, a killer band, it's strange that they didn't break through, unlike numerous mediocre bands from Finland.
Besides us and Gramary, there were 5 or 6 other bands, the Finns and us were in one dressing room, and everyone else was in another. We arrived and were simply stunned: leather sofas, a refrigerator full of free vodka, beer and snacks, there was even a shower cabin. I remember Set saying that he felt like a rock star for the first time in his life, and we laughed for a long time. Really, what else do you need? The concert itself was great (despite the refrigerator), we played threesome, without Viy, and very successfully. Gramary also were classy. Then we hung out half the night and made friends with them (without leaving the notorious refrigerator), communicating in Russian-Finnish-English. A really cool band and very nice people.

Concerts and travels are usually accompanied by all sorts of ridiculous and laughable incidents. Will you tell me something? At the very least, a story about how someone who shat his pants will do - it's always funny!

J: Well, we still try to keep the sphincters under control, even when we are completely drunk.In the early 2000s, we often performed with our sidekicks Демоны Гильотины, they were still in the original line-up back then. Some crazy things happened during our gigs and after them, and I'm still surprised that we were grabbed by police rather rarely. It's just supernatural luck, I don't see any other explanation. You can make a separate magazine about our adventures, I can't tell about them in a few words, sorry.

The 30th anniversary of Bloodrain is imminent. How will you celebrate?

J: Yes, the band will be 30 years old in February, it's crazy. We will celebrate in Tver, the Doden Grotte band will be the guests. We are preparing slowly, I hope everything goes well.

That's it, thanks for the answers! If you want to add something, to make an announcement or just sell a car, you are welcome!

J: Perhaps Tchull will want to sell his rusty Nexia, and even then I doubt it, since he's used to it.
But seriously, thank you for your interest in Bloodrain and a very detailed interview. By and large, on the eve of the anniversary, we went through our entire history.
I don't know how many people have the strength and patience to read everything I've said here, but I tried to be thorough and extremely frank in my answers. It's still a bit early to announce the 7th album, but the work is in full swing, although too slow, in my opinion. Thank you for your attention and time. Hail Satan!

December 2024