V: Well, the most important news is the fact that we’re once again active and are ready for live shows. In time new releases are to be expected as well, I think.
K: Yes, in fact the recording process is already underway. By the year’s end it should be ready to face the world. We’ve also managed to give a few concerts. Our most recent show was back home, this year’s annual UzhGoreRot.
A lengthy period of silence followed by a concert not in the likes of Zhashkiv, but in Budapest itself! Anything memorable about that trip, had the opportunity to down a glass of milk with Jan Frederick?
K: It was a splendid trip! Despite the difficulties with getting visas we managed to get into Hungary after all. And it was totally worth it! Budapest is a most beautiful city; we spent all our free time just strolling around. The club in which we were to play is located in a former meat factory, there’s a lot of rehearsal rooms and clubs there nowadays, a very peculiar place. The concert itself has left us with a lot of pleasant memories: a nice place, delicious food from the local Food Not Bombs, a musician’s bar. There were approximately 130 to 150 people attending, a positive atmosphere with a very receptive audience and some fun socializing around the club’s backyard. Our performance was well-received with some dancing in front of the stage. In conclusion Agathocles came out with a great set chock-full of hit songs.
V: We had a great talk with Jan. Both of us are Grazhdanskaya Oborona fans, so we discussed Letov’s work a bit. Naturally we touched on Agathocles as well. I’ve been a fan of theirs for a long while and I like a lot of their different releases, not just the mincecore ones. I even mentioned From Grey To Black EP in our conversation and Jan wouldn’t believe I liked that until I hummed a few of the melodies. :)
K: Yeah, after having him play the Budapest gig with us we asked him if he’d like to play with us on a regular basis and he decided to partake in the venture. We have since had several rehearsals with him during which we worked on our live set and wrote a couple of new tracks. Anton is a very talented drummer and he’s full of enthusiasm, so it has been a rather pleasant process.
What’s up with your indie Trismus Records label? Spill the beans, guys. What’s on offer?
K: We’ve recently released a mini album by X-Box Murder (Kharkiv), called “V kruge pervon”. Very cool black/death with certain post-metal influences. In my opinion they’re amongst the most interesting Ukrainian metal bands. There are a few split records in the plans, namely Besthoven/Displease and Skruta/Internal Damage. There’s also an Obriy mini-album happening somewhere in the future, as things go along.
K: Actually, we haven’t been much of an influence on anything back home for a while now. The current generation of concert-goers is hardly acquainted with our work, with the exception of Obriy, I suppose. Obriy is medium tempo metal in the vein of Bolt Thrower and Merauder . It just so happens that it kicked off in a peculiar moment when we were unable to play live with any of our other projects, so we managed to play local gigs fairly regularly for a while. We’re planning to release a 4-track record by the year’s end. As The Symbioz we have constant lineup trouble. Still, we play concerts from time to time. Vasya is the only one left in Displease, his persistence is what made the newly released tracks happen.
V: I’d like to elaborate on Displease somewhat. It was devised to play something akin to Discharge, Meanwhile, Dischange, Disgust and so on. We played a few concerts, made a record and then just kind of “went into hibernation”. Some time later Zhenya (who’s currently playing death metal in Castrum) agreed to help record drums for a few new songs and I did all the other instruments. Part of the material we recorded has since been released in a split with Diskobra (Hungary), while another part is still waiting. I’m hoping to release it as a split with the legendary Besthoven. No point talking about concerts, since as Kolya has mentioned, Displease is essentially just me right now.
With so many projects and a lack of time it’s understandable that planning too far ahead can be difficult, nonetheless, what do you see in the foreseeable future?
K: Skruta, Displease and Obriy releases, Skruta live shows and The Symbioz making a return to live shows as well.
K: In the lyrics, we present our vision of our social and political surroundings, the rejection of commonplace ignorance in modern everyday life. We protest the prejudice so widespread among the people here: chauvinism, racism, sexism and homophobia and others. We condemn far-right ideologies that thrive on instigating hate in people towards each other thusly cultivating violence, as well as their bourgeois masters.
V: Grindcore is punk, first and foremost. And punk is anger and aggression directed against the injustices common to our society. The difference being that an average punk song is 2-3 minutes long, whereas grindcore songs are almost twice as short, so the anger and aggression is even more concentrated there. That is also why the lyrics are more direct, lacking metaphors, poetic images and such (with notable exceptions like Nasum, for example). In Skruta we sing about whatever bothers us at the moment. Like, in the new material you can find a cover version of the Russian punk band’s Svinyi v Kosmose song “Putin”, which is very topical right now, along with other relevant stuff.
Your logo reminded me of a lesser known American band, Slayer… you wouldn’t happen to be their fans, right?
V: The logo was developed by our former vocalist, Vitya. I don’t think the resemblance is a coincidental. Yeah, we like Slayer, who doesn’t? Personally, I like their work from Raining Blood up to Divine Intervention, but not the “modern era”-Slayer. It’s like both the riffs and the lyrics are “Slayer” but it just lacks the surge, the aggression… the things everyone loves them for. Maybe they just got old, I don’t know…
V: Narrow-mindedness, I think. People don’t want and fear accepting something new. Innovations are doomed to fight the bureaucratic routine and the will of “the influential people” whose interests they deter. Not to mention the “common folk” level. Most people would live in their own familiar shit rather than attempt to change something.
All your releases were released by your own label; why not get involved with other labels? It might prove beneficial to have some releases done by a European label.
V: If you don’t do it yourself, no one will.
K: I wouldn’t put it that way; some of our discography was released by No Name in Ukraine and Vomit in Belarus. We may be testing the waters concerning foreign labels and releases in the future. Time will tell.
K: If you mean extreme punk specifically, then being honest I don’t see much perspective for its development here for now. There are people who hold it all together: the Foible Instinct crowd, Malad and Dan Stark work quite productively, there are also other projects popping up and disappearing here and there. But in general there’s very little interest in this kind of music here.
What about your earlier days? If I recall correctly you used to have two vocalists…
K: Vitya left the band after our performance at the second CrashTest Festival. After that he worked on noise/grind project Furuvgerendufuroval (they’ve got 3 releases) and also worked on releasing Gaz-66 Intrusion. He’s currently doing vocals for a new Uzhhorod band, Omniverse. It is a curious genre-crossing metal project: thrash/death with some prog elements. They’ve made a 4-track online release, worth checking out.
V: I’d like to try playing pop punk or something of the like. Acoustic music, choir vocals… we’ll see.
K: Something dark and sad, backed by acoustic guitar.
In a couple of decades when you’re old, gray and have grandkids running all over, do you think you’ll still be wearing T-shirts and battle jackets with dead bands’ logos and still getting kicks out of listening to your cassette deck?
V: I’m getting some gray hairs already, so I don’t expect any radical changes.
K: We’ll have to see if we make it that long.
Alas, it seems our time’s up.
K: Thanks for the interview, and for showing interest in our brigade!
For more info:
Skruta fb (frontmen page)
Skruta bandcamp
