A few questions – interview with death metal band from Romania - ROTHEADS.
Ave, can you introduce your band to our readers? – When was it founded and what style of music do you play , etc.?
Hey there! We are Rotheads from Bucharest, Romania and we play old school death metal leaning on death doom and a bit of a punk attitude. We started jamming some riffs back in 2014 and we consider that the beginning of the band, but I can’t remember when we actually came up with the first song or the band name.
Where and under what conditions were you recording the new album? Who was in charge of sound, production and mastering?
We recorded the drums in a friend’s rehearsal place and the rest of the instruments basically in someone’s bedroom/living room, haha! Imagine the mattress and some blankets turned into a vocal booth! I guess these weren’t the best conditions for recording, but we recorded our demo incognito in the National University of Music here in Bucharest and it has been fun and it felt right most of the time, close to the DIY concept really. Maybe we’ll do some things a bit different next time after learning a few things the hard way these times. But still, these are better stories than just recording in some regular studio, right? The recordings and premixes were done by local Cătălin Lungu (Bastos, Fake Bantame) and the mix and master were done by Javier Félez of Moontower Studios and the Spanish death metal band Graveyard. We pretty much gave him free hand on the mix and master and only gave a few feedback on some small details.
How many copies were released and which medium was used for this new edition (CD, digital vinyl, cassette)?
There are 1000 CDs released through Memento Mori. There will of course be a digital release because sooner or later someone’s probably going to rip the CD to the internet and some people will just want the songs to play on their devices without the hassle of a physical medium or shipping fees. We were thinking about doing a self-released cassette tape version too, but no plans for vinyl at this point in time. We’ll try to think of other mediums to release the album on, if anybody has any crazy ideas, please write us!
Who is the author of the lyrics and how were they created and about what do the lyrics deal with?
Our very own Spurcăciune is the both the author and interpreter of the lyrics on Sewer Fiends. First we came up with the whole theme for the album, meaning sewer and underground beings and places. This itself was maybe influenced by the concept for the artwork and the album title which have been floating around for awhile. After that the song titles were written and then some lyrics and after matching them with the songs the rest of the lyrics were written. Some lyrics have even been written during the recordings because the songs were in a more palpable form and lyrics could be better tested on them. Most of these things were done by Spurcăciune, but there was always feedback from the rest of the band.
Who created the logo of the band, and who took care of the graphics and the website? What about you and social networks? Do you consider these things important?
Our friend Željko Lučić from the band Heretic Rites created the logo. He probably still thinks it’s a bit raw and that he could have smoothened it up a bit, but we love it! And it’s probably too late now anyway, but who knows? For the demo it was a concept by Spurcăciune and it has probably been done by three different people including himself at different times. For the album Sewer Fiends the artworks and layouts are the work of César Valladares who has worked with many death metal bands and we’re very pleased with what came out.
We’ll take care of the social networks and speaking to fans through emails ourselves until we finally manage to turn this band into the MultiCorp we dream of!
For now two songs have been on Memento Mori’s Youtube channel, but we’ll probably take care of the rest ourselves when the time comes, although we’ll concentrate more on streaming websites like Bandcamp.
The internet is important too, as is the physical side of it all. I mean us doing this interview through the internet and we managed to get on Memento Mori through the internet too. You just have to balance these things and know what each one is for, people will probably like to know that there’s actually a physical Rotheads band playing music and releasing tapes and CDs and whatnot somewhere out there that they might someday see live or talk too. But they’d also like to hear from the band and feel their presence even if they are far away and they might not come around anytime soon.
Which label did you choose for releasing your album and why this label? Are you satisfied by how your label represents you and takés care about you?
I don’t know if you can say exactly that we chose Memento Mori, at the time we were mostly fooling around with the demo and trying to do our best after some major lineup changes and while looking through Memento Mori’s roster we saw they encouraged bands to send demos (as long as they actually fit the label I think). So we did that and didn’t really give it much thought, but we got a quick and enthusiastic response and a deal to release an album. We are of course proud that Sewer Fiends is being release by Memento Mori because there are a lot of great bands from the underground released through it and there are also rereleases of timeless records that we love and it’s also a distro for all sort of cool releases, so it’s a great label to be on. And yes, we are very satisfied by how everything worked out with Memento Mori, they have been of great help and it is a very friendly and motivating relationship.
Which bands do you idolise and where do you get your inspiration?
We’re fans of almost anything that’s old school death metal from the early 90s. Maybe we have some influences from other styles like traditional doom metal, sludgecore, crust and others too, but it’s mostly about old school death metal. I’d say that the Finnish scene has been very influential on us with bands like Abhorrence, Sentenced, Demigod, Depravity and the rest of them and then there’s the American scene with bands like Autopsy, Incantation, Rottrevore, Accidental Suicide etc. I’d also mention Carnage, Cenotaph and Asphyx. We also like newer bands like Funebrarum and most of the really new bands that play these days. Inspiration just comes from all these years of playing music and listening to a lot of music and old school death metal albums and demos.
Did you send your record to some Labels - which are the labels? How was the response?
We have only sent the demo to one label and that was Memento Mori and the response was great, the album was merely some future prospect at that point so we couldn’t send it to any labels. When the demo first came out we showed it to Odmetnik in Serbia which is run by a friend and that’s how we got to work with Željko. The response was great and we wanted to make a release of the demo with them, but it was a small label and at some point it was decided that they couldn’t invest in this because of others projects. At some point Blood Harvest contacted us about the demo, but nothing came out of that at that point and the band was probably in a weird state with its lineup back then too. But all in all, the response was really good and we should have probably tried harder and even with labels that we’d considered out of our league because you never know.
How many gigs have you played? Which type of gigs do you prefer, whether it's (clubs or festivals) and which of your performances would you consider as the best?
I think that we played maybe 8 or 9 gigs. We have played in a lot of different ways since the beginning of the band. First as an improvised death/doom duo in a small cellar type club, then as a secret act for another secret act because both bands included the same members. After that we had a demo release party in a club and a few gigs opening for some death metal giants (Sadistic Intent, Master, Dead Congregation) all in clubs and an avant-garde performance with some experimental artists inside a museum. We only played twice or maybe three times in a sort of festival like environment and both were indoors. I’d say we always liked the smaller, more intimate places or the weird ones better. I think our best performances have been in small and tight clubs with our friends from Cardinal and Fuck You! Dracu.
What about your plans for the future? What do you want to achieve with the band?
Our plans are to improve as a band and as artists and musicians, write more songs and release more materials (albums, splits, demos) and tour to spread the word about these things. It would probably be nice to achieve that cult like timeless following that the bands that inspired us achieved, but for the moment we would just like to put out more music and have a great time doing it.
How and where can your fans contact you? Can you provide some contact information?
Our fans can contact us on Facebook by writing a private message to the band page, sending a emails to our email address, saying hi at gigs if they’re around, or knocking on our doors. Just kidding, please don’t come knocking on our doors.
rotheads.bandcamp.com
Thanx for the interview.
Cheers and thanks for taking the time to write the these questions and to whoever manages to read all the answers!
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