Answered Tomáš Lichtle and Adam.
Translated and questions prepared by Petra, thank you!
Hi Tomáš! Hello BETON! A new fucking year is here and it is almost 15 years now what BETON was founded. What you can say, what have changed from that time concerning the band, scene? Has your philosophy changed somehow, if you have had some? Have you had another attitudes, goals when you compare BETON before 15 years and now?
Hi Peťa! First of all, thanks for the interview and your interest in this primitiveness. A lot has changed since the beginning of BETON - 14 years ago. Too much. Imagine the year 2004. You can't even remember that, can you?
The line-up is almost entirely different. We moved from boring crust(the way we did it) through disbeat that we mixed with metal elements till we've got to death metal with punk influences.
On contrary, the band's philosophy has remained very similar, if not the same since the very beginnings. We have always been into spending pleasant times in the circles of close friends - making fun of whatever/whoever(not forgetting of ourselves) wheneverwe wanted, destroying boring stereotypes, trends and stupid dogmas. The personal attitudes of the members of the band have not changed so far anyhow specifically.
Your discography contains mostly split albums and the first long-playing album you recorded only after 10 years since the beginning of the band. Could it have a connection with the type of scene, because in this crust/punk/d-beat community is more common to release splits, EPs and of course everything at LPs, so you didn’t care about it? You as music fans, are you collect mainly LPs, too?
Yes, there is a bit of correlation. Real underground d.i.y. punk / metal scene is not exactly a gold mine. When a band wants to see the light of the world with their own work, it is always better if the costs of releasing music are divided into more parts. Perhaps that is why split vinyls have got popular. It's also a good way to promote a not so well known band in another country (as it was in case of BETON in Brazil). An important point regarding it, however, is a certain affinity, or even friendship between bands, what is definitely our case.
We had known ČAD since our previous bands when we were together on tours or organized gigs for each other. With BESTHOVEN from Brazil and SKELETON from Canada, we had been in long-lasting contact, interviewing them for our zines etc.
I've been collecting records since I was 16, and I'm still into it. The biggest king in the band in this discipline is bass player Feschi, and I know that drummer Adam has joined the game some time ago as well.
Adam: I collect vinyls for more than 10 years, focusing only on things that are somehow special to me, knowing that I will listen to these also in 10 years. Now it is around 400 vinyls, which is only fraction of Tomas and Feshi's collection.
I have your current compilation containing the entire BETON discography in my hands. There is a Mayan pyramid on the cover. What was the reason for the releasing of this compilation? Is it the certain edition to support the Mexican tour? Or have you been attacked by some fans who collect CDs rather than LPs that they also want to have your old recordings at home? How was it?
In today's almost totally digital time, I don't really get the meaning of publishing Cds, even less than say 10 - 15 - 20 years ago. Everything can be downloaded and if anyone misses a 10-cm square booklet that you can see in the same resolution at you computer, there's nothing easier than just print it out. That's why I collect/release vinyls. You cannot fuck that.
In case of discography, which should compile as much of the songs of a band as possible straight on, the CD is quite appropriate. It was proposed by Kano, the owner of Mundo en Kaos records in Mexico. Of course, we did not reject the offer, since after a few years some of our stuff has been sold out. Then the tour in Mexico was a logical outcome.
And what about your tour in Mexico? How did it go? How does it take place, do you decide to go to Mexico, contact with someone from there, and the whole tour is organized by him? Or on the contrary, do you all the things manage by yourself?
The tour went very well. I was glad to have the opportunity to see another/different(?) Country, get crazy because of strange things, travel many miles and to see a lot of very interesting places and people. “Knowledge without mileage means bullshit”(H. Rollins)
It works the way you do it. There are bands that can book the whole tour themselves. However, we were more happy with the version where the label owner (with local help) was responsible for the organization.
First, you had tour in Brasilia, now Mexico. When I think about it, a lot of crust or grind bands used to choose for their tour out of Europe exactly these destinations – central and South America. However, on the contrary, some brutal death metal bands don’t think similarly. Is there more “fertile land” for crust/grind/punk/d-beat bands?
It's pretty good place for the bands of these genres for sure. But of course, it's not only that. From Mexico, various gore grind bands tour Europe, and in Brazil oldschool death/thrash metal is fuckin up and goin.
The very strong Brazilian metal/punk scene, with its history beginning in the early 1980s, is, of course, a bit further than the Mexican one.
How do you able to manage to play in BETON and in the other bands, where you are members? And which band exactly is your priority? Is some band at the first place and others are only as additional projects? Is BETON mainly at the first place?
For me, BETON is a clear priority comparing to other bands where I play (DISPOSE and another project with Suppresser/Fyasco guys). As for the other guys, I do not know.
Adam: Back in the days Beton was the secondary band, now it's priority for sure. It is the only „normally“ working band that I play in after all. Luckilly, I am doing other projects with similarly busy people, so it is mostly about seasonal recording and playing gigs.
Swedish death metal with HM2 rotten dirty sound enchanted to lot of young bands as BLACK BREATH, GRAVEBOMB, GATECREEPER in the last couple of years. How did you get to HM2 sound? When did you decide to sound like this?
Our former singer Charlie got us to HM-2 round 2007-2008. He was something like a Swedish hard n heavy scene encyclopedia, and since in HM2 we found the link between our favorite death metal and crust/disbeat, there was no way back.
At that time I only knew about Rotten Sound using that pedal. It's kinda trend now, what is good and bad at the same time. But I can't be bothered.
How do you remember your beginnings, when did you decide that you want to play guitar? Which your favorite band was the biggest inspiration for this? What was and in the present is the biggest inspiration for BETON?
Heh, that's what I remember only roughly. It was probably sometimes in 1996 when I heard the first tracks by Nirvana, Sex Pistols, Zona A and so on. The real playin in a band started in 2000 with my old crew BOZOKA.
Regarding your second question about the musical influences on BETON, I can't really give an precise answer. We used to say that our music was influenced by Moment Maniacs, Nihilist, Wolfpack, Boltthrower, Valvontakomissio and others. But if that really reflects reality, I can not really say.
With which bands did you play during your career? Which concert do you appreciate most and which band you would like to play with? Do you remember a certain concert or club, which was special and you can’t forget on it, whether in the positive or negative meaning? For me, the concert with Asphyx in Randal was an unforgettable show of BETON. At this show, vocalist Erik (ex-Sperm of Mankind) substituted for your missing vocalist. Attendance was quite low, but I really enjoyed this concert, even I lost my wallet and mobile phone there, haha.
We have played with a really wide range of bands. From a teenage mutant punk duo with teenage siblings who had seen their musical instruments for only the first few hours / minutes up to 40 year old death metal veterans. I always like playin with bands of my friends, cause it's a lot more fun. But generaly I don't care. I'm sure I won't forget the shows in Belo Horizonte and San Carlos. That was a real shit.
Adam: Unforgettable gigs in a good way were for sure some of the gigs in Brasil and Mexico, because of totally fanatical audience. Unforgettable gigs in a bad way were here and there, now I just remembered about the non-stopping never ending hungarian “redneck” punk rock band with arsenal of 10 extra songs at the end of their gig. But even these are still humorous events and memories indeed.
What do you think about the comeback of printed zines? Me personally, I don’t remember any zine, in the time when I started to listen to music, I used to buy only Pařát. Now, we have Cremation zine, Immortal Souls, Earsturbation and so on. Does it make sense to release such zines in the age of the internet?
Of course I like it very much. I've always been a fan of the real zines. I grew up with a zine in my hand and it helped me a lot at times. For a few years I used to print one myself and contributed to different ones, so what you are saying makes me glad. It's great that the metal scene is returning back to the printed shit and it's a shame that something like that is not happening in the punk scene (so at least in Slovakia). Whether there is any wider meaning to it is hard to say. The internet has become so common in our lives that everyone knows how to get/find exactly what he needs. At some individual level, print makes sense to me because it shows the publisher's effort and the real value of creation.
What would you say about the metal scene in Slovakia? Of course, people are listening to different styles and then communities are split into smaller groups and so on. However, sometimes I feel that the scene is highly broken. Someone doesn‘t like Rudi Rus, so never want to go into Headbanger, someone doesn‘t like Doomas, so he is essentially against to perform at Gothoom festival. For some orthodox UG fans even nor the Obscene Extreme is not a UG enough. Do you have also some policy in the band? In my opinion, the scene should hold together, but I am not sure whether it is valid also here.
I do not consider myself a part of metal, punk or any other scene (although my activities may say opposite). It is too limitating. Therefore I do not really care about discussions on such themes trying not to waste my time. These are such first-world-problems issues that the nail polish is more important, as its ingredients affect way more than the question whether punkrocker Jozo wants to go to OEF or not or whether metalhead Juro is against Gothoom or not. Maybe I'm gonna sound like a toughguy nihilist idiot who does not care at all, but that's not the case. Of course, I have the principles which define where we want to play or not, but we think it's our stuff. Obviously sharing one stage with bands that lean towards totalitarian ideas (Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism and/or their crypto/neo versions, etc.) is unthinkable and impossible for us.
What I'm really happy about is a trend, which I've seen in Bratislava for the past few years, and stands a little in opposition to the last part of your last sentence. Punks no longer have problems (moral or whatever else-like) to attend metal concerts and vice versa. I think this is not so common elsewhere in SK / CZ, where the scenes are more closed to the environment, and thus I enjoy the mutual interaction even more.
Last year was marked as a “year of death metal” at a lot of websites, a huge amount of awesome death metal albums was released. Do you get used to make some album summarization at the end of the year? What was the biggest surprise or what album was the best for you?
Heh. As a coincidence, Turco, drummer from a Slovak metal / crust band ROXOR, asked me about the 2017 top list for his new zine, Bitch. It's not so “metal”, because I'm attracted more by recordings that deviate from common concepts and bring new, non-traditional, fresh possibilities in music.
Cultes des Ghoules "Coven" 3LP (which is 2016, but I got it only half year later)
Goli Deca "Mania" LP
Transhunter s / t LP
Gatecreeper "Sonoran Depravation" LP
Sevdaliza "ISON"
Powertrip “Nightmare Logic” LP
Necrot "Blood Offerings" LP
Barbar / Leaders of the fuckin assholes split 7 "ep
Fyasco "Kurva, to je tlak" digital ep
What BETON prepares for the closest period? I would appreciate some concert at home, in Bratislava, or overall in Slovakia. I have not seen your show for a long time. What are you planning for the year 2018?
In the near future we intend to work on new songs and play some gigs. Classic. In addition, we are awaiting our brand new split LP with ROXOR to be released, a world tour, some parties and shitload of subsequent depression.
In Bratislava, we have 2 concerts planned for 2018. The first one is in june in Bratislava at Fuga with Wiegedood and the 2nd one is not yet confirmed.
Thank you for the interview! I wish you all the best, a lot of concerts and more satisfied fans.
Thank you Petra for your interest in our band! We appreciate it a lot. We also wish you all the good with zine and your activities.
If anyone is interested, you can find us in Stupavar, on fb or bandcamp. May Konsky Kokot be with you!
