Answered BAEST.
Questions prepared - Jakub Asphyx.
Translated by Duzl, thank you!
Recenze/review - BAEST - Danse Macabre (2018)
Ave BAEST!
Greetings to Denmark. How are you? What I'm following on social networks, I think you are experiencing a great time. You are anchored at Century Media Records, playing at festivals. You have a great new album. Your work and determination bring you a good results. How do you actually feel like a band?
OI! We are experiencing a great time, and everything is new and exciting. We feel great as a unit, and are stoked to start writing the second album, and further our creative bonds with each other. We feel great on the road as well, with everyone working and playing harder than we thought possible.
Let's go to the new album "Danse Macabre", which is probably the most interesting for our readers. How did it originate? How long have you been recording the album? And how does BAEST make new material?
Danse Macabre originates from the beginning of baest. We started writing in early 2017 and went into the studio later that year. We recorded for a couple of weeks, and finished the album - that’s when we started looking for a label. Baest makes all of our material at the rehearsal space, everyone is writing and debating. We all need to feel ownership of a song before it is a true baest song.
You have some really nice music videos to the album. Who directed them? What about the experience, stand in front of the camera?
We direct the videos together, with our manager Jens Karlsson and our friend Soren Kahr (the man behind the camera). It’s always interesting to shoot a video, but Soren and Jens are great at guiding us in the right direction, and encouraging us. It’s never going to be comfortable, though!
The new album is decorated with a great cover. Who is his author and how did you choose the motif?
Danse Macabre is a concept album, and we wanted a cover that depicted the concept. The artist, Sebastian Graneberg is also an old friend, and that made it easier to explain our thoughts, and he captured it really fast. The motif was chosen by everyone in the band, and Graneberg interpreted our ideas perfectly.
"Danse Macabre" is a good record, even in terms of sound. Where did you record and who is behind mastering and production?
We recorded the album at output studio, with Andreas Lindemann producing, mixing and engineering. Lawrence Mackrory mastered the album.
Lyrics are also an integral part of your new album. They are about apocalypse, death, religion. Who is their author and how did they originat? I wonder what's going on in Denmark about the church? Is the church really brainwashing people so much?
Our vocalist Simon is the main writer of the lyrics but with participation and additions from other members as well. The lyrics revolves around a concept inspired by a certain style of church paintings from the late middle ages in the 15th century called the ‘Danse Macabre’, ‘Totentanz’ or ’The dance of death’.
The story follows humanity through a life lead as sheep through sin, perversion and moral corruption to its death where it meets its fate and final judgement.
The danish church is quite moderate protestant and the lyrics aren’t directed as criticism against the church or religion in general. The religious aspect in the lyrics is just a great way to create atmosphere and mood descriptions. It’s typical for death metal to have satanism and religious criticism as themes but in this case it’s more of an aesthetic way of trying to describe humanity, their way of living and the society which is affecting them.
When I was invited by a friend to a concert in Pilsen in January, I did not even know the band I was going to go to. Everything was happening in a terrible bar called the Hell Gate. I was a little bit ashamed to have invited you to such a crazy club. It was a concert in the living room. Still, you did a great job. I went to the snowy town literally excited, I discovered BAEST for myself. How did you perceive the whole tour of the Czech Republic? What I was looking at, so it was total underground.
The tour in CZ was really underground and super tough, but it taught us to deliver a show, even if it’s in a tiny living room…. The underground is cool, but it’s hard to succeed there, which’s makes it more fun and challenging. CZ is a crazy country!
It looks like you're playing a lot and you like it playing. Personally, I think this is the best way to get your music to the fans. What about the death metal scene in Denmark? Just like the Czech Republic, you are a small country and for example, here people mostly listen to something else altogether. Death metal is a total underground. How is it going in Denmark?
The metal scene in Denmark is also underground, but with a lot of very supportive venues, zines and local promoters. For BAEST, we are trying to break out of this underground to offer Death Metal to the public - that’s going according to plan!
One question drills my mind. At Metal Encyclopedia, you have a photo where you stand on a farm and have sheep with you. If you played satanic black metal, I would understand it, but it does not fit into death metal. My friend always keeps asking me why the sheep? :))
That’s a goat! Goats are metal. Ask Bathory, for example.
What are the plans for BAEST in the coming months? We'll see you again in the Czech Republic? Hopefully, in some better club.
These coming months we are touring Denmark and preparing for the coming tours in 2019. We expect to come by CZ a lot!
Thank you very much for the interview, I wish you the great CD sales, a lot of devoted fans and succes in whatever you do in your personal life.
Cheers!
about BAEST on DEADLY STORM ZINE:
