A few questions - interview with death doom metal band ETERNAL ROT.
Answered Mayer & Grindak.
review:
1. Ave, can you introduce your band to our readers? When it was founded and what style do you play?
URRGHS Jakub and readers! We're Eternal Rot, 2-piece entity excavated on the one of the many London's burial places in 2012. Originally we're from Poland but we moved to UK long time ago, currently we're spread between Watford and Bedford. We deal with hypnotizing and nauseously down-tuned doom/death metal. From sonic achievements there are: "Promo Tape 2013" (sold out), same 2 demo tracks released on 7" under title "Grave Grooves" by Fallen Temple Prod (still available), exclusive track "Fatal Offering" on Dutch vinyl compilation "Vestibule of Hell" (Wolfsbane Rec) shared alongside such names as Hacavitz, Pentacle, Bombs of Hades among others... and recently debut CD entitled "Cadaverine" - 4 tracks good for slow head bang against the wall of your coffin.
2. Where and under what conditions were you recording the new album? Who was in charge of sound, production and mastering?
Mayer: Recording has been done in the Tomb of Eternal Rot, I mean my place, and it took almost 5 painful years as I'm quite busy with my job, family etc... I laid down the tracks, played with them, tried a lot of effects... Then Grindak came in, we got drunk while laying down the vocals, then I've spent a lot of time again changing things. Eventually it all ended in the hands of Haldor Grunberg (Satanic Audio) who done fantastic job with mixing / mastering, he really put a lot of meat into the overall sound of the album.
3. How many copies were released and which medium was used for this new edition (CD, digital, vinyl, cassette).
There were around 350 CDs pressed by our label (Gods Ov War Productions). If we will be lucky enough that it will be sold out then there is a chance for repress to keep all the interested corpses happy. Digital version is available through our bandcamp. In the future "Cadaverine" will be definitely released on vinyl and cassette as well - but when and where we still don't know.
4. Who is the author of the lyrics and how were they created and about what do the lyrics deal with?
Grindak: I do all the lyrics, ones to the “Undying Desolation” and “Putrid Hallucination” were written before the tracks were recorded, ones to “In Their Decaying Eyes” and “Slough of Despond” were made after the recording, early Obituary way. In the future we will stick to the latter method. 😉
They deal with everything you can expect from the album where on the cover there is corpse crawling out from his grave, so no social issues, no politics, no religion, only good old-fashioned death related topics. I took care to make them good, each of them has certain mood and flow so if there is a person paying attention such things then hopefully likes them.
5. 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?
New logo is created by our friend Radek Pierscinski (drummer in such bands like Meat Spreader, the Dead Goats, Neuropathia) who happens to be talented sketcher, album logo is done by Mayer’s younger brother Pawel. Graphics on “Cadaverine” was bit of emotional rollercoaster for us, because person who intended to do it for us stopped responding, so we were left alone without cover and time was running out. In desperation we reached to Mark Riddick, because we had nothing to lose. To our amazement we had instant reply with sketch, week later full album cover and graphics for booklet. He literally blew our minds while selflessly helping out 2 humble zombies from nowhere – especially on such short notice. Everything he came up with is just ideal for us and he perfectly knew what is good for us. True underground spirit. All layout has been designed by Pawel Ozon who very often helps in Godz Ov War and everything turned out better that we even expected. If someone would tell us 4 years ago that on our debut album there will be Mark Riddick’s great artwork we would just laugh.
We haven’t got website as such, bandcamp and facebook profiles are enough. Social networks are important, we won’t pretend to sit in the basements with candles whole days, because we sit in the tombs. 😊 As we clearly remember the times before the Internet so there is strong sentimental value of waiting weeks for letters with tapes, but nothing beats the speed and easiness of contact. If back then people would be given an opportunity to make things easier everyone would jump on it.
6. Which label did you choose for releasing your album and why this label? Are you satisfied by how your label represents you and takes care about you?
We knew Greg and Godz Ov War long before and we knew that he is an absolute maniac with honest attitude and insatiable hunger for new crushing stuff. He was the obvious aim for us, so we were very happy that he believed in this music. We’re totally satisfied with all he is doing around us, from using his vast web of contacts, putting our CDs in many distros, very active promotion on-line, there is cool looking lyric video on youtube done from his initiative, help with design of t-shirts and actually doing them, metal pin with logo, soon zipper hoodies… with things like this we couldn’t be anything but happy.
7. Which bands do you idolise and where do you get your inspiration?
Mayer - Tons of sounds pass through our decaying ears, we listen to many kinds of music from ambient through bands such as Dead Can Dance, Pink Floyd, Misfits, Fields of Nephilim, Joy Division to metal. Heavy / Black / Thrash / Doom / Death are on our menu. Grindak prays to all obscene incarnations of Chris Reifert. I am a fan of the old Scandinavian school. Demigod, Demilich, Moondark, Grave, Nihilist ......
Grindak – I am keen explorer of sounds and genre has no relevance sounds are good for me. Except obvious metal related bands as Autopsy, Winter, Entombed and plenty of others from the verge of 80’s and 90’s I idolise such artists as Bvdub, David Sylvian, Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Suzanne Vega, Alio Die or Mick Harris. Usually I tend to be mostly drawn to electronic music or death / doom metal in all its glory. Beside this I regular basis I come back to the albums I used to grow up with so some of my days are filled with Black Sabbath, Kind Diamond or Running Wild. Inspiration-wise mostly everything which is heavy as fuck, gloomy and death affirming. In my free time I like to discover new sounds no matter if it is spaced out dub techno like Submersion or underground death metal from the basement.
8. Did you send your record to some labels - which are the labels? How was the response?
Greg (Godz Ov War Productions) was the only one we contacted about the album release, and lucikly he liked it enough to put it on CD. He sent it to various magazines etc. and responses are mostly positive ones. We contacted several fine labels with regards of vinyl release, but no joy here yet.
9. 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?
Possibly it may be disappointing for some but we haven't played any gigs and there are no plans for such in the future. Mostly it is motivated by the logistic side of things, beside this we don't feel any need to do this.
10. What about your plans for the future? What do you want to achieve with the band?
We would like to come up with stuff which firstly will satisfy ourselves. We still don’t know if it will be EP, full LP, split with someone suitable… it all depends how long it will take to create new tracks. Ideas are slowly emerging but nothing is recorded yet. Lack of free time is the biggest obstacle. For sure it will be heavy and trippy. We already achieved more than we expected, so in this matter we have no plans, we will go with the flow and see where it will take us. We’re fine where we are, Eternal Rot will stay our passion but in this moment there is no pressure on anything more than having “Cadaverine” on vinyl and cassette.
11. How and where can your fans contact you? Can you provide some contact information?
Usual sources: we’re available through the e-mail eternalrot@hotmail.com, through our facebook profile http://www.facebook.com/EternalRot/ and bandcamp site http://eternalrot.bandcamp.com/
Thanks for the interview.
Thanks for reaching out and patience Jakub, tons of decaying apologies for delay with answers, this is very slow zombie.
