A few questions - interview with death metal band from Poland

A few questions - interview with death metal band from Poland - DEATHSPAWN.

Answered Bartosz, thank you!

Ave, can you introduce your band to our readers? – When was it founded and what style of music do you play etc.?

Ave! Deathspawn was formed on the ruins of a death metal band named Resurrection, from Słupsk (North of Poland). We wanted to refresh the band’s concept a little. The change of style isn’t revolutionary, it’s still brutal, it's still technical, it’s still death metal but maybe somewhat more serious in the lyrical layer and with some black metal influences.

Where and under what conditions were you recording the new album? Who was in charge of sound, production and mastering?

Raw tracks have been recorded at home or in the rehearsal room by ourselves, and then they were edited/reamped in a professional studio. We chose Monroe Sound Studio because we already knew them. Arkadiusz “Aro” Jabłoński was responsible for all of the mixes and mastering and we don’t regret it. We had a couple of talks about the vibe we’d like to get and he completely understood our idea. We are very satisfied with the effect we got.

How many copies were released and which medium was used for this new edition (CD, digital, vinyl, cassette)?

The album will be released in a CD form, in the number of 500, and digital. CD release hasn’t happened yet because of some technical problems with the printing house, but we hope that it will be available this month. Of course you can also buy a digital version on Bandcamp.

Who is the author of the lyrics and how were they created and about what do the lyrics deal with?

I am the author of most of the lyrics, excluding ‚Reverendus‘, ‚Rage of Pariah‘ and ‚Traitors Will Pray‘. The first two were written by my dear friend, Artur Stępnik and the last one was done by our guitarist, Roman Brzeziński. We often work together with Artur, discussing some philosophical concepts and such. For instance he wrote the lyrics for the title track based on my reflections on “The Rebel” by A. Camus. Speaking of it, “Essais” of Camus are a very important part of the album’s concept so the lyrics usually deal with the problems of absurdity of life, the role of death in it and the solitude of an individual. Other sources of inspiration connected to these problems are the works of Dostoevsky, Bulgakov and Schopenhauer. The lyrics are also about religion and it’s potential to enslave people.

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?

The logo, the album’s cover art and the booklet are done by Eyes Of The North, a.k.a. my brother, Tomasz :) The cover art for the single track Grace of Purpose is a work of mine.

We don’t have a regular band’s website yet, although we’ve started to think about creating one. Of course we run the FB fanpage, BC site and YT channel. At this moment, I am responsible for the preparation and upload of all materials (announcements, trailers, videos), but we always discuss together the content we want to share. Do I consider these things important? I would say that in the era of computers, smartphones etc. I am aware of the meaning and importance of social media for the promotion of the band. It’s great that people around the globe can hear your music immediately, especially when they really look for it and want to support us or at least give an opinion (either good or bad, as long as it is constructive). However, I wouldn’t like to spend all my days checking how many of them liked my recent post. We have to focus on the work we have and playing some new cool riffs.

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?

The album is released by Defense Records and Mythrone Promotion labels. We of course did reach out to few or more labels. Some of them didn’t respond at all, some of them did but weren’t interested or didn’t have time for us. Finally, we got brilliant feedback from Defense Records and they offered us fair terms when it comes to a fledgling band like ours. They also work with Mythrone Promotion which takes care of reviews, zines and other “old school” types of promotion. So far, we are very happy to work with these guys and hope it will get even better.

Which bands do you idolise and where do you get your inspiration?

That’s a tough one… Of course, I can’t deny that the music I listen to from day to day affects my work in some way. The overall sound, guitar and drum playing techniques, emotions and reflections… all those things are kinda written into one’s subconsciousness and that’s a fact. Thinking of it this way, I would say that bands like Nile, Behemoth, Hate, Decapitated, Morbid Angel, Immolation, Suffocation, Septicflesh, Hour of Penance and many other bands like those are our “idols”. Nevertheless, when sitting with a guitar and trying to write a riff we try to think about “the things we generally like in music”. For example, “Reverendus” has a couple of groovy parts and we feel great with this kind of riffing. Also there is definitely a strong “egyptian/Nile-like” element in our music as well as moments of total destruction, blast beats and strong growling. Finally, the inspiration may come from anywhere and death/black metal isn’t of course the only genre that we listen to.

Did you send your record to some Labels - which are the labels? How was the response?

I think that in some way I answered this question already. Maybe I could add that we contacted mostly Polish underground labels because we wanted to start the whole thing “in our playground”. We don’t expect that bigger labels would be interested in releasing a debut album of a new death metal band that has no history yet.

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?

As I mentioned, we are quite a young band so we didn’t have a chance so far to play many gigs. That’s also because after changing the band’s name we were already working on the recordings so we were focused on this process and after that, in early 2020, COVID came up and there was no way to organise any events. Nevertheless, in September 2019 we played 3 shows in Słupsk, Poznań and Grudziądz. In Słupsk we had a pleasure to play before Calm Hatchery and it was great, but if I had to choose our best performance, then it would be the gig in Grudziądz. There came about 80-90 people and the place was quite small so the energy (and the smell too, haha!) undeniably was there. We never played at a festival so I can’t compare it to playing in a club. Of course we’d like to do both but we love playing in small and closed places where you can actually “feel” the crowd.

What about your plans for the future? What do you want to achieve with the band?

Although we are focused now on the promotion of “Reverendus” in social media, which I hope we’ll be able to play live in 2021, we are already working on some new ideas. I can’t say any specific details about it yet just because it’s too early and of course because the debut album deserves a proper promotion but surely we do not want to waste the time so we bust our asses after working hours at home writing, discussing new concepts and looking for inspiration. What we would like to achieve is definitely to play many gigs in the future. At the starting point, as many as our regular jobs let us do, and then… I don’t know… we’ll see.

How and where can your fans contact you? Can you provide some contact information?

The best way to contact us is via e-mail at contact.deathspawn@gmail.com. So far we’re not so big, so we also still have a control over the messages on Facebook.

Thanx for the interview.

Thank you very much. Cheers!

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links

DEATHSPAWN:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtp0P8rsyv9_D8OIzp7ExyA

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deathspawn666

Bandcamp: https://deathspawn.bandcamp.com

Eyes Of The North: https://www.eyesofthenorth.com/

DEFENSE RECORDS:

Website: http://www.defensemerch.com/

Metalshop: https://metalshop.net.pl/