A few questions - interview with death metal band from Italy - KAIVS.
Answered Leonardo, Max, Jacopo, thank you!
Recenze/review - KAIVS - Horrend (2023):
Can you introduce your band to our readers? When was it founded and what style of music do you play?
Leonardo "Scouting up musicians from around the city we're based in. Started crushing rehearsals and compositions at the speed of light, so that we were already packed up for our very first tour throughout our nation surroundings within six months, more or less. What you can expect from our music is some pure Death Metal straight from beneath our corrupted hearts".
Max "I created Kaivs in the summer of 2022, an outfit death metal based on buzzsaw guitarsound riffs, in the tradition of mighty Stockholm's bands of the 90's scene. I'm the singer, and I have with me Tiziano on the guitar, Jacopo on the bass, and Leonardo on the drums".
Jacopo: "Kaivs was born during the early summer of 2022 by the idea of our megalithic singer, Max. He was scouting all around Rome to find the right members to build this project with, sooner than we thought we had the whole line-up ready to storm rehearsals. The main concept of the band was to take a great inspiration from the giant colossus of the Swedish death metal like Dismember and Entombed, and give it a personal flair with some blackened patterns and riffs. We brought our main influences into the project and developed the sound that incarnates the most essence of our music and you can already hear it from the demo we have available online, and soon you’ll get much and much more. The starting idea was to have five musicians in our formation, but we soon found out that the 4-way formation provides the best results with the right combination of ruthlessness and rawness".
Max "Am I megalithic? Oh, no!".
Where and under what conditions were you recording the new album? Who was in charge of sound, production and mastering?
Max "We only have only a demo out or a sort of Ep if you like, and it's called "Horrend". For the full-length instead, we've all the songs ready, and we'll enter the studio in May, to finally realease it before the end of this year... hopefully!".
Jacopo "We are going to conduct the recordings at Kika Studios in Rome (IT), basically it became our second home in a matter of weeks during the last year and it’s set to be out for a label that will be revealed soon enough. The album will be entitled “After the Flesh” and the full production will be ensured by our trustworthy herald “Andrea Kikazaru”: he already worked on our Demo and the results were out of our comprehension, so we commonly decided that the whole production will be granted by him once again. “After the Flesh” will also include an amazing piece of art, drawn by the black magic-infused hands of Juanjo Castellano, and it’s set to be out in between this summer and this autumn".
Max "We'll record as for "Horrend", absolutely live also this time too!".
Leonardo "We're gonna record our first album at “Kika Studios” in Rome (IT), which basically became our rehearsal and rec home since the day. “Kika” is the name of our sound engineer too and we proudly entrust our works to him. Our first record is going to be recorded in live sessions featuring bass, drums and guitar, while the vocals will be taken in a separated moment to ensure no acoustic feedback's gonna ruin the tracks".
How many copies were released and which medium was used for this new edition (CD, digital, vinyl, cassette)?
Max "Just fifty copies in a cartoonsleeve format, we expect to have a reprint or a sort of re-issue within our fist album!".
Jacopo "We do not know exactly how many copies of “After the Flesh” will be released, but I can say that you will find it as a physical CD and on all streaming platforms. Currently, our demo “Horrend” is released in a pretty limited amount of copies: we are talking about nearly 50 copies in cardboard format and probably never printed back, so you better hurry if you would like to grab one yourself! The Demo tracks will be released online in a while".
Max "I said maybe it will be reprinted ahhhahh! (Laughters)".
Leonardo "We don't actually know how many copies are gonna be released, but we must say everything's gonna definitely be online on every streaming platform, as on CD only for the physical edition".
Who is the author of the lyrics and how were they created and about what do the lyrics deal with?
Leonardo "All of our lyrics are written by our frontman Max".
Max "I wrote all the lyrics of our songs, and they're about horror, antichristianity, death and destruction".
Jacopo "All the vocal lines and lyrics are magistrally written by our singer Max".
Max "Well... thank you, man!".
Who created the logo of the band, and who took care of the graphics and the website?
Leonardo "Talking about website and social network, promotion I personally agree that it's the main source of distribution in the present days and everything's being took care by Max as well. For what concernes graphics (and band's image such as photos) Francesco Tacconi comes in handy, with his outstanding talent. The band logo was designed by the equally talented Harris Zullian.".
Max "Oh, Harriz Julian a guy form Indonesia draw the logo, I just saw some of his posts on Instagram and well... I just added him as a friend and wrote immediately to order it! It was just a sort of love at first sight with a font lettering he used, and I beg him to use it for us too and it worked out with an incredible final piece of art! He developed a very incredible logo".
Jacopo "The band logo was designed by Harris Zullian, a very talented artist who took the commission from Max and handed him several ideas in which one of these is our actual logo, nonetheless to say that he did a superb job in making it".
What about you and social networks? Do you consider these things important?
Jacopo "At the moment we do not have a website, but we use our facebook, instagram and our bandcamp page. Even though social networks are getting worse and worse in some aspects, we actively use them to promote our project with some snippets of music, news on the upcoming releases and to keep the people updated about our live shows. We consider social networks important as long as they concern our work including advertisements, band news and things like that".
Max "Oh yes, absolutely! You must be a nerd of that when you have a band! If you have any kind of stuff, you have to post it continually! Fans expect some pics and videos anywhere, even when you're shittin' on the loo!".
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?
Max "We sent our demo to some dedicated labels in death metal and extreme in general. We had some good responses, some of them chose us and we're studying the best offer for the band and for the future of Kaivs before signing for anyone!".
Jacopo "We cannot talk about the label we have chosen, yet: in due time you’ll know the name. But I can say that we know the bands that cooperate with the label we choose, we received lots of positive feedbacks about the care and the passion and we can’t wait to fully cooperate with them".
Leonardo "We are proud to announce that we just signed a contract with a certain label and we'll keep this moment as our starting point for the future. A lot of gigs and tours are coming in the near future. About our first album we're gonna start the recording sessions in the month of May 2023, so keep an eye close".
Which bands do you idolise and where do you get your inspiration?
Max "All concerning Nihilist, Carnage, Carbonized, early Entombed until "Wolverine Blues" and Dismember until "Pieces". Also others like Autopsy, Necrophobic, Morbid Angel, Slayer, Grave and early Unleashed. Also all concerning about a certain punk attitude like Misfits, some dark with Type O Negative and Danzig, also early Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Sting, The Police, The Beatles and Billy Idol are just some of my faves!".
Jacopo "All four members of Kaivs come from very different contexts one from the other: some of us love thrash metal to folly, others go wild for doom metal...but on ONE thing we agree on: what kind of Death Metal we love. Our major inspirations come from the “Stockholm School” with bands such as Dismember and Entombed, but our sound has been heavily influenced by Autopsy and good dose of Slayer. All of this is slightly contaminated with little flairs of our main genre, which helped us to deliver our message clearly and more efficiently but never led astray from the main path".
Leonardo "We all agree our sound influences come from “Stockholm School” bands such as Dismember and Entombed, but each one of us has difference kinds of inspiration for what comes about music. My personal self, feels free to tell that a lot of my drumming is built up by Punk Rock music tho (*winks an eye)".
Did you send your record to some labels - which are these labels? How was the response?
Leonardo "As said someone's gonna be taking care of the distribution for the near future With that being said, I encourage you to stay tuned for some Raw, Classic, Krvshing death Metal. ARE YOU READY FOR SOME MOTHERF***ING KAIVS?!?!?!".
Max "As I said before, it was quite unexpected for the unthusiasm some labels/webzines gave us! We were not ready for such a start, and we couldn't forecast just anything like that! But the road is very long, you know, and we must remain death metal and very quite humble".
Jacopo "Before finding the best label for us we sent our promopack to lots and lots of labels scattered around the world, the product was well received and many positive feedbacks came through our e-mail: we asked for it, because we wanted to check if we were working in the right way, besides the band members are first listeners and then musicians. We didn’t expect to receive such a positive response from a lot of people, that fueled our engines and gave use more motivation to present the best product we could’ve came up with".
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?
Max "We started with three gigs in Italy, one in Naples and they were really hardcore! I don't have any specific preference, I just wanna amuse myself and the audience and meet more metalheads as possible after and before!".
Jacopo "At the moment we played a handful of gigs here in Italy to promote our demo and to let people know that we exist and to spread our music. Generally we do not have a preference on a show over another, but I can say that if we have to give our personal opinion, we do prefer gigs where the organization is at its finest: providing a good show is the duty of the band and also it’s a responsability of the venue manager, the promoter, the sound engeneer... so basically it’s something that should be cared by several people. We do prefer this kind of shows (regardless of clubs or festivals)".
What about your plans for the future? What do you want to achieve with the band?
Max "We hope to have success one day and to live only earning from our music, why not? I'm very ambitious, but the world outside here is very competitive! We'll crank it out possibly!".
Jacopo "Our closest plan is to release “After the Flesh” during this year, then we will focus on the merchandise and begin scheduling the release tour, then it will be followed by another one and another one again: the main plan is delivering our music through brutal frequencies and hoping to do that for the years to come".
How and where can your fans contact you? Can you provide some contact information?
Jacopo "Of course, our fans can contact us on our Instagram page @kaivsband: we welcome every kind of feedback. For business inquiries the contact is via our e-mail kaivs@mail.com thank you for your time and patience, it was an honor".
Max "Unfuckwithable... whatsoever!".
Recenze/review - KAIVS - Horrend (2023):
Max Foam: vocals
Tiziano Mortician: guitar
Jacopo Simonelli: bass
Leonardo Sastro: drums
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