Interview with black/death metal band from Israel - ARALLU.
Answered Butchered.
Translated and questions prepared by Duzl, thank you!
Hi Butchered!
You form Arallu as a solo project in 1997 in Israel, now let’s go down in history - how did you get into the metal and black metal in particular? Which bands did you grow up listening to and which bands most influence the sound of Arallu? I have in my mind SALEM, did you take inspiration from them especially about put some oriental themes?
B: hello from Jerusalem, I'm Butchered the main member of the band and I'm the founder of the band. Arallu was founded in Jerusalem in the middle of the conflict between the religions around the old city of Jerusalem in the 90'. Today I think Arallu has the best lineup, including Gal "Pixel" and Omri Yagen on the guitars, Assaf Kassimov our great drummer and Eylon Bart hwo plays the Darbukka and Saz for our new album. When you live as the terror is surrounding you and you grow up for this endless conflict, if you want or not, it inspires you whatever you do.
I remember the bus exploding next to me around the streets of Jerusalem when I was in my way to school. We saw every day the hatred comes through the TV news. I was 16 years old and the extreme black metal concept around Europe comes to my life mixed with bloodshed around Jerusalem is what brought Arallu band to life. Salem are good friends of mine, the first 2 album of Arallu from 1999 and 2002 Zeev From Salem produced. Salem is the first extreme metal band from Israel and the inspiration of many band s around Israel, but our middle eastern inspiration comes from the local music of Israel and the middle east and from the metal bands …
As I already noticed, you start as a solo project, now you are regular full members’ band, when you decide to change it? There was a lot of lineup changes, what were the reasons? Is difficult to find a musician in Israel who is deeply into this kind of music genre?
B: I don’t really know if it's hard to find musicians from the metal scene in Israel ,because every time I looked for musicians, I find then easily, the line up is changed you're right. Some people don’t understand the idea to play in metal band like Arallu. Im totally with my band. Except my family and my work day Arallu is everything for me and I'm working hard to keep tje band growing all over the years.
Let’s move onto the new album - you released your 6th album named simply "Six", will officialy out 22th September. Tell me about the themes running through this album. Where was the album recorded and who produced it?
B: The full concept of Arallu all over the years is clear. We're talking about the ultimate war over the Middle East because we’re living it. So I believe it's coming naturally even we will try to ignore it. "SIX" like the other albums of the band is talking about the situation around the Middle East as it crawls to Europe and the US, and some personal issues we deal with our everyday life.
Like the song "Adonay" is talking about a simple man from Jerusalem killed by terrorist attack and left behind him a huge world of people who loved him, but actually this song was talking about the last days of my grandfather who really suffered before he died a few months ago…. He was my model and I really admired him. The song "Possessed by Sleep" that's about the murder of a little girl named Hilel Yafe Ariel while she was sleeping and the terrorist killed her in bed. When you live around Jerusalem and you have 3 children all you're thinking about is how to keep them safe in this horrible world. From the other aspect we have the song "Soulless Soldier" which is about a soldier in the army service who fights the wars around Israel and when he killed a terrorist who tried to kill soldiers the government put him to trail for that. Its absurd. Arallu is the horn of the situation in the Middle East and specially the horn of the wars all around the years in Jerusalem. We don't look for paper news Headlines. We play and live black metal from the 90's. Its more than a decade that Arallu screaming about the global terror. "Satanic War In Jerusalem" our second album from 2002 ,talking about the situation in Jerusalem that spread to the all-world. I wrote this album in 2001 when the Islamic terror attack everywhere in Israel and especially in Jerusalem. Unfortunately "Satanic War In Jerusalem become a self-fulfilling prophecy and today we all know it. "The War On The Wailing Wall" our debut album from 1999,was the mixed between our day life and extreme black metal Against religions. When I’m writing my music and my lyrics I'm not looking for some victories. i mean I'm looking for something fresh ,something as no one touched before. Because our music is a mix with extremely black metal music and Arabian / Middle Eastern music is very hard to understand it in the first listening. Usually people who like extreme black metal dont like the Middle Eastern parts and vice versa, when we wrote this album we knew its risky and we know it from the debut album from 1999, but Arallu always looks to bring something different to the global metal scene and we doing it in a small steps.
The atmosphere of this album is similar to the old albums. It's the feeling of the desert force and battles around the middle east.We’re coming against what is offensive and hurting us. Us as human beings, us as individuals. The people in Israel don’t know what good life is. We are busy with worrying about personal and national security. Our lyrics are straight in your face, against the religions and what they represent and of course the people behind them. Our last album GENIEWAR and "SATANIC WAR IN JERUSALEM talks about all those things. From the wars of the ancient times as kings tried to rule Jerusalem, with that, "SIX" album talking the wars of today as ISIS are trying to destroy and kill anyone who doesn’t agree with their religious views. like in the song "Only One Truth. Arallu concept is the mirror of the human race, hypocrisy of the governments all around the world including Israel, and the unwillingness and fear to fight against the extreme religion leaders. We live in the Middle East as u know. the situations here are not easy here in Jerusalem and Israel. We live in days of war religions, and religions hatred that inspired our music and lyrics. We worked with Dory Bar or who made the mixing for our last album "GENIEWAR" and the pre production of "SIX" so he knows what sound we were looking for. this guy is a real professional and knows how to take Arallu music from the stage in to the speakers. We worked hard for this sound. Something like 7-8 of final version of mixing. We don’t like the new sound of the metal bands around the world. We like to make our instruments clear but raw. Evil. War machine.
How was a writing process and your studio experiences when you compare it with previous album "Geniewar". What we can expect from this album is more mythology based, more musically sophisticated? Who is autor of the lyrics? And who bring the idea to use some oriental instruments for your music - beause it is not common in metal genre, but probably it makes you a unique.
B: When I start to feel the anger flowing in my veins around some terrore atack or other think Which makes me uneasy, I take my guitar and start writing some riffs. This is the beginning of the process. Unfortunately together with that the world provides me all the time ideas to writing lyrics. Especially, in these days around the Middle East. When I have a few riffs I'm sending them to my band members and we meet in the rehearsal room and start working on a new song until we are all happy from the results.when I start listen to the European black metal bands of the 90's ,I really liked the idea of the local folk music inside the raw sound of the black metal. I think to myself "I can't play like that . I can’t write music like that. I can feel the cold and mountains coming aout from the speakers! if I will try to sound like that no one will listen to my music . I cant make sound like that. BUT if I will bring a special sound and guitar riffs with a special instruments I can flow above them ". and that’s what happened.
This album will be released through Indian label Transcending Obscurity Record. Why an Indian Label? How did the cooperation start with them and are you happy with their work? Are you hoping to stay with them for your next release?
B: We cooperated with "Raven Music" for almost all of the bands lifetime and they really took care of us. We're still working together and we are good friends. TO records are new to us. I'm in contact with Kunal the owner of TO rec. from January and I can tell that he's a really cool and great person. He really likes what he do and he really likes our music. He really believes in Arallu and I hope he will open new doors for us. I have to mention that we signed with TO rec. before we recorded the album. We sent him only demo version of few songs from the album and he signed us immediately. He recognized the potential of music, and this is an ability that is not available to everyone. This guy is a professional. I think we choose right and yes for now we hope for second album via TO rec.
You are a long time in the metal scene, you even play live with MELECHESH. Can you compare for us how metal scene looked like in Israel when you started and how bigger is the metal scene there now? Is something really typical for Israel metal scene? Are some local bands which you like to recommend?
B: The Israeli metal scene is a small scene. It's very different from the scene in Europe and US. Israel is a small country so we don’t have many places to preform here. We have here more metal bands than crowd. The other problem is all around Israel are Arabs land and we are not in a good Relationship with them so the metal band here cannot go outside Israel to preform like in Europe and US. We have a good bands here like u mentioned Salem, Orphand lands and others…I know MC The main member from Melechesh from the 90's we was a great friends and when he looks for a bass guitar he ask me to come for one show because the bass player of the band had left. These time its was almost no serious metal bands and I felt like I'm wasting my time with people to create a metal band, that’s why Arallu start as a solo project. but we were good friends so I came to help them with this single show in Jerusalem.
You live in one of the most religious country, your music is aswell about and against religions ( for example your album "Satanic war in Jerusalem") did you had any problems with your music there? And how are you perceived as a metalhead, did you have any issue there because you are part of the extreme metal scene?
B: When u write extreme lyrics against religions in the place that holy for the religions and u write extreme music, for shure you'll have enemies. But who cares? I don’t give a shit about that. I think the main reason for wars all around the world is religions and the idea behind them and I scream that almost for 20 years.
How often do you get to play live in Israel and abroad? What is the average attendance to gigs in Israel? Do you have any special rituals when you play live to give the fans more of show?
B: Of curse! we want our fans feel the atmosphere of the albums in our shows. Arallu’s shows is like troops walking on the desert ground ,and marching for the last battle. The sound of the songs is like the war, but the middle eastern parts is like the sound of the desert wind.. the main idea is give the audience the atmosphere of the music inside the albums.
In April you had a tour in Europe over three states incuding Czech Republic, your performance there was well rated, how was your experience from Czech Republic? I've seen you last year on Metalgate Czech Death Fest, was really a great show there. Can you compare metal heads here in Europe and on your local scene, where do you feel bigger support?
B: Unfortunately, the bigger support is coming from outside of Israel… people in Israel prefer the sound of the European metal bands and not the Middle East. it's really understandable because people here know this sound from childhood. So when we mixed with the metal music it's not surprise them like people from outside Israel. We can see from the stage the different reactions when we play in Israel compared to when we play around the world. We played for the last 5 years around Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Turkey, Czech Republic and it is so great to see the faces of the people when they enjoyed from our music.
I am really big fan of vinyl , some of your albums was released as LP as well, like to ask how is about possibilities to release and buy a LP in Israel and completely about availability of metal merchandise there... do you have some records shop there or do you need to order everything abroad?
B: Vinyl is my favorite music media. In Israel we have no vinyl manufactory. I'm really like to release every each album of Arallu on vinyl, but unfortunately it's impossible to make it here in Israel. That's why we never released vinyl before. People make their orders only from the internet store. Im still looking for some label to release Arallu previous album as LP versions.
Last question a bit out of music... what are the civilian jobs of Arallu band members?
B: Some of us living from the music business like the drummer and the guitar players, Eylon works at a wine store, and I'm working in the finance governments office.
Well, it's been a pleasure to do this interview with you, thank you for your time. I wish you many good reviews and good sales of your upcoming album and final words are yours!
B: Thank u very much for your greetings and im really hope to come play again in your great country in front of your great metal scene some day with our new album "SIX"!
