Well surprise, surprise - it's yet another edition of the SC with a couple more Mediterranean delicacies in store. You never thought the ol' island had it in her did ya? The year is 1997. It's almost a decade since the second wave of black metal hits the globe and the reverberating tsunami is only just about to land on Cypriot shores. Godblood, the one and only Cypriot band to heed thy call, collaborate with fellow islanders Macabre Omen from Rhodes in a bid to escape the rehearsal room and pound forth with conviction into the dark ill-trodden paths of the black 
metal underground. The end result is a 7" split which although widely unknown to the vast majority of underground aficionados almost 20 years later still earns its place in history as the first sign of black metal activity on Cyprian territory. The releasing label itself (Demonion Productions) was a bedroom operation run by Macabre Omen's head honcho - Alexandros - so the whole affair is unsurprisingly DIY and still retains a sense of nostalgic romanticism. Although distinctly black metal Macabre Omen exhibit clear signs that they were aiming for something that stood out of the mind-numbing mire of standard, meat-and-potatoes black metal. This was readily achieved by blending an evocative atmosphere (comprised of aptly used chantings and keyboards) with an unmistakably 'Hellenic' melodicism. Not bad, not bad at all I say. Godblood comparatively were quite under-developed in compositional maturity. Still tethered to a proto-heavy metal grounding their sound on this track was rather un-directed, running mostly on pure emotion and youthful fervor. The band would make some further connections within the underground through main-man Deceased, release an album a year later (entitled Those Funeral Times) on
metal underground. The end result is a 7" split which although widely unknown to the vast majority of underground aficionados almost 20 years later still earns its place in history as the first sign of black metal activity on Cyprian territory. The releasing label itself (Demonion Productions) was a bedroom operation run by Macabre Omen's head honcho - Alexandros - so the whole affair is unsurprisingly DIY and still retains a sense of nostalgic romanticism. Although distinctly black metal Macabre Omen exhibit clear signs that they were aiming for something that stood out of the mind-numbing mire of standard, meat-and-potatoes black metal. This was readily achieved by blending an evocative atmosphere (comprised of aptly used chantings and keyboards) with an unmistakably 'Hellenic' melodicism. Not bad, not bad at all I say. Godblood comparatively were quite under-developed in compositional maturity. Still tethered to a proto-heavy metal grounding their sound on this track was rather un-directed, running mostly on pure emotion and youthful fervor. The band would make some further connections within the underground through main-man Deceased, release an album a year later (entitled Those Funeral Times) on
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Addendum: Fooling around with Kuzka's mother.
Hello. I’m fine, thank you. The band came into existence
because someone crashed a car. They were unable to play the gig they had to do,
so the organisers called me asking if my band Winter's Verge could play in two
days. After initially laughing at them, I called up a couple of friends
(Andreas on the drums and Kotsios from Blynd on guitars) asking them if we
wanted to do a gig. They said yes, and we learnt the easiest songs we could
think of. I got wasted and don't remember much else but then we played another
gig a couple of years later. The shows were fun, and it was a nice change from
the studied and careful approach that we take with Winter’s Verge. This was
about more raw expression than about trying to create something actually
decent. Harry from Winter’s Verge replaced Kotsio because Kotsio actually has
something worthwhile to do with his time. We received a very positive response
from the crowd despite being drunk – I suppose it was because we could actually
play music. I then had the bright idea of writing songs. Regarding “Kuzka’s mother”, I was
researching for a good band name and
then stumbled across the story of how the USSR carried out the largest nuclear
explosion – indeed, the largest man-made explosion ever – in the 1950’s. It was
ordered by Khrushchev and called the Tsar Bomba, which I thought was a
brilliant band name. Upon reading up more on the device itself, I found out
that Khrushchev hinted to the US that they were ‘going to be shown who Kuzka’s
Mother is’, which is apparently a saying in Russian meaning ‘I’ll show you
There is an
undeniably ostensible punk vibe in your songs both in terms of structure and
overall aesthetic. What are your influences - both emotional and musical?
In 2011 there was a massive explosion at a power plant in
Cyprus, caused by the sheer stupidity and incompetence of the government in
charge at the time. Anyone who claims otherwise is an idiot. Anyway this made
me angry. Very angry. I was always quite apathetic when it came to politics in
Cyprus because it’s more of a joke than anything, but this one was incompetence
too far. I wrote a song about it, called ‘Fuck off and Die’. Yes I know
Darkthrone released an album called that, I didn’t care and I still don’t. It
expressed exactly what I wanted to say to the politicians who were in charge
(although the phrase ‘in charge’ is a very questionable one to use – I’ve met
headless chickens with more responsible and reasonable control of their
faculties.) So after I wrote that one and people liked it, I figured I might as
well write other songs about the things about life in Cyprus that bother me but
I lack the language skills to express in any sort of coherent or indeed
interesting manner. Things like pyramid schemes, the economic meltdown, the
fucking Orthodox fucking Church, people’s stupidity and gullibility. I dearly
love Cyprus, it’s my home, it’s a beautiful country and wonderful people but
goddammit can these people be so fucking stupid at times. It’s infuriating. Throughout our history we have managed to spectacularly
screw ourselves. I’m reminded of that video that went viral before ‘viral’ was
used in that manner, of a man who voluntarily chose to engage in sexual
intercourse with a horse. Of course, he was fucked to death by the horse.
Internet savant Erich Schulte wrote that this video was the culmination of
existence and reality and our own role in the demise that we master. Here, in
the 21st century, we have managed to create magnificent pieces of
technology that can record and reproduce our sensory experiences, and this spectacular
fool used it to film himself getting fucked in the ass by a horse until he
died. Second place for technical achievement on Earth goes to the chimpanzees
who use sticks to get bugs out of holes to eat. We have mastered nature, and we
will use it to fuck ourselves in the ass until we die, either by a horse’s
3-foot-long cock or the atom. What I’m trying to say is that Cypriots have an unfortunate
tendency to fuck themselves repeatedly in the ass and not in a good way. This
is the reason for the post-apocalyptic theme of the artwork and stage show.
As for musical influences, I don’t really think of them. I
wouldn’t call myself a punk, I don’t think anyone in the band does. We’re
metalheads who take a punk approach. I mean we’ll bust out the odd punk cover
when we can’t think of what else to play, but it’s not our main source of
inspiration. I think it’s the punk attitude that fits very well with the
lyrical concepts. I suppose bands like Amen, Sex Pistols and Anti-Nowhere
League influence our sound, and I take a lot of lyrical inspiration from Anal
Cunt – don’t bother writing decent lyrics with any sort of structure, the song
will sort itself out. Just say what you gotta say, and that’s what Kuzka’s
Mother is about for me. Winter’s Verge is all about the art and the music;
there isn’t really any message other than telling a story. Kuzka’s Mother is
all about the message. Music wise we just crank out the Iron Maiden/Metallica
mashup of stuff that we’ve all been playing since we were like 13 because it’s
fun.
Your debut album
is currently in the works. When will it be released? How will it be distributed
to the masses?
We’ve recorded it and will print off a bunch of CDs for
collectors, and then it will end up on the internet to float around for all
eternity. Ultimately the music business has ended up much like a sewage
treatment facility – everyone dumps their shit in there and it slowly all fades
into one, to be filtered and treated until you have nothing but pure water
coming out at the end of it – the shit is what people create, the water is the
inspiration that comes from it. So we’re sort of
flushing our music down the toilet, is what I’m saying. We’re working on a music video as well but let’s not jinx
it.
In a recent report
by NASA, you have been named as the number one reason extraterrestrial
intelligent life has not made contact with us yet. Would you like to comment on
this?
A fair assessment. The aliens probably landed in Cyprus
disguised as someone from Paphos, came to one of our gigs, said 'fuck that' and
left, taking with them the Ayia Napa Sea Monster and whatever traces of a
career Adam Sandler had left.
Having a look
through your tracklist there is a song named 'Alan'. Who is this dubious
individual and why does he merit a song?
Alan is a terrifying individual that I came to know, but
never to understand. He is the horror in the darkest night. To paraphrase
Herzog, he is the deep black depth of evil that one sees upon gazing into the
eye of a chicken. Alan lives in the eye of the chicken. Alan may indeed BE the
chicken. I’m not sure where to stop this metaphor but I should before it
consumes me as a rational person. I mean, like, when you stare into an abyss,
the abyss doesn’t really stare back
into you does it? It’s just a saying, but with Alan he actually is staring back
into you. A powerful agent of the forces of chaos, he is the type who wants to
watch the world burn, even though he doesn’t seem to understand it. He believes
he has a value and contributes to society and in certain ways I guess he does,
but the chaos and destruction he spreads far outweigh his contributions. He
then demands to know why people react with horror upon realising what he is. On
the other hand, I don’t understand how a world without someone like Alan in it
would work. Order cannot be allowed to run riot. One must have a little chaos.
One must.
Your existence has
been prophesied through the apocalyptic ramblings of both St John and
Nostradamus. Are you a sign of the coming rapture and when should we expect it?
Dude, we are well into the apocalypse. It’s just happening a
lot more slowly than anyone has prophesied.
The west Antarctic ice sheet is now confirmed to be irreversibly
collapsing. It’s gonna be a slow, long, drawn out and painful death for the
world and society, but at the end of it there will be something left, some
vestige of what we currently call society and civilization. It won’t just be
the cockroaches and Alan left over at the end, a few of us will be wandering
around eating each other. There’s an old British movie called Threads that I
recommend you watch. It’s pretty messed up and says what I feel about all this.
Are there any
plans for upcoming live shows, tours?
Live shows yes, tours no. We’re gonna have a few release
party shows in the summer and see where it goes from there. One thing about
this band is that things just seem to happen on their own accord
so we’ll let
them happen this time as well. Touring is a whole other kettle of fish and will
be dealt with at the right time.
so we’ll let
them happen this time as well. Touring is a whole other kettle of fish and will
be dealt with at the right time.
Your lyrical
themes waver between social commentary, satire and outright propaganda. Let's
face it, is all this really a thinly-veiled call-to-arms urging for a violent communist
revolution of the proletariat?
Well the funny thing here is that communism is a failed
experiment. I’m sorry people, it’s dead in the water with bullet holes and
McDonald’s logos in its back. There is a communist Soviet-era theme in the
artwork because primarily I liked the colours and I thought it would be funny. The song ‘Fuck off and Die’ however is a
direct attack on the then-communist government of Cyprus (yes we had a
communist government in 2011, it’s too long a story to go into). I suppose my
own personal politics are extremely liberal and more left-leaning than
anything, but there is nobody who is worth trusting as far as you can throw
them in Cyprus who wants to be in a position of responsibility and I suppose in
the political establishment of almost anywhere else either. The proletariat is
too busy watching cat videos and porn on the internet in between Facebook
status updates and playing minecraft. There will be no violent communist
revolution, there will only be a revolution once you cut off people’s internet
connection. So perhaps all this is an impotent expression of rage after all,
and what we’re doing is utterly insignificant, which if you look at the big
picture it is of course, because we’re living on a tiny little island on a
small planet orbiting a medium sized star and we could be wiped out by a gamma
ray burst before you even have a chance to finish reading this sentence. So,
like, whatever.
Before we go
please give us a one-line, automatic response to each of the following words:
Music: Oxygen
Politics: Shit
Life: Death
Solipsism: Hope
Apotemnophilia: What
You'll be
relieved to know that we're done with the interview - a traumatic yet
enlightening experience for you I'm sure. Any parting lines of wisdom?
I’m sorry for everything.
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