Hereza and the morbid way of life




Hereza is a young band from Croatia who releases the album “Misanthrope” via PRC Music at the beginning of this year. Today we’re talking with his founder member, Slobodan Stupar about the band and their debut album.


Hi Slobodan, wellcome to BRUTALISM. Are you ready to answer to our questions?
Hello Ruido Noise. Yes I am. Let’s go!

Well, can you introduce the band members? Hereza is your first band or you come from previous bands?
Hereza is a duo studio project. It’s myself on instruments and Ivan Kovačević Kova on vocals. And no, Hereza is not my first band. I had a few in the past: Sanatorium, Bloodhunt and The Stupar Project which was renamed to Thrown to the Dogs

Are you involved in other bands or projects at this moment or is enough with one band?
Yes, I’m involved in Thrown To The Dogs and Bagra too because we don’t play shows with Hereza so I have to play with other bands.

You formed Hereza five years ago, where did the idea of forming it?
I have to correct you here. Hereza is only ONE year old. I formed it in July of 2014.

What are your favorite and less favorite parts about doing a band?
Favorite is definitely making music, playing it in rehearsal space and “watch” it how it comes to life, playing live, meeting new people and seeing shit you never would.
Less favorite is long, boring traveling, packing and unpacking gear, sound checks...

Do you have any specific influences for the type of death metal you play? Which are your favorite bands or music styles?
Yes I do. I really like Swedish death metal, European metal in general.
I have a lot of favorite bands but here’s a few: Motorhead, Wolfbrigade, Malignant Tumour, Torture Division, Dimension Zero,  Entombed, At The Gates, Slayer...

Imagine that some readers didn't listen Hereza yet, can you describe your music to them or say some band that plays similar music?
Haha I don’t have to imagine that. Very few people heard about Hereza. Well, I like to say that “ We play the Devil’s music” but if I have to talk genres, its some kind of blackened death metal punk.

How is your process of song-writing? Do you compose the music and the lyrics at the same time or not? What kind of rehearsal space do you use to do it?
I jam some shit and if some cool and interesting riff comes in, I play it for a while to get a feel from it and then if I’m satisfied, I write it down in Guitar Pro 4 so I don’t forget it.
I mostly write music first, then trying to squeeze the lyrics in, but sometimes I write lyrics first and then I’m trying to create the atmosphere with the music from the lyrics.

Usually the bands prefer writing lyrics in English only, but you write your songs using two different languages. What is the reason to do it in that way?
Yes. We wrote in English and Croatian. Well, Croatian is our mother language and we know it very well so we can write more complex lyrics than in English which is not out mother language and honestly, it’s not that “rich” as Croatian is, in my opinion.

Which are the subjects of your lyrics? What kind of things inspire to you when you are writing?
Death, sorrow, dead bodies, graves, life in general but put in a more morbid way.

You where signed by PRC Music to release your debut. What was the process to sign with them? Did you receive more offers from other labels to release it?
Yes. Nothing special. I sent them an e-mail with some of our music, they liked it and offered us a contract. I was really surprised how it played out so quickly.
No I didn’t. I spammed a lot of labels but no body answered me so PRC Music was the only thing to do.

The song titles of your album (We are the disease, Whole world burn, Death army march, Erase the disgrace...) give us sad feelings. You want to transmit something with it to the listeners of your songs or it's just some words without message in particular?
These songs do have message and we’re trying to say to people that we are the disease on this planet. How we wish to see the whole world burn. Death army march is about zombie army destroying everything in sight... I’d say, we’re calling the apocalypse upon us all.




What response do you have received from the people about your album? The label said to you how are the sales of the album?
We received very positive feedback from the people. I guess they like it then. No it didn’t, but I really don’t care. I know it’s not selling like crazy because people don’t know about us and we’re living in an age where people can download music for free so I know CD’s aren’t selling. But who gives a fuck. I know I would never be able to live of my music.

Now you have written new songs, can you tell us if the songs are for a new album or split? What can we expect about this new songs?
Yes I have. New songs are very diverse. From straight up death metal to punk n roll death metal.  It’s going to be a full length again because I wrote too much songs so we can record two more albums after our debut album “Misanthrope”.

I suppose that you have done some concerts to present your album. What places did you play so far? What gigs or tours are you planning next?
Sadly we didn’t because we are duo and we don’t play shows. As much as we would like to play live, it’s not possible at this moment.

Well, this is the end of the interview, any last comments or some words to our readers?
Thank you for giving us a chance to present ourselves to the world. I hope people will like our shit and share it to their friends.
Keep support metal music, go to the shows, support young bands because they need you more than big, successful bands so they can be the next big thing if they’re that good.

Thanks for all and good luck.
Thank you. Likewise.
Interviewer: Hijo del Dolor
Jul 12, 2015

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