Katalepsy plays one style: DEATH METAL

interview with katalepsy death metal

Goddamn it guys, your new album just swept my head off. Way better than your first one. A real killer album. So what's the word so far? Give me info on the feedback.
Thanks a lot for you words about KATALEPSY, that's great to know, that months of our hard work aren't disappeared in Void. Now we are getting good reviews all over the world and this is like life-giving elixir & review's hi-scores can breathe new life into every musician. We are ready to move forward and we are full of resolution, ideas and strength.


You seem to be taking your brutality way to serious but you never leave technique behind! How hard is it to keep up with brutal death metal nowadays? You think that someone with basic knowledge in guitar or bass or even drums, can compete the beasts that dominate the scene at this point?
This is not a magic, this is only hard stubborn daily work & when you practice each day and rehears a lot with the band. As for us, we became faster and technical not for one day. We spent few years to stand up on new state of our technical possibilities. Diligence, dedication and love to music you play help you to be on the top & I believe in this. Look at Behemoth & they have very long way from the depths of Underground to the shining tops of hit-parades.

So "Autopsychosis" is the title of your new atrocity! I suppose it deals with Christianity and how good humanity is, and how lucky we are to have Jesus Christ on our right shoulder, am I right? Hahaha Tell me a little about the lyrics and what motivates you to write.
I'm fond of post-apocalyptic themes: books, films and arts. I mean not only nuclear warfire, but some Ancient Ones, who can dream in the depths of oceans, soil and our minds. I'm influenced by early Morbid Angel lyrics as usual as Lovecraftian Horrors. I'm reading a lot and trying to mirror what I feel in my lyrics to KATALEPSY. I'm very impressed by Clive Barkers literature, William Blake poems, Cormac McCarth's & Road', Nevil Shute & On the Beach' and some other visions of the end of the world. My lyrics is not message, but only phantoms and dreams in deep apocalyptic slumber. Of course I'm under the influense of films such as Into the Mouth of Madness, Donny Darko, Event Horizon, Pandorum and some other dark dismal shapes of art. Bible as one of the Apocalyptic Texts is endless origin for inspiration & you're right with that. Dead God, who destroying cities and annihilate nations if their way of living are different than the way he likes & thats great theme for songs, isn't it?

It sure is.. Do you think that a brutal death metal band's lyrics matter, when it comes to the medium listener? Do you believe that lyrics are important or, they exist only to keep the singer busy?
Each band decides this by its own. When I listen to Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Nile or some others bands I try to understand what they want to tell me. Lyrics of these bands such as from some black metal bands impress me very much & these guys know, that right word is deadly weapon and they don't miss. But in 'funny' kind of music, like gore grind for example, you can not use lyrics at all & because this music is for fun, drinking beers and dances, not for attention listening in headphones at home. Words are one more tool to influence to listeners and that would be flippantly to lose this chance.

How are the tasks of song creating distributed to the band members? Is it all a collective effort or does everyone work at home alone and then in studio you get to join the parts together?
We have our formula: each member works with his own song while it will be fully completed & all parts for all instruments. After that he sends song to other members. If everything is fine we start to rehearse the song. After that we make some changes and the work is done. The most changes happened before we've begin to rehearse song, each of us makes some correction to his instrument. So each song has an author, but other band members apply their hand too. When we compose songs we are not focused on 'heaviest or darkest riff in the world', we just hear our inner vibrations and voices, what they can say and show. We have only one measure and criterion & our own taste. If we like this riff/song & it will exist. We are creators, jury and punishers and this is only our decision: if listeners agree with us and like our music & that's great, but if not & that's sad, but never mind for us.
All of us have usual works and we are not depending on the number of sold CDs. If the opinion of people meant a lot for us, we would play much popular kind of metal & metalcore or deathcore or black metal. We understand, that there are less visitors on death metal show than on black, core or gothic gigs, but come on our show and you'll see how powerful and expressive it is and you will say: 'These guys really LOVE the music they play!'

"Autopsychosis" is definitely one of the brutal death metal releases of 2013 that will shake the ground in the scene, how do you plan on promoting this new full length of yours? Tour plans and stuff?
The fact, that AUTOPSYCHOSIS was released by mighty Unique Leader Records is the best promotion, haha! These three words are equal to 'hi-quality technical brutal death metal' for all death metal fans over the world. And I would like to mention Roy from Hammerheart Records & he did and still doing great promotional work for KATALEPSY. Hope, soon we will meet him because I have bottle of god damned good Russian vodka with his name on bottle, haha! Oh, about promotion. Last two months I and our frontman Igor are busy with interviews & right now this is main thing that spends my leisure time, but we are very happy about all these bustles. Due to our jobs we have to have long-range plans for tours. We are confirmed on Extreme Fest Open Air this May in Germany and strike back to Europe in September, then KATALEPSY, CARNAL DECAY and PIGHEAD maim by Europsychosis three-weeks tour. We'll spill blood on NRW Death Fest and Berlin Death Fest and passed only scorched Earth after us!

The whole album is on a high level when it comes to technicality. Apparently it requires a lot of skill, practice and discipline to compose and perform songs so technical and brutal. It take s a lot more effort to record that stuff. Were the recordings a pain in the ass?
We had a long way of post-production - there were two version of mixing. First was much brutal and chaotic, but we lost all nuances of our music. We discussed a lot and decided to spend much more time, but tried to get result which suits all of us. I think we made sound engineer crazy, but finally we got what we want! Result is proportional to price we have paid.

You have made several tours so far so I believe you have lived enough shitty situations on the road. Of course the fans don't see this. They only like to see their favorite brutal band break the stage. Tell me a little of what we don't see, some of the shitty stuff that can go wrong and have happened to you while touring!
It looks strange, but I have no shitty story. I do not conceal hard truth from you, but everything was always fine, for sure. We don't drink a lot, we are quiet good boys. After show we eat a little food, drinks few beers and go to sleep, because next day brings us long road to next city and next show. We should be in good shape & fans pay their money not to see five hangovering dead bodies. Only ones we have not good situation due 2010 tour over Europe. Our guitar player Dmitry was injured his right hand by tour bus's door while he loading. We were very upset and troubled, because we think he broke his fingers. Just imagine our situation & we are in the middle of Germany, in foreign country, and in the middle of tour with one-hand guitar player. Not very funny, no sir! But Gods saves us and this was only contusion and three days late Dmitry played great show in Praha, Czech Republic.

And yes that is a shitty story indeed... Hahaha... so.. Your music is definitely brutal death metal. It is rough fast and technical and I would say that in many occasions it is totally slamming! What would you say were the influences of the band for creating this album? What are the brutal death metal bands you would say have sculpted Katalepsy's musical path?
When somebody asks me about style we play I already have only one answer - DEATH METAL. I understand, that fans likes tags and like to pin a label to the music such as 'technical', 'slamming', 'brutal', 'violent', 'blackend' and so one, but I really don't want to be involved in this game. I'm adult person and I'm in metal music since 1993. In that time we needed only few words & black, death, doom metal and so on. In that time we understood what these words covered. This is reason, why I call our vision of extreme music only 'death metal'. When we compose new songs we don't think about guideline. We don't think: 'Oh, let's compose the most extreme or technical riff in the world!', or 'Let's sound like last album of Cannibal Corpse, Carcass or Dying Fetus!' But I think, if you filtere our music you can hear what we love through the years: Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Dying Fetus, Decrepit Birth, Disgorge and tons of brutal death metal bands from both side of Atlantic.

Correct me if I am wrong but I am sure I heard more than one vocal lines on this CD! There are the standard guttural vocals, and then I am sure there are inhaling lines and I think I traced some other style. How many vocal lines does Igor use?
You're right & Igor use his voice on 101%, that's true. He used inhale and guttural vokills and very low growling. And your ears didn't betray you & we used double vocal lines in few parts of songs. You know, this is like Deicide or Behemoth doing. Igor is 'the answer to a maiden's prayer' for us - Igor joined the band when all music parts were recorded. It was risky venture. So he composed his vocal lines and recorded in very short time and he did it as his best.

Russia seems to have a death metal scene that is constantly growing and growing. I have personally come up with many bands from Russia lately and all I can say is that the level is really high. What brutal bands from the Russian scene would you list as your favorite?
That's true, some Russian bands had contracts with outlands labels: Cephalic Impurity inked deal with Brutal Bands, Perverse Dependence was signed by blood from Amputated Vein, 7H.Target forced to submit Sevared Rec. This is really great cause a lot of people can't even imagine, that Russians can play brutal death metal. I'd recommend you to look intently to last albums of mighty Fetal Decay, carnivore Ossuary Anex, technical Scrambled Defuncts and Big End Bolt and the forthcoming blasphemy from Cremated Lives. You will be surprised cos music of these bands deserve to be released by major-labels.

A question I like to ask a lot on musicians that follow the underground, is the question on downloading. What would your reaction be if someone told you that he downloaded both your albums and thought they were awesome, and what to someone that told you he bought the albums and thought they were shit?
Ahaha! Great question, my friend, and not simple! I download music by myself time to time, because some albums are very rare and others are hard to find. I have a good collection of CDs and trying to buy albums I like. About your question: it's nevermind for us. We are playing music for our pleasure, not for money. KATALEPSY is not full time band & all of us have regular jobs and we don't depend on money we get by shows and merchandise. That is why we can play music we love, sing about subjects we're interested in, make cover arts and t-shirts we like and no one can dictate us what we gonna do. Of course, if fans buy our t-shirts and pay for our music & that's great, I don't want to lie to you.

The layout of "Autopsychosis" is just awesome. Brutal and relentless. Who is responsible for it? Do you think that the layout is an important part of a CD release? I mean do you care about the layout of an album you will buy, or as long as the music is top quality, who gives a fuck about the layout?
This art was born in mind of Vladimir Smerdulak, great metal artist, but not well-known on death metal scene. We don't want to copy someone's arts, we don't want to see zombies or dismembered sluts on our cover. And Smerdulak did his work great & front cover mirrored both musical and lyrical contents. He is wanderfull artist and he feels a lot without words. His work impressed me, for sure, I'm even thinking to make tattoo with it. Of course, layout is very important! Then you come to music shop you see a lot of CDs and one of them you want to get in your hands first and buy in same time, but another you want to burn in fire. Nowadays CD is not only 'recording medium', this is collection item. Your CD must be interesting to the customer, must looks better than others, must attract and rivet eyes and excite. Of course, if I'm sure that album is great I close my eyes to artwork and buy it, but if I see two unknown for me albums I prefer the best layout. This is reason why we did not ordinary booklet for Unique Leader's CD and extravaganza digi-slider-plus edition for Russia. This is good adornment for every collection of Ds.

A Question more or less covered on top, but i still want to ask. What does your everyday life look like? Is music covering 100% your daily needs or do you have to work in order to play music? Besides music, what else occupies your free time?
All of us have usual regular works in different ways. About myself I can say, that I'm engineer on factory. I work five days per week and rehears two times per week. I live in the forest on outskirts of the City and each day I go for a walk there with my wife and the dog. I can't describe feelings when you listen to black metal by your portable player in the fullmoon winter forest, haha! That's grim and frostbitten. I'm fond of literature and read a lot & this hobby is on second stage after music for me. I'm huge fan of H.P.Lovecraft, Clive Barker, William Blake and some other 'standard' writers and poets for metal fan. Also I like watch science fiction and horror movies. My wonderful wife, Julia share my interests and hobbies, so we discuss music, books and films by hours and days and involve in our discussions all our friends. My life is peachy!

So if someone visited Russia on a Saturday night, where would be most likely to find the members of Katalepsy hangin out? No bars, night clubs?...Strip clubs?
You'll be very surprised, but you find us at hearth and home. Two of us have little children and others prefer family weekend to bars or nightclubs. This is strange for metalheads, but you can write at zine that we are misanthropes and 'eat pussies for breakfast', haha! We are old for hanging & no, it's still funny time to time, but not each weekend.

Sounds nice to me!!Ok bro, thank you for your time, and congratulations once again for this awesome album! I wish the best for Katalepsy in the future. Close this shit anyway you like!
Thank you very much, friend & for attention to KATALEPSY and for profound questions! Hope to see you this year in European tour. Buy, download or steal our new album AUTOPSYCHOSIS, listen to extreme music and respect parents. And don't forget visit KATALEPSY's shows on Extreme Fest, NRW Death Fest Berlin Death Fest or Europsychosis tour gigs! See your there or see you in Hell!