For a young band, Italian Alldead impressed me with variety of stylistic solutions and songwriting maturity on its debut "End Gates". It looks like this band has all the artistic qualities to stand out from the depths of the underground, so I decided to dig deeper and learn more. Drummer Rudolfo gave me a rundown on how their first child was conceived and how cover band turned into something I'll be looking forward to in the future.

Chris

Since 'End Gates' is your debut, please introduce the band and tell us how it all started?

Hi Chris & Metalbite crew! I'm Rodolfo, I'm Alldead drummer and I'm glad to answer to your interview questions! Alldead was originally called "Redrum", a childhood friends’ band, born only to enjoy ourselves playing all death - thrash - metal covers. After some interesting local live gigs, we naturally quit rehearsing metal hits and started to create our own songs with the intent to join all our various metal influences. Lately Luca Miolla and Antonio War joined the project, the name changed to Alldead and with me, Aldo and Francesco we created the band.

'End Gates' might be you debut but it feels like you have been around the block for a while. Have you guys been playing in other bands before Alldead? What are your music backgrounds?

Yes you're right, we are not exactly metal kids. Each of us played in other bands in the past, like Aldo Francesco and Antonio, which come from various classic Thrash and Death metal projects. Luca is playing in two more bands such as Winds of Funeral (classic Black Metal) and with me on drums in Assaulter (Thrash Metal). And finally, I have been playing since 1989 in various projects and studio releases such as Funeral Oration (Sursum Luna), The Sovran (City Kills, The Sovran is Dead), Assaulter (Crushed by Raging Mosh EP) and various demo recordings.

You call yourself Alldead, album is titled 'End Gates'… seem like you're not giving us, humans, any hope and much chance of survival. Is this your vision for our future?

The concept of "Alldead " is the meaning of total end of the life on earth… where the mankind is going to anyway! It is also, for us, the total ending of the boring music classification and metal genres.

What do you have against classification of metal genres? I personally like to know what I'm buying. In the past I bought few albums based on the cover only and let me tell you those might be the worst purchase decisions ever. :)

We don't have anything against classifications, but when we started this project, we have decided to put no limits to the creativity and we follow only what appeared to be suitable for the proper development of each song. The vocal setting of Antonio did the rest...

Is end of the world your main lyrical subject? Are lyrics based on personal observations/beliefs or purely fictional stories?

Our lyrics include occult & gloomy life introspective experience (black light of death), obscure lust (something dark grows) and sex addiction (Eternal desire), etc.

With lots of music styles heard on this album the creative process must include many of the band members? Am I correct? How does your typical process of creating a song look like?

There is not a fixed creative process in Alldead. For sure we start our songwriting only when we feel inspiration and right atmosphere. We create music together starting from guitarist riffs during some rehearsal sessions, or other times one of us comes in the studio with a good idea and we work on the structure till we have a good result! If one of us is not satisfied (it happened in the past), we've decided to erase the entire song and restart from zero.

With so many ideas it seems like sometimes it's hard to let go few of them… Don't you think that almost 10 minute songs are a little too much for black/death style?

We basically do anything we want, and the description (black death) is only a "convention" to guide listeners and the public to our kind of music. By our point of view each song requires a different duration according as themes and structure we planned.

When writing new material do you see mistakes, things you would do differently on 'End Gates' or are you completely satisfied with you debut?

Surely, when each of us listened again to the album, we could find some things that in hindsight one could play or sing in a different way, but when you are in the creative process you are sure that at that moment you are making the best choices. It is normal that over time everyone would like to improve what they did, but I do not think that there are some real mistakes in the work done. I wish we’d never be satisfied... because I think that would increase the creativity as an artist.

Your album is self released. Is it your deliberate choice or you actively look for a record label?

Yes of course, we're actually looking for a record label.

What are band's short and long term plans?

We really move to play always more live gigs, abroad too, and as already said, we're looking for a record label for a worldwide distribution of the End Gates album! Anyway, we never stand with the fateful "idle hands" and we're just working on new more fast obscure and gloomy stuff!

Anything else would you like to say to promote your album or just get out of your system?

We consider our album a gloomy unconventional and powerful expression of metal music, so we would recommend it to anyone who loves to hear every nuance of this genre; that they will definitely find something exciting to hear! Follow us!

Previous Interview Tröjan with Pete Wadeson (guitar)	Next Interview Pincer Consortium with Maciek Pasinski (all instruments) and Pete Dempsey (vocals)

Whenever I see younger musicians or musicians around my age gradually climbing the stairs towards a successful future, it always puts a smile on my face, especially with the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal bands which are exposed to a very healthy and welcoming community that you can always count on. Such is the case with the band Tündra from Cleveland, Ohio, with their recent self-titled EP that was released on digital streaming and limited-edition CDs, and in the meanwhile, they have also been kicking ass at the Blades of Steel festival alongside other great bands like Iron Brigade, Night Demon, Emerald Rage and Legendry to name a few. Passion and love for heavy metal is the main driving force behind these battle-born enthusiasts who love everything oldschool, from their favourite metal albums to cult classic horror movies. I had the pleasure of chatting with the members of Tündra, with the exception of their bassist Matt Behringer who was not present at the time of the interview, but we had a great time discussing their current status in the metal community, plans for the future, their heavy metal upbringing, as well as sharing our love towards the video game Brutal Legend, while expressing our deepest desire to have the sequel to that game made by Double Fine Productions as soon as possible. I hope you will enjoy this lengthy and highly engaging conversation with the lads from Tündra, and also make sure to check them out.

Vladimir

Hi, guys. How are you doing?

Hunte Lust: Yo Vlad. How's it going, brother?

Hey! I see you guys are doing great.

Nick Kelling: Yeah. We're hanging in there.

Okay. It's great to see you all guys here.

Nick Kelling: Yes, sir.

Nick Morris: Well, we're missing our bass here. He's at work today, so he's not present, but the rest of us are here.

How have you guys been doing recently? I see that you guys got some gigs going on right now.

Nick Morris: Yeah, I mean, the big one was obviously Blades of Steel, which was really awesome. Got to play with so many great bands, same night as Night Demon, but also Cirith Ungol on their last tour, and Dexter Ward, we're really big fans of them. There's just really cool opportunities, but we have some other big shows. Like, so today, we're actually playing with Legendry and Iron Brigade, so we're pretty excited for that before Legendry heads out to Keep it True.

Do you guys wish to perform at Keep it True someday with some of the greatest New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal bands right now?

Nick Kelling: Oh, yeah. That'd be awesome. I mean, yeah, like That's the main goal, right?

Hunter Just: We aspire to play with bands like Helvetets Port or Nasty Savage and all those great bands from back in the day. Kinda caught in front of the spot in the middle of all that's going on right now.

If you ask me, I don't think there's a better opportunity to gain new fans than playing at Keep it True, and at any other old school heavy metal festival. I mean, even I spoke with the vocalist from Mindless Sinner, and he said when they got back the band together 10 years ago, they said that they basically managed to gain some new fans right there at Keep it True because at that time, they were pretty much not really that known, and after getting such positive feedback from fans, they really managed to kind of kick start a new era. So, I really wish that you guys could also get an opportunity like that to perform in front of big crazy crowds because when it comes to old school heavy metal, it has like the healthiest community. Do you guys feel the same way?

Hunter Just: Absolutely. Yeah. To play at Keep it True would be a dream come true, and knowing all the great bands that come through there, to be in that company would be a huge success.

Nick Morris: I saw Mindless Sinner at Muskelrock actually a few years ago and that was insane.

Hunter Just: The whole point of starting this band was to reach for the stars as much as we can, and go big. Go outside of your hometown and stuff like that.

That's any band's dream, everybody wants to get outside of their town and play as many shows as possible outside of their country, especially if you go to another continent. If you go to Europe to perform in Sweden, or in Germany, in the UK, you know you're gonna get good feedback there, because it's got a very good strong heavy metal community. When somebody wants to go to see a Tündra Show, what do you usually hear people talk about the initial expectations of the band? Do you ever get preconceived notions from people?

Nick Morris: That's a good question.

Nick Kelling: I feel like a lot of the time, we're such a new band, people haven't really seen us before, so they really don't know what to expect unless they've kind of heard what we've put out there in terms of music. I mean, personally, I don't know. I've come across anybody that has been like "oh, I was thinking you guys were gonna sound like this, but you actually sounded like that", and that was really cool. I think that we do a good job in keeping things interesting, try to keep things fun and just have a good time out there.

Hunter Just; We like to have a theme with the live performances, you know, where Heavy Load has the polar bear fur on the shoulder pads and stuff like that bringing it to the live performance is really important for me personally. Like, that's why I wear the coif.  Having an image for the band, having a theme and bringing that to the music, Heavy Load really brought that energy, the Swedish metal had like a certain sound to it, and Japanese metal has a certain sound to it, where they're all like each place has their own identity with their sound.

Nick Morris: Something for me is like that. We're trying to do something special and interesting here, but we're also paying homage to all the bands that came before us, as well as these other bands in the scene that are really paving the way. In terms of the theme stuff, like at Blades, we had a buddy of ours with a Grim Reaper costume come out during our song "Grim Reaper", that was really cool.

Nick Kelling: Hopefully, we can continue that at some point. We just gotta find a place.

Nick Morris: Sometimes we bring the sword out. I think the important thing is that the music speaks to it. I mean, we wanna have theatrics, but also that the music is one of the most important parts too, we're fitting that sound that we're trying to go with.

I think that theatrics are always important to have the music express itself better, because I always say that having a very theatrical performance on stage somehow brings out the music better. I mean, for example, you Hunter, you wear the coif. Did the inspiration by any chance come from the band Eternal Champion?

Hunter Just: Personally, for me, I love Eternal Champion, but I didn't really feel like it came directly influenced by them. It came from watching old horror movies from back in the 60's, like the Executioner hoods and like the oldschool 60's and 70's horror movies. I like the old school vintage look of medieval stuff.

Yeah. I mean, even the Grim Reaper thing, I just remember that even the German heavy metal band Grave Digger had their keyboardist dressed up as the Grim Reaper, and then when they perform one of their songs, he comes out with the bagpipes. I think that's fucking cool. There's a lot of expectations that fans have about a band, and the one of the hardest things about having a band is when you really want to provide something more. You want something more memorable from this show and it's difficult. You really have to stand out in that way. Do you guys feel like there's this sort of pressure for the band to be more than it's more than just the music?

Hunter Just: Absolutely. It's really difficult when there's such a saturated market for New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal to stand out, because it's not like we're reinventing the wheel or any of these bands are really necessarily reinventing the wheel. We're just trying to live in this nostalgia, that the flame is getting relit for this sort of movement.

You got a point there, because with the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal, we got a lot of bands that sound good, but not many of them are all great, because a lot of them sound either very generic or you don't really get like a memorable song or you don't really get that feeling like "this album is so good, I wanna listen to it again as soon as possible". You've got a lot of those bands that you just listen to in one go and it's like "I'm done, I'm moving on", and then that's it. For bands such as you guys, you got a cool name, you call yourselves Tündra, and I think that's an awesome band name. I mean, where did the inspiration come from, and why this name in particular?

Nick Morris: Thor. We're big Thor fans, we saw Thor years ago at The Winchester, a little tiny venue in Cleveland. There weren't a ton of people there but it was like a really great show. We had a great time, we love the old albums.

Nick Kelling: It was memorable, for sure.

Nick Morris: That's right, it was definitely memorable. That was one of the most memorable live experiences I probably had in recent memory.

Nick Kelling: You walked in on Thor getting changed.

Nick Morris: I did walk in on Thor getting changed. One of my first times at the venue I'd never been to, I was looking for the bathroom. I couldn't find it, and I accidentally opened the door to the green room, and Thor is putting on his costume. I'm like "Oh, sorry", he's like, "No, it's okay", and I'm like "Oh, man". Like, right before the show too. We love Thor, that's why we also play "Thunder on the Tundra" at every show. Going back to this thing about homage, we play "Thunder on the Tundra" at every show. The song "Grim Reaper" is for me hugely inspired by the band Grim Reaper. I listened to the shit out of those records. We're trying to bring something new, but also respect the history that all these bands put.

Talking about homage, when I look at the cover, I instantly picture Heavy Load, Death or Glory album, because you have this battle born warrior surrounded by ice, standing up and fighting, it's one of the great things about the band that I considered. When it comes to Tündra, I always said that you're going from epic heavy metal from Manowar to Heavy Load, and you even got Grim Reaper as you mentioned, you even got Grave Digger and stuff like that. But, how much do you want to expand your sound? I mean, do you have any new songs prepared for a full album to be more than you already are?

Hunter Just: Absolutely. So, for this next album that we're gonna record, we have 4 or 5 new songs that are already written right now that are very diverse. Like, we have a thrash song called "Napalm Bomb" that we've been playing live for quite a while now, and we have a couple of thrash songs that we're recording and a couple of power metal songs that are similar to epic Black Sabbath songs.

Nick Morris: I'd say one of the biggest things that's helping shape our sound right now is that we have a second guitar player now. So, on the EP, I'm the only guitar player that is playing, but with Ben's edition, we're definitely trying to be especially like recording and going forward, but also trying to work on more with our live sound, like harmony work together and do some duelling leads. I think you could expect some of that more in our upcoming material for sure, but there's definitely a trad metal influence no matter what, always will be that, but trying to incorporate some new sounds as well.

Nick Kelling: I think we try to appease a little bit of everyone, with the different songs that we have. I mean like "Napalm Bomb" is like if you're into the heavier sound, it's your opportunity to go out there and just be crazy as opposed to like "Tried and True", which is more like you can dance to it.

Nick Morris: So "Tried and True", which isn't out yet, I think that "Tried and True" is more of a straightforward heavy metal anthem. We're trying to expand our horizons a little bit, but always stay true to the core of what we're trying to do.

I think that, with the songs that you have, "Hell's Heroes", "Voices Are Calling" and "Grim Reaper", I think that a band such as this needs a very good music video. Not something high budget, but very simplistic yet highly effective. Are there any plans to do that in the future?

Hunter Just: It would be really interesting to do a music video at a place like the music festival Hell's Heroes in Texas. It'd be cool if we were to go there, because it's a whole culture and a whole vibe that kind of festers there. There's all sorts of freaks and geeks and girls with nice cheeks and everything in between. Going there it would be interesting to get like all sorts of crowd reactions from people and just seeing the party atmosphere that goes on there.

Nick Kelling: To the Heights house.

Hunter Just: There's this place that we party at every year called the Heights house and it's always a great town, with a lot of cool people.

Nick Morris: The hotel there is pretty cool. It's where most of the bands stay for Hell Heroes, so that's pretty exciting. You get to see a lot of interesting people and talk to them, just talk about music and their tours and whatever they're doing. We've talked about doing music videos before, we've floated the idea of trying to do like a more horror movie-esque video for grim reaper. I think right now we've just been focusing on a lot of these bigger shows, like Blades of Steel and these shows coming up and then recording. That's probably our main focus right now, but definitely I 100% agree with you. We're big fans of the NWOTHM channel, there's a lot of bands that I discovered through really cool music videos that they did. The music's great, but it's like the video is what hooked me in. We wanna be able to do that too.

Nick Kelling: Sit in the garage and watch music videos.

Nick Morris: Yeah, that's like a thing. During COVID, Nick lived down the street from me and my dad, and we would just sit and watch NWOTHM music videos, or whatever.

Nick Kelling: Just go down the line.

Nick Morris: That's how we discovered a lot of music. So, yeah, we'd love to do that.

Hunter Just: There was a guy at Hell's Heroes with a VHS camcorder recording all of the partying that was going on till like 4 o'clock in the morning and it'd be really cool to get a music video. My buddy has a VHS tape that he refurbished, one that you put a cassette tape in and it records video on this cassette tape, it'd be really cool to do like a horror-esque music video type thing for "Grim Reaper", using that.

Nick Morris: So, it's on the horizon hopefully, but I think the music stuff probably comes first, but we're definitely interested. I think it'd be a cool way to share our music with everybody.

So far, you guys are not signed to any labels. I really think that, if you guys are planning to do a music video, I think you should also have a good record deal, to have at least like a 3 or 4 album record deal, it would be cool to do that, with a good press work, that would be very good as well. On top of that, having a music video would also help out the band, if you try to put out the music video on the New Traditional Heavy Metal channel on YouTube, I think that could also attract attention from a lot of labels. Did you get any offers in the meantime? Were there any talks about joining a label?

Nick Morris: Not a ton, we've gotten some promotional kind of stuff from some people in Europe.

Hunter Just: People have asked us about actually pressing records and things like that. We've reached out to some people in Europe, especially, because that's where the main platform is for this sort of music. It's funny to see like most American bands, they wanna sound like European bands, and then most European bands are all about US metal.

Nick Morris: That was a fun thing that we shared with Dexter Ward rights. Dexter Ward's whole thing is very US metal centric. We've heard some rumours or whatever, but nothing sets stone on that.

Nick Kelling: Concrete right now.

I think that one of the greatest record labels we have right now are No Remorse Records and we also have High Roller Records. Are there any ones that you particularly would want to be a part of?

Nick Morris: No Remorse, High roller, Cruz Del Sur, I don't know. Honestly, I think there's definitely labels that pick up a lot of the more traditional metal bands and we'd love to be a part of it. I mean, we're definitely open to any considerations anybody has.

Hunter Just: Any or all of them, bring them on hahah.

Yeah, bring ‘em all. Now this next question goes out particularly to Hunter, because you're the son of Dave Overkill of Destructor. I really want to know a short story about your heavy metal upbringing. I mean, what is it like to have Dave Overkill of Destructor as your dad?

Hunter Just: My first inspirations for learning the drums was my dad, he bought me a 3/4 size drum kit back in the day, and I would put the vinyl record on next to me and either wear headphones at nighttime, we would have a PA system in the living room, and we would blast it like a 160 decibels and play our favourite songs and a rock out to that, and before I even knew how to play drums, I would have my dad show me the, general motions, he would sit down and hold my hands and stuff and show "This is how the downbeat goes, the punk beat" or whatever. And that's how I got into the thrash rhythms and things like that, learning how to play the Slayer skank beat and all that. My metal upbringing was always amazing. Learning about DIO at a very early age was very inspiring. Seeing people always ask me, "What's it like to have a dad like that?". I see him just like a regular guy that's really down to earth and super cool, interesting guy. He takes me everywhere he goes, and it's really fun to be on the road with him, wherever we go, whether it be Spain or Germany or Mexico. We've had the time of our lives together, and I consider him my closest friend. Another cool thing about my dad being Dave Overkill is I am able to play music with him whenever he comes up with an idea and I come up with the drums and record them at home to then have them expand upon the ideas.

Have there been any instances where you went out with your dad, like going to any other country or other town and have somebody come up to you guys and say that they recognize you? Has that ever happened?

Hunter Just: Yeah. That has happened.

Really? Can you tell me more about it? 

Hunter Just: Like in Spain or in Mexico, for example. I don't know why, but they treated us like royalty. Every two steps we took, there were people wanting to take photos and getting stuff signed. It was a total trip experience, because we come back to Cleveland and no one gives a shit. Getting that outside exposure, seeing Destructor take that next step from starting off playing at Keepers of the Flame Festival in Mexico and then progressively get bigger and bigger with the festivals and more frequent with the festivals is really cool.

It's weird that the Central and the South American heavy metal community really treats bands like royalties. I've even heard that coming from so many bands. They say whenever we go to perform in Mexico or whenever we go to perform in Argentina or Brazil, they say everybody goes fucking wild, they have one of the craziest and the most devoted fans. Even if you feel like nobody, remember there's always that one guy who's gonna leave a comment on your video that says "Come to Brazil".

Nick Morris: Yeah. Come to Brazil.

Nick Kelling: We've seen a lot of that.

Hunter Just: Brazil has some of my favourite percussionists, rhythm players of all time. Hearing bands like Vulcano, Sarcofago, Sextrash, all those oldschool bands from back in the early 80's that were signed to Cogumelo Records are super influential for my drumming, for anything that I've done. But it doesn't really apply to Tündra as much as it has for all my other death metal kind bands. But yeah, that's always been a massive influence on me, just like taking thrash to the far less degree that you can, just becoming noise. All those cast from Mexico and Chicago that meet up and go to these festivals, we call them "Satanic Hispanics".

Nick Morris: The energy they bring is really cool. We'd love to play down there too, not just Europe, but anywhere we could be accepted for what we play, we'd love that, they bring great energy for sure.

Imagine what would happen if you guys would come to Japan. I mean, somehow everything you know when it comes to your popularity, it's ten times 10 in Japan when it comes to heavy metal. That confuses me. Every time I look back at the ANVIL documentary, they were not at a "right place, right time", but they end up in Japan, and they make a hell of a gig in front of thousands of people, and it's crazy. Do you ever think about performing in Japan in the future?

Hunter Just: Absolutely.

Nick Morris: One of my favourite records of all time is Tokyo Tapes, so yeah, I thought about it. Like, when I was 12 years old, I dreamed of being Uli Jon Roth playing these big shows in Japan.

Hunter Just: Being that we're so young, we have the time to go on the road now and do whatever we wanna do like we're doing now. Every other weekend, we're trying to get out of Cleveland or play another interesting show somewhere else. We're actually in Pittsburgh today.

Nick Morris: We're in a library in Pittsburgh with you right now, it's only a few hours.

Hunter Just: Yeah. We're in a state over.

Have there been any talks to open for a bigger band that's well known in the Southern American countries or somewhere around Europe? Have there been any plans to do that?

Nick Morris: No solid plans yet, but I mean, we've definitely become great friends to some of the bands.

Nick Kelling: There are some big connections.

Nick Morris: Yeah, we had the opportunity to open for bigger bands that they've graciously let us open for and stuff. We have a good relationship, for example with Displacer from Rochester, New York. And I know they go on tour relatively often. We've talked about maybe doing a tour in the future, but there's nothing set in stone there. Some of the other bands we play with often like Emerald Rage, they've talked about how if they went on tour, maybe we could come along. But nothing's set in stone yet, but that's definitely something we'd absolutely love to do. We all have day jobs, but we could figure it out. We would love to travel the country or another country if the opportunity presents itself.

Hunter Just: We'd give up everything, all of our day jobs. I would, definitely. If I can go to Japan, Tokyo, especially, a major city and play in front of thousands of people, I mean, that's the dream right there. Anybody like our age would die for that opportunity.

Nick Morris: I think we're fortunate, that we've gotten that. I think we're already fortunate, we've gotten opportunities that we have gotten with some really great bands in Cleveland and also getting out to play in Madison, Pittsburgh, and regionally. If we could just expand on that, whether that be a tour or more festival dates or whatever, you know, we'd welcome that.

For bands such as you guys, you guys have this very oldschool vintage sound. So, would you rather have your first album or next release, be pressed on vinyl first or have it on a shit ton amount of cassette tapes? 

Hunter Just: Vinyl is vinyl, baby. 

Nick Morris: Yeah. I think I'm vinyl over cassettes personally. But honestly, anyway, anybody that wants to listen to music, however they wanna listen to it, I am more than okay with that, but vinyl is king for us.

It's a good collector's item. I mean, both are, any physical media is a good collector's item. I always say that there are kinds of those bands that I really think that it's kinda cool to have their discography on vinyl. If you have Saxon CDs, it's awesome, but to have that on vinyl, it's somehow different. It's almost like having a library of very sacred books stacked altogether. Have there been any ideas to have your current self-titled EP pressed on a very limited edition of vinyls?

Hunter Just: For the full-length record, we wanna release it on vinyl for sure, but it's too costly unfortunately, to even press 50 vinyl is like 1,500 dollars. We would consider it for sure. Like you said, it's a magical thing when you put your needle down on the vinyl, it's a life changing experience, depending on what record you put on and the noises that it creates, the popping effect and things like that. That's all part of the experience of playing a vinyl record, which is part of the nostalgic feeling that you get when you put on oldschool metal vinyl.

Nick Morris: We've talked about maybe doing a split or something like vinyl for the EP, but I don't know. Once again, it's kind of like we've had some ideas, we've had some talks, but nothing comes fresh yet. But, obviously, we're huge vinyl fans. We listen to all these oldschool records. We'd love to be on vinyl.

I'm actually curious to know the rest of the band's overall heavy metal upbringing, you guys are my age. You're all guys in your twenties, and we're the CD generation. When you started with Heavy Metal, was it popular to have your favourite bands on CD or vinyl?

Nick Morris: I mean, for me, my dad was a huge 80's metalhead back in the day and he raised me on a lot of that kind of stuff. He saw that I was getting interested in classic rock on the radio or whatever, and he's like "oh, if you like that, you should check out these old records that I have", and I'm like "awesome". I actually still have his record collection now. He gave it to me. I guess he lent it to me, but I basically have it now. So, I have all of his old days records and that was huge for me. We still also know that we live in this time and I definitely had an MP3 player when I was younger and an iPad or whatever, CDs to some extent. I feel like I wasn't really listening to a lot of CDs when I was younger, and then more recently, I've actually been getting them because it's easy to transport them in the car.

Nick Kelling: One of my biggest inspirations, well, not even really inspiration, but one of the ways that I discovered the music was playing Guitar Hero back in the 2000s or whatever, Guitar Hero 1. Judas Priest's "You've got another thing coming" changed my life that night whenever it was, and he and his dad have obviously been inspirations for me as well. I mean, I grew up down the street from him, so I've probably been to more concerts with him and his dad than I've been to with my own dad or brothers. So, yeah, I owe a lot of my knowledge to the stuff that he kind of trickles down from him and his dad. We got a really nice system here where T-man knows a lot of stuff. He felt as if to him, and then I kinda got the strap at the end. Guitar Hero was huge and I have my own Guitar Hero playlist on Spotify, it was purely songs from that game. I listen to it pretty regularly.

I guess it's good practice music as well. Right?

Yeah, well, not necessarily for me, but this guy (Nick) maybe. Rock band, though. Get some Rock Band going with the microphone.  I actually haven't played too much Rock Band, but Guitar Hero should come back.

Benjamin Gibson: Yeah. Definitely.

Nick Kelling: How about you, Ben?

Benjamin Gibson: Yeah. So, when I was little, my parents played in bands. That's actually how they met, my dad was a drummer, my mom was a guitar player, they met like that. So, when they had me, they're always playing stuff. So, some of the first bands I listened to were like Rush, Tool early on, and it wasn't really traditional heavy metal, but it's kinda like my gateway, the stuff like that. And some of the video games I started playing later on with Nick, I had a lot of stuff in there too.

Nick Kelling: Brutal Legend.

Nick Morris: Yeah, Brutal Legend has a great soundtrack.

Hunter Just: That game has got "Road Racing" by Riot. That was a great introduction to Riot.

Nick Kelling: It's a pretty sizable soundtrack too. I mean, there's a lot of stuff on there.

A perfect gateway to having that one. I mean, what the fuck are we talking about? You can listen to fucking Omen, Anvil and Slayer songs.

Nick Morris: And it's fantastic too.

Nick Kelling: When meeting all the characters in the game, Rob Halford and Ozzy. Those Easter eggs are just that, they should make a second one. I don't know why they ever didn't. Development for 15 years.

The funny thing is, there are actually talks to make a second game, because the game studio also made the game Psychonauts. And they said if Psychonauts 2 is successful, they might pitch the idea for a Brutal Legend 2. So, considering that Psychonauts 2 is actually very successful at this point, it's got overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam and whatnot, I really hope that they'll push forward the idea to continue Brutal Legend. I mean, for fuck's sake, if you can make a sequel to a 35-year-old movie, what's it making a sequel to a 15-year-old game? I mean, nothing.

Nick Morris: Especially if you have Jack Black. Like, that'll sell games. Right?

You got any bands or cameos of your favourite vocalists or guitarists that you would like to have in Brutal Legend 2? Like, we gotta pitch this idea right now hahah.

Nick Kelling: Well, Rob Halford is already in there. So, I mean, he's obviously huge. But yeah, I'm trying to think. I don't know.

Nick Morris: Yeah. That's tough.

Nick Kelling: They already got like so many of the greats there, but now, since it's been so long, you know.

Hunter Just: Speaking about voiceovers or the characters, we actually wanted to ask Jon Mikl Thor if he would do Thor.

Nick Kelling: We want Thor.

Nick Morris: You know what? That's my answer. Thor in Brutal Legend 2. Thor in Brutal Legend would be amazing. That was what first came to mind, but having Thor do an introduction to one of our songs on the next album would be amazing. I would throw him like a 100 dollars. If anybody has contact information, let me know, and we'll get him to do "This is Jon Mikl Thor. You're listening to Tündra".

That would be cool. I mean, for fuck's sake, you guys have that band Smoulder, and they have professor Michael Moorcock reading an introduction to one of their songs. If they can have a professor who was influential to bands like Hawkwind and Cirith Ungol, you guys can have fucking Thor. Like, come on. It's like, bring it on. What are we talking about?

Hunter Just: Absolutely!

I just want to thank you all personally for doing this. I mean, it's been very fun talking to you guys, and I'm really looking forward to hearing new stuff from Tündra in the near future and see you guys perform wherever you guys go in Central, Eastern or Southern Europe. Anywhere you guys go, I would let the guys from there know to go check out your shows. Are there any final words you'd like to say?

Hunter Just: This is Tündra, and you are reading MetalBite.

Nick Morris: We just wanna thank you so much for the opportunity, man. And we're so stoked to get this opportunity to talk to you.

Nick Kelling: I see you on Facebook all the time. Put the name to the face or face to the name.

Nick Morris: Talking about heavy metal is pretty much our favourite thing, and that's all we do.

Nick Kelling: Not necessarily in the library, though.

Nick Morris: Maybe not in the library, but that's what we live for and we love playing. We love listening to records. We love hanging out. It's a great thing.

Hunter Just: Thank you so much Vlad.

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In the modern era of music, there are very few artists or bands within the so-called "Third Wave of Black Metal" that I really appreciate or support. Within that wave which was defined by the likes of bands such as Mgła, Uada, Plaga, Groza, Human Serpent and others, one wolf among the pack is the one-man band Praznina from Serbia. I have known the band's founder Deimos for quite a while and I've been familiar with his work since the days he started working with D. from Chaoist on their mutual project Todesfall, until Deimos started his own one-man Praznina which has a catalog of two EP's, "Podsvesno Mrtav" and "Nedostižni Zenit". The band is signed to Hammer Of Damnation label from Brazil, which earlier this year released both EPs as a compilation bundle CD called "Podsvesno Mrtav / Nedostižni Zenit". Recently, Deimos announced that Praznina's full-length debut album is in the works, whereas the mixing and mastering will be once again handled by Szabolcs Kéringer who worked on the previous two EPs. For this opportunity, I have spoken with Deimos about his artistic direction, influences on his creativity and the current status of Praznina.

Vladimir

Greetings Deimos! First of all, I'd like to wish you a warm welcome on behalf of the MetalBite crew.

Greetings! Thank you for this opportunity to be heard.

You have just recently announced that a Praznina debut album is in the works and that the vocal recording session has been concluded. So far what can we expect from the first album? Will you be continuing the traditional route which was established from the previously released EPs?

Indeed, the vocal recordings for the debut album are done and we are bravely moving forward into the mixing/mastering stage. Praznina's sound and atmosphere which were established with the previous EPs will remain relatively the same, that said, there will be a plethora of new musical elements that the listeners can expect, for instance more dynamic vocals, fuller production, improved songwriting/ arrangements and considering the length of an album opposed to an EP, much more elaborate and complex ideas. I am certain that fans of the first two releases will enjoy the album very much.

Hammer Of Damnation seems to have done a considerably great job taking you under their wing, which resulted in a great deal of merchandise from band shirts to releasing both your EPs into a one single bundle titled "Podsvesno Mrtav / Nedostižni Zenit". Have the sales so far been successful to convince them to keep the partnership going?

Certainly, HOD has fulfilled everything that was agreed upon and has been consistently a pleasure to work with. I believe the sales are doing great, especially in South America, that said even though the debut album is getting close to completion I have not contacted them yet about the release as I would like to get everything done before doing so, getting the final master version, booklet art, merch design etc…

If I recall this correctly, you were signed to Hammer Of Damnation sometime after the release of your second EP "Nedostižni Zenit", but what I'd like to know is when did you get in contact with them? Have they immediately offered you a record deal?

Just after I released Nedostižni Zenith which was in June 2022 I received an email from HOD. As you can probably imagine, when you release music into the world your inbox will be bombarded with an abundance of offers from different PR agencies, promotional websites, even some very sketchy record labels all offering the best of the best for your music, for a fee of course. In the sea of these charlatans, I noticed a message from HOD which did not read like an automated bot-written email. After exchanging a few mails with them they offered me a rerelease of the two EPs on one slipcase CD, as well as some T-Shirts and promotional work including interviews, reviews, radio air on some South American metal stations and everything else that comes with it. They also offered me a similar deal but much greater in volume if I decide to release the debut album under their banner which looks like the best way to go at this moment.

The band name Praznina translates to "emptiness", which in a way describes the overall feeling that you get when listening to the songs from both EPs. Was there any specific reason why you settled to use this as the band's name?

Considering that from the get go I wanted to do a project where I would write lyrics in Serbian and subjectively not being a fan of bands having a language disconnect between the band name and songs as well as bands doing an album with half of the songs in English and half in their mother tongue the most logical step was to have a name in Serbian. I also believe that a band should have a unique name, that is if you search for the band online for instance there won't be ten other bands with the same name, and lo and behold Praznina was not taken.

I'd like to ask you about your pseudonym "Deimos". Was it taken from the Greek deity Deimos and if so, is there any reason why you're associating yourself with this name?

You are correct and the reason behind it is that the Hellenic deity Deimos served to represent the dread and terror to those before the battle began, the feeling of the colossal uncertainty gnawing on the reason of every soldier who does not know if the next second could lead to their demise, the very same sentiment Man feels when faced with a nullifying horror he cannot logically cogitate.

How did your musical journey begin exactly? Have you played in any other bands before you started working together with D. from Chaoist for your project Todesfall and then later founded Praznina?

I believe my journey as a musician started in a similar manner of many black metal musicians, as a bedroom guitarist, with a subpar guitar plugged into a shitty amp playing Slayer/Dissection covers until the will and desire to create something on my own came to me.   After meeting D. (Chaoist) we joined forces and created Todesfall, having me as chief songwriter and guitarist and with him doing the vocals, bass and drum arrangements. Nonetheless I wished to be more than just a guitarist and considering I always fancied the idea of being the "one man" in a one-man BM project which sparked the first step towards creating Praznina. I had to learn to write/play bass lines, program drum arrangements, record on my own as well as editing tracks in Reaper and most importantly to learn how to sing and write lyrics, which is the most difficult but also most rewarding aspect considering I have never done it before Praznina.

What is the current status with your other project Todesfall? Will both of you return at some point to work on another album?

 Currently all the technical aspects necessary for the recording of Todesfall's second album are being set in place. Recording of the guitars will begin three weeks from now with drums and drum arrangements being finalized by D. who is also tirelessly working on lyrics and vocals. There will be an official post about the second album in the near future but currently I am unable to provide more information.

Your work was obviously inspired by the likes of bands such as Mgła, Uada, Plaga and similar, but are there any other sources of inspirations from art to film or even poetry, that were a huge influence on your music and lyrical themes?

I am of belief that everything one experiences in the world is fuel to the subconscious mind whether we like it or not, nonetheless apart from music, books by authors like Cormack McCarthy, Jean Paul Sartre, Thomas Liggoti, works by Hegel, Plato, Spinoza and a wide array of occult/esoteric titles spanning from eastern/western mysticism, Neo-Gnosticism to the study of Kabbalah have all been a tremendous inspiration to myself as an artist and as man.

Apart from art and poetry, are there any personal ideas or philosophies that are very important to you? Do any of these ideas fuel your work, both as an artist and as a musician?

Yes, both as an artist, musician and living breathing human. To keep things short and not to drown the readers I would label myself as a Gnostic, driven by a principle of Acosmism which denies the reality of the universe (being itself) seeing it as merely illusory and only the infinite un-manifest Absolute is for the lack of a better word real. Praznina's motif is about Man experiencing and touching fragments of that Absolute and reacting to it, completely breaking down the mechanisms of his finite body and mind and through instigated suffering awakening the gnosis (wisdom) necessary to realize the paradoxical beautiful architecture of the Beyond.

Praznina, along with other bands such as Strahor, Pustoš, Šakal, Chaoist, Ljuska, Aura Mortis and similar, in a certain way represent a new dawn of the Serbian black metal scene. What is your opinion on the local black metal scene's current status? Do you think that this new generation of bands including yourself will help bring black metal to its former glory within the Serbian metal scene?

Was there really any glory to begin with? I think black metal bands in general should do their own thing, without regards to their "status" in the scene because ultimately nobody cares for your pompous yet exceedingly fragile prestige. The way I see things are as follows, our country has an abundance of black metal bands/projects, some great, some not so great, but for a long time it's been lacking everything a scene needs so it can be called a scene or maybe the term just aged poorly as it has entered in the hypermodern surrounding that is today's world. The only thing I can think of that would benefit the black metal scene in Serbia without going commercial and overboard is the formation of a circle. For instance, Bosnia has one called Black Plague Circle which contains some serious quality, yet forming a network like that is much easier said than done, to me it takes much more than creating a monochrome banner in Photoshop paired with a lazy made social media page which will be dead and forgotten in a couple of months. As for the aforementioned bands they have my full support as I have been following their work very closely and as I feel that we do in fact have a wide range of quality bands with a diverse sound, motif and ideological approach.

So far how do you feel comfortable working solely with studio only projects/bands? Have you considered performing live at one point or will you be only sticking to recording and releasing new music?

Doing everything on my own or with at least one other person has its many advantages. The advantages have been listed a thousand times by a thousand different artist but what I would like to point out is that the fewer people you have in your project the more pure the idea behind it becomes, too many boots on the ground do not allow the seed to blossom which to me is the single most important part of any art.

The amount of people that are eager to see Praznina/Todesfall live someday has honestly been shocking to me as it has exceeded my expectations entirely, unfortunately I am forced to disappoint the fans as logistical problems are a massive factor in performing live. What I wish for people to understand is that living in this country, with this status quo, with these financial opportunities and forced obligations to society I am unable to fulfill my vision of these projects going live as these projects would be in essence much more than a local band performing in a generic metal pub with juveniles and underage kids as their audience. Maybe someday, somewhere in an abandoned bowery or in a basement of an unfinished building, perhaps one day the stars shall align.

Thank you so much for doing this interview, Deimos! I wish you all the best and I hope that Praznina will bring more wisdom through suffering in the future. Are there any final words you'd like to leave to your fans reading this?

As I said in the beginning, thank you very much for the opportunity to share my thoughts and to the readers out there be sure to check out all the above-mentioned bands for some grim Serbian madness! Support of Perish! 0>1

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