The Russian pagan/folk metallers Arkona released their new album ''Khram'', and a little after their performances in Greece, singer and main composer Masha ''Scream'', opened her heart to Rock Overdose and to Dimitris Aloras, regarding the details of the new album, while inviting the fans of the band to the temple of the group, as this is the definition of the word ''Khram'' in their language!
Rock Overdose: First of all, we'd like to know how long it took you to create ''Khram''. Ιt's been only fourteen months since the release of ''Vozrozhdenie'', how do you see it as an album now that ''Khram'' is released?
Masha ''Scream'': Material for ''Khram'' was born gradually, at different times, in different circumstances. Some songs were born on tours, some I wrote at home, I could not tell you the exact time of writing, but everything was done for 2 years or even 3 years. ''Vozhrozhdenie'' was re-released, rather, as a pleasant addition for our fans to fill a time of expectation of a new album.
I think that we made our most difficult and interesting material for the whole time of our band's existence. For me as a songwriter every album is a masterpiece, right now I am a real fan of ''Khram''. But sure after some time we will find some mistakes or limitations, that we will try to avoid in our next albums, but right now we are absolutely happy with ''Khram''.
Rock Overdose: It's the ninth album in 14 years for the band, this shows that you are a very active band without big gaps between albums. How do you act when it comes to writing? Are any songs left out of albums, or do you compose for each album from the beginning?
Masha ''Scream'': Everything is done by inspiration, only time can show when the vision of a particular song comes, from which the album subsequently consists of. Each album takes time, but we are not tied to the timing of the release of the material, so we give absolute freedom to our creativity and never hurry.
I create all the songs in Cakewalk pro audio, on trips I always have my computer with me, where I can start to write something any time. There I also do full arrangements of the songs and later I give to each musician his part to learn. I always have a standard songwriting scheme, so this time it was the same.
As a rule, I create whole songs at once, and exclusively from them our albums are created. But I have a lot of unrealized musical themes that I abandoned, still in conception stage, because they did not fit into my vision of a final result. I have a lot of such small pieces, but this is natural, because I'm always in search of musical ideas, but they only appear when I am in a certain state of writing at that time and my head is full of musical visions, from which the full compositions come. It also happened in the case of ''Khram'', all the songs were written by me from beginning to the end in a certain period of time and they all were included in new album.
Rock Overdose: ''Khram'' is 74 minutes in duration, quite long for an album, actually the longest you have ever done in your career, did you have faith in your material so that you didn't want to leave any track out of it? Are you satisfied with the final result?
Masha ''Scream'': I always believe in my music of any genre, doesn't matter is it folk-metal or something more serious. Music is my child, which helps me to express my thought and my philosophy. We do not make many plans, we just do what we have to do and only time can show how our work will look in the future. I think we do not have to depend on circumstances, creative process does not like violence, everything should happen by itself, only then your self-realization will be felt by people. And everything depends not on length, nor on style of songs, everything depends on you, how much you put your soul into your child. I just wrote the music you hear now, without any expectations and a principal emphasis on something. It just happened by itself.
As I already said above - for me this is our most adult and serious album in our entire history of existence. Yes, I think it is the best Arkona album in the band's history. I personally am very happy with it. I also said in previous answer that all the songs which I wrote are included in the album ''Khram'' except some small pieces of music which I create from time to time and regardless of whether I'm writing songs specifically for an album, or not.
Rock Overdose: I'd like to know some details for the lyrics of the album if it's not tiring for you, what do they deal about and where do you get inspiration in order to write them each time?
Masha ''Scream'': My lyrics are always very multifaceted and are based on different aspects of existence. I am inspired by the world around me, and in my songs I try to set forth my own philosophy about everything around me, about my feelings or inner experiences.
Many topics are discussed on in the album, but the concept is one, it is devoted to aspects of human existence and human interaction with our world and the universe. The concept embraces the theory of cosmogony and the chaotic movement of the entire time cycle of our measurement, it tells about internal struggles, affecting individual human values, it also tells about the philosophy of my perception of the universe. Generally speaking it describes the concept of the Temple from my point of view.
More details about our texts can be found in the booklets of the album or on our official website arkona-russia.com. We have been doing translations of our lyrics into English language for a very long time, so our listeners should not have any problems with the reading and understanding.
Rock Overdose: Arkona have been a band that for me personally, opened the doors to other Russian bands out there. We'd like to know the current situation of the scene of the largest country in the world. Which bands should people notice and how much has metal music evolved in Russia?
Masha ''Scream'': In Russia, metal is at the level of the underground and, in principle, is not popular at all, like the music style. But, if we are talking about metal, as a culture, I can say that power metal and alternative metal are most famous between all metal genres. That's all, probably. But generally Russians prefer easier genres like folk-rock, rap, pop-rock, etc. If a metal-band comes to Russian tour, as a rule it will be about 200-300 fans in a hall in cities with an average percentage of the population living there, and at the same time bands of other styles I listed above, they gather thousands of listeners in halls.
As for metal bands, I want to say that I do not pay a serious attention to the development of the music in our homeland, I spend more time developing my own team and therefore I can not name any bands you have to listen to. I really like Ukrainian metal music. For me the album of 2017 year is «Безвірник» (Bezvirnik) of the Ukrainian band Burshtyn. It sounds more like black metal, but it has a big influence of Ukrainian folk culture. Very recommended!
Rock Overdose: It would be interesting to know which were your influences when you started the band. How did you get the motive to play this music and are there any new bands out there that have caught your attention through the years?
Masha ''Scream'': There were two bands who which gave me the inspiration to start doing something in this style. It is an old Ukrainian band which I still love very much - Nokturnal Mortum. We are also good friends, I remain a true fan of this band, so I can really call them "Godfathers" of my philosophy and my music. There was also a band from Moscow, Butterfly Temple, which also inspired me a lot, but later I became disappointed both in their music and in themselves as personalities. Later, this group experienced great changes in their line-up and now they play music, which is absolutely not interesting to me.
Of course, some new bands catch my attention, there are too many bands, I actually do not see the point of describing each one here or highlighting one of them, but recently I discovered the black-metal band Оathbreaker from Belgium. I generally like underground black-metal music and now there are so many interesting bands, it pleases me.
Rock Overdose: Which are the plans for the promotion of the album? Meanwhile, we saw you in Greece in this tour, how does it feel every time that you visit a new place? Does it give you more motive and energy when you play for a new audience you never visited before?
Masha ''Scream'': I don't really know much about promotion, because other people do this job. I'm only responsible for creative process.
We've already performed in Greece, in two cities, last year and it was a great experience. This time too was also nice. And of course it is always a pleasure to discover new places that I haven't visited before, to meet new audience, new venues, to share my music with new fans and make an exchange of the positive energy with them.
Rock Overdose: Tracks like ''Tseluya Zhizn'' are so long that they could tire people, but it manages to have such a structure that it keeps the listener's interest all the way through. How much demanding is it to compose such a song? Is there a larger feeling of completeness in you with such tracks?
Masha ''Scream'': This song was created by me, like every other Arkona song. In general, I am the main songwriter, composer and arranger in the group, as I said above, I write all the instrument parts in the midi and then give each of the musicians his own part to study. That's how we work.
This song I created in 2 stages, first the first half and then the second half of the song after some time. I do not remember exactly the timeframe during which it was created, but everything happened gradually, I considered various variants of arrangements, removed something, added something there and there, until eventually I was not fully satisfied.
For me, writing songs is a kind of ritual when I completely go into myself for a while, and then, after the song is completely ready, I return back to our world. Everything is done by me according to my feelings, I just feel where one part should sound, and where the second one, what instruments should prevail, which ones have to complement, what character or mood the song should convey. This song tells of life and death as two sisters who lead their eternal dance in the universe, thereby creating a balance in our world. Lyrics - this is also an important part of the music, together they create the harmony and character of the song that I would like to convey to the listener. In the song ''Tseluya Zhizn'' all lyrical themes are emphasized by musical moments, where the lyrics are most aggressive, there music has a similar character and vice versa. Everything in this song harmoniously interacts with each other, just like its two main characters interact with each other in our world - in our Khram, which for each one is very individual.
Rock Overdose: We'd like to know your relation with Napalm Records, which seems to have promoted the record quite good for you. How much important is it to have a record company that believes in you and what is your advice for people searching to release their material through record companies?
Masha ''Scream'': In May there will be a 10 years anniversary of our work in Napalm. We have a fruitful and, most importantly, mutually beneficial cooperation. We really went forward after we released our first album for Napalm, and now everything goes smoothly without any ups and downs. We are a stable group in terms of concert activity and performances, however, with a constantly evolving music material. Napalm Records is a great label. Everything is just perfect!
My advice for people is: to create the most honest music from the heart, and subsequently people will listen to you and you will find your publisher with whom you will achieve all your most desired goals.
Rock Overdose: All last words belong to you as always. Thank you for this interview, add anything that you consider important and well done for ''Khram''.
Masha ''Scream'': Khram (eng. "Temple") - this is a very broad and multi-valued concept, because everyone in this world has his own temple. It can be anything you like, the temple of the soul, the temple of nature, the temple of the living, the temple of the dead, the temple of the universe, the temple of the inner world, the temple as the shrine of the holy things. In our shows Arkona will open the doors to our Khram for people and listeners will really feel everything that I wanted to express in my songs. See you on tour!
For Rock Overdose
Dimitris Aloras
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