THE REVENGE PROJECT - ENTREVISTA

1. The Revenge Project was founded in 2000, despite having shared the stage with bands like SODOM, Benediction, Amorphis, CREMATORY, DESTRUCTION, are not well known outside Bulgaria. How did you decide to form The Revenge Project? How would you describe this thirteen year career the band?

The Revenge Project was found in the year 2000. It started as a side project of musicians of prominent Bulgarian metal bands at the time (such as DIABOLISM, KARTZER, BIOPHOBIA, NECROMANCER).  As time went by, the chemistry grew and TRP evolved into our main band and a very important part of our lives. It is really an achievement to stay together for 13 years, considering music’s rapid development these days. It is hard to keep on being up to date and stay true to yourself in the same time, to keep your audience and add up new fans. Perhaps the key factor is that we are best friends and we know each other long before we formed the band and we are still pretty often go out together and have fun. We love extreme metal and we never cared about the trends of the modern days.  The most important thing when we write songs is to be fully satisfied with the result, before we record it or play it live. As for the band’s popularity abroad, this is something we really have to consider for the future.  The truth is that for all these years we couldn’t find a steady interested label to promote TRP’s music abroad. Maybe it is a matter of luck. The number of concerts we have had abroad are obviously not enough to add up to band’s popularity. The same goes for the interviews and the interest of the press towards us.

2.As usual you have taken your time to time to launch "The Neverending", namely four years since "Through Blood and Ashes", how has been the writing process? What we see evolution between the two works?

Each album we have recorded and we hope to record is a big challenge. We do everything on our own and we do not have any support from labels or sponsors. This is one of the main reasons for the big time periods between the albums. Each one of us wants to have everything sorted out as much as possible, from the songwriting to the recording, mixing and mastering. It takes a lot of time, you know, considering that everyone of us has a job and the usual daily routines. Often we have some big technical issues which add up to the complications we already have. The work on “The Neverending” was no different to the above picture. The other important thing is that we NEVER use presets and sounds/samples. Everytime we start from scratch thus the differences between the albums in terms of sound are evident. In purely musical terms, the last album is maybe the heaviest and most raw album we have ever made. Technically it is more complex and multi layered. We intentionally skipped some elements we used for the previous records, such as keyboards and clean singing, for the sake of the more aggressive and in-your-face approach. We just wanted to make a heavy, fast and aggressive album having its own sound, rather than revisiting previous sound concepts or sounding like the majority of today’s records. It is apparent that we are nostalgic for the days when you could guess which is the band by hearing the sound only.

3.What topics you treat in your lyrics and find interesting because at the time of writing?

We can’t say we have some extraordinary original lyrics. But we take due care for the lyrics as well. Most of our lyrics deal with some serious social and human issues. When we deal with such issues it is our intention to make our statement perfectly clear and frank. The goal is to make our point. This is not poetry, its metal.

4.How is your way to work in the studio, all contributed with ideas or any discretionary powers? What equipment do you use to record and that you use at concerts?

Like I said, we do not use the same presets or sounds which makes the work in the studio pretty interesting. As for out last album, we insisted to have as little computer intervention as possible these days (this wasn’t a fix idea, don’t get me wrong). We wanted to preserve the liveliness of the sound, the human approach. Normally we are ready with all the songwriting prior to entering the studio, however we are open for new ideas and changes while recording. The interesting part is that a large portion of the studio equipment is…handmade, in particular guitar effects and guitar and bas cabinets. Our ex-bassist Astaroth is constantly working on some guitar effects and processors. Infact we are not quite certain what distortions we have used for recording our albums. We had like a pile of wires with some potentiometers here and there, some equalizers which were not even put in a box! But the important thing is that all these experiments have a positive results, which could be heard on our records The vocals for The Neverending are recorded with a microphone made of 2 or 3 other microphones (?!) so we weren’t sure if this thing was going to work. Anyway, we know our limits and the goal has always been to get the best out of all these experiments.For live performances, we use a variety of guitar processors such as Korg AX 100, ZOOMs as well as amps’ distortions when there is some proper backline and enough time to twinkle and make the best sound you can get. The good thing about us, is that we've played many different venues and every one of us knows exactly the sound we're looking for. Thus our soundchecks usually take very little time. When we do our own gigs, and we have the opportunity, we like to bring our own equipment, but whenever that's not possible, we just play with whatever's available and try to make it sound as good and as clear as we can make it.

5. What are the main influences you have in your sound? What bands is an inspiration to you?

We generally like bands with their own specific sound and original ideas. That includes a large part of the older, more established names in metal. We all have our own favorite bands, which actually cover almost all extreme music genres: heavy, death, black, thrash - even hardcore.

6. From my point of view in "The Neverending" highlight tracks like "Servants of Heaven" or "Death Comes with a Smile", the first for guidance so melodic death and the second for its most progressive. How would you describe the sound of the album?

It's difficult to categorize the exact style of "The Neverending". It's death, progressive, there are lots of thrash elements. But the bottom line is - we don't think it's that important to fit into any category. It's more important to have good songs, which people will want to listen to again and again.

7. I guess that you shall wear a number from performances, you could describe a bit like a concert of The Revenge Project? What has been your best gig?

Our gigs aren't too different from those of any other extreme metal band. Good sound(in most cases), insanely dedicated fans(as well as some that are just plain insane), and a really, really good time. There are occasional problems, of course, despite our best efforts. That's unavoidable. And that was exactly the case at one of our recent gigs. We actually had to stop playing, because the security people and the crowd were having some argument. If we hadn't stopped to try to defuse the situation, it might've gotten pretty bad. Thankfully, things settled down quickly and we finished our set. Those are just some of the problems we face in our occupation.

8.How were your beginnings in the extreme metal? Why did you decide to become musicians? After all this time still you find reasons to continue?

Everyone who listens to this kind of music has a similar story about how they started. Usually, you hear a song on the radio, or a friend, or brother gives you a Maiden, Accept or Judas tape and from that moment on - you know this is now your passion. And it'll stay with you and even, define you for the rest of your life. It was basically the same case with each of us. It's love at first sight(sound), unconditional and with no hesitation. Playing the music you love is a natural continuation of the whole process. You do it out of the passion you have for it. At some point you can't live without it - you need it. It invigorates you and to some extent preserves you as a person. So, we don't need any special reason to do it. We just like it; it helps us and it charges us emotionally, and some would say even spiritually.

9.You have always opted for the self-production. "The neverending" has been recorded, mastered and mixed by you, and Ashtaroth and Staffa in September Nitro Studio Is the best way to offer their work for a band like yours?

The fact that we produce our own records isn't necessarily something we like. It's just something our circumstances dictate. It would be nice to have someone who could take care of that for us - someone we could trust, but for better or worse, we don't have a person or a label like that. We had some pretty big problems with some self-proclaimed producers and sound engineers. Experience has taught us to pick carefully the people we trust. We already mentioned that we work on our records with Astaroth, who also was our bass player. He really understands our music and knows exactly what we want to achieve. And Staffa has been our guitarist since the very beginning, so I guess we've always done everything ourselves. I just hope we've gotten good at it.

10. The cover was designed by Svetoslav Vassilev, why design it the cover? What are you trying to convey with the cover and how it relates to the music of "The Neverending"?

The cover was done by Svetoslav, he and Staffa came up with the idea. Svetoslav isn't anyone new to us, either. He's a very old friend of ours, a musician, who, as you might have guessed, doesn't work professionally as a drummer, but as a graphic designers. He also did the cover for our first album, "The Dawn of Nothingness". What we wanted to convey with the new album's cover was the unending madness, brutality and ugliness of life, which devours and twists everything. We think it fits very well with the lyrics and the music of the album. Well, it might fit in with a grindcore album, too, but we really wanted it to be very direct and hit hard, not something veiled, or "deep", which most times just ends up confusing and unknowable.

11.Is too early to announce new material, but what your fans can expect in terms of concerts?

We've discussed what we want our next album to be like, but considering the experiments we often do, it's very hard for us to know what the end result will be like. One thing is for sure, though. We have lots of ideas - fast, technical, aggressive and very melodic and atmospheric. Maybe we need to subdue some parts of our music in order to make it easier to understand, but that will only happen if we feel we need to do it. The important thing is that we have the passion and the drive to make a new album.

12.Thank you very much for taking the time to Black Metal Spirit, if you want to add something for the followers of The Revenge Project, this is the place. I hope the questions are to your liking.

. Thank you very much for this extensive interview! Check out The Revenge Project on Facebook and Myspace! Our official website is www.therevengeproject.com but the Facebook is our most up-to-date page. Labels, promoters, fans, if you want to invite   us/distribute/buy records//invite us to your birthday/donate 1 000 000 Euro   or just say Hi, contact us at revengeproject@hotmail.com 

Keep it real!