ANHEAD
Anhead
is a new rising force in the metal scene. In which branch? I am not sure
I can give you a clue. After all not even the band itself can. Grabbing
the opportunity after the release of their amazing album E=mc3, we had
a nice talk with David, who told us many interesting things for their music
and not only.
1. TELL US IN A FEW WORDS THE MOST
IMPORTANT MOMENTS OF THE BAND'S HISTORY. WHICH IS TODAY'S LINE UP?
In the autumn of 1998, members
of two doom metal bands (DESECRATE and ONEAIA) met each other and found
their view of music to be very similar. We started to rehearse hard, that’s
why we were able to release our first record „Phases“ in spring of 2000.
After we had passed many personal band problems, that had troubled us in
last autumn, we changed the line-up into the current form: Blanka Lavickova
– vocals, Matej Lipsky – vocals, David Nedoma – guitar, Vladimir Stiburek
– guitar, Pavel Kohout – bass guitar, Robert Hales – drums, Petr Malinak
– keyboards. Recording of our newest release, which was finished this May,
was realized by the mentioned band line-up.
2. WHAT DOES ANHEAD MEAN AND HOW DID
YOU SELECT THIS BAND NAME?
The term „anhedonia“ means something
like inability of being happy, of rejoicing at life. We really had drunk
very much C2H5OH before we came to agreement about that.
3. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC
AND WHICH ARE YOUR MAIN INFLUENCES? WHICH BANDS MADE YOU REALIZE THAT WHAT
YOU WANTED TO DO IS INVOLVE WITH MUSIC?
Long ago, I totally resigned from
any effort to describe our music – anyway, that’s a field of competence
of another people. There are seven members in the band, so each of us has
different musical feeling and doubtless, this fact is manifested in our
music. Probably, the basis of our music is in doom, but I’m not sure, whether
it’s necessary to sign us as a doom metal band due to so few seconds of
that in our songs. And which music bands we like? ANATHEMA, OPETH, WALTARI,
TRISTANIA, TATABOJS…
4. YOU ALL USED TO HAVE OTHERS BANDS
IN THE PAST. CAN YOU TELL ME WHY YOU DISBANDED AND GIVE ME SOME GENERAL
INFO FOR YOUR PREVIOUS BANDS?
DESECRATE disbanded after they
had been existing for two years and they recorded two demos, due to some
personal problems. On the other hand, ONEAIA has never been a real music
band, it was just a project. In contrast to DESECRATE, ONEAIA was rich
in creativity – so then the original ANHEAD arose (till 2001). The newest
persons in ANHEAD used to be or they still are members of following bands:
MASTURBACE, NEGATIVE FACE (Matej), N. A. M. B. (Petr), KATARSIS (Pavel).
5. HOW MANY RELEASES DO YOU HAVE? TELL
US SOME GENREAL THINGS ABOUT THEM. COMAPRE THEM. WHAT DO YOU OBSERVE?
The first release „Phases“ has
been nearly pure doom. Although we were trying to play very original music,
we didn’t succeed in crossing over the doom metal borders. The new record
should be very different – but I think I’m not competent enough to evaluate
it, let’s wait for some reviews – you should find more serious opinions
about our new release there.
6. IN YOUR NEW PROMO YOU SING IN MANY
DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. WHY DID YOU DO THAT AND HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT?
Before anybody found out that we
didn’t have a good command of a language at all, we replace a language
with another one. It isn’t true that we can speak so many languages – we
really have much problem with the mother tongue.
7. WHY DO YOU HAVE TWO SINGERS? WHAT
DO THEY ADD IN YOUR MUSIC?
That’s the old cliché of
our doom metal beginning. It’s about conflicts between male and female
principles – the same as in real life.
8. WHAT ARE THE LYRICS TALKING ABOUT?
WHAT INSPIRES YOU AND WHAT TAKES AWAY THE INSPIRATION FROM YOU?
The lyrics are about usual daily
problems: dilatation of time, semipermeabile membrans in mitochondrial
structures, increase of milk-ability of the Charolais by adding of calcium
into the clovery feed-mixture etc. We gather inspiration of the pictorial
encyclopadia for pre-school children called Reason up to Pocket.
9. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MUSIC
AND WHO FOR THE LYRICS?
As for the music, it’s very difficult
to define. Foundations are created by guitars (especially by the Vladimir’s
one). During following creative process, they are changed so many times,
that the original intention can be refound very rarely. The band is based
on democracy, meaning each member is responsible for his or her part and
is ready to defend his or her opinions very hard. As for lyrics, it’s quite
easy – they have been created especially by Matej. Me, I’ve written lyrics
just for the first song.
10. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE TO OFFER
TO THE METAL SCENE?
I’m not sure. For example – our
singerin?
11. WHICH IS THE BEST AND WHICH IS
THE WORST REVIEW YOU HAVE RECEIVED?
Once, we succeeded in obtaining
the only one point of ten possible. After we had read that review, the
most of the band came to the conclusion that he or she shouldn't be born.
For example, the expession „disharmony“ was used three times. Otherwise,
I quite like that expression, but in that case I was sure the critic used
it too often.
12. WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE UNDERGROUND
SCENE OF YOUR COUNTRY? DO YOU FIND IT INTERESTING? CAN YOU SEPERATE AND
NAME SOME GOOD BANDS?
I can’t compare it with situation
in your country, but I think that it’s not so bad in the Czech Republic.
The underground scene lives and works by oneself – what should I tell more
about it? Maybe names of some interesting bands: FORGOTTEN SILENCE, PESSIMIST,
ENDLESS, LANIENA MENTIS, RHONDIAN etc.
13. WHICH IS THE BEST PART IN YOUR
MUSIC AND IN THE BAND IN GENERAL AND WHICH THING DO YOU THINK YOU SHOULD
CORRECT? WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU NEED IMPROVEMENT
I don’t know what is the best in
our music – anyway, if I knew it, I wouldn’t tell you. We have to improve
very much in everything we do. Nobody is perfect, so it’s always necessary
to learn some new things. Maybe some people are satisfied with themselves,
but that’s why they don’t want (or aren’t able) to achieve success.
14. HOW ARE YOU THINKING TO PROMOTE
YOUR WORK? WHICH SONG OF YOURS DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST IDEAL TO REPRESENT
YOUR WORK?
These days, we are sending our
release to many people in different countries (so you are one of the few
people that have obtained it already), that’s why I don’t want to talk
about it a lot… And the most representative song of the album? – I’m sure
that each listener will prefer different song.
15. IF YOU WEREN'T ABLE TO COMPOSE
MUSIC, WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO?
As for me, I also deal with writing
some tales or scripts and with music publicistics. The other members of
band do similar stuff – I think that nobody of us is specialized in music
only. If you ask them, you would listen about fields like psychology, philosophy,
computers, linguistics etc. in their answers.
16. HAVE YOU READ LATELY ANY INTERESTING
BOOKS OR SEEN AN INTERESTING MOVIE?
As I can remember, I have read
some books by Borges, Hassel, Wodehouse, Bierce or Kaplický and
many publicistic articles (depending on subject) lately. As for movies,
I have seen the Mullholand Drive by David Lynch (twice!) recently – I go
to cinema rarely, due to absence of time.
17. IF SOMEDAY YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO
MEET THE CREATURE THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE, WHICH WOULD YOUR BIGGEST QUESTION
BE?
18. IF TIME TRAVEL WAS POSSIBLE, WHICH
HISTORICAL PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHY? WHAT WOULD YOU MISS
THE MOST FROM OUR TIME?
Antiquitiy, definitely. It has
fascinated me since childhood. I think that this period has never been
overcome, by spiritual aspect. The civilization has been based on values
that were created then. Of course, there are many other interesting eras,
but I wouldn’t like to spend few weeks there – I would be afraid that I
would be burnt to death very soon.
19. WHAT PROLOGUE AND TITLE WOULD YOU
LIKE THIS INTERVIEW TO HAVE?
20. THANK YOU!HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK
YOU ANYTHING AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?
You forgot to ask whether we wanted
to perform in Greece. With great pleasure!
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