DEMIMONDE – Interview with Daven

This is the strange band! It metal and also is antimetal!? Existing and simultaneously sunk in nonentity!?? Their music came into being thanks of love and hatreds to music (of different sorts of music). Also and they united to express one's own feelings and excitements by music… but they have irrational rules of existence of team, properly it is strange, that they understand, every from they is leader of band, every composes this what him like pleases and nobody this does not oppose!?…. But whether one can connect chaos with order? Yes! You read after-mentioned interview, you will settle record of DEMIMONDE and all will be bright!!!

Hi!!! With who I have pleasure? You made the mixture pretty well on the material definite as opus magnum entitled “Mutant Star”. In so rich connection death/black/doom metal with elements of electronic music I tasted to succeed in finding of no matter which resemblances… just and only my union fell on ARCTURUS. But sincerely speaking you created climate, which one is really total connection of darkness, of electronic coolness with influences of oriental music…

Greetings, here is Daven, the keyboardist and media-speaker of DEMIMONDE. Thanx for your words, we are glad for every listener who has a taste to penetrate into our complexe music and appreciates our view of artistic expression Well, I am not sure, if ARCTURUS is so big source of influence for us, although some of us really like and appreciate their music. But if you want, I can name you some others bands (maybe you can label some of them as irrational too), which touched me more: Nocturnus (the ONLY metal band, which is loved by the complete line-up of Demimonde and which influenced us as one of the most strong sources of knowledge and specific atmosphere), then Misanthrope, Solefald, Neglected Fields, Lux Occulta, Sirrah, Madder Mortem, Atrox, Ram-Zet, Sadist or Emperor. These are my personal favorites (I am a very choosy and hard to please listener) and I think Demimonde could be described also as a result of putting all those bands into the shaker and mixing and twisting Although we knew only some three bands from this list in the period of composing the Mutant Star album As for my deeper sources, I was first of all the fan of EBM/gothic/ambient/postindustrial hard stuff of the early 90s (Front 242, Front Line Assembly, Killing Joke, Project Pitchfork, The Young Gods, In Slaughter Natives, Laibach but also Depeche Mode and similar stuff) and I started to listen to the metal music in the age of 19 (1996 year, during the beginning of Demimonde, when the others guys gave me some metal material to absorb it), so I jumped from the electronic scene directly into the dark atmospheric metal (black/doom/death/gothic) without disturbing myself by some classic hard and heavy. This all is the cause of my little bit weird and chaotic taste (in the same time I am a fan of some progressive dance stuff, like the psychedelic trance or trip-hop, and I like very much the classical music too, mainly the 19th and 20th century – Rachmaninov, Cajkovskij, Prokofjev, Holst and some modern authors, from the last time, I like very much the Chaostar project, the modern classical music stuff from the guys of Septic Flesh) As for the others members of Demimonde, the majority of them (except me and the drummer Bizzaro) left the sphere of metal music (they even dislike it now, except some exceptional bands like Nocturnus and Demimonde, haha) and they are mainly into techno music now. Ah, one note again, me and our female singer Tanyya, we like very much Madonna (although me, I like only the newer albums), the drummer Bizzaro prefers Christina Aguilera

Do quite a lot of time occupied to you composing so varied music, both from side of clean musical as and technical? I ask, because in every composition steps out wide scale of many musical motives,of changes tempo, of moods, etc.

Yes, you are absolutely right, this took a lot of time, with no doubt! The reason is very simple. Each of the individuals in Demimonde stands out of normality, and all six people together make the twisted mix six time amplified. When being together in the rehearsal and composing the new music (but also when only speaking together, sitting in the pub or so on), Demimonde reminds a war, brothel, bedlam, pigsty or time bomb permanent attacks, ultimatums, crisis, sabotages and splits of the band are our normal every day life, without this, we couldn't be as creative, but on the other hand, it also takes a lot of TIME to work and to compose something… If someone sees us working (for example the sound engineers during the recording process), they think usually, that we run out from the madhouse and after the recording, some gentlemen in the white clothes will arrive, catch us, put us in the car with the bars and return us to the psycho-hospital To be concrete, the whole creative process of the Mutant Star album took 3 years in total (1997-2000), until it was released, we spent almost one year again, and just the last two years (2001-2002), we are unactive and RIP, we are waiting for our comeback, which will arrive (as I hope) as soon as possible Generally it is an amazing fact that the album was successfully finished and recorded, especially if you know that it was recorded by the people, who had permanent disputes, controversies, absolutely different opinions about all… (often I had a fear, that we will never record it…). But I am glad and happy now, that the result is absolutely same as I imagined it before recording – one flowing mass of music, 43 minutes without a pause, changing as hell, all the time, with tons of riffs, melodies, ideas, breakpoints… influences of black, death, doom, gothic, electro, ethno, classical, industrial etc…, with enchanting atmosphere, rough and in the same time romantic, hard but sweet, experimental but calming and disturbing together, alternative and in the same time heavy and metal, artistic but still full of energy. Simply the pure Czech postmodern album. But fortunately also as much as possible catchy for different types of listeners, as we know now.

You heard once MEKONG DELTA??? Sometimes ins trude me such think, that just this of type bands began in metal – music so varied playing… frequent unexpected changes of musical themes, etc.?

Yes, I know them, but they didn't influence me in any way, they are not my favorite. I wants into metal music, when they were in their top! But as I know, some members of Demimonde liked them, mainly our guitarists and mainly the M-Delta-version of Mussorgskis Pictures of the Exhibition.

In spite of all you advanced farther, because they were closed in clean rock-metal frames. And you attempted for motives from music techno, rave, whether trance music or drum' n' bass and motives of oriental music, whether ambient. Am I right? Of course in your music checks the weight continually metal… but at times… hahaha

Absolutely. The way of connecting the most possible amount of the moods and feelings of the electronic music with the all possible moods taken from the different metal genres (plus maybe some touch of classical music and of course ethno-orient) was one of the basic focuses for us! Our goal was to record an album with the metal weight and heaviness (heavy guitars, raw riffs, blasting drums) together with synthetic bizarreness and space mood; this all with the most complex aspect possible. Trance, drum'n'bass, trip-hop or ambient are our favorite genres and some of the members are really into as I said, nowadays they are much more into this kind of music than into the metal music, so that's the reason, why the combination of all these genres with metal sounds very organic in our arrangements As for the oriental feeling, this is caused mainly by the lead guitarist whose roots are in Syria. Anyway, the abstract shape of the Demimonde music is of course the consequence of the absolutely different taste of each member. One likes metal, the second one hates it, one likes jazz, blues, techno, classical music or pop, but always there is someone, who doesn't like a concrete segment of music. The result of this tension is, that everyone tries to put a piece of himself into the final shape, the process is quite chaotic and anarchistic. Just also during the recording sessions in the studio, everyone arranges his instrument (or voice) himself, everyone uses the momentary ideas and the others are then surprised whats present there. We never knew, what we play, the first time when we heard the DEMIMONDE music was after the arrival from studio. We put the CD into the CD-recorder and with a lot of surprise we listened to it and told us: Hey, whats this, whats up, what does it mean, this music?

Surely you are satisfied from final effect of co-operation from Epidemie Rec.. You have professionally release CD, on of which one can find all about the band music (audio, Mp3), bio, photos, texts, video movies in short version typical for XXI century. To this times similar editions I saw at ENS COGITANS from Russia and our native publishers Division CAT let go several of materials with similar things. But in spite of all as yet few bands can to be proud with similar edition…

That's little bit more difficult, it isn't as easy to say, if we are completely satisfied or not. First of all, we were very disappointed that we didn't get any interest or almost reactions from the side of some bigger west-European metal labels, because in our opinion the material of Mutant Star has much more quality and originality inside than the majority of the standard metal CDs from the majority of the labels. I was mainly disappointed by the indifference of those labels, who support the avantgarde and experimental metal bands But that's the life and we are happy, that almost thanx to the Epidemie rec., this album had a chance to be released and to appear in the CD recorders of the listeners all over the world. On the other hand, Epidemie is a small underground label with limited possibilities. I think they are doing well according to their possibilities, but f. ex. regarding the distribution and sales it could be better, although our sales are OK if we compare it to the majority of the bands from the Czech republic As for the promotion, it was good, the label printed some 500 promo CDs plus info-flyers about us; we got excellent reviews worldwide and I answered lots of interviews. The most of them for the Polish mags. and zines, even more than for the Czech press hahaha. And you're right, the digipak edition of DEMIMONDE's Mutant Star is the best thing that Epidemie rec. could do! Thanx them a lot! We are proud to present the first digipak metal album in the Czech republic, in the very expensive, extravagant and attractive form regarding the level of graphic design. Of course, the CD-ROM track is also very cool, some bonus for every DEMIMONDE fan! It was done mainly because we wanted to prepare the complete CD-ROM in the really luxurious way, with every possible informations about the band. This all helps really a lot to the fans and mainly to the journalists. When they want a photo for and article, interview, they can browse our CD-ROM track and choose from a big range of photos… Also there is a full bio in both languages, English and Czech, so this is for every journalist, who starts his interview by the FAQuestion: Tell me something about your history… members, how the band was created, when, how much recordings did you release etc… I can tell him: read it and copy it from our bio from the CD-ROM, there is all info, there is nothing to add… As for mp3, it is a great idea to put there the full version of our first album The Warriors Poets, so the fans and reviewers can listen to our old material and compare, how big step forward we did with the MUTANT STAR regarding the style change, the developing of composition, the sound quality etc… As for the graphic design of CD-ROM, this is the same concept and style as the layout of front cover image, booklet and digipak…

Of course music does not run away from the rests your CD. You created totally unworldly climate. What is reaction of people on this material?

Great expression unworldly climate! Good job, man, you really understood our way of artistic thinking, it is really well said. This is exactly the atmosphere that we would like to offer. Anyway, we don't come from this world, as I will explain in the answer concerning our band-name As for the reactions: I don't know about any bad review or response. Usually we receive 95/100, 6/6 or 9/10 points hahaha You know, Demimonde probably never will be some band for the masses, we are too much avantgarde and for the specific listeners. But those who were caught and charmed by our music, those who understood it, became very devoted and committed to Mutant Star Mainly the journalists appreciate it, because when they must review tens and tens of recordings for each issue, almost everything sounds similar and they are happy when receiving something different, which steps out from the average and offer some kick to ass to stereotypes (I know it very well, as I work as a journalist too haha). As I read the reviews, I think that there emerged a closed and well selected ring of the intellectual journalists and fans, for whom the album has the cult status, while the rest of the listeners, who prefer the easier music, don't accept it and search for something other That's the life and that's what we expected. Anyway, we didn't compose it with the idea to be loved by everyone. First of all, the music must be loved by ourselves, that's the only criterion for us. We are not searching for a quantity of fans, we prefer the quality hahaha

One's own music you qualified as kosmik postmodern art metal. Right qualification!!! In relationship from this do you intend also to carry in something original on your concerts?

As for our concerts, to be honest, we didn't play too much and it was with a good reason, why not to play live. Since the beginning of this band (early 1996), we realized some 10 concerts, not more! There were some highlights (Nuclear Storm festival in 1999, where we played for a lot of people, or the baptism of Mutant Star album – his first live presentation in the famous Rock Cafe club in Prague for some three hundreds metal heads, in the same day when it was released). But the majority of live shows were in my opinion little bit catastrophic (f. ex. the last show in March 2001 together with Forgotten Silence – they were fantastic, but Demimonde was only a sound chaos, unfortunately). So the live shows didn't promote the name of Demimonde well. I am happy, that the reviews and reactions about the ALBUM from the press are (without any exception) absolutely fantastic! The music presented in the Mutant Star album is promoting and propagating Demimonde really well, but our gigs are the shame, so we stopped to play these gigs! After listening to our album, you can probably imagine, that it is extremely difficult, maybe impossible, to present the Mutant Star material live on stage. Usually the people, who didn't hear our music before, doesn't understand what we try to present during the gig. The same thing is concerning the sound engineers in the clubs, who don't have any idea how to make a sound for us The other reason of those problems is that unfortunately we didn't practice much before our gigs, because some members were lazy, so this must tend to the disastrous live presentation (and such difference between the excellent studio recordings and poor concerts). As for the preparation right before the gig, some members sometimes drunk too much or maybe took some drugs, so this was the third reason of our bad live presentation… After all these experiences I don't want to play live again. Almost not before we will able to play live our music (probably since we will start to play with the programmed beat in the monitors to synchronize all the band… Oh, one note to add again: we don't like to play (and repeat) something that was yet composed and recorded. We need to be still in progress and still to create something new, but we hate to practice the old material. So it was funny that after releasing the debut album The Warriors Poets, we presented on stage the material from the next album Mutant Star Which was just in the process of composing

Year after your beginning (that is to say in 1997r) your line-up to extended, of what consequence was use additional (third guitars) and two man's vocals and one female. Proves this, that already at the beginning your musical activities you had experimentally impetuses. And proof on this was your first material “The Warriors Poet' s”, which today associates me with THEATRE OF TRAGEDY with influences death/black.

Yes, the line-up enlargement was caused by our needs to resolve the vocal side of Demimonde. The instrumental core of Demimonde, consisting of five people (Afagddu, Ankhabuth, Bizzaro, Daven, Jaacob) was formed since the beginning and didn't change during all the existence of Demimonde, but the vocals were an eternal problem. After one year, it was solved Kashtan (higher male vocals and guitar) and Tanyya (female vocals) came in the beginning of 1998 and soon after, the guitarist Jaacob started to use his voice too (deep clean male and growls plus screams, to be an opposite of Kashtans hardrockish expression). This vocal line-up then realized the first recording The Warriors Poets. As for the TWP material, which was composed during the first year of our existence: Yeah, your comparing is not far from the truth. It contains some faster atmospherically gothic/doom stuff with death and black touches. Regarding the average recording coming from the Czech doom scene, it sounds as a quite original music, I mean, but of course there are some disadvantages of this recording, f. ex. the sound quality. It was our first studio experience, we recorded it in some few days (four or five?), although it is 43 minutes of well arranged, complex music. You can find there seven compositions with well varied atmospheres and tunes… We did spread more some 1500-2000 copies and it was licensed in Romania. After all, I think it was a very successful start of career and this album has lots of fans until today.

In 1998 year reached to you Kaschtan and you decided to change style of playing on more progressive, vanguard – with additional use f/x, samples or else of computer. Does Kaschtan had on you such influence to change music, or else simply was this convergence of time?

I am not sure, if I understood well the question, but the facts are like this: Kashatan arrived to the band for around one year (1997), he recorded the first album The Warriors Poets with us and then he left the band, we split with him. There were really some deep differences between us and him. You know, we were all really young people, between 17-20 years in this era, and Kashtan was about 30. He had another musical taste (more classical rock or crossover, less metal feeling), absolutely different ideas and kind of thinking (in the music, but also in the everyday life), he had a family, a job, different people and friends surrounding him… There were a lot of reasons, why he left the band. But if I summarize it, I can say that we weren't able to collaborate well mainly because of the different age and mentality (he was a member of another generation) which resulted in different opinions about music, about running the band etc… Now, he is playing some rock or crossover and he is happy… He was not so much interested by the darkness, progression and futurism of our Mutant Star music… In the other hand the vocals of the two remaining vocalists Tanyya and Jaacob fit absolutely into our newer musical expression and atmosphere, they are strange, mystic and amplifying the cold dark feeling from the recording.

You use strange pseudonyms, e.g. Afagddu, Ankhabuth. Surely are not they without meanings? And incidentally this pseudonym “Kashtan” sounds like in polish word chestnut (kasztan)??? Hehehe….

You're right, Kashtan is a chestnut in the Czech language too, don't forget that both Polish and Czech are very similar languages. His nickname had a simple meaning his real surname is Kastanek (small chestnut), so he formed his nickname to become a bigger chestnut, hahaha As for the meanings of the current members nicknames: Tanyya and Jaacob are formed from their real first names, it is probably clear, when someone reads it, Bizzaro is also simple to explain, because this guy is really bizarre, and also he is a fan of some bizarre sexuality, I think. (Anyway, he signs himself sometimes as Bzz which means something like a completely mad person in Czech.) Ankhabuth formed his nickname because of his Arabian roots Ankabut is a spider in this language if I am not mistaken, so it describes well his way how to play guitar, and Ankh is a well known mystic symbol from this area, of course As for the rest of nicknames (Afagddu, Daven) they have their meanings and reasons of creation with no doubt, and their owners maybe know those reasons and meanings, but they will not tell haha. Just only one sentence to finish this theme all the nicknames fit perfectly into the concept and atmosphere of the Demimondial artistic expression haha.

Important part in team performs Tanya. Except this, that she has beautiful voice is beautiful woman. How she went to team? Does not she feel to dominate by you or excessively adored among oneself males? I know, that on this question should she personally to answer, but if does not have such possibilities then I would want to recognise your suppositions in this theme.

No problem with this question. Yes, you're right, Tanyya is a really talented (and also pretty) singer (in my opinion with unique style if we compare it with another Czech bands, she is with no doubt one of the most significant singers from the Czech metal scene); so it was a big happiness and chance to catch her for our line-up. She lives near our drummer Bizzaro and he knew that Tanyya wants to sing in some band although she was without experiences… She did never go in some musical school before, she did not sing in any band before… But we tried her and she is fantastic, it was a damn good job to find her! Also you can try to compare how she was singing in The Warriors Poets stuff (1997) and on Mutant Star (2000). Unbelievable progress! As for the role of Tanyya in the band. I don't think she is dominated by us or something like it. She is a very independent element, she prefers to practice her vocals somewhere at home and she didn't participate too much in the rehearsals, because it hadn't any reason to have there the vocalist. We prepared all the instrumental side of DEMIMONDE in the practice room and the vocal side was done by Jaacob and Tanyya outside and they brought the ideas right in the studio for the recording session. Of course, she visited our rehearsals often, but only to record our new compositions and idea to the tape and to absorb the climate and atmosphere of the songs to be better inspired for the vocal arrangements. Sometimes Tanyya was singing something during our rehearsals, but we never heard her, because of the poor amplification of the microphone, so she better did all the work at home Regarding the social position: Now we are older yet, of course, but when the album was recorded (January 2000), the average age of the members was something around 21 years and when the band was created and started to compose our artistic concept, we were around 17. The exception in the band was just Tanyya, who is four years older than the average age of the others (and sometimes she was really like a mother or calming element for the boys). The last thing she is a girlfriend of the drummer Bizzaro, they are together for some five or six years yet, since the beginning of her engagement in Demimonde. It is not a secret, that one of the reason, why he involved Tanyya into the line-up was his intention to become her boyfriend hahaha

Creator of texts is Afagddu. From where Afagddu draws inspirations to writings of so strange texts like “Advocatus Diaboli”, “Absolute Word”, “Black Ring Theatre”, whether “The Orphan and The Demimondaine”? When you fix who with vocalists has to sing given party?

Lyrics are done by our bassist Afagddu and its a little problem with it. We don't understand them at all and we suppose that even their author doesn't understand to his own writings It is something emotional, intuitive and irrational, same as the music of Demimonde, where we also don't understand the result, so the only thing that I can say is that both lyrics and music fit perfectly together. It has the same atmosphere – call it as you want: magic, postmodern, dark, humoristic, fascinating, surreal, erotic, satanic (in some little bit different meaning than the majority of the bands do, but we don't know, how to describe this difference) He refuses all the questions concerning the interpretation of the lyrics, he would like to give the chance to the reader, maybe someone will finally understand it As for me, I don't need their exact interpretation, It is OK if you read them only when listening to the music, and it must cause some mood or feeling inside you. That's all. The words which perfectly fits into the music, but no one knows why As for the vocals, it is arranged only by Tanyya and Jaacob and they didn't do it during the rehearsals, they brought their ideas just to the studio and when their time-slot during the recording session started, they came to their microphones and the rest of the band had the first possibility to hear the Demimondial vocals. They did it in an absolutely fantastic way, we didn't expect it! It enriched a lot our music and moved it in some higher level. Such variety of ideas and expression, everything perfectly fitting in the instrumental side of DEMIMONDE.

It is seem me, that people who create such music as your are not ordinary spiritually and grey. Do I am right? What are your interests (except music)? What do you do on every day?

Yes, absolutely, we were everything possible, but not a grey people. As I said in some previous answer, Demimonde was a twisted bunch of totally out of order twisted people, who doesnt run normally Demimonde was anyway something like a typical students band in the past times, but as we are not really in contact nowadays (since the split), I am not sure, whats up with the rest of our members. Some of us probably still study. Me, I finished the journalism degree in the Charles University and now I continue with the Czech language studies, which are also my deep interest! Afagddu, the bass player, studies the theory of informations in the same university etc. As for others hobbies, Ankhabuth and Afagddu are fully involved into the dance music, they play live sets in some techno parties. The drummer Bizzaro is one of the heads of the server www.marastjakcyp.org, which is something like a webzine concerning the metal music. Tanyya lives a normal life and has her normal job, but I dont know exactly, what shes doing. She sings now in the band formed by former members of Forgotten Silence/Love History, but she looks forward very much to return to DEMIMONDE after its comeback (as me and as the majority of Demigods, as I hope) As for me, beside my long time studies (I study yet for six years and it seems that I will stay in the university for some years again, hopefully) I also work as a journalist in the Spark magazine, one of the biggest mags about the metal music here in Czech republic. Amongst my others hobbies are f. ex. to play golf and to read some interesting / strange and uncommon literature. Anyway, my probably most favourite author nowadays is your compatriot Andrzej Sapkowski with his Wiedzmin character

Properly what means word DEMIMONDE???

This word is extremely important for our artistic expression and for our music…. The texts, music, graphic design and all our presentation are connected with the Demimonde concept. Demimonde is our world (half-world or underworld, if you want to translate it from French language exactly), our parallel reality (half reality) – through it we express ourselves… (But I can also note, that the other meaning and translation of Demimonde is the dark society of some prostitutes, thieves etc) Anyway, I am really very satisfied by the choice of the name for our band, the word Demimonde has a very strange, attractive, exotic and erotic sound, haha. Surely it is not a cliche and it doesn't sound like 99% of the metal bands.

On disc “Mutant Star” also placed are four compositions in size Mp3 under mysterious name AZZA. Sincerely speaking it do not have they nothing common with metal and rather with climatically trance music in style techno, etc. You can more widely unroll this theme?

This is something which is concerning only Stalker.cz (the guy, who prepared all the graphic design concept of DEMIMONDE and also helped us with samples during our gigs), and noon other from Demimonde. AZZA is not really a project, if I understand it well, it is more something like the headquarters-organization and all the projects of Stalker.cz and his friends are labeled by AZZA. As for the others techno/trance projects connected with DEMIMONDE, the two members of our band, Ankhabuth (guitar) and Afagddu (bass guitar), who are the most focused ones to the dance scene, are running the project called MUTANT STAR (ha ha ha), which releases some trance music recordings (hope that their debut album will have the title Demimonde, haha).

Additionally on record you placed two video movies “Inferno” and “We are luring the fire”. Looks on this, that recorded this unprofessional camera. Question refers this from which one places originate both materials?

The gig from which is the video is one of our first, I think it is “number two”, really early Demimonde, sometimes in 1997, when we presented just the material from the Warriors Poets recording, which was prepared to be released soon. This wasn't a bad gig, we reached a club record in the number of visitors!!! (It was in a very small cave club called Inferno.) Unfortunately, as I said, the majority of gigs were bad because of our difficult arrangements, which we are not able to transpose from the album to the stage. But anyway we had every time lots of people in the clubs, because we were playing only once or twice per year, so they looked forward to see us, we were rare for them.

On the end I will ask for future DEMIMONDE?

For the moment, the most ultimate and needful plan is to reunite Demimonde and prepare a successful comeback. We would like to start the new period of the band (the last split was in the march 2001 and since this time, the band is not running, we don't meet us and we don't have any activities connected to Demimonde, except the promo campaign of the Mutant Star album). But I hope that after 1,5 year of silence, the band will reunite in the original line-up and compose a new psycho! Probably some dark techno industrial stuff with the live instruments and vocals. Half of technology, half of humans.

Thanks for giving answers to this of interview! Last words belong to DEMIMONDE!!!

I would like to thank you for this interesting interview, your interest about Demimonde – for all your support and place in your zine. Also I would like to send Demimondial greetings from Prague to all fans and generally to everyone, who likes to listen to the bands which are trying to push the borders of possibilities in music, to jump across them, to bring something new… You're welcome, Mutant Star is waiting for you!!! All the best and good luck!

Contact: Pavel Pavlik (Bizzaro), Habova 10, Praha 5, 155 00, Czech Republik, Europe

bizzaro@atlas.cz , demimonde@centrum.cz