Paul Gillis Interview (Drug Honkey, Morgue Supplier)

I found on the internet that your musical career has begun in the band called Innoculant. After the first year of existence, band`s name was changed to Crematorium and the first and the only demo «Baptism of the Oppressed» was released. This record is versatile: there are typical for death metal faster moments and, otherwise, there are heavy slow episodes, with sound pressure that reminds bands like Disembowelment and Winter. You had changed the name for the third time to Embodied and than disbanded. Can you tell us about these bands - how you became a member, in which direction they developed and why they broken up?

Hello Eugene, & thanks for having me for the interview. Yes, you read correctly. Innoculant was indeed the first band I was in, & that was in 1992. Really, we were only called Innoculant for a short time, before I pushed for the name change to Crematorium..
   The way it happened was - Guitarist Tom Tangalos was a friend for a few years, & he asked me if I wanted to join a new band he was starting called Innoculant. I joined, & after a few months of jamming we became Crematorium..  Yes, we did make the one demo called "Baptism of the Oppressed". Stylewise it touched on Death/Thrash/& Doom metal. We were, & still are interested in those styles along with many, many more.

I think it turned out pretty good for our first attempt at a legitimate recording, & we have seemed to spread it a little bit throughout the world, and it has gotten a decent response over the years.
  The reason for the name change to Embodied from Crematorium, was because there were a couple of key lineup changes.. Chris Mull(guitar) & Mike Mazylewski(bass) were replaced with Tom Leski(guitar), & Russ Powell(bass).
  At this point in time, we were all pretty young, I was about 20 years old and we just kinda were trying to get going with our musical careers, and basically everybody had different visions of what they wanted, & how to achieve it. So we parted ways.

Scythrawl (Ether, Unquintessence, Trails Of Anguish) Inteview (Part II)

Continuation of Scythrawl interview.
28.06.2016

Previous Ether album was released 8 years ago. Why it takes that much time to create a new record for this project? 

That is a good question.
First reason, I am not a musical composer by nature and for that reason, I think my methods are somewhat unorthodox. Ether is and will always be the voice of my profound nature and I let it manifest itself on its own free will. The need to write music started off as abstract melodies in my mind that wanted to get out. They were triggered by various things, dark and beautiful. Whenever I would feel these emotions, they would translate into melodies. These notes would keep playing in my mind for days and they have been following me for years.  Ether is my attempt to render all of these various pieces of primal expression into coherent music. It is my own obsessions laid bare. The only difference now is that I carry around a digital recorder and whenever I feel these bursts of emotion becoming music in my mind, I sing and record what I hear in my head.
Then there is the second reason.
I never really played guitar before Depraved, Repressed, Feelings and I don't intend to become good at it. Not enough free time nowadays and a lot more things to do than sit around for hours practicing some chords and agility. That being said, recording an entire album on guitar was the biggest challenge for me on this album. I used some softwares to help translate this abstract music in actual guitar tabs.
And the last challenge was to find the time to record, arrange and mix all of this in a way that the resulting process would approximate what I was hearing in my head all along.

That explains the gap between the two albums. I cannot rush this process and it is an excruciating and immense amount of time and dedication that can lead a person to madness. People need to understand that a regular band divides the work into many individuals. The main composer(s), each individual band members, a record engineer and a master engineer. All of these jobs are a full time job on their own.  When I played with Nefastüs Diès, I only needed to focus on my drumming, practicing to be able to play the parts I created live. Only that plus my normal life took all the time I had left. Now imagine yourself doing the work of all these people on your own, plus keeping your job and trying to have a social life. It needs a level of sacrifice and discipline similar to what monks must be enduring. It really did changed my perception of perseverance.

Scythrawl (Ether, Unquintessence, Trails Of Anguish) Inteview (Part I)

Hohlraum Archive interview with Scythrawl.
27.11.2011

Your first documented project is Trails of Anguish. It isn’t mentioned too often, so could you tell us about its history?

Trails of anguish took form somewhere in 1998. Our first recorded demo came out in December 1999. Trails was at that time the continuation of another band I was part of at that time: Through Somber sorrowfields.

To make a long story short, Through Somber Sorrowfields was formed back then with some random people I had met through my friends. We we’re all different and nobody  really knew what they wanted to play. It started as a Swedish death metal influenced project. The main composer liked In flames, dark tranquility and At the gates. I was a huge fan of At the gates back then so I decided to join in. I didn’t really enjoy the «happy » vibe on most songs so I took the role of writing lyrics and tried to give more depth to the music with concepts. It didn’t lead to anything we made some local gigs but it was obvious we didn’t had anything strong to bind us together. Easily put this was a « friend’s » band and I wanted something more serious.

Later on some conflicts emerged between me and the other band members. This hate was present and tangible in each rehearsal. I and the guitar player hated each other openly. Then one day they threw me out of the band, the bassist told me that I was too negative and that he felt I was dragging him down towards a bottomless pit, which I probably did at that time. Nevertheless I packed my things up and addressed my long hated enemy guitarist an opportunity to start a real band with a deeper meaning.

Even though we hated each other, we we’re linked musically, so he accepted. Trails of anguish was born on that day… The two last songs he wrote for Through somber sorrowfield we’re rehashed and modified and they became the scythe of engrieved melancholia and Laments of martyred innocence. These two songs marked the beginning and a milestone in my black metal evolution. I then knew what kind of music I really wanted to make.