| Interview by Burt Wolf with D'aven, keyboardist of Demimonde. Interview done in December 2002! |
| PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF & WHAT YOU DO IN THE BAND? My nickname is D'aven & I play keyboards. I am 25 years old, I enriched the line up of DEMIMONDE when I was 19 & as for the piano, I started to play it at the age of 6. Nowadays, I work as a journalist in the biggest Czech Metal magazine & study in the university. Is it satisfying as the basic info? I'M A NEW FAN OF DEMIMONDE, SO COULD YOU PLEASE GIVE SOME OF THE HISTORY OF THE BAND & HOW YOU GOT TOGETHER? DEMIMONDE existed in Prague since 1996 when it was found. People from this line up weren't in some other bands before starting DEMIMONDE. We were all very young (16-19 years old) when creating it & this was our first musical experience in the Metal scene, our first band. We met by chance. Some members were friends (drummer Bizzaro, bass guitarist Afagddu, singer/guitarist Jaacob) before starting the band, they new some other guys who were able to play some instruments (the solo guitarist Ankhabuth & D'aven on keyboards), so they sasked them to join & the band with the basic line up was complete... One year later, our fantastic female singer Tanyya joined & this was the last element, which we needed. All these people was absolutely crazy, with crazy ideas, different musical tastes & with a strong wish to compose & record something uncommon & unbelievable-the music, which wasn't yet done in the Czech Republic. We wanted to penetrate into some avantgarde or experimental areas of music & try to find our own path. DEMIMONDE wanted to become one of the most original acts in the Czech scene & this was our fuel, which pushed us to work together. To make something new. We knew that every member is so twisted, that he will like to follow this musical path & also everyone was able to compose & express his own crazy ideas & then include them into the music of DEMIMONDE... DEMIMONDE with another members wouldn't be DEMIMONDE... The mentioned six people core of DEMIMONDE was stable all the time. The first album "THE WARRIOR'S POETS" (1997) was recorded also with the help of Kashtan (guitar & another male vocals, beside Jaacob), but Kashtan left the band shortly after... And right then the "MUTANT STAR" era started. To be more precise, we recorded in the beginning of the 2000 year, so we spent 3 years by composing the whole thing & then some 3 weeks non stop to record it. In the middle of the year 2000 a deal was offered to us to sign, so "MUTANT STAR" was released by the Czech label EPIDEMIE RECORDS in the end of the same year. Our band did split a half of year later then (spring 2001)... It is all concerning our history. WHAT DOES DEMIMONDE MEAN & WHY WAS IT CHOSEN FOR THE BANDS NAME? "MUTANT STAR" album is some kind of conceptual artistic expression in the large sense & it starts right by our name, that's the basic for understanding our concept, because the word DEMIMONDE is extremely important in this aspect... The texts, music, graphic design & all our presentation are connected with the DEMIMONDE concept. DEMIMONDE is our world (if you translate this word from French laguage, it means "Half-World" or metaphorically "Underworld"), it is our parallel dimension of reality (Halfreality)-through which we express ourselves... (But also note, that the other meaning & translation of DEMIMONDE is the dark side of society with some prostitutes, thieves, etc...) Anyway, we are really very satisfied by the choice of the name of our band, the word DEMIMONDE has a very strange, attractive, exotic & erotic sound, haha. Surely it is not a cliche & it doesn't sound like 99% of the Metal bands. It is interesting that the bassist Afagddu, who doesn't speak French, invented this band name. Me, as the only francophone in the band, appreciated a lot this idea & pushed this word to become an offical band name. YOU HAVE QUITE AN ORIGINAL STYLE & SOUND? HOW WOULD YOU BEST DESCRIBE IT? Thanx a lot for your appreciation. Oh, really a hard question! Generally I use three ways how to approach the music of DEMIMONDE with help of words: 1) Kozmik Postmodern Art (this is the official style description invented by a discussion inside the band...not a bad one, don't you think?) 2) AAA Metal (triple-A means Avantgarde Atmospherical Art...btw, in the economical terminology, it is used for the best quality rating, if I am not mistaken, haha) 3) If you prefer the larger description, something like an article encyclopedia, I can propose you this one: "Postmodern Techno(logic) trip from Metal to trance, psychedelic escape from our world to the half world, forward thinking connections of contradictions... WHY THE DECISION TO HAVE SO MANY BAND MEMBERS TO FORM THE BAND? As for the number of members - no it is not true, that we are nin! Hahaha! We are six in the band & almost always we were six. The promo flyer is a little bit confusing with the nin photos...haha. Another proof of our schizophrenia & madness. After the recording of the second material "MUTANT STAR" (2000), Science the second guitarist & Channah, the second keyboardist, joined the band. These two new players didn't bring something new or special into the music of DEMIMONDE, the reason, why they were attached to the line up, was mainly our wish to try to reach the same sound during the live shows as in the studio version of our music. Because there were too much guitar & keyboard lines recorded in the studio, these new players (who arrived after the recording) helped us to play it all live... Unfortunately, it wasn't OK. Both new players were really good & skilled, but nine persons in the line up, it was too much for the sound technicians during the gigs, so the result was only chaos... Of course, the communications in the band & during the rehearsal was chaotic too... (So after all, the right DEMIMONDE line up consists always of the six basic members, during all the time of our existence...) Of course, I must mention also Stalker.Cz (amongst the "attached members"), he was something like "stage sample operator", helping us during the live shows with the programmed parts... And of course he is also our graphic designer, who invented the whole visual side of DEMIMONDE - he created the layout for the album, the digipak version, the CD-Rom track... Back to the nine piece line up. In the beginning it seemed like a good decision to transform DEMIMONDE into some small orchestra, but in the end, we found, that this is not a right way & it is in the contray worse than if we play in less numerous line up. The listeners told us, that on stage DEMIMONDE is playing something completely different sounding than the CD. HOW DO YOU FEEL THE BAND HAS PROGRESSED FROM YOUR ALBUM "THE WARRIOR'S POETS" TO YOUR CD "MUTANT STAR"? It is a progress of millions light years. It is almost impossible to compare "THE WARRIOR'S POETS" with "MUTANT STAR", a lot of people says, that both albums look like if it was done by two different bands... "THE WARRIOR'S POETS" album was composed during the first year of existence. I call it "faster atmospherical gothic/doom stuff with death & black touches". Regarding the average recordings coming from the Czech Doom scene, it sounded as a quite original music, I mean... Of course there are lots of mistakes in 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 & tunes... We did spread some 1500-2000 copies & it was also licensed in Romania. After all, I think it was a very successful start of career & this album has lots of fans until today. We also learned a lot from our (studio) mistakes, so that's the reason why "MUTANT STAR" has quite better production, although it was once again produced only by ourselves... |
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