Hi Niki, until now you have released 3 albums and how was the procedure in your last album "Eufobia" and are you pleased for that work so far?
Yes, indeed. We have released three full-length albums so far. Our debut album ''Insemination'' was released in 2010. We released our second album ''Cup Of Mud'' a year later, in 2011, and the third one, which was called simply "Eufobia", was released in 2017. We're very proud of our latest album. It took us almost five years to complete, because we didn't want to accept any compromises. It was a long and painful process, but it was worth it. We wouldn't have succeeded, however, without the help of our friend Deso, who recorded the album, our friend Pepinio, who mixed it, our brilliant friend Val Volegna, who created the whole visual concept, the artwork and the videos, and of course Peter from our label Wizard, who released the album.
The last album had been exactly the identification of the band, also release of album with band's name and also the distopical expression in the video clip of "Hater" and the visual is on the top of the album booklet, that is exactly one word " Fear of good".A professional explanation…
I'll never forget the moment when I unpacked the freshly printed CD and played it for the first time. I felt really good, especially after all those hard and stressful moments, which my bandmates and I had experienced during the making of the album. For the first time I had the feeling that I wouldn't change a thing, even if I could. The video of the song "Hater" is probably the most meaningful video that we have ever made. It carries a strong political message, which I'm sure that our Turkish friends will understand perfectly, due to the current circumstances in the country. One can see in the video that we stand on a big city square. We didn't choose the location randomly. This place really exists. It's located in the center of our national capital and ironically it's called "The Independence Square". Four years ago thousands of people were going there every evening to demonstrate against the corrupt government. Sounds familiar, right? The people remained there for a whole year and then finally another government came to power, but of course, until this very day still nothing has changed. Nevertheless, we want the people to remember what happened there, when they watch the video. We may have lost the battle, but we cannot afford to loose the war against the corrupt bastards, who are currently destroying our lives. I believe that goodness will eventually prevail and triumph over evil. It has already happened many times in history, but unfortunately sometimes it takes more than a lifetime.
You do work with good labels; Like Wizard, Twilight Vertrieb and Sevared Records. I am asking this question with the hope that you got the benefit of this co-working; Do you receive invitations from foreign countries and festivals?
Actually, we've been mainly involved with the label Wizard, which is the biggest Bulgarian distributor of rock and metal music. The company's been using its excellent relations with some of the biggest labels or distributors of metal music in the world, like Twilight Vertrieb or Nuclear Blast for instance, in order to get our albums distributed worldwide. It's not easy for an underground metal band from the former communist block to get noticed abroad, believe me. We wouldn't succeeded without the support of our label for sure. For the booking of our concerts, however, we have always used the services of the respective booking agencies. We're currently working with Cavalleria Events. The owner of the agency, Mihnea Badea, is a good friend of mine and he helps the band a lot. Although we've been trying to tour regularly across Europe, we play mostly in Romania and Bulgaria, because that's where most of the people who know and like our band live.
Your co-working PR companies and labels are performing really valuable works indeed, from now on what kind of future do you expect for Eufobia? You had informed us that you had shot a new video clip, it is obvious that you had given importance for visuality, on this point are your new concept and musical arrangements ready? What have we supposed to be expected?
Now we're talking about our common friend, Markus from the Metal Message agency, aren't we? He's been doing an excellent job on the promotion of the band recently. He's the one who's going to promote the new video once it's ready. I'm not a fortune teller, but nevertheless I'm confident that there are a lot of good things that are waiting for us in the near future, simply because we're on the right track. It didn't take us long to realize the fact, that in order to make a good album we should focus not only on the music or the lyrics, but on the visual concept as well. All these diverse components should function as one, reflecting the same general idea. That's what we've been doing recently and that's what we intend to do in the future as well, so from our upcoming video you should expect nothing less than a pure visual madness. If you don't believe me you can always watch the video of the song "Hater" or the one of the song "Graveyard" and see for yourself. I'm sure that you will agree with me thereafter.
In our previous releases, from FBI (Fecal Body Inc.) we had done an interview with Mengele. Would you please tell us something about Bulgaria and Bulgarian Metal Stages?
Interviewing Mengele must have been an interesting experience for you. I bet it was. There are many metal concerts in Bulgaria of both famous and underground metal bands. These shows are usually pretty well attended, but most of them take place in Sofia exclusively. Unfortunately there are fewer and fewer metal fans in the rest of the country and the reason for that is quite simple. Everybody comes to live in the capital or goes to work abroad nowadays, but this is a global phenomenon, wouldn't you agree? There are many fine bands in Bulgaria and a true army of faithful metal fans and besides, everybody knows that the Bulgarian audience is crazy. The fans and the bands are a part of the same family. People know one another. When I go to a concert I usually see a lot of familiar faces. On the other hand, there's not a single world famous Bulgarian band, but probably therefore people here are more interested in the underground in general.
There are qualified bands over all Balkanian geography especially in Greece, but what do you think about the reason for the other bands except Greece which hadn't won a recognition, I mean why they are not knowable?
I don't know. It's probably because the Greeks didn't have to spent 45 years behind the iron curtain, as my people did, and that gave them a huge advantage. They had the chance to develop their national metal scene as a part of the global metal scene, thus learning from the best. The good traditions are very important for the success of any type of activity. Rome wasn't built in a day, they say. There's something else too. It's not a secret that any band that want to be successful have to invest some money initially. Especially nowadays, because since the people have stopped buying CDs, the labels can no longer afford to invest any money in the underground bands, like they used to do, hoping that some of them will become popular eventually and pay back by selling their albums. In spite of the financial crisis Greeks are still way richer than the Bulgarians and unlike us they can afford to invest in their future. The last thing that comes to my mind is the fact that in the West both the Bulgarians and the Turks are often underestimated or even discriminated against for no reason. That's why we have to work harder in order to receive the same recognition as the others, wouldn't you agree?
Bulgaria and Turkey have lots of common points in the name of the historical background and they are neighbours forever but in the last years in the Turkish side and also in the Bulgarian side racist and national aspects are trendy ( all over the world this problem is trendin unfortunately), what do you think about this problem/situation?
I believe that we should learn the lessons of history in order never to make the same mistakes again. I see no reason why our two peoples shouldn't be good friends and neighbours. It made sense to be enemies more than a century ago, while now it's just stupid. Today we live in a different world and we've got other problems. I consider myself a patriot, because I love my country, but it doesn't mean that I must hate any other nation. I'm amazed by the number of people, who cannot comprehend this simple logic. I believe that the rise of the populist movements, you've mentioned above, is due to the total failure of the stupid puppets, which we call politicians, but thus the righteous anger of the honest people is being used like a smoke curtain to prevent us from seeing who the real enemy is. Allow me to be crystal clear now. These are the rotten self-proclaimed "elite" and its collaborators. Hopefully one day the honest people will wake up, then rise and finally put those bastards back in the mud, where they belong. I will never give up on my Turkish comrades. I'm ready to fight side by side with them against those motherfuckers, because in this struggle we are natural allies.
“Surely it could have been much easier for us if we were trying to stick to an established genre, but we have chosen the freedom of expression instead. I’m not so sure if our stile could be fairly described as Death’n’Roll, but such a description at least is giving a good idea of what it’s all about.”You were telling in an interview that we had made years ago. It has been an identification of the band and the music that you are performing indeed. Has anything changed from those years to nowadays?
It has, actually. The music, that we're currently playing, is much closer to Thrash Metal, but nevertheless, I don't think that Eufobia has ever been a typical Death Metal band. The style of the band has been changing, because we've been trying to find our own distinctive voice. This quest will probably never be over. We still haven't found what we're looking for. We're not afraid to experiment, though. That's what makes the music of Eufobia so weird. Our music might have changed, but we, on the other hand, have remained the same crazy bastards and we've still got the same ideas and beliefs. The only difference is that now we've got more experience and know how to do things better. We would certainly never change, just to become more popular. We'd ratter stay true to ourselves and hopefully the people will eventually appreciate us for what we really are.
In the "Cup of Mud" album with C.Chioreanu and in the last album "Eufobia" you have worked with the most talented graphical designer of your country, Val Volegna and Val had designed all the video clips and visual concepts. I like the Eufobia's musical aspect, as well as you give the max. importance the visual side. Do you plan to work with Val again for the next album? Would you please tell us something about this side of the band.
The visual concept has always been very important to us. Without a good looking cover art or a convincing video any band would have certain difficulties to be taken seriously, no matter how cool the music is, don't you think? Costin Chioreanu designed the artwork of our first two albums, ''Insemination" and ''Cup Of Mud''. Back then he was still rather unknown, but as you know, later he became one of the most famous Eastern European graphic designers. Now virtually every metalhead is familiar with his work. Costin is quite talented indeed, no doubt about it, but we're not going to work with him in the future, because we found even a more suitable candidate for the job. I'm talking about Val Volegna, who is a totally unknown Bulgarian graphic designer and video director, but he's without any doubt the most talented person that I have ever met in my life. Now he's making another video of Eufobia, even in this very moment as we speak. We're looking forward to working with him on our future projects as well.
You have performed live stages over 200 times; Arch Enemy, Dark Tranquillity, Rotting Christ, Kreator, Vader, Immolation, Onslaught, Malevolent Creation, Pyogenesis, Christ Agony, Gorgoroth, Sinister, Broken Hope, Dragonforce, Eluveitie, Keep of Kalessin, E-force, Agathocles, Negura Bunget and Suicidal Angels…You had shared the stage with excellent bands. What do you think about the benefits that these experiences had added to Eufobia ?
The greatest benefit was the chance to learn from the best. No doubt about it. When we formed the band, we didn't even imagine that one day we would share the stage with some of our favorite bands, but we did and I'm very grateful about it. We enjoy sharing the stage with world famous bands or playing on the stage of important well attended festivals, but on the other hand each and every show is special for us, no matter if we play in front of a thousand people or in a small club, because every single concert gives our band the opportunity to win new supporters. That's why we try to do our best each and every time.
You had a tour with Soul Sacrifice from Turkey, you have made good friendships and before this tour you had come with Onslaught…Are there different and good travel stories from those tours? And will be able to see Eufobia again in Turkey?
The guys from Soul Sacrifice were probably the most kind and fun loving people that we had ever traveled with. We had a great time together and I'm looking forward to seeing them again. I'm also a great fan of their music. The reaction of the Turkish audience was great and I believe that we managed to win the hearts and the minds of the local metalheads, in spite of the technical difficulties, which we experienced during each of those concerts. Unfortunately there were less people than we had expected, but sometimes it's just like that. We'd be happy to come back to Turkey any time. It's a shame that we haven't played in the country since then. We went on tour with Onslaught twice, actually, and now I remember a great story from the first tour with them, back in 2008. We had a concert in Sofia. At that time I still lived with my father. He was out of town, so I took the opportunity and after the concert I invited the guys from Onslaught to crash at my place. We hat a lot of fun that night, but in the morning my father, who was supposed to stay out of town for one more day, suddenly came home. Of course, he got very annoyed. I tried in vain to explain to him, that Onslaught was a legendary band, but he replied that he didn't really care at that he wanted them out of the house immediately. That's how eventually the members of the legendary Thrash Metal band were kicked out of the house, as if they had been some dirty scumbags.
We thank you for the interview Niki, finally what would you like say to the reader, fans and followers?
I'd like to thank you, my friend, for giving me the chance to say a few words to the Turkish metalheads. My message to them is actually quite simple. Support the metal scene! We are the underground, but our scene would be strong only if we stood together, so go there, attend the concerts, support the bands and buy their albums! We're looking forward to seeing all of you in front of the stage next time we come to play in your country. I'm sure that we could have a lot of fun together and don't forget to bring some friends with you.
