I don’t know if whatever I say here will match the brutality and fury of "Ageless Venomous". These guys are mean, hate breathing creatures that are here to hurt you in any way possible. After listening to this sick release I thought I would just roll on the carpet and hide under my desk for the rest of the day. My ears were bleeding, my body was aching and my mind was incapable of independent thought. When Max Kolesne called me on this Sunday afternoon I thought that all hell broke loose… even the gods were pissed ‘cause we got disconnected three times during our exchange of thoughts. So without wasting any more of your time, I’ll give a voice to Max ‘cause he has quite a few messages to tell you.

Chris


I have to tell you that "Ageless Venomous" just blew my mind... once again you proved your affiliation with the best death metal bands in the world...

Thank you very fucking much. We really appreciate that.

"Conquerors of Armageddon", by your main fans, is already treated like a classic release, how difficult was it to write new material after such a huge success of its predecessor?

Thank you very much. After we recorded "Conquerors of Armageddon" we did so many tours, maybe a hundred shows in less than a year and it was very important to us to play every day, it didn’t matter if sometimes we woke up tired or sick we only wanted to get on stage, do our best and play some real fucking metal. And I think playing so extensively around the world was a great thing for us. When we come back from all those tours we just started jamming and after those tours I think the band has improved a lot. I think we are getting tighter and better and the whole writing process of this new material was very natural for us. By just jamming a lot we were sharing a lot of ideas and Moyses already had a lot of riffs ready and that’s how we wrote the new material. It was very important to write music from our hearts, from our souls. It’s so natural for us to play this kind of music cause we really really love to play brutal music. We had great atmosphere and great time writing this album. We tried to make this album to sound as brutal, fast and extreme as possible.

Do you think, although you’ve existed since 1991, that many people affiliate Krisiun with the new wave of death metal with bands like Nile, Hate Eternal or Reabelliun? By the way what do you think of those bands?

First of all, those bands are all great fucking bands. Great musicians playing real aggressive, violent music and I think Krisiun was very important for the death metal scene because if you go back, like 10 years ago when we started playing, I think the metal scene especially here in Brazil was getting really fucked up. Most of the bands, even the great bands from the 80s were changing. They were kind of slowing down. Most of the bands would weaken out trying to play some more commercial music, mixing distortion guitars with rap or this trendy music and this scene here was totally fucked up. So we just said, fuck all this trendy, mainstream scene and let’s play some real brutal music. In the beginning we had some influences from bands like Venom, Slayer, Morbid Angel but it was very important for us to achieve our own style. And I think we have our own way of playing music like we play fast most of the time, really aggressive riffs, vocals and everything is toward aggression, violence and speed. So, I think we brought a new vibe to a death metal scene by playing more aggressive and with our feeling, with this wild thing we have inside of us.

Tell me, where did you record this album and who’s producing it. Do you still work with Eric Rutan?

This album was recorded here at Creative Sound Studios in Sao Paulo and this time we produced it ourselves with help of two guys, Thcello Martins and Filip the owner of the studio who mixed and mastered the album. This time we worked more like a team, five guys working together during the whole recording session and during the mixing and mastering of the albums so, this time we made sure this was going to sound the way we wanted it to sound. I think "Ageless Venomous" is much better from "Conquerors of Armageddon" ‘cause it sounds much more clear and I think it’s necessary for a band, which plays such a fast and brutal music to have a clean production. "Conquerors..." production was very good for that time but now we tried to improve, we tried to make something better.
We are still very good friends with Erik but this time he was very busy. He was touring with Morbid Angel, he has his Alas project and Hate Eternal so, by the time we were about to record the album he was so busy we couldn’t find him. So we said "Hey, let’s do it by ourselves".

In your own worlds, how is "Ageless Venomous" different from "Conquerors of Armageddon"?

I think "Ageless Venomous" it’s a little bit more technical. Band is much better, sounds tighter and even faster. We kept this same fast, brutal style but we are playing better, more complex and more technical. I think those are the main differences from "Conquerors of Armageddon".

Tell me something about the two instrumental tracks on this album. It’s pretty unusual for a death metal band.

Well, the first one ‘Serpents Specters’, started as a regular song. We had a drum intro and then Moyses did some melodies over this drum work I did. We don’t say "Let’s make an instrumental song" we just started writing the music structure, started jamming and at the end we decided to keep it as an instrumental because there is a lot of different riffs, changes and stuff like that. The second one, ‘Diableros’, the first idea came up from Moyses, of course, because he has a lot of influences from some classical guitarists. So he showed us this idea and asked Alex what he thinks about it. He said it was great. It’s extreme, it’s fast but it’s also primitive at this same time just like a mix between ancient music with some really extreme classical guitar and then I added some percussion over this song.

If I had to judge the success of a metal band by the number of given concerts you would easily take the top spot. How important are the live shows for you?

I think live shows are the most important thing for the band, especially a metal band. Every metal band should play live and bring their fans the real power of the band. When we play live we feel great. Live shows make you better as a musician, every day you play in a different place, on different gear, sometimes you get tired but you still go on stage and try to be the best you can. I think since we started touring very extensively all over the world the band started to get really better. We feel more confident playing this type of music and more comfortable. All those tours were very important to us. It’s a great feeling to be on the road, meet some real metal people, real diehards, people that are into the music which go to the shows to raise their fists and bang their heads. Real shit played by a real band is the greatest thing you can see.

Century is re-releasing your first two albums now "Black Force Domain" and "Apocalyptic Revelation". Is it true that "Black Force Domain" was lying on the shelf for two years before it was first released?

Yeah. What happened was when we recorded "Black Force Domain" we had some problems releasing this album. We recorded it in 1995 and there was a record (Dynamo Records) here in Brazil that was supposed to release it but the guys from this record label were bunch of losers, bunch of faggots which thought that record was too brutal and they didn’t want to release it. The first record label that released "Black Force Domain" was a small record label from Spain, which released only 1000 copies from which we got about 200 copies just for promotion. We started sending a lot of them to labels, bands and the response was great. Even guys from great bands like Trey Azagthoth (Morbid Angel) wrote us back saying very good things about our music. So we did a small underground tour in Europe where on one of the shows in Germany, guys from Gun Records saw us and decided to release our album. From that point things started to be a little better...

And what about your mini album "Unmerciful Order"? Is anyone going to re-release this - because to tell you the truth I haven’t heard that one yet and it’s pretty hard to get?

This one is really fucked up. It has really bad production. Some people really want to re-release this album but we don’t think it’s the right time to do it, maybe in the future... We don’t want to release it because the production is so bad, it has mistakes... That was our first mini album ever recorded and we did this in like 40 hours.

What is Krisiun for you? A band or way of life?

Of course it’s a way of life. I love to be part of this, to be part of this battle. We’ve been playing for more than 10 years and we’ve been sticking together and fighting together. Even during hard times we were always fighting for the real metal for the real extreme music. We are not here to weak out, or slow down. We are not going to give up. We’ll always keep playing as fast and brutal as we can cause we love to be part of this. It’s just like a battle in the name of the real metal music. For me it’s a life style. I’m living for honor, for something that I really love. I’m not searching for big money. If I can survive playing the music, buy some good equipment and drink some beers I’d be really really happy. Krisiun is really really important to all of us.

How much time do the three of you spend in a rehearsal room? Each one of you represents outstanding skills and knowledge of his instruments.

It depends. Before we went to the studio, this time to record "Ageless Venomous", we were playing 5 or 6 hours a day, every day. We use to practice every day even before we go on tour. Sometimes we practice 3 or 4 hours sometimes more it all depends on our moods. Sometimes we feel 2 or 3 hours is enough and sometimes 6 isn’t. We are very concerned about practicing. I think it is one of the most important things for the band if not the most important to practice a lot. If you stop playing for a few days you are going to start feeling rusty and to play this music you have to be in great shape.

Tell me how difficult or how easy is to work with brothers?

This is crazy. Sometimes it gets really difficult. We’ve been together as a band for over 10 years, we even share this same apartment, of course each one of has have a separate room but sometimes shit happens. I think it’s very important that we grow up spiritually, we respect each other and we respect the others’ defects. It’s just like the school of life. I have learned so much during all those years and now I think we reached more maturity, we are more mature and nowadays we respect each other. Sometimes we have some disagreements but we never get into real fight cause that would be really tough, especially for me because I’m the smallest [laughs].

It seems like Century Media is doing everything they can to promote you as much as possible. Are you happy with your current label?

We are very happy. I think this is first time that we have someone really supporting the band. Since we signed to Century Media we feel like finally someone is doing something for us. They are very professional people, they really respect us as individuals and as a band. Every time we record a new album, guys come over and say "congratulations, you guys play great music". They really respect our music they never come to us and say "guys, play something more commercial, slower" it never happened. We have the freedom to play whatever we want to play. They are very nice people as well, every time we go to the German, US or Brazil office they treat us very well. Sometimes we do barbecues together and we always have a great time. I think it’s very important to have cool people working with the band and not just as professionals but as friends.

What are the tour plans to support "Ageless Venomous"?

In the beginning of August we are going to Europe where we are going to play Wacken Metal Fest. in Germany. After this show we go to US with Immolation during the one we play at Milwaukee Metal Fest. In September we are going to be back here in Brazil and maybe play some shows in South America but that’s not sure yet. We also might play in Japan in October but that’s not sure yet also but November and December are going to be very busy. At the beginning of November we start touring in Poland, our first time there, it’s a headlining tour for Krisiun. After that tour we are going to play with Cannibal Corpse and Kreator around Europe in countries like England, Ireland, Greece, places we never played before so we are very excited about this. After this tour we are going to start Christmas Fest, which happens in Europe every year with bands like Kreator, Cannibal Corpse, Marduk, Dark Funeral, Vomitory and more.

I guess it’s time to end our conversation. My best Krisiunian regards to you and the rest of the band and I’ll see you in Milwaukee Fest. Any closing comments?

Thank you very much for a chance to spread our message and I’d like to tell people, real diehards that we are not going to give up, we’re gonna play fucking fast and brutal music forever and a big fuck off to all whimps and losers, which infected the metal scene.