April 12th, 2015 | E-mail interview by NINa | Submit for an interview | professional review | Read other Fabryka interviews

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NINa: NINa: There's a lot of symbolism in your 'Scary Dream' video: crawling in water, shape-shifting or the most mysterious scene of sleeping with a stone. How should we interpret these symbols? Where did you shoot these scenes? Finally, what was the biggest challenge about making this video?

Lucky Spook (guitar, programming, songwriting, production): We had thoughts about shooting video for quite some time and when Soltex and Sharaz told me about this wicked property they had found deep in the woods we went for it.
The place itself had wicked spooky vibe to it, it was like a set from Rob Zombie's movie. A barn with huge skulls and cages hanging from a ceiling, scarecrows and horror movie artifacts all over the place, in addition there was a stream and a lake close by. Dark vibe just hung out in the air- the place was perfect to shoot some creepy stuff. Soltex and Sharaz spent few hours checking out the place and they kind of wrote a plot on the spot. They mapped out some 10 night scenes and we shot these during one weekend.
The scene with a stone is definitely the best one, stone speaking out in a dark cave, a nod to Pink Floyd - the band that turned me into music in - "Atom heart mother - Mars is my brother"!
The biggest challenge while shooting was to haul back and forth all of the equipment: power generator, lights, hundreds of meters of cables at night - it was a task, I must say. I don’t remember myself being more exhausted after these two nights in the forest. And it turned out we had not shot enough scenes, basically we did what we could with resources we had, it was DIY project after all.

NINa: You've been working on your new album - Visions Of Blinded World Pt. 2. Is it going to sound either similar to or different from VOBW Pt. 1 released in 2013 in terms of composition, mood, subject matter for the lyrics, and the overall 'spooky' approach?

We aim to have part 2 of the Visions Of The Blinded World sounding quite similar to the first one. Right from the start it should have been a double album, because most of the songs were written at the same time years ago, have the same vibe lyrically and soundwise. Thing is, to have it all done in one go when we have some songs with nearly 200 tracks to mix, it’s a challenge. That kind of production takes months and then there is financial factor to it too. We book professional studio with sound engineer to achieve best sound we can get, so if we stretch the process of mixing we sort of manage it, otherwise we would go broke pretty quick.
We will redo/complete couple of songs from the first album - “Dead Shot Baby”, for instance, the track is just 2 minutes long, we literally run out of time mixing it first time, few fixes to Games Of Delusion, couple of minor tweaks here and there on 2-3 other songs as well. And then there will be 10 new tracks. Couple of tracks bearing Scary Dream, or should I say, The Prodigy vibe, one new collab song with a wicked female vocalist from US, I have already got vocal takes from her, so we will start building up a song around these when we go to studio next time.
Good thing is, we don’t have any pressure from outside as for terms and deadlines, so there won't be any compromise to quality, we are only interested in solid production, whatever time, effort and resources it will take. So it will be a double album in the end, The Wall of the twenty first century, ha, ha. Label or not, we will print it on limited edition vinyl and CD digipack.

NINa: Your collaboration with Kissing in Graveyards resulted in releasing the song "Underworld". Rylan Chaos' 'tortured soul'-like style of singing fits your own 'all things scary' very well. The other collaborative, recently released song called "Mindgame" came out after working together with XRC. Both are free to download from your website. How did you get to work together? Have you cooperated online or offline? Are you going to place those two tracks on any of your future releases?

We are very happy with the results of our collaborations. I think both of the tracks turned out as decent songs representing both sides involved in a really good way. Both of the tracks we did online sending material back and forth. We got in touch with both XRC and Kissing in Graveyards through the Soundcloud. I use to spend some time on The Cloud checking out bands and artists, it's all about the music there, whereas on Facebook you have all shit imaginable which eats up your time pretty quick.
I wrote "Mindgame" over backing track of drums, bass and few other sounds XRC had send me. We will polish it a little more, again, we had not enough studio time to mix it 100 percent, some minor sound tweaks and most likely it will be included on the Visions album.
As for "Underworld" - collab with Kissing In Graveyards, it turned out having some controversial vibe lyrically. I don’t recall who spotted whom first on the Soundcloud, but after checking KIG's channel, their Little Psycho and Spawn Of Chaos albums, I was impressed. Great production and Rylan Chaos' vocals especially - wicked and entertaining production. So I asked them if they would like to do a track together, and when they said yes, I had send some basic song structure - riffs and stuff to check out. Vocal takes from Rylan came pretty quick - they sounded great and it looked like we can build a solid track. I struggled for some time to write lyrics that would follow Rylan's verses, though. I was getting frustrated with myself for not getting it, so to speak.
That’s where chorus phrase came from ha, ha: "To hell with it all - blow up the underworld"! As soon as I got this phrase and melody for the chorus I knew we going to be fine. Rest of the lyrics came easy. We are not planning to include "Underworld" on any release, but might try it out live.

NINa: You've got a new band member (Seba) and it also seems you're about to play some shows. What countries would you like to perform in aside from Norway and the UK where you live and work?

Seba joined us late last year and we had couple of rehearsal sessions together. At this stage we are running some playback - we want some sounds featured on album songs on our live set as well, so Seba is taking care of this and playing some guitar on the set as well.
We are at the stage of setting it all up, acquiring equipment, investing and finding out how we can get live sound we are after. We want both - electronica and rock/metal to be present on our live set, hints of classical and tribal stuff as well. The Prodigy, The Young Gods, Rob Zombie, Skinny Puppy, Shpongle, Pink Floyd - we want it all, whole circus, ha, ha. It is more of a challenge technically, we know what we play, but to hook all of it together, get it synchronized, both live drums and programmed stuff, it takes time. We will have our live circus ready to go by the end of the year, hopefully.
Well, it looks like UK and rest of Europe are places to perform. I am not so sure about Norway, though. Metal scene is OK here, but otherwise there is not much for us, it is very expensive here too. First things first, we need to put solid live act together and then we will figure out where we will go with it.

NINa: How do you prepare for the recording of an album and then for going on a tour? What makes you most relaxed before recording sessions and shows - meditating, drinking, calling friends or perhaps rewatching a favorite horror movie?

I can't say that I have any special recipe for relaxation. I use to play guitar everyday, this is important for me and besides it is sort of meditation in itself. Otherwise, I use to check YouTube quite a lot, both my favorite bands and new ones, guitar gear demos, music related stuff mostly. Books I like a lot too, I find them more interesting than movies. Hanging out with my buddies or guys from the band is a lot of fun too, no doubt about that. I am pretty much looking forward to the next studio sessions next week, Soltex is tracking vocals and we will start mixing material for the second part of Visions Of The Blinded World. It's going to be a lot of fun and some hard work at the same time, damn it, I can't wait to get to the studio!




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Pictures come from Spookshow inc.'s archive, all copyrights reserved by their respective owners. Questions proofreading: Mike 'Vesper' Dziewoński.