Deathstars
In A Cynical Twist

18.05.2009

Long before I went to see Swedish industrial gothic metallers Deathstars live, I got a sort of preconception that an interview with these people is a task that only an extreme reporter can cope with. All the materials on the band which I had previously read on the Internet (including an interview they did for our webzine two years ago) were made either in a mad rush or under some dubious circumstances. That is why I came to Club Tochka having no high hopes – if there is an interview, fine, if no, ok, what can you do.

As soon as I entered the club, the organizer delighted me with the news that there would be an interview, but only bassist Skinny was available. All other band members were said not to be in the mood for it, and only Skinny expressed “readiness to sacrifice”. However, he decided to speak to reporters while he was getting a tattoo right in the dressing room. To say that I was surprised is to say nothing. Nevertheless, I sat down in the corridor right outside the door to the dressing room and prepared myself for waiting.

However, as one of my favorite Depeche Mode songs goes, “Even the stars look brighter tonight / Nothing's impossible”, and my lucky star seemed to be especially bright that night. All of a sudden I saw Whiplasher going down in the corridor, and I managed to say “hello” on time – this was the starting point of our conversation.

Andreas (aka Whiplasher) left a very unusual impression on me. There seem to be two personalities in him: one rages wild onstage, sings in a bone-shivering baritone and cracks dirty jokes, and the other one speaks in a soft and quiet voice, keeps his eyes on his tattooed hands and only sometimes throws a sly look at the interlocutor, askew, as if secretly. And when he does so, he smiles in the way that leaves you no alternative but to smile back. These two personalities replace each other at an amazing speed, and watching Andreas change is very strange, but interesting.

Happy birthday to you, Andreas! As far as I know you had it yesterday…

Yes, thank you. (smiles)

So how was it? What about some interesting presents from your fans in St. Petersburg?

Oh yes, females were very friendly yesterday – it was nice. It was a perfect birthday, actually. First of all we were sightseeing, going around St. Petersburg, and then we had a good show. And on the train it was huge. I was singing karaoke with the manager of the train until six this morning. There was the staff of the train, me and Nightmare. We had a whole wagon for ourselves and with the staff of the train we were singing and dancing to Russian songs all together.

Can you sing Russian songs?

Oh no-no-no. (smiles) They helped me.

And what about Moscow? Have you seen anything here so far?

It’s the third time I’m here. I’ve been here for one week during the documentary about the oligarchs. So yeah, I’ve seen pretty much of Moscow, but not today. It’s one of the most beautiful cities: Stockholm, Paris and Moscow…

And tomorrow you are playing in Krasnodar. Why have you chosen this very city? There are lots of great places in Russia…

Well, we have a booking agency that books gigs for us. They just asked us: “Do you want to play this gig or not?” We said “yes”. Just that simple.

In your previous interviews you said that you like Russia and that you are quite into Russian culture – why? I mean, why is it attractive for you?

First of all it illustrates our music very well. And it’s also because I’m very fond of Russian writers.

Which ones?

Dostoevsky, Bulgakov and so on. They inspired me for writing my songs. Russia is a very dramatic country, and I think it’s a perfect, as they say, backdrop for our music. On this album (“Night Electric Night”, 2009) we have a song called “Chertograd”, which is about a night in St. Petersburg. I also wrote two more songs, which we didn’t put on the album. They were about a kind of experiences in Russia… And Russia also inspired our “Termination Bliss” album (2006) – all this military theme. We like Russian uniform… So Russia is… (pause) like a partner, so to speak… A partner for our music.

You haven’t said anything about Russian poetry. And it feels like your song “Chertograd” is somehow based on Zinaida Gippius, because it was she who called St. Petersburg this name…

Who?

Gippius.

Oh yeah! Last night someone told me a certain name, but I couldn’t understand it at first time… Actually, “Chertograd” was just a suitable name for a kind of experience I had that night in St. Petersburg, so it’s not about Rasputin or anything like that… It just illustrates the night I had in that devil-city that time.

Well, you said that your lyrics are very personal. Aren’t you afraid of showing your own feelings to the public?

No, it’s not that personal. I hate bands, which are really pathetic when it comes to being emotional. And what we do… What we have always done – it’s different. We have so much irony in our music and our performing. It’s just a rock band, you know. Of course, it’s a reflection of our experiences and emotions, but we do it all in such a cynical twist. We laugh at tragedies, because this band is surrounded with death and darkness and tragedies. I guess, it’s a kind of way to handle it, because it’s been so tough for us on a personal level. And we make an entertainment out of it.

And here comes the glamour…

Yes, because it’s paradoxal. It’s interesting to glamorize the darkness you have inside, because that’s the only kind of conflict that you grow from. You know, without no conflict there’s no progress. It doesn’t take you anywhere. When you are in a very good mood you just don’t question anything. But when you are really questioning yourself, you see, that there are lots of conflicts you have inside. So we glamorize it, because it makes you grow as a person. The conflict makes you stronger.

Your nicknames are an essential part of your images. And I believe that they suit you perfectly. Where did you get them from?

I guess, they reflect our personalities. Nightmare and I, we already had these names when we were 13 years old. So they have stuck. We formed a band and we wanted to be more than those boys going up on stage in T-shirts and jeans. We wanted to be like Kiss or Motley Crue, the bands we grew up with. So we wanted to have an insight in another world. It should be entertaining. So these nicknames are part of that.

Do you feel like you’re a “golden god” (the guys are nominated for this award in the UK – ed.)? Your success is getting bigger and bigger…

Yes, it’s getting bigger every day. We won this award two years ago, I guess, and now we are nominated again… But that prize is not very important. It’s nice for all the bands to be appreciated, but the prize is not that important…

(The opening band starts soundchecking behind the wall, and we can’t go on talking in the backstage corridor, so we have to move to the dressing room. There is the whole Deathstars personnel sitting, the tattoo-machine is buzzing and music is playing. Andreas turns off the radio and makes me sit on some kind of a box for equipment. He himself squats close to me. Now we can go on. )

Is it true that you have a studio in the USA?

No. (smiles) We just recorded our album there, in New York, but it’s not our studio.

So now you live in Sweden, don’t you?

Yea, all of us actually live in Sweden.

Well, that’s great. The thing I wanted to ask was that: is it difficult to do something with the band living in different places, far away from each other?

Yea, when we were recording this album, I was living in London, Emil (Nightmare) was living in New York and all the others were living in three different cities in Sweden, so it was practically and logistically hard to overdub. Partly, maybe that’s why it took us so long to record this album. Hopefully it will go easily in future, for now we all live in Sweden. But it looks like people are moving out… Well, we’ll see what happens.

But maybe it was also so difficult, because it’s you who writes the lyrics and it’s Nightmare who writes the music. So you have to be close to each other.

But it’s always been like that. I met Emil when I was 13 years old and we started our first band. We are like brothers. We are really-really best friends, since we were kids. So we don’t know any other way to do it.

Something like soul mates…

Yeah yeah! He knows how I’m going to write and I know… (pause, smiles) It’s like self understood somehow. We’ve been doing it for so long.

One of your songs was a soundtrack for an American film (“Synthetic Generation”, for “Alone in the dark”). What do you think about such usage of your songs?

I haven’t seen that movie, I just heard it was cracked… But I think that we make our music pretty visual, you know. It’s very big sounding. So it’s cinematic in that aspect. We should do more soundtracks, I think. It suits us.

Well, your own videos a pretty cool. You can visualize everything you want there…

Yes, we always have an idea how it should look like. So we tell the director or the production company, what we want to shoot. It’s a collaboration – it’s something we want to show, and the director just makes it.

(Someone from the Deathstars team opens the dressing room door and doesn’t close it. The opening band is so noisy, that Andreas and I stop hearing each other. And now something unbelievable happens: Andreas, who was almost whispering all this time, raises his voice to make his fellow close the door. I don’t know, how I can express this shocking contrast between the way Andreas was talking with me and the way he sounds now. And I have almost forgotten that I was speaking with the owner of such a fabulous voice… But the door was closed, and I had the same quiet and tired man back. )

Do you personally have any favorite films or directors?

Dario Argento is my favorite director. Actually, I interviewed him once, for a Swedish newspaper.

Why?

Because I was a journalist. (smiles) He is still my biggest idol. He and Tom Cruise – because he looks so gay…

Let’s return to the theme you being a journalist. Could you tell anything about it?

No, it doesn’t have anything to do with the band. (smiles) I don’t talk about it actually. But yes, for several years I was working on TV and writing for press, I was also working in the Middle East as a correspondent. But that’s another story.

Why did you stop doing it? I mean, you liked it, didn’t you?

Yes, of course. I still like it. But it’s very hard to combine music with that kind of job. I started to write for the biggest newspaper in Sweden when I was 17, so writing has always been a great part of my life, but I’ve chosen music.

Before this concert I read somewhere in the Internet, that you have something special for your Moscow fans…

Yeah, my penis. I’ve just washed it, so it’s clean and perfect for all the females.

By the way, lots of females are standing now in a queue, waiting for their turn to enter “Tochka”. Do you have anything to say to them?

Continue to masturbate to my pictures. (I couldn’t help looking embarrassed, so Andreas sees that he went too far.) I’m not serious, I’m always making fun out of things like that, but people take them seriously…

Oh yes, the same thing is with your performing. You act so… let’s say “gay” on stage…

Yes, because it irritates people who worship stereotypes. But it’s just a part of performance. And it’s so nice to irritate all these “metal groups”. I used to be one of those… So it’s making fun out of myself.

Why have you changed your views so much?

It was boring for us, because we were so limited. Metal is a kind of “men-music”. It’s like that: there are MEN and LADIES, and we are NOT ladies. All these swords and dragons, you know… It feels like they are 5 years old. We make a lot of fun out of that…

And we thought we wanted to use piano and more pop-elements and more pop-structures in our songs. It was much more challenging and worth doing it than continuing playing metal. But I love where we come from and I’m very proud of who I am… It was just much more interesting to do something new.

Ok, the last thing is about Cat Casino, because he’s the most irritating element for “metal groups”, I guess. What do you think when even fans say that he doesn’t fit Deathstars? It’s so strange, that I still see some people who think like that…

He fits perfectly. He is definitely a perfect member of the band. I don’t know, what people are saying. He is our little princess. (smiles and looks at Cat, who’s sitting at the table and chewing something)

Deathstars on the Internet: http://www.deathstars.net

Special thanks to Vera Dmitrieva (Spika Concert Agency) for arranging this interview

Ksenia Artamonova
May 3, 2009
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