{"id":22274,"date":"2014-10-28T00:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T00:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=22274"},"modified":"2014-11-08T21:14:49","modified_gmt":"2014-11-08T21:14:49","slug":"feature-vesania-10-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-vesania-10-14\/","title":{"rendered":"VESANIA – A Polish Triumph (October 2014) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

VESANIA – A Polish Triumph<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nOctober 2014<\/span><\/p>\n

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Vesania (l-r): Marcin \u2018Valeo\u2019 Walenczykowski, Dariusz \u2018Daray\u2019 Brzozowski, Tomasz \u2018Orion\u2019 Wr\u00f3blewski, Krzysztof \u2018Siegmar\u2019 Olo\u015b and Filip \u2018Heinrich\u2019 Ha\u0142ucha<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\nFollowing the issue of November 2007 studio full-length Distractive Killusions<\/em> and resultant touring commitments, Polish symphonic black metal band Vesania embarked upon a lengthy hiatus \u2013 the hiatus in question caused by unhappiness among all concerned at the time. Fourth studio affair Deus Ex Machina<\/em> didn\u2019t arrive until almost seven years later in October 2014, activity within the Vesania camp resuming during 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did some touring for Distractive Killusions<\/em>, but all the tours that we did back then were somehow unlucky for us,\u201d remembers Tomasz \u2018Orion\u2019 Wr\u00f3blewski, vocalist and guitarist for Vesania. \u201cWe had to cancel half of a European tour and go back home, which just made us unhappy enough to put the band aside for some time \u2013 we had like a four-year break. Then we started writing, and the way we were writing is each of us writing and recording the ideas \u2013 constantly actually, all the time. Whenever we decide we have enough material to start working with, we do it. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always me and Daray (Dariusz Brzozowski) the drummer taking all of the ideas first, and making them into song structures. It usually takes about a month or two of rehearsing, between the two of us only. We then record demos and show them to all of the other band members, and start arranging songs. It\u2019s a long process, because the music is multi-layered and kind of complex \u2013 at least that\u2019s how I see it. It took us a long time to write this album and to record it, but we\u2019re really happy with the results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although cancelling half of a European caused unhappiness within the Vesania camp, the assortment\u2019s resurfacing was inevitable. \u201cVesania is like our child, because that\u2019s the band we started with,\u201d the frontman notes. \u201cAlso, most of us \u2013 me, Daray, and Heinrich (Filip Ha\u0142ucha) the bass player \u2013 we\u2019ve known each other… Oh, that\u2019s gonna sound a little scary… For almost 30 years, because we got to know each other back then when we were kids. We started the band when we were 17, and actually from Vesania, we joined all of the other bands that we\u2019re in today, or used to be. It\u2019s like our child, and you can never truly abandon your child. You can have a quarrel with them; sometimes you don\u2019t talk to your kid for some time, but then you just get back together. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe put the band aside for several years, because we had other commitments. During this time, there were a lot of other things happening in our private lives, but we just felt this need come back again. We started speaking about new things, and we were all very enthusiastic. When you see this sort of fire in guys, and you see that everyone wants this idea to be back, you just do it. We felt that this was the time for it, and here it is. The new album\u2019s out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many metal fanatics are arguably aware of Vesania\u2019s existence through Tomasz\u2019 association with Behemoth, for whom he occupies the bass position. \u201cWell yeah, probably,\u201d he concedes. \u201cThere are a lot of people who know Vesania through Behemoth, and that\u2019s understandable. Still there are a lot of people who treat Vesania as my side project or something, and that\u2019s understandable as well. That\u2019s people\u2019s perspective. Behemoth is the bigger band; that\u2019s their way of seeing things, and I do really argue with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In light of Vesania\u2019s seven-year absence, Deus Ex Machina<\/em> could potentially serve as an introduction to the group for Behemoth fans \u2013 particularly fans Behemoth have garnered in recent years. \u201cPerhaps you\u2019re right,\u201d the singer responds. \u201cI\u2019m in both bands, and I don\u2019t really pay that much attention to how things work. If there\u2019s anyone getting to know Vesania through this or that, I\u2019m happy to see there being fans of this band. Behemoth is a way for them to find out about Vesania, but it\u2019s a good thing as well. It\u2019s all my life, and I\u2019m a part of both things.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the man referenced earlier, Tomasz is keen to discard the label \u2018project\u2019 for Vesania. \u201cThis is the band that I started with; it\u2019s always been very precious to me,\u201d he explains. \u201cWhatever I do with this band is the vision of mine and my bandmates, and it has never really been influenced by any other band that we\u2019re in. We started with being heavily influenced by the Norwegian black metal scene from the 90s. That made me who I am today and made me do what I\u2019m doing for a lifetime, but today, we\u2019re just living in the times where everything is attacking you from everywhere. We\u2019ve got to that. We have social media, tons of everything coming from all around us. There are thousands of bands, just so many different factors that influence you either this way or that way. It\u2019s really hard to pick the particular names of things that are a stronger influence than the others. If I think about it today, I\u2019ll just say that we\u2019re influenced by anything that makes us think or act. I wouldn\u2019t name any particular things.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt first you could easily hear that we were playing symphonic black metal, and this just stayed with us for a long time. Now though, we\u2019re trying to take this music to a little different level and make it way more theatrical and just different. We\u2019ve taken a step sideways from the genre, because there hasn\u2019t been really much interesting happening within the symphonic black metal genre recently. I guess, at least that\u2019s how I see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

What constitutes black metal is often debated within the metal community. \u201cThat\u2019s a very hard question, and there\u2019ve been disputes and conversations about it for years,\u201d the axeman ponders. \u201cI don\u2019t really like to take any kind of position, other than saying this is what made me who I am at the moment. I knew what it was back then when I was a teenager and I understood what it was all about, looking through the eyes of someone who was under 20 years old back then. Today, if you\u2019re looking at black metal, you have several kinds of bands. Some of them go more true and show this religious part which black metal has always been about, while some of them take it to some sort of entertainment level and have not too much to do with the origins. I don\u2019t really wanna stand on either one side or another. As I said before, black metal for me is what made me do what I\u2019m doing today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although black metal is a primary influence, other genre elements surface within Vesania\u2019s material. \u201cI\u2019ve worked with music for 15 years, at least,\u201d Tomasz cites. \u201cI work with bands, I tour with bands, I record with bands, I work in the studio, I do music production. I just listen to all kinds of music \u2013 closing myself to metal or black metal exclusively would make no sense to me. I\u2019m trying to keep my head open to all of these other things as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Returning to the subject of Deus Ex Machina<\/em>, \u2018theatrical\u2019 is a term which continually resurfaces with respect to the platter. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely more theatrical, and it\u2019s definitely way more rocky sounding than before,\u201d the mainman contends. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to record another straightforward metal album; we didn\u2019t want to have kick-drums right in your face, and super-high gain guitars. We\u2019re growing older, and we\u2019re gaining just a different approach. There are different things that we wanna hear in the music, there are dynamics that we wanna have, and there\u2019s some air that we need within the tunes. Compared to the previous records, this one just comes from way more awareness of what\u2019s happening around us. We\u2019re getting more and more mature, and so we just hear things differently today. It\u2019s not about being strictly symphonic black metal now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certain quarters might equate the term \u2018theatrical\u2019 with movie soundtracks, but such comparisons might be inaccurate. \u201cThis is just not really the way I think about things,\u201d Tomasz submits. \u201cYou\u2019re seeing some motive, and it reminds you of something. Then you compare it to some other images you\u2019ve seen \u2013 a movie or something \u2013 but that\u2019s just not how things work here. Vesania has always been very theatrical, and has always been about us playing roles onstage. We\u2019ve had theatrical motives since the very beginning of the band. Now, we\u2019re just taking it a step farther. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve seen the photo shoots for this, but one of them was taken in a theatre onstage, and what you see in the photos is actually mostly what we do onstage during the live shows. A Vesania show today looks more like the theatre than a regular metal show. Each of us have been working with music and playing shows for ten to 15 years, separately and as a band as well. After so many years of banging your head onstage for one hour, it just doesn\u2019t make too much sense any more. We started to look for different solutions for it. We wanted to get people interested, and I just feel it\u2019s happening with what we\u2019re doing now. Again, to name direct influences I think is just impossible. These are just the ideas that we\u2019re coming up with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within the hard rock and metal realm, perhaps the best known theatrical live performer is Alice Cooper. \u201cYeah,\u201d the axe-slinger agrees. \u201cI\u2019ve seen probably way more than a thousand shows in my life, and I remember the outstanding ones \u2013 the interesting ones \u2013 and not the others. There are a lot of great live bands. One of the very best I\u2019ve ever seen is Rammstein, and I think I\u2019ve seen tons of Rammstein shows already. They\u2019re just amazing. On the other hand, I think what was very interesting for me was seeing Emperor do the In The Nightside Eclipse<\/em> (February 1994) anniversary tour this year during the summer. That was quite an experience for me; I had never expected to see this entire album played live again. Even if they weren\u2019t regular live and weren\u2019t as experienced as a live band, still seeing this was very interesting to me. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot of mainstream bands as well, and one of the most outstanding shows within the non-metal scene was the Muse show that I saw a few years ago. That was quite something. Production wise it costs a lot of money obviously, but it just gives you impression that you\u2019re not simply listening to the record played live. You\u2019re just watching the full show, which is outstanding and amazing. I wanna be doing something like that that is interesting to people, and not just repeat the same thing over and over.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Latin phrase, Deus Ex Machina<\/em>\u2019s title translates to \u2018god from the machine\u2019. \u201cThat\u2019s a term from ancient Greek tragedy,\u201d Tomasz augments. \u201cThe authors used this term for whenever they had no solution to the plots, to the things happening within the story. They would just send a god onstage to solve all of the problems. \u2018God from the machine\u2019 was literally because of the way they were doing it onstage during the play; they were just using some sort of machine, some kind of a crane to lower an actor onstage to play God, and that\u2019s why the term \u2018god fro the machine\u2019 came about. <\/p>\n

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Vesania (l-r): Tomasz \u2018Orion\u2019 Wr\u00f3blewski, Filip \u2018Heinrich\u2019 Ha\u0142ucha, Marcin \u2018Valeo\u2019
Walenczykowski, Krzysztof \u2018Siegmar\u2019 Olo\u015b and Dariusz \u2018Daray\u2019 Brzozowski<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\u201cLyrically, Vesania has always been about some sort of psychological or philosophical analysis, some sort of pocketbook of philosophy \u2013 mine or something. In this one, you can see the subject of the lyrics, the human being in a truly bad condition, hopeless and powerless. \u2018God from the machine\u2019 is more like calling for help with this, because he just needs an intervention \u2013 maybe divine, or whatever. That\u2019s mostly the theme for all of the songs, but there\u2019s nothing like one strong concept being developed in all of the songs. Each of them is concentrated on mostly one word and analysing it through the lyrics of the song, but it\u2019s not a concept album. Yeah, the title is calling for any kind of help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyrical responsibilities for Vesania solely fall onto the shoulders of the vocalist. \u201cThe lyrical part of Vesania is always on me \u2013 I do it myself,\u201d he shares. \u201cI consult things with my bandmates, but it\u2019s me writing everything, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authoring lyrics, Tomasz doesn\u2019t seek assistance with respect to perhaps better translating his words into English. \u201cI don\u2019t like that,\u201d he discloses. \u201cIt\u2019s like with recording clean vocals on albums; I\u2019m used to recording them with no autotuning, and the same goes for the language and the lyrics. Whenever I write something and I write it in English, I want it to stay this way. Even if my English is not the best at all, I never let anyone correct it. That\u2019s how I wrote it and that\u2019s how I want it to stay, even if it\u2019s not correct from a language point of view. Probably I do a lot of mistakes within the lyrics, but it is what it is. I don\u2019t care. It\u2019s just a different approach that we have with Behemoth, because with Behemoth everything gets corrected by a native speaker, but that isn\u2019t what we wanted with this band. With Vesania, I want to keep it as it was created. That\u2019s just my idea for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recording sessions concluded at Sound Division Studio in Warsaw, Poland, with Scott Hull undertaking mastering at Visceral Sound Studios in Bethesda, Maryland, United States. \u201cIt took us a long time,\u201d the guitarist observes. \u201cThe way we normally work is we enter the studio, recording drums, and then guitars and bass. Then we have a big break for all of the samples, rearranging and recording all of the keyboards, and recording all of the additional tracks. That takes a lot of time, because in the case of this band arranging is the most important part overall. We have breaks in the recording sessions, and these are sometimes quite long breaks. First of all we need time for things, but the other thing is that we wanna have an opportunity to keep some distance between what we\u2019re doing, and eventually come up with some other ideas to make things happen better. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe recording process was a month for drums, guitars, and bass, and then there was a four to five month break for all of the keyboards and samples. Then there was coming back to the studio for recording vocals and additional tracks, and then mixing it, which is also a long process in the case of this band (laughs). It\u2019s so multi-layered and so complex, so that takes another two to three weeks or something. The entire process of recording, mixing, and mastering took something close to a year, but still during this time, we were doing other things and we had other commitments with our other bands. That\u2019s why it was so extended.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomasz cut the majority of vocal parts on Deus Ex Machina<\/em>. \u201cI recorded 99% of the vocals, but there were some clean parts sung by our keyboard player, and there were some little things that our drummer Daray did in the vocals,\u201d he credits. \u201cWith the guitars, it\u2019s mostly me playing all of the rhythmic guitars, but the other guitarist is playing some of the riffs, and he\u2019s doing all of the solos. I\u2019m not a solo guitarist at all \u2013 I just can\u2019t do it \u2013 but he\u2019s typically a solo guitarist, and he\u2019s got great ideas about that. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt never really mattered to us who recorded what, as long as it\u2019s fulfilling the vision and it sounds as we want it to sound. It doesn\u2019t really matter who did each move on the record, so it was sometimes me recording some little bass parts if I had an idea for it, and it was sometimes our bass player recording some guitar parts on it. We\u2019re just sharing everything between each other in the band. That\u2019s how we did it, but most of the guitar parts and almost all of the vocals are my takes on the album.\u201d<\/p>\n

Providing vocal as well as guitar parts, a specific direction wasn\u2019t sought. \u201cIt\u2019s not like I\u2019m looking up to any particular thing, or an artist,\u201d the frontman cautions. \u201cI think we\u2019re mature enough to have our own vision and our way that we want to go that you can hear on the album, and that\u2019s exactly what we want to do. Our vision, we\u2019re still talking about it. The vision contains the lyrics for the album, the sound, the song structures, the arrangements \u2013 it\u2019s everything. Describing it all in a few minutes within an interview is rather impossible, because it took us months to talk about it. I wouldn\u2019t pick any particular name we looked up to here, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listening to Deus Ex Machina<\/em> itself would perhaps be best. \u201cThat\u2019s always the best thing they can do,\u201d Tomasz laughs.<\/p>\n

To co-ordinate Deus Ex Machina<\/em>\u2019s issue, Vesania inked an album contract with Metal Blade Records. \u201cI\u2019m truly happy about it, because it\u2019s one of the biggest record labels and has a long history,\u201d the singer enthuses. \u201cThey\u2019re just good people to work with. We actually know each other which makes things better, because it\u2019s always better to speak and work with real human beings as opposed to speaking through a computer only. Yeah, we\u2019re really happy about the contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

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At the time of writing, a music video to promote Deus Ex Machina<\/em>\u2019s release is hopeful. \u201cWe\u2019ve never had a music video, so that has always been a challenge for us,\u201d Tomasz admits. \u201cWe\u2019re currently talking about a screenplay for one of the songs, so probably we\u2019re gonna shoot it. I\u2019m not really sure if it\u2019s gonna happen this year, though \u2013 maybe in the beginning of next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2015 European tour for Vesania is firmly in the pipeline. \u201cNews should be online pretty soon about that,\u201d the axeman predicts. \u201cThat will be early spring next year, and we\u2019re also booking some summer festivals. The next thing for us is a US tour; hopefully that is gonna happen for us finally, because we\u2019ve never made it to North America. Yeah, that\u2019s pretty much it at the moment. We\u2019re just getting ready for the tours, and in the meantime doing all of the other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional musical endeavour Black River happens to be defunct. \u201cThe vocalist (Maciej Taff) is done with singing,\u201d Tomasz divulges. \u201cHe\u2019s not coming back to singing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vocalist Maciej Taff\u2019s retirement from handling microphone duties isn\u2019t the result of ongoing health issues however, as has been erroneously reported. \u201cHe went through some serious sickness, but he\u2019s okay now,\u201d the Vesania mainman reveals. \u201cHe\u2019s just not coming back to singing though, so I\u2019m not planning anything with that band. I don\u2019t really even have any time for it at the moment, because whenever I have a break from Behemoth I\u2019m busy with Vesania.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behemoth\u2019s immediate plans, meanwhile, are to continue touring in support of February 2014 studio record The Satanist<\/em>, the band\u2019s tenth. \u201cThis album has big potential,\u201d Tomasz reckons. \u201cWe\u2019re not planning to record another album in 2015 \u2013 we\u2019re just gonna do all the tours. We\u2019re leaving for South America within a week, and we\u2019re staying there for a few weeks. We\u2019re going to South Africa to play two shows there, we\u2019re going to England for a short tour, we\u2019re doing a BBC Radio 1 live show, and then we\u2019re coming back for a few shows in France, and that\u2019s it for 2014. Then, in 2015 we\u2019re doing a big tour with Cannibal Corpse. In the US, we\u2019re doing 70000 Tons Of Metal, then we\u2019re coming back for a European tour, and then we\u2019re doing some festivals. We have a lot of things planned, and we\u2019ll probably be shooting at least two more videos for The Satanist<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deus Ex Machina<\/em> was released on October 27th, 2014 in Europe and subsequently on the 28th in North America, all via Metal Blade Records.<\/p>\n

Interview published in October 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VESANIA – A Polish Triumph Anthony Morgan October 2014 Vesania (l-r): Marcin \u2018Valeo\u2019 Walenczykowski, Dariusz \u2018Daray\u2019 Brzozowski, Tomasz \u2018Orion\u2019 Wr\u00f3blewski, Krzysztof \u2018Siegmar\u2019 Olo\u015b and Filip \u2018Heinrich\u2019 Ha\u0142ucha Following the issue of November 2007 studio full-length Distractive Killusions and resultant touring commitments, Polish symphonic black metal band Vesania embarked upon a lengthy hiatus \u2013 the hiatus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1486],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-vesania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22274"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22292,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22274\/revisions\/22292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}