Bruno Kovařík (Krabathor, Hypnos)

⚙️ ENGLISH SUBTITLES ARE OPTIONAL TO ACTIVATE

🏆 Nesestříhaná epizoda je k dispozici na https://herohero.co/furyupyourass a na https://www.patreon.com/furyupyourass
🏆 The unedited episode is available at https://herohero.co/furyupyourass and on https://www.patreon.com/furyupyourass

Čtvrý díl nejšpinavějšího podcastu je tu!
Fury Up Your Ass přináší v dalším dílu rozhovor s Brunem Kovaříkem z kapel HYPNOS a KRABATHOR!
Jaké jsou jeho aktuální politické postoje? Co pro něj znamená pozvání k hraní na Ukrajinu? A dočkáme se dotisku jeho knihy?
To a mnohem víc se dozvíte v této epizodě!

The fourth episode of the dirtiest podcast is here! Fury Up Your Ass brings in the next episode an interview with Bruno Kovarik from HYPNOS and KRABATHOR bands!
What are his current political positions? What does the invitation to play in Ukraine mean to him? And will we see a reprint of his book?
Find out that and much more in this episode!

🎧 Podcast je k dispozici k poslechu také na Spotify a Apple Music
👍 Follow Fury Up Your Ass! : https://linktr.ee/furyupyourass
🧌 Fury Production website: furyprod.com
📣 Special thanks goes to Metal Bar ERROR and Bruno Kovarik.

#furyupyourass #krabathor #hypnos

It was one drum kick , but we wanted two drum kicks. So we had to buy a second drum kick. We bought a wooden drum kick. And we couldn’t find a cover for it. So we bought a bigger drum kick. And we drilled holes in it with a chisel. Exactly in the place where the screws were. So that we could screw the drum kick to the kickstand over the hoop. So the kickstand on the upper side extended the kickstand by about 10 cm. But we just had two kickstands. We had two drum kicks. And that was something. I claim, and I will claim to death, that the communists, for what they did to our nation after the 41 years they were in power, have no moral right to interfere in public life. They have no right to participate in elections. They have no right to talk to us about it. They can just keep their mouths shut and be glad that we left them alone. That we didn’t hang them the way they hung other people. I ran after him and said, what’s going on? Dude, I’m calling Pegas. I’m calling Pegas. Fuck, no, no. No, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. No. Hello, today I have Bruno from Krabathor and Hypnos here. Today we will talk about Krabathor. We will also talk a bit about the book that Bruno wrote. And we will see where we end up. We will continue somewhere else. Hi Bruno, welcome here. And thank you for coming. Hello, hello everyone. Where’s the camera? Camera… You put it here. Cheers. Cheers. I would like to start with the book. It was published in 2014. You wrote it in 2012. I started in 2012. I wrote it about two years ago. So it’s been 12 years already. Yes. It’s sold out. I had to borrow it to study this interview. How fast did it sell out? The first volume was sold out in three months. It was published for Brutal Assault. The volume was, I guess, 800 copies. It was 800 copies. With 666 going on sale. And the rest, some went to me, some to Promo, some as gifts and so on. And then, after four years, there was a reissue, which wasn’t planned. Mystic was against it because they said that it would be a limited edition. So it wouldn’t be fair to force the buyers to buy the first edition. But the demand was so big that they finally succumbed to the pressure and the reissue… There were 500 copies in the reissue and it was on sale for two or three years. And why was the first edition released as a limited edition? Because no one could guess what it would be like. And the book is relatively financially expensive. It’s not like a CD, which you get for a low price. The book is really worth something. And the Polish Mystic, which is the parent company of the Czech Mystic, had to give up some money. So the Czech Mystic had to postpone the project and reason why they wanted to do it. Some profitability. And the Polish Mystic approved it, but with a reasonable price. I lobbied for 1,000 copies. Mystic wanted 666. So in the end, we made a compromise that the price was 800 copies with the 666 going on sale. But in the end, the interest was bigger than expected. The company was satisfied. They paid the costs. So I think that the Polish Mystic eventually evaluated that it was a reasonable choice thanks to the reissue. So they are satisfied. Great. I read the book and I said to myself that I should study it for today. It’s absolutely great. It was… I didn’t know a lot about Krabathor. You were younger so you couldn’t experience it when it was relevant. But the fact that Krabathor started in 1984, when there was no death metal yet, was something that shocked me. We’ll talk about that later. How do you look at the book and how satisfied are you with it? Yes, a lot. I remembered it more than I do today. So I wrote it with the intention that I wanted to capture the historical facts so that they would help me in the future. So that today, when I don’t know what exactly happened, I can look at the book and I know it. And I really enjoyed writing it. I don’t even know what the original impulse was to write a book. But I know that when it started to come to my mind and I started to remember the boards that I listened to when we were young and the experiences that we went through, the players we played with, the instruments, the equipment we played with. And it struck me that I really started to make an archive of photos of old materials. I started to put them together and sort them by year. And when I started to write it, I remember that the first night I poured red wine, sat in bed, lit a lamp and played the old boards that I didn’t listen to for 20-30 years. You can find everything on YouTube today. And I tried to get into the mood and recall the memories. And I was helped a lot by the concert records that I had historically stored somewhere. Because when I saw that we played here and there, I was able to get into the mood. Sometimes I even say that I sometimes remember what T-shirt I wore at the concert 30 years ago. Some of those memories are stuck in my head and it’s just unbelievable. But I have to say that this weekend we went with a guy who was selling us and who played with us in the 90s. He was a sound engineer and a technician. Yesterday and today we went to buy things that he remembers. When we were in Russia or Belarus, I said to him that I don’t remember it. But he remembers it well because he didn’t go there so often. And his memories stuck in his head more. It would be interesting to write a book where you would have views from different sides but you covered it all by yourself. And it’s obvious that you enjoyed it. It’s really great. I highly recommend it. I think that today I wouldn’t look for the time and the taste. I lived alone and I had more time for it. Hypnos didn’t travel as much as he does today. So it went really well. Great. Are you planning a press conference? I don’t know if I should say it but when I turn 20 I have another meeting today and I have a meeting about the press conference. So I won’t specify it but I believe that it will turn out well. If it turns out well in a reasonable time horizon we could expect a press conference at the beginning of next year. Because people are still asking. And the subject of the meeting will be an English version. Great. I wanted to ask about it and I think it will turn out well. And one more thing that should be connected is that I have a six or seven year long audio book and I would like to finish it this year. And it would be a three part book. Will you do it by yourself? Partially. I will do the first person by myself. And what are the reviews or comments of other people I already have it done. I was asked to do it by actors from the Slovak theatre and one moderator from the radio. Great. I am really happy about e-book. I wrote to you before I borrowed this book from Dana and I was looking for an e -book because I admit that I don’t read much and I rather listen to books. And finally I am glad that I have this book because I don’t know how to absorb all the information from the e-book. Because I needed to go back a thousand times and the e-book is very impractical when you need to go back. You know what? We thought about it but the idea was that when the e-book will be available on the internet it will expand so much that the sale of the physical e-book will be in danger. And the physical e-book can be a gift, a relic or a collector’s item. I wrote it in the introduction. You take the book to the bathroom, to the toilet, to the bed, to the train. It goes with you. It is your friend. The e-book looks the same, the face is still the same but it depends on what you put on it. And it is less personal for me. Maybe it is because I am old school. I grew up on a typewriter and on a cassette player. We are talking about the e-book as a spoken word. Yes, I thought that you meant an e-book. A spoken word? Yes, an audio book. I said it wrong. It should be an audio book. I have been working on it for several years and I hope to finish it this year. Great. I wanted to say something about the book. We have a group where we do concerts and only one of us has the book. It is a gift. The book is first read by Vojta, the guitarist. He talked about it during the rehearsals. He said it was great. Thank you. I am glad that you are a younger generation. I understand that people who were with me at the same time experience the same things. Nostalgia, reminiscence, etc. I am glad that you are a younger generation. You were at the origin of everything. I was lucky. I met the wave and Petr Krištof. Everything worked out great for us. Do you take it as luck or are you glad you were there? Yes. A lot of things had to be difficult. Let’s get to the point. Things were crazy during commies. It is unimaginable for me now. You wouldn’t change. No. I know the regime. I am a big opponent of communism and everything related to the Red Colour, the hammer and sickle. But I think at that time metal was a worldwide thing. I think Germans, Americans, Russians, Czechs experienced it the same way. It was about music as such. The problem arose when you wanted to play in public. It didn’t work out for us. We had to check and approve the lyrics. There were two versions of the lyrics. One was approved. You had to have rehearsals. There were a lot of obstructions. It is unbelievable. Yes. When we got the rehearsals, which allowed us to play in public, I went to the war. The rehearsals were taken away from us after the war. I don’t know how it was. I wasn’t there. But I wanted to say that there were bands that experienced persecution from the regime much more. Maybe Arakain, Törr, Fata Morgana. These are bands that could talk about it much more than I do. OK. Another thing I want to mention is that on the 17th of February, which I don’t know if we will be able to know until then, you go to Kyiv by yourself. You go there to play things by Hypnos and Krabathor with people from Fleshgore. I want to ask you to please the local fans in this time of war. How did you come up with this idea? It is amazing. You have a lot of respect from me. Could you tell us something about it? You know what? I don’t want Hypnos and from me to make a political difference. We all have a political opinion. But I didn’t feel the need to present it to the public. It is everyone’s private opinion. It is their choice. But I have to admit that for the last 10 years I have been personally occupied by the topic of wars. When there was the Islamic State, it took care of it. It was spreading. I took care of it a lot. I watched it every day. In 2020 there was a demonstration in Belarus. It wanted to change the political regime. I took care of it a lot. I have to admit that I underestimated the situation in Ukraine. I saw the Crimean invasion 10 years ago. But it was over The regime quickly democratized itself. I told myself that if it stays like this it will be the best. But unfortunately, not only for me but for a lot of other people February two years ago was a big awakening because the Russian regime didn’t let itself fall asleep. It did what it did. Two years ago I was forced to actively join it. I know that people traveled abroad. They carried humanitarian aid. They joined actively. But it didn’t happen to me. I was sorry about it. The first wave was noisy. The situation stabilized. Those who wanted to leave, left. The war was located in the east of Ukraine. I limited myself to the fact that I am in frequent contact with my friends in Ukraine. Unfortunately, I am no longer in contact with my friends in Russia because I am afraid that I would hurt them if they said something inappropriate. I also think that the availability of social networks in Russia is very small now. I limited myself to sending some money to an account. When we wrote with Igor Sfleshgor during the winter he asked me to play in Ukraine. My first thought was that there is a war and it is not possible to order a ticket and play 2000 km to Kiev. I hesitated a bit. But then it occurred to me. I started to think about it. And then it didn’t occur to me. But unfortunately there arose technical or objective obstacles that do not allow us to go there as a band. So I was sorry but Igor suggested that I go there to make a speech. That I would come alone. Because I have already made a speech in the Czech Republic a few times. I sent some documents. I talked to people about Krabathor, about hypnosis. They asked me a lot of questions. It was fine. So I told myself that I would repeat it there. They were for it. So they started to organize it. And in two weeks he wrote to me what if I play there. I said that we will learn it and we will make a band and we will play there. So I made a setlist. The guys are rehearsing. I will come there two days earlier. One day we will rehearse and the other day there will be a concert. With a speech and a meeting with fans. I am looking forward to it. I have to say that lately it is one of the things I am looking forward to the most. It seems to me like a symbolic gesture to some people. Because it is hard for us to feel comfortable here. Last week Igor sent me a photo of how he sleeps. He has his feet behind the door on the corridor. So he does not burn the window. When my colleague asked me last week if I am not afraid when I have a small child and a family. I said that I am not afraid. There are millions of people living there. And they also have children. And they should not be afraid. What is it if I put my child to sleep and I know that he will wake up in the morning and I will take him to school. But their child does not have to be lucky. Why not? What are they worse than me? If I look at it from a human perspective I say that this is out of politics. It is not about right or left or who will win. It is about life. It is about humanity. It is about who is a good person and who is a pig. There is no other way to say it. I totally agree. Do you want to add something? I do not need to medialize it. I do not want to make a joke that I am going to Ukraine. I like to go there. I want to go there with my friends. And I hope that it will be a positive response. Although my opinions are more or less known. A week or 14 days after the last invasion two years ago I made a short video with the Ukrainian embassy. And of course during that time I get in touch with people who do not think this way. They have a different opinion. They give me the information in a very unselectable way. Sorry to interrupt you. Do they give you a notice that they do not agree that you should go there? No, no, no. Only on the other side. I will tell you one thing. For example I made a donation on Facebook. My daughter had a plush toy that she lost. And she could not find it. So we took it over Facebook. So I made a donation. My daughter lost a plush toy and we are looking for a plush toy. And I had two comments about how I am a Ukrainian salesman. First of all, it has nothing to do with the donation. Second, if you have an opinion and you want to share it, write it politely. We can discuss it. But this is something I do not want to discuss. It is a waste of time for me. I have an opinion. If someone else has it, let him present it somewhere else. But I have no reason to respond to what I think. I have a right to think and do this. I do not force anyone to think and do this. It is a voluntary thing. But I have to say that when I published my trip to Ukraine, I counted on negative reactions. Although it would not discourage me, it would not do you any good. It would somehow make you lose your mind about what to say and what not to say. But I was surprised that 100% of the reactions to the donation, whether comments or likes, were positive. There was not a single negative reaction. A few people even called me because of that. They expressed their support. Yesterday we played the first concert of the event. There were probably 10 people behind me. All of them were positive. And it makes me very happy that I will not go there alone. And that I know I can present my opinion as a group of people. That there are more people who think what I think. And that the judgment of those people is not hostile. 100%. As I said, the vast majority of Czechs are not complete morons. And of course the people who support Russia are here. They are probably more visible than they should be. But I remember when the war started in 2014. But most people think that it started in 2022. I remember that it was a big shock Because since the end of the Second World War there has not been such a big conflict. It is really a terrible wave. Now, of course, a lot of dead people, frozen, families torn apart. And I know that there was a big demonstration for the support of Ukraine. And I know that it was connected with some charity. And what emerged was an unprecedented amount of money. They compared it to maybe when there was a tornado in South Moravia a few years ago, that it was getting closer. But that the Czechs really are not such a bunch. And that they really have the social and empathetic feeling that when it gets tough you can support the right thing. And this was a proof for me. And I know that when this happened when I saw the photos from Václav with the Ukrainian flags I sent them to my friends in Ukraine and they were moved. So I do not hesitate when I see a positive message about them, I say I do not need to publicize it or medialize it but I sometimes send it to them to let them know that they are not alone. That there are states and people who think about them and they do not care. I agree with you when it comes to I started to be we were talking about it with Frank I started to be a bit allergic to casting and politics in music. It started to bother me anyway when it comes to the question of war the question of war so of course I think that not that it belongs but I do not mind when a musician expresses himself it is ok. Last year we were doing a Finnish Demilich here in Prague and during the concert Antti said something to Putin and I was happy about it but I say I am happy about it when it is short we stand on this side and it is ok. We made a T-shirt with Putin’s head and we gave all the merch with 100% profit to support Ukraine I do not know which organization we sent it to and we got 40 000 so it was good. We were also selling merch to Ukrainian embassy twice and there were a lot of people who bought the merch it was less than 10 000 but it was a lot of actions for example drones or humanitarian actions I know that some people were allergic and that they see yellow-blue color and it is like a red-hot dog for them but I know that when they were attacking their infrastructure and there was no heating they were attacking aggregates, drives, generators, etc. but I am not only supporting Ukraine I am also supporting humanitarian actions for example the sick Martin we raised 100 000 for a week it was unbelievable three years ago there was a tragic accident a car hit a mother with two children one child died we also supported and I don’t know a person has some feelings and if you can live in the skin of other people it shouldn’t matter I have to say one more thing I really liked when I mentioned Martin he has a very hard curable disease and he needed a lot of money to go to the US and he didn’t have much time and we talked about it with my wife and in two or three days I contributed to the account and in the next two days I told my wife that I sent her some money because we sometimes talk about money and what to buy and I told her and she told me that I sent her money so what can I say great it seems to me that this is the behavior of the punk community in which I have been moving for a long time where there is a lot of solidarity so I just wanted to mention it I think it’s great let’s move to Krabathor so we have 1984 Czechoslovakia communism new wave of british heavy metal was at the top death metal didn’t exist yet you met Christoph at the workshop where you registered that Christoph has a band and plays metal how many people at the workshop were metalheads at that time? hmm there were over 30 of us I think there were 3 or 4 in the class? that’s quite a lot I went to the workshop too and I registered 3 in the whole school really? but I know that it is said that it was half and half half of the students half of the metalheads maybe there were more metalheads at the workshop I know that Christoph went to the workshop and there were more metalheads but I would say I was the metalhead who solved it the most and had the biggest overview the others were more superficial they listened to each other but they didn’t follow the records they didn’t know which band came out when they weren’t as thorough as I was. You actually got into the band the band was called Monster before you joined there was Havran, Christoph Christoph and Mishak you joined them to see if they have a singer and if you would like to sing now you sing and at that time you couldn’t sing but you know what they were a band Christoph had an electric guitar his mom bought him Mishak had a made amp it was just turned on and off so there was no volume and he had two old drums they didn’t play anymore and drummer had a rented bicycle which Christoph and his mom like a cultural commission arranged a rent and the bass player had nothing he was a bass player but he didn’t have a bass but he was a bass player he didn’t go to rehearsals and when I went to them I went more often than the bass player even though I didn’t have anything to play but I really enjoyed being with them chatting with them and then we went for a beer and it fascinated me that electric guitar I’ve never seen it in my life those real bicycles so close it made a big impression on me and I wanted to work with them so I started saving money I remember when I was in high school in the second and third year I was on the band for almost two months just to get some money for some equipment so I know that the first holidays I spent on the guitar and the second holidays I spent on the amplifier and the bass bad quality of course but I had it and I was happy I didn’t have any holidays but I was happy and then it started to think automatically that we are a band how old were you? I was 15 and we are the same age and the other two were younger so they were 14 -13 but I know that Christopher said that when he put the boys together he was 14 I wasn’t there so I don’t know but when we were 15 we met and they already had a rehearsal and they already had the drums and they played like before and the other kids had some pots and they played on the radio those were the beginnings but we were kids so it belongs to it I think that it is important that it continued and that it was successful and that it made sense for us and for the people who listened to us 100% when I listen to you we have another common thing when I was 16 I went to the brigade to buy my first combo Behringer it sucked I let it dry on the rehearsal now I have a great device I wanted to ask you about the device and the instrument what I saw on the photos I don’t know if humbuckers but you had singles on those Iris there were two singles and on the combo there was one single that’s how the guitar was bought we didn’t have money to build a guitar and I don’t know if anyone made a guitar at that time so when we were 17 I know that we made humbuckers from the Iris by cutting the edges and we glued the humbuckers on the sides so it was an Iris with humbuckers and maybe the head was cut so it didn’t look like Jolana I admit that we fought with those instruments after the revolution after the revolution we started to buy Ibanez and we could buy Marshall Cabernet but it costed a lot of money when I bought my first great bass I know that it costed more than 17 000 CZK and the fee was 3 500 CZK and I wouldn’t pay 5 CZK for a guitar so if you recalculate and we gave the money You could see from the book the loyalty to what you did Christopher was saving on a Marshall amplifier which was driven by his ex-husband he had a shop here in Prague he was selling it for currency so we had to exchange the saved money for currency and he also did I don’t know if his family is still alive but it doesn’t matter but he worked in a commercial bank and he set up a debit account he went to the debit 10 000 CZK and he put the money on the amplifier and he had to return it every 3 months so he borrowed 10 000 CZK from his colleagues for one day and the next day he had to return it with some money with some interest so that’s how he did it and his family didn’t know about it because he had a small child and he worked as a midwife but he was crazy he was crazier than me in a good way he was so excited and so blind that he cut me off I’m a more careful person I’m a foresight that I think everything 15 times before I do something but he was crazy and he cut me off and I mentioned it somewhere I miss this kind of person today that who would be more crazy than me in a good way for me Your books didn’t seem to be too much but you’re a bit more precise than reality I guess Monster started as a cover band of some heavy metal bands Yes, they played Mötley Crew, WASP, Accept, Maiden, Judas and when I said that I came there as a singer it was more about melodic singing Yes, I didn’t like it So I should intonate and I know that when we were in a camp and they wanted to sing to me and I said what should I sing and they said I won’t sing here so at least sing the steps and I did it but they didn’t like it It’s a good thing that I didn’t like it because I already counted with your death metal No, it wasn’t like that We didn’t know yet Kreator and Destruction and this came too soon Christopher went to Hungary with his parents and he brought a CD a Speedkill When I wrote the book I searched on ebay Metallica, Destruction, Celtic Frost, Exodus, Hallows Eve, Possessed, Kreator was the only one missing Slayer was there Venom was there and it was really hard and I wanted to stay I liked Wasp, Warlock and this band When Kreator released Pleasure to Kill and Destruction, Infernal Overkill he wanted to play it like them and I didn’t and I remember we had a debate and he wanted to play thrash metal and I said ok, let’s play thrash metal but melodically but I didn’t like it and we went crazy and we didn’t like the music For me it was the same because my 15, 16, 17 were more melodic Iron Maiden, Motorhead but also Children of Bodom and then Exodus, Metallica and Death came but let’s move on What is strange or what is worth mentioning about Krabator is that you went from heavy metal to black metal, thrash metal Imperator basically I listened to the song today like a mentor it’s true and it’s ok for me and you played the song all your career great but you all the time you were still hardening because in 1995 I think it was Lies where it started with some grind and Orthodox is already on fire so you were going the opposite way and you were still hardening I think it’s great You know what maybe we would be hardening earlier but when we were doing Cool Mortification we thought the album will be harder but the drummer and guitarist were more into thrash metal and I think their appearance changed a bit civilized or softened because I know Cool Mortification is the best album of Krabathor Borg said today so it’s good that it turned out like it did because if we did it with Kristofer and the drummer who was closer to us the album would be harder and it turned out to be Lies when we took Pegasus and made Rise of Brutality it was different Lies is great I feel Karkas a lot but I felt you in Orthodox Carcass is a bit later maybe what I have on me Nekroticism it’s my favorite album it’s a bit different from Symphonies and I love an album you don’t like but it’s because I listened to it in high school and I like 75 Rock I love it Heartwork is ok but Rasmanssong it’s so weird it’s genius now I’m more talkative but when I was younger in the 90s between 20s and 30s we had a hard time and we couldn’t let go of softening Unleashed Anthem Dismember Massacre French Massacre Gorefest all of them Cannibal Slayer but in Dead Metal most of the bands came 3rd or 4th album and for us it was shit and it’s hard for me to find my way to the later albums when I try to understand them I try to listen to it but when we had Schnurr’s Grave they released Hating Life I loved 1st and 2nd album especially 2nd one You’ll Never See and they release Hating Life and when we were in the bus Jens Paulsson was talking that he loves Prong and they want to play like Prong and I was like Jesus you can say this they were maybe older than us and they went through longer path they wanted to move to music they have the right but I stayed orthodox How old were you? 28 You should have the right to soften I would be interested what would be orthodox if Krabator would stay with you I remember just before I decided to leave Krabator and orthodox was outside me and Kristofer were standing next to each other in the garden after a beer and I told him I would like to go back to the 1st album calm riffs but it was just an idea in the past years how it would be in the final because when I think about next album Hypnos I have a different idea every quarter of the year it influences what you listen in what mood but I admit I still feel a handicap that I haven’t made a hard album I am forced to make a hard album when I look back there are some albums that people appreciate Hypnos, Krabator but I don’t like any as brutal and hard as I imagined What does the hardness mean for you? In the brutality, in the energy in the sound So the sound more riffs No, it’s not in the speed It’s not in the speed but in the brutality that you play an album and it’s brutal but I probably can’t do it I have some rooted scheme maybe it’s given by the weight of the person how he perceives it and I probably can’t do anything like that So I’m trying but I can’t Is the equivalent of brutality for you a grindcore? Not nowadays Nowadays it’s rather funny It depends what you mean by nowadays So what I see when I play videos from Obscene Extreme it’s more like fun For me it’s a true grindcore For example Sick Sinus Syndrome what he did today what Old Carcass did what Terrorizer did on the first 10 For me it’s a grindcore but it was transformed and nowadays the synonym of grindcore is more like the people’s joy for metalheads or for extreme metalheads But we’re talking about I can assure you there’s still a raw grindcore Maybe it’s not that visible It’s not visible because of course when there are bands like Gutalax and I’m talking with all respect we do things for them in our company but they’re aware of it what kind of grindcore they play and maybe they don’t even listen to it They’re successful I’m looking forward to it But I guess you’re aiming at that direction Pornogrind Of course, it’s logical When people got into that style they wanted something else so they started to add a stage show and of course some people went to the bigger extreme and some to the smaller one and of course even the metal music is not enough like it was in the 80s You came to a concert and you just sat down That’s not possible anymore You have to add some value to it So yes, the visual is important You can see it the most at Behemoth It’s such a perfect visual that it’s a complex experience Rammstein is an incredibly complex experience It’s a construction for the music but if it wasn’t there the music would fall among millions of others and then it would depend on luck or connections who gets more and who gets less So of course the competition is strong and if you want to be successful you really have to give your music something more than others and of course they start to give it too so you have to come up with something else and that’s the development in everything And what about Behemoth and what was the other band Rammstein We should talk about the size of Rammstein Sure, but we played with Behemoth in a club like this They also came from the garage Rammstein also started in the garage The bands had to work and it took some time When I saw the first video of Ghost which are huge I love the band and the visual is perfect So when I saw the first videos of Ghost Tobias Tobias Forge I saw his videos when he had a death metal band before Ghost and it wasn’t bad but they didn’t have the success he has He has the potential and big goals Exactly When I saw the first video of Ghost when he was in the mask it was funny People didn’t take it but they were lucky to convince the scene and their company came up with something that no one did before and they have deserved success I have to say it’s not only about the visual Ghost is a great music and it should be in the first place I’m talking about Behemoth, Rammstein Ghost If the music wasn’t great the visual wouldn’t be worth it But when the visual is there and they did it like this it’s a goal that can’t be moved What I heard Fenris from Darkthrone he recommended Ghost to the singer Lee Dorian from Cathedral He has the Rise Above Records and they released the first album I didn’t know that So that’s how it started He took the 70s Merciful Fate, Blue Oyster Cult You can feel it the keys and the instruments they have the old Fender the Jaguars that were used in the 60s they are a retro band in music I’m surprised that metalheads listen to it because in music it’s not hard rock it’s not blues rock The same with Soulstaffer metalheads listen to it But in music it’s not metal Around the band there is a phenomenon that appeals to metalheads But it’s good When a metalhead has an overview he knows that metal started in the 60s and 50s but in the 70s when the black sabbath started at the end of the 60s all the black sabbaths Blue Oyster Cult Led Zeppelin those are the beginnings I think it’s possible to find yourself in an empty place because people get tired and when you come with something that already existed but 20, 30, 40 years ago it’s half forgotten and when you come back with something new there is a space where the one who has the talent and potential can fill it Do you know Ensegdorfer? No It’s a band that started after 2000 I love the records we talked about I like grindcore a lot this is the most important grindcore band for me even though it was released a decade after the first grindcore I’ll send you the link For me, the real grindcore is connected politically Grindcore was more political more like punk there was a lot of socially critical topics there was politics animal protection, planet protection ecology whereas metal heavy metal, thrash metal were occult things satanists dark things that didn’t have much in common I like the old records of Gorefest I love the first two records Mindloss and Falst For me, Falst is the best record of all the dead metal era and for me Gorefest stood out because Jan Hrys had a lot of social critical feelings he had a lot of political texts and grind texts and that’s why Gorefest came to me Karkas had it too not in the lyrics but in the style of vegetarian yes, yes I know that but when I hear Carcass for the first time I’m evoked by the old collages of meat and worms and the pathological things with which they came first and influenced a lot of people but they came because they wanted to shock maybe they didn’t feel it but there was something that no one had and they wanted to shock and the more we shock, the more we warn Styr left Napalm Dead and when Carcass recorded Reek their goal was to record something that will not be able to be listened that will be so underground that will be so simple but Styr when he was so young he was such a talented guitarist and so original that he couldn’t hide it in that record he couldn’t hide it he lied on Reek it’s not like that yet but on Symphonies the melody is incredible and recognizable and on Necroticism I know that when the record came out we all loved it on Symphonies they started to make riffs that you can’t imagine in death metal those stretched tones those really felt and by the way that’s the old disbeater bigbeater he was wearing bells and when Heartwork came out we were in Vienna and there were some tournaments in Metallica, Cannibal Corpse, Gorefest Carcass, Tiamat and something else and I know that Carcass came out and they both had Les Pauls and I said I still love it but I said it’s the ugliest guitar in the world at that time Carcass, Metal Warlocks, B-Series and with the old 60’s guitar Carcass what they loved we really couldn’t take those Les Pauls really Cannibal Corpse was also playing in some club but later, later but today I have two Les Pauls at home I don’t play them I liked the shape I also love the old Fender Mayhem, Black Metal yes, Mayhem yes for me it’s I haven’t experienced the same symbiosis with any other guitar I tried them a lot but even Gibson is different but I put the Les Paul on myself and it’s like I don’t know how to describe it and you have Gibson and I have Fernandez and it’s like Les Paul with teeth he has the head with teeth and when he has the Les Paul like this, Fernandez has it like this it’s a bit metallic Les Paul I’m allergic to it we can’t talk about it I really like it I by the way, my Gibson is from 1989 when I was born and then I have another Japanese copy from the 80’s the white one which when you want to buy the white Gibson it’s custom it costs 90 000 CZK I don’t care about the head I bought it without the head on Ebay because it’s Gibson but we don’t know he thinks it’s Epiphone but he has a very good guitarist they made the head and the guitar is beautiful I played at his concert and he didn’t like it because it’s small and he didn’t like it but I always tell him when you sell the guitar the first one who will buy it is the white Les Paul it’s beautiful but you can buy the Bernie for 20 000 CZK I bought it for 21 000 CZK I have to go I’ll be back I So I’d like to invite you on our festival Tones of Decay. Which takes place in Prague, Meetfactory. On 13th and 14th September I think. We think we invite the best what’s in death metal in Europe, It’s strictly death metal festival. And Meetfactory is a perfect venue, with perfect ground and amazing sound, which is made by Amák, from Golden Hive Studios. Who’s already been to Tones of Decay knows how good it is. Who hasn’t been has to go for sure. Do you know what happened to your book I read during Christmas I read half of it I made a lot of notes and then I came back and he didn’t know what the notes were about he didn’t know because it was in his head when he read it and now some notes disappeared so yesterday and today I was in stress and you know what the fact that I talk to you well I just give you a little hug and you talk to me thank God if I had to go out a lot I would be uncomfortable when it comes to memory one more thing as I said I have a lot in my head and I have selective memory I just listen to things that are not important but I don’t keep them I just don’t deal with them and my wife sometimes tells me you don’t remember anything buy Ginkgo biloba Karolina look look what is it these are pills it’s for memory she bought it for me here you have Ginkgo biloba ok we put it in the pharmacy and I was looking for it for a month I cut myself and now I have Ginkgo biloba what is it Ginkgo biloba what is it for I didn’t know I just didn’t remember we talked to my wife yesterday that I don’t remember anything I told her I have so much in my head that when you give me some information that I know is not so important that I know that in the middle of the morning I have to be at home I know where else I would be but then it happened that in the middle of the morning I needed to be somewhere and I said I don’t remember it because this is how I released the information and I put it in my head that it is not so important because I can’t remember everything but what 3 t-shirts did they steal from me in Poland in 1995 that’s important if there were 100 t -shirts here I would take them out of course let’s go to the crematorium again for 5 minutes I have a note here about building your own devices what surprised me I’m a big fan of Blue Effect I came to him when Radim died I had Blue Effect connected with Mysik I don’t know why but he got lost there and I respect Mysik he is a great guy I would like to shake his hand but I don’t like his music I wouldn’t listen to Mysik and I said to myself Blue Effect, Mysik and Radim died and I have a nostalgia that I release such things and I released the Blue Effect and I shit myself and mainly the 33.3 board with Lešek Semelka Vlado Čech on the bass how that man played Samouk with some untrained drummer I haven’t heard anyone like him and I apologized to Radim that I ignored him and he had to be a very humble musician and I was lucky that I met Honza Křížek who sang in the last phase of Blue Effect and Radim experienced it with his first hands and I have to say that I have to apologize that I mentioned it so many times and that Radim’s death forced me to find out what this is all about and thanks to that I started to listen to syncopations Futurum I don’t know Those are Brno bands listen to syncopations from the beginning I was told Brno Jura and Hip but it is so instrumental instrumentally, compositionally philosophically, textually that of course even then there was laconic pop and quality music but this this art rock was the music of the world at that time of course they were influenced by Pink Floyd and I don’t know who else but there is a piece of originality Progress 2 Progress 2 Now I remember Progress 2 Framus 5 and especially I think that the scene in Brno was strong yes, there was Blue Effect in Prague but Futurum Progress 2 and Brno syncopations I think that it was a world league What about the disc with the butterfly I don’t remember the name 3.3, those are only 4 things after 10 minutes I had two discs at home I don’t know how they took me there and I had a friend from Denmark from the band Hyperdontia excellent death metal so I play it he really likes it he is originally from Turkey he sent me some Turkish prog stuff very interesting so I gave it to him I was very glad that I can give it to someone who appreciates it and I left the second disc on the gramophone I gave him the first one then I left with it I don’t know we were going somewhere and I come back and I have two cats at home and those bastards scratched the disc so I don’t have any more I couldn’t take it off for a long time then I took it off by accident and for 14 days I bought it in the bazaar but I didn’t leave it there maybe for 2 kg so I had two at home but then I told myself that I won’t have two and I somehow prepared it that I gave it to someone and it was 0-0 I’m sorry about that I should have left the disc I really when it comes to Blue Effect I’m talking when I have a person in Prague who likes progressive rock I immediately play Salvo Blue Effect but to get to the point I read an interview and Radim was building his own boxes at that time it wasn’t possible to buy a Fuzz or an Octaver or whatever he built it all by himself some distortions and so on how crazy this is it’s unbelievable we were in contact with some electronics there was an amateur radio magazine there were some schemes according to which some boxes were made but most of the boxes we had and we didn’t have a lot of them everyone had a booster so few people had Rigosh most of them were made by everyone but I remember that one of my older friends once showed me Boss Heavy Metal it just took the sky by storm and how old was it? it was in 1986 Heavy Metal Boss Heavy Metal and those Boss boxes have a magic although I don’t use them anymore have you ever used them? yes, a lot when I was recording Orthodox I had a pedalboard of only Boss boxes I had an Equalizer, Flanger, Chorus, Super Overdrive and Noise Gate but not an HM2? no, no, no I already played bass and I know that Krzysztof used Metal Zone but for me it was one of the first Boss boxes the mother of all Boss boxes it looks good it’s well thought it’s great I have two pedalboards and those colors 1, 2, 3 how those generations progressed delays but you experienced Heavy Metal 1 I don’t even know how it looks it’s the same as today it’s fucked up it’s fucked up I thought that Brutally Deceased with Heavy Metal Žlába explained me the Swedish sound in the subway on IP Pavlova when I was about 20 Dismember, dude! you got it all right there are a lot of videos on YouTube but I have I bought a book Swedish Dead Metal you probably know it I read it it’s the first book I read it’s about the first Entombed I don’t know if it was Carnage or how it was but Entombed I think it’s Entombed and there is a photo there is a beer combo some weak apparatus but they created a phenomenon they made a scene and they influenced the Dead Metal with the sound and brutality I talked about it with Tomáš Cordon and I don’t want to be bothered in every episode but for me the sound is Entombed and I can’t handle Carnage, Dismember or Unleashed because for me it’s Entombed Unleashed were different they didn’t want the Swedish sound and they went to Germany to record the records so everything you say Carnage, Nihilist, Dismember Pre -Entombed, Nihilist they didn’t have Nihilist yet Pre-Entombed so everyone started to record with Skosberg in Sunlight but Unleashed wanted to get out of it they didn’t want to be part of the sound of this scene and they went to Germany and I don’t know who they were recording with they were with Century Media but I don’t know who exactly I don’t know I don’t know Let it be but you were building guitars was it a fail? It was a disaster we didn’t have any experience we didn’t talk to anyone we were dealing with wicks how many wicks do you have? 80? and how many do you have? 50? so we went to Elektra we chose rappers who had the wicks so if we wanted to have 80 wicks we bought 24 wicks and we made a box of fictitious sizes of wood or something and we put the wicks in there and we connected it somehow but it didn’t play it was terrible those were hi-fi wicks for home listening and then there were better 20 wick basses that had the rubber membrane on the edge so I had it maybe even for bass and they weren’t in Czechoslovakia at that time to get those machines? Czech ones weren’t the only thing you could buy was a German Combo Sultan which costed 5000 CZK which was a lot of money when it was paid 2-2,5 litres it was two payments I know there were 50s and 80s Sultan and everything was made and sold and when I started playing on the bass in 1991 I had everything made I had a copy of Marshall which was good I don’t know who made it and I made the drums myself I just took a nail or something and I had the back made of plywood and I had four rubber bands I think they were 50W they were bigger so I had a 200W drum and I made a bass reflex without counting and it played but it didn’t play well and then I talked to my friend Henich about those machines because he was older and I think I still have the letter from him where he told me that the best beer was 2×15 but it costed a lot I didn’t have that much money but I saved up and I bought the drum in a bazaar and I remember I had it pre-ordered in Lidl in Brno and they ordered a PA drum and it had no wheels no ears, no top and the seller said take it, it’s a drum and I said it’s not a drum it should be a bass drum with ears and wheels but it had the same speakers so I didn’t take it and then I bought it in Zlin in a music bazaar and I made a copy I bought some Solton speakers and I made one that looked very similar so I had two I was a megalomaniac and I wanted to have a lot of drums so I used it for a long time and I remember I bought a Mark III beer Mark III? And it’s still good? Yes, it’s a kind of a tank for a transistor and I saved up for it for 3 years and I saved up for half of it and my cousin used to work in Austria and my mom told him that I saved up for a amplifier and he came to visit and he stopped by for a coffee and he asked how much I needed and I said 5000 and he went to the car and he had an old Moskvitch and he said that it was awesome and he tried to have it as a standard for his family and he gave me 2000 Schillings and he told me that I have it for this Schillings was 250 so 2000 Schillings was 5000 CZK and I could buy the amplifier I waited for it for a month and a half they took it from Holland and I had Marks Schillings and I used to look at the money every night before I went to bed and I counted them I went to bed and I took out the wallet and I counted the Marks and Schillings it’s hard to explain today I bought the amplifier and when I returned the money he took only half of it and he gave me the other half so thanks to him I had the amplifier for 8 years and I wanted to move on and it was the Mark III and I used to play with Krabator and I think that’s how I got to Krabator and when I started to play with Hypnos I played Ampeg Ampeg is the best amp but I didn’t have money for it so I bought from Bassak from L.A. Son Janek Jarin Wait, Mark III is not Ampeg? It’s Ampeg It’s Ampeg but it was a beer Ampeg is SVT III SVT and so on but Mark was a beer and I bought from Bassak from L.A. Son a preamp Ampeg so I put the money where I could put it and with the money I put it together and I bought a preamp and I bought a bad power amp and I played with it for 2 or 3 years but it was horrible and with it I played the first phase Hypnos and I had a lot of things done I had a lot of stuff done I bought from Bassak from Dark Eminence Repraki and I made a lot of stuff I made a lot of stuff I made a lot of stuff We played a lot with Krabaton and we made some money and we made some money but the only thing I was able to save was the new bass and it costed a lot so I had to build it in Poland but otherwise we paid because we had a bad job we worked for a minimum wage and I didn’t go anywhere when I was at home I didn’t have that much money I didn’t have that much money to go to the cinema to go to the cinema to go to the cinema to go to the cinema to go to the cinema to go to the cinema to go to the cinema to go to the cinema to go to the cinema to go to the cinema to go to the cinema to go to the cinema I bought a new aparatus when hypnosis was over and after a few years that I will play at home I bought a Marshall a bass drum a guitar and some professional stuff but in the last 15, 20 years the financial situation improved so much that now no matter where we go no matter where we go When you play in a big band, they have great equipment, great amplifiers, great guitars. Then it’s all about the music they play and how they present themselves. But it didn’t used to be like that. When we went to West Germany for the first time in 1992, to Ludwigshafen, and the Germans were playing with the Ibanez there, we were completely… Christoph had a guitar made by him, I had an old Debas, an old Yolana. It was a different world for me. But it’s completely different now. As a guitarist, I’m interested in what Christoph used to play. In the 90s, let’s say… Marshall. He had a Marshall. He had a JCM 900. One channel. He bought it from Burgerstein. And I know he paid him about 23,000 for it. He had a new one. And he bought it because our second guitarist, René Hillek, who used to play on the first album… Wait, wait, that’s the nickname of Hire? Hire, yes. And it’s short for Hire, Hillek, René. Hire. And paradoxically, it actually means drunk. Of course, of course. He was with us for a year, and he didn’t expect to stay with us for a long time. And paradoxically, they played Hypnos on the first album. Really? Yeah, yeah. I haven’t been there yet. He recorded Hypnos for the first time. And he also played with us for half a year live. He said, look, I’ll record a CD for you, but I won’t play at the end, because we didn’t have a guitarist, so he played with us for half a year. I have big gaps in that. For example, I thought Pegasus was the drummer of Krabator after a longer time. A year. And he was there for a year. And then he was in Hypnos for a long time. He was in Krabator for a year, but he was only there for a year in Krabator, but he left a significant mark there. Because there is a strong connection between Rise of Brutality and Allies. Yeah. Did you go to Slovakia for drums? No, it was the only Slovakian drummer. And did Skull play there? No, no, no. His brother played there. No, he didn’t. Look, there is a gap. You know what? When Pegasus left, we announced a contest. But there wasn’t much interest in that contest. If I remember correctly, maybe I would count the drums on the fingers of one hand. I know there was David Zik from South Czechia, who played in Plastic Rave on a bicycle. But it is very far away from the Czech Budějovice or Kurone. And it didn’t convince us. Then local losers who overestimated themselves And I know that I really liked the demo Abscess. Don’t Worry Be Dead. But I still love that demo. I know that David Cradle released it on CD. He even gave me the CD. So I have it on CD. It’s a kind of still D-side. And I thought that Skull was in Abscess. No, his name was Petr Vaněk. And he took part in the contest. I know that Petr Vaněk came from Sierra. We were going to Germany with a gondola. And he came from Sierra. He played quite well. And we would support him even then. Because he was a drummer. And at that time there were not many drummers. But then he got out of it. He started a business or a job. It was a big obstacle for him. He had to travel a lot. We played a lot. We traveled a lot. And you go to the Netherlands for two concerts. But you spend a week with it. So we looked for him. And Skull came. And what I don’t remember what Kristofer told me is that he was already at the contest before Pegasus. But I don’t remember that. I don’t know which contest he was at. Because I don’t know about it. And he had to be 16 years old. And when he came to Pegasus there was nothing much. But he was the only one from those maybe five candidates who had learned three songs and played them with us. According to the tape, he learned the songs and how he played them. He didn’t play much. But we were very stressed. Because we had a week to play in Germany. And we were eager for it. And they didn’t let us They sent us abroad. They searched for a car for us. They told us that we had rubber bands. They returned us. So we didn’t play the concert. But we started to play with Skull. We played Schnurr’s Impel Nazarin in September. And it was hard with Skull. And I know that we played in Častolovice. And after the concert Krištof ran into the woods. It was a kind of a stodola in the woods in Častolovice. And Krištof ran into the woods. I was running after him. I asked him what was going on. He said he was calling Pegasus. I said no, I can’t do it. I said no, I can’t do it. He was really poor. It wasn’t good. But we had a really hard winter. We played 14 days with Impel Nazarin. Then we played 14 days with Judd Mendei or someone else. Then we went to Lithuania from Deicide in Lithuania. There were 2000 people. The organizers sold out like pigs. It’s unbelievable. They sold out. And during the cold winter we played a lot of concerts. And Skull sat down. He got used to it and it got better. Orthodox played well, right? And he was different than Pegasus. He never played bagpipes. He played it differently. Pegasus played bagpipes and Skull played it cannibalistically. Like a hare. And then he started to play with his arms crossed. He wasn’t as fast as Pegasus but he had a run and he was reliable. And he won. During those two years Skull got used to it. But he was a different drummer and he had to adapt to it. I don’t want to say it’s not Pegasus. It’s a different drummer. But I liked him as a drummer. I watched him play and he played well. But we recorded Orthodox and then I left. So they played for three more years and it went to the kit. The worst thing is that a drummer makes the band. You can have great riffs but the drummer decides how it will sound. To a certain extent. I don’t agree with you. Every member is important but we were never the ones who overestimated the instrumental ability of each member. To make the band good the only one has to be a great instrumentalist. It doesn’t have to be. I didn’t say that. We talked about Carcass. Ken Oven. Is he a good drummer or not? It’s said that he’s a bad drummer. Not only a bad drummer. He played badly but Carcass was a great band with Ken Oven. If there was a better drummer at that time Carcass wouldn’t be better than with Ken Oven. The best drummer was with Ken Oven. Alex Wang. When he recorded the first album we went to New Ring with him. He wasn’t a good drummer but he was a great drummer. It’s not about hiring a great drummer. Today it’s a trend that if I know someone who plays well I will pay him and he will record my album. And what? Is the album better? Does it have a better spirit? Does it have a better philosophy? It doesn’t. For me it’s more important to have a person in the band who is not a great musician but I’m not. I was a metal fan who liked metal and wanted to stay in the band so I started to play. But the fact that someone is not a great musician doesn’t mean that the band can’t be good. I always say that in every person in the band there is something better than the other. So they have to sell what is good and put it on the altar of the whole. So you are better in this, you are better in that and let’s put it together and if we all put together the best of us we have a chance to create something that people will like and will listen to and will remember for 10 years. Vubenik with Cannibal Corpse is also not good. But where is Cannibal Corpse? Mazurkiewicz has 35 left in the band. Without Mazurkiewicz there won’t be Cannibal Corpse. And Ulrich. He has a million and a half years of bad music. But if you look at the videos from the concert he plays it and he is the manager and he keeps the Metallica above the water for 45 years. And in the end I think it’s quite useless that he made some fails but his drumming is in some way how to say it it’s very simple but he has his own style that no one else has. When I was young Ulrich was my role model. Ulrich has the gift that he can arrange the beats. He can come up with it well. It’s the same when Bill Andrews played Dead, Leprosy, Spiritual Healing. Bill Andrews wasn’t a very good drummer but the way he came up with the beats the way he arranged them it’s more than if he was great. It’s more. Yes. I’d like to ask you a funny thing from the book. Christopher gave the Professor back his haircut. I wasn’t there. Long hair for communism had to be a problem. When I looked at the photos you had it not too long but you let it grow. It was a problem in high school. In high school Christopher was in his second year and he was a student. It was more benevolent so they could wear a G-scoop, a riffle and longer hair. But it was a problem in high school. I remember I came to the first May in a suit. I had a ticket for that. Holy shit! I had a ticket for a suit. Communism. By the way, you sing about it in Orthodox… No, not about it, but against communism. It’s my initiative because since I was young maybe 12 or 13 years old I have a very strong hatred for communism. I have. I admit it openly. I don’t understand if today’s party which fortunately didn’t get to parliament after 30 years is called to TV debates and has the audacity to contribute to public debates. I claim that communists for what they did to our nation after 41 years don’t have the least moral right to interfere in public life. They don’t have the right to participate in elections. They can just keep their mouths shut and be happy that we didn’t hang them as they hang other people. They don’t have the right to walk around the Bolshevik flag without tearing it off. And the fact that we have a very active Bolshevik is really very strong in me and absolutely uncompromising. That’s good. And the fact that you went through it is not surprising. When the revolution came I was 19. I was relatively young and my luck was that the regime fell as soon as the doors of adult life opened for me. So I wasn’t as limited as my parents’ generation. My parents were born after the war. At the moment when communists took over a lot and lived their whole productive life in communism. When the revolution came I was over 40 and they already had families and ties and so on and it was too late and it was even worse They went through the war and then communism and the revolution took place when they were 65. So luckily it only meant I don’t know how to say it not so much repression or persecution. Yes, I had my uncle in the emigration I went to the war, to the hearings, to the counter-revolutionaries and the STB took our passports and so on. But it wasn’t as much persecution as thousands and thousands of other people It destroyed their lives, their families, it forced them to emigrate. There were political reforms. It’s unforgivable. It’s unforgivable and it’s a shame that even they couldn’t make amends for it. Bruno, we won’t even get to the front desk. I think it’s great that we’ll get there. I think you’re only basing your podcast on Krabator. You won’t get to anyone else this year. That’s what I was thinking. You know what? We’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half but we haven’t talked about Krabator so much. I don’t mind. It’s good that it’s the essence of the podcast that people listen to your point of view on other things, not just Krabator. For me, it’s very beneficial and if I were to talk only about Krabator, I wouldn’t know if you like Ghost, which people praise because they think it’s a metal band when it’s not. Tobias is a genius. He’s a young metalhead, he’s a young guy and he’s created a phenomenon. And as I say, especially musically, they’re great. Let’s go back to Krabator. Monster was renamed to Hever, to Buster and in 1987 you were renamed to Krabator but without H. Thank you. It was Krabat from the book Učeň, which I read relatively a few years ago and I was like, oh, Krabat! And I connected it. You mentioned it thanks to Karl Zamen. Exactly. So it was 1987 and I don’t have any other notes. It’s possible that nothing happened in 1987 because in 1988 a lot happened. There were three demos, there was a departure to Germany. You’re right, it was relatively uninteresting. We were doing new things but the first band Mišák and Havrán started to have different priorities and it started to be a bit harder with them. Havrán left twice or thrice and it really broke us apart because he was the only drummer who had two drums and could play them. He could play two drums. We were excited to have a drummer who could play two drums and we understood each other. Weren’t there two drums at that time? I don’t think so. He had two drummers, but also… Because the set that Kristofer Hotec borrowed from the city council or the city cultural center was one-drummer set but we wanted two drummers. So we bought the second drummer from a factory and we couldn’t afford the second drummer so we bought a bigger one and we drilled holes in the place where the screws were so we could screw the second drummer to the first one. So the second drummer was about 10 cm taller but we had two drummers. You have to show this. I had my uncle make a switch holder for the drums and we couldn’t afford to buy this. So we had to make it. When we could afford it I made various devices to fix it somehow. With a screwdriver? No, not with a screwdriver. With a chisel. When you screw it together to make it bite. Sometimes we were a bit crazy. But when you go back to 1987 the whole thing crystallized and Havran left two or three times. When he left for the first time I started to play instead of him because there was no one else and I loved it. Then he came back and we were very happy and then he left for the second time and Christopher said that we should find a drummer but we found only one or two. And we didn’t like even one of them. So we started to argue and we didn’t know what to do next. So I started to play again and I want to add that I didn’t have a drumstick because they cost a lot of money. So I bought a wooden drumstick which was sold as a meter and from that I cut a stick and I sharpened And I played with it. That’s great. Did it hold? Yes. You could play with it. Then it broke but you could play with it. I loved it. And when Christopher came back from industry he was in a class with Baja and Baja had a band in Nivnica. And Baja influenced him a lot. And when Christopher came to Podolí for a rehearsal he was obsessed with Baja’s ideas and he started to harass us. I wanted to keep him in Podolí and he started to argue that he wanted to go to Nivnica and we started to argue. And in the end Baja convinced him and Christopher went to Nivnica and the band broke up. And in the book when we were looking for the drummer I made some posters and when Krabator broke up in Podolí I found out that similar posters A young metal band was looking for a bass player in style of Konrad Kronos with Venom. And at that time Venom was something. And I said it can’t be true. And then I found out that it was Christopher who needed a bass player to go to Nivnica. And I don’t know how it happened but at the end of 1987 it happened that Christopher decided to leave the band and he didn’t play anymore except for a short time when I was in the army. They moved Míša to the bass and they moved me to the bass guitar. So in Nivnica at the turn of 1987-1988 they made the new Krabator with Baja and I have to say that there was also a shift. We were somehow preserved in our abilities and Baja, although he was a year younger than us, he moved us further. He knew how to play the guitar. He had a better booster. It was also a box so high that it looked like a radio. But it was a booster and it cut nicely. He also had a white pin from Iriska and he taught us to put the edge of the palm on the neck. He introduced us to new people. He introduced us to Jirka Novák from Brno who brought the first fanzine. We didn’t know what a fanzine was until then. It was a fanzine of the bands. In Nivnica there was a big fanzine. There were 10-15 people who watched the rehearsals. It was a band of metalheads who were with us in the evening. So in this direction it was a good and valuable shift and one of the things without which Krabator wouldn’t be Krabator. I appreciated that Baja had a big influence on Krištof and thanks to him we recorded the first three demos. It was different. When we were in Podol with Mišák and Varan it was very childish. But it must have been hard for you. I was happy that I could stay in the band because I was worried that it would fall apart and I wouldn’t be part of it anymore. It happened after the war when they threw me out of the band and I was complaining that I wanted to play on the band and if I wouldn’t play with them I would play with someone else. It was a very difficult time for me because I couldn’t even imagine that I could work without them. I finally agreed that I would only sing and then we threw the bass player out and I started playing on the bass. For me it was only a means to keep the band together. Let’s go back to 1988. That was the year when the most important monster was born. It was already Krabator without H. Havran left and you became a killer. We got rid of that. We also got rid of this one. Baja became the second guitarist of Krabator and he was with you until 1991. He had to close the doors right in front of the first album. It’s a shame for me because he deserved to be He influenced Krabator so much that it’s a shame that he left before Krabator moved to a higher level. So we broke up with Baja. But the relations weren’t good and we saw the divorce as legal. And then he started playing in Shark. Yes, he moved to Shark. Shark is a band where your members moved from Shark if I’m not mistaken. At the same time in Shark plays I think his name is Aleš, right? Yes, he’s from the beginning of Shark. So Shark is a band I don’t know their music. I don’t know the music of Shark but the members of Shark are good musicians. Bubeník also played in Shark. Yes, Zdeněk Pradlovský. I remember that band. With Aleš. It was a good band. I really liked the way Bubeník played in Shark. He’s a great drummer. Ok. Here we have the first demo. Breath of Death. I wanted to ask you if you know the band Death Breath. Yes, I do. It’s Nick Anderson. They play rock’n’roll there. But you know what? I still feel that it’s much closer to the old Entombed than the later Entombed or Zellacopterz. Zellacopterz are not death metal. Yes, but it was Nick Anderson. Nick Anderson was Entombed for me. I wanted him to play in Entombed. He likes to play on a bike and not on a guitar. I like Death Breath because for me it’s a fragment of the original Entombed. It’s a raw sound, raw riffs. It’s great. There are autobots in it. Yes, it’s simple, but I listened to it once. I have no idea. They have a good music video. I don’t know them. Tullow Fagan drives a car, turns on the radio and starts playing Death Breath. There are zombies behind the window and he drives away from the car. It’s a retro clip in the spirit of the old horror movies. It’s black and white and the lyrics are perfect. How did you feel about the music video? I know it was unrealized. It was during the period of Cool Modification. Then you recorded it with Unnecessarity. It was in 1997. We recorded it again with Apocrypha and Unnecessarity. The first music video was Pacifistic Death. It was paid by Monitor. They called a famous director from Bratislava Vladimir Juhanesovic who recorded it at a concert in Barča. It was more like a live show. Yes, it was a live show and they added a war cut. It was an anti-war text. But it didn’t end badly. I remember when we saw it for the first time on TV HR criticized it a lot but even today the music video is fine. When we released Cool Modification we forced ourselves to have a music video. It was said that Monitor didn’t want it because the sales of metal bands and they wanted to save money. But we managed to do it. We found a company in Přerov who would record the music video and we were allowed to record a promo for the music video. It was in winter. It was snowy. We were filmed from Rogal. Today there are drones. At that time Rogal was flying over us. We recorded a half-minute promo and we were playing in our T-shirts and we looked like pigs. We sent it to Monitor because that’s how the music video should look like. But the company started raising financial demands. Monitor said that it was a publishing company and the first two albums. Monitor just scratched it all. So we couldn’t record the music video. We couldn’t get cash or foreign distribution. It only accelerated our departure from Monitor because we wanted to go abroad. We wanted to play abroad and have foreign distribution. Monitor promised us distribution through Music4Nation. It didn’t happen. Monitor didn’t have an ambition to support the band. Monitor was interested in selling records in the best possible situation. So we didn’t understand it. But it helped us to leave Monitor. Maybe they would have left us alone. I don’t know. Because they gradually stopped publishing the metal. And luckily we ended up in Germany. Well, the music video even now, and I think it had to pay twice as much back then, is a huge promotion to the CD. Ten times as much. Back then it was only the TV. When I was in the war and the revolution came, which was something huge, everything relaxed a lot. And until then I was on TV. Maybe I saw the film Let’s try it through space. But whatever the guitar was in, it was a huge magnet for us. We knew it by heart. And when the revolution came, an American named Tim Sykes and he still did a Tim Sykes video show where he released metal videos. So Sacred Reich, King Diamond, Pestilence, Sepultura, I don’t know what else. It was an absolute bomb. It was once a month, on the weekend, but the metal nation was on TV the whole time. And on the second day everyone was talking about it. When the hospital was on the outskirts of the city, everyone was waiting for it. And when Tim Sykes died, I don’t know why, it took a year, maybe a year and a half, Slovenian TV was still doing a hard show. And when we released our first album, our video clip was in that hard show. But again, it was the same. The whole Czechoslovak nation was waiting for it, they knew where it would be. And it had a huge reach. Today you make a video clip and nobody cares about it. Not anymore. But it’s still important. It’s on YouTube. You have to do it, but the impact is not what you would like to have. I don’t even think you have to do it. We made a video clip just to brag about it, because we shot it all by ourselves. We took only two friends and shot it on old cameras from the 90s. And it was a success. And when somebody promotes us, they put it there. And you can see what we look like. For me, video clips are a challenge. A few years ago I started to play around with them and I made two or three hypnosis videos. Of course, some of them are on a film level, but I really enjoy it. And it’s a challenge for me. I think it’s a lot about the idea. You have to have a good idea. And I also like story clips, where the clip has a point, but you have to present it, invent it and work on it. And this is a big challenge for me. And I think you can shoot a good clip even on a mobile phone. You edit it, color it, but you really have to have an idea. In our case, it happened a few times that we made it in a classic cliche form, just to have it, because the idea didn’t come. So just clips of how you play? Yes, with something connected. And when we had an idea, a piece of clothing, for example, One Blood, it wasn’t as complete as we thought or wished. But it’s a trial and error. You try and try to move forward. Definitely. Let’s move on. The first demo is Breath of Death. There was thrash metal. You played the bass at the time. Baja the second guitarist, Mishak the bassist, Christopher the singer -guitarist. We’ve already talked about playing it live on the JVC Hyper Bass cassette. The Imperator was made here. It was recorded here for the first time. What do you think about this recording? I’d just sit down and record it again. I’d go back to that time. Do you still play the bass? I don’t have the opportunity. And when I sit down to record it, I can’t do it anymore. You wouldn’t play it anymore? No, no. But I really enjoyed the bass. If I had to choose the instrument I’d play the best on, I’d play the bass. But it’s different. It was a great time. We moved to Nivnica and it was a great enthusiasm. Suddenly there were a few metalheads there, demos were coming to us, we listened to Thor Armageddon and we read the fanzines. We were in Brno with Walter from Root and now the Dead Metal Session came. It was a great time. We were young and the style was new and innovative. Everything came together. Did you like the bass? Yes. I wasn’t really excited to play the bass, but I found a relationship that I really like it. I like the bass, I like the instruments, I like the sound. And today I listen to the recordings based on the bass. I want the bass to be the bass, not just an additional instrument. I want it to do what it’s supposed to do. I don’t want it to just copy the guitar. The longer we play, the more I try to make the bass fulfill the function and correspond with the instruments. Of course. I like it. And what’s the bass without the head? That’s good, isn’t it? Yes, it is. I bought the bass by chance because I needed an additional bass. I didn’t sell it but I found out that it’s the best of all the basses I’ve ever had. The sound is really good. I’m not saying that there are no better basses. Of course there are. But from what I had I like the bass. I like the sound. So far, nothing has convinced me to give it up. If someone came with another bass and we put it on the same device and I would say that my bass is much better, I wouldn’t have a problem to switch. But so far, nothing has convinced me. The interesting thing is that it doesn’t trigger me. When I look at how you play on the bass, maybe it’s a big device, but on the guitar it pisses me off that mammals from Pestilence use it. When I see it, I’m like… Cynic, Masvidal, Poles play it. Jacek Hyro or someone else. I really don’t like it but I don’t mind it on the bass. For me, it was a necessity. It wasn’t on purpose. They stole my Ibanez bass the 17-litre one. I bought this one for 5000 CZK, I remember. My mother lent it to me. I had the bass and I even recorded the first demo of Hypnos on it. But then I recorded it on another bass and I still paid for it. I lent it to the studio but I found out why not play on the Hohner when it has the best sound. But you had a bass in Poland. It had a head, didn’t it? Yes, it’s a copy of the B-series. Ironbird, the red one. Do you still have it? I sold it to Brna, to Igor Hubík from Root. It travelled around Brno for a few years and then it got stuck so I bought it back in 6 years and I still have it at home. I played the Krabatour comeback but the sound isn’t as good as the Hohner. It was made of the best materials, the best electric guitar and the best hardware but it’s more in the middle and it’s quite uncomfortable to play. It has a long neck, it’s far away, it overweighs a bit and it’s uncomfortable. The Hohner is really uncomfortable. And when you have a guitar without a head it’s really uncomfortable. Doesn’t your finger fall over? No. I’ve never played a guitar like this but I can imagine playing an F-chord. It’s never happened to me that my index finger fell over the fret. I didn’t even think about that. But when you play on the first fret it’s really comfortable. Do you hit your head with your finger? I don’t know. I thought it must be bad. No, it’s not. It’s just a visual thing. It doesn’t affect anything else. And the bass, when you tune it it has a really stable tuning. I tune the bass and today I’ve covered minus 10 out of 100 km. I’ll take the bass out in the evening and let it acclimatize and I won’t have to tune it. I didn’t even play a concert yesterday. I don’t even care. Me neither. I don’t know if I’m doing it but I don’t think so. I don’t know. I don’t have a problem with it. I’m not saying that I’ll never play another bass. Maybe I will but the bass has to convince me that I want to play it. OK. Now we’ll get to one pretty essential character of Krabator. I don’t think it’s a musical but a graphic character. Mishak was absent. He left alone. He stopped going to rehearsals. You took Necron who was from Brno. He had 100 km for rehearsals. You convinced him. What’s interesting about Necron is that he played in a punk band Zeměž Luč. He played in several bands. He played in Franta Jetel’s band. Zeměž Luč is a well-known band so that’s why I mentioned it. He took care of Zina’s graphics and your covers. He was quite involved. When I joined Krabator I wanted to play in a band so he got involved in the graphics. He had a graphic sense and he was good at it. Especially the black-and-white graphics and the silhouettes of the soldiers and the boners. He was very talented at it. He did the covers for Total Destruction and the first and third demo was done by Jarda Sláma a friend of Bája whom I didn’t know personally. Thanks to his graphic sense I always liked it so when we were doing the Demonizer I wanted Necron to do it because it was part of it. He was happy that he could do something for Krabator again so he gave me the covers and it’s in the spirit of the demos. I let him write the names of the tracks with his hand, his song. It’s done the same way as we used to do it back then. It’s great that on the book instead of listening to the audio it comes from the fact that when you read Breath of Death for the first time you can see how the cover looked. It’s great. When we talk about graphics you also did the graphics. I used to do the fanzines a lot too, even though it was amateurish. Back then there was a so-called pre-print. It was an A4 sheet with printed letters and numbers on it. It was a thick sheet and when you put it on paper and printed it the letter was printed. So I used the pre-print to make the letters for the fanzines and the covers. It was amateurish but back then there were no computers. I had a typewriter and a pre-print and we had to get by. I used to cut out pictures from magazines, stickers and stuff. I used to combine it with metal hammer and cut out things we liked. It was pure amateurish but back then a lot of people did it. But you also painted the first logo. Like Buster. I didn’t know about Hever. I did Hever too, but it’s not in the Technic. It had a V-shape over the letters. But Buster looks like Peevee. Yes, you’re right. But you know that you’re the first one to tell me that. But it’s true. You did it I don’t know if in hours but you did it when you were at the machine shop. You used tools to make the patterns. When I remember it I feel stupid. I didn’t do anything. We didn’t have computers yet. We used to draw everything during breaks. We had a set of pens with different thicknesses. We also had templates for letters. That’s how we described it. So computers came later. But we did it too. I studied at the machine shop in 2006. In 2006. At the end there were some AutoCADs and so on. But I didn’t do it. I’ve never worked as a designer. I did a high school in construction but I… I’m glad that I did that school and that I have some engineering education there. But I’ve never worked as a designer. Not at all. It’s not about me. I don’t have anything to do with the machine shop. I graduated and that’s it. But you also made a Krabator logo. Is it your work? Because I know that Micron I made the logo on the first fanzine. It’s grainy and it’s 3D which is made by Metallica. And there are two shafts which are made by Slayer. We just stole what we could. That’s how it’s done. And they did it too. And we used the logo. And when Necron came he had a better sense of graphics so he remade the logo according to him. So he took the base of the letters and he split it and it looked much better. He made the line around it. But the base was made by you? Yes. Necron just finished it. Great. As for Necron there was a problem with the 100 km. You followed him and you tried to because he said it’s 100 km, it’s a problem. He didn’t go to the rehearsals. We had a rehearsal and we waited for him and he didn’t come. Of course we understand that he was a student and didn’t have money. So we stopped considering him as a part of the band. So we shot the other two without him. Because he just didn’t come. And when he didn’t go to the rehearsals he couldn’t do it. But it’s true that when I was supposed to go to the war I didn’t expect it because it was out of nowhere. I asked for a salary and they punished me for my uncle’s emigration. So they allowed me a month and a half without any salary. So I made a farewell fanzine that I was going to the war with Bruno Krabatov and the others. By the way, it’s in the book. Yes, and Nekron wasn’t there. And I know that I was handing him the fanzine And he was like where am I? He wasn’t there. So it probably hurt him. Yes, it hurt. But it’s true that when I went to the war and Kristof went to the war he wasn’t in Krabatov anymore. Kopec and Trachtulec were already there. And when we came back I guess we had a little talk with him but it was just a flash and it didn’t lead to anything concrete. There was that part when you threw away Nekron because you thought or you had no idea that it means so much to him to be in Krabatov because he was so far away. He was in Krabatov even after the war. I remember it. When we came back from the war and it will probably be in the book and he came we tried it in Hradiště which was a little closer for him it wasn’t 100 km anymore, it was just 80 km. But he didn’t go to every test and somehow me, Kristof and Baja decided to throw him away. It doesn’t make sense with him. They did it fair and Kristof and Baja said hey, we’re going to lunch and you throw him away. So I was waiting in the lab and Nekron came and I told him and I know he was crying. He was crying a lot. It really hurt him that we probably didn’t know that Krabatov is in his heart. But again we probably felt that it was necessary to make the step to move somewhere and the development where it moved everyone knows we don’t have to repeat it. Because I have a loan which when I borrowed it was in such a perfect condition that I always have it when I read it or I put it in a plastic bag and put it somewhere where kids or cats can’t get it. I wouldn’t let myself take it. When we released the first album Hypnos in 2000. So it was with Hypnos. I’m not there yet. So we had 14 of them with Morbid Angel. I’m looking forward to it. But it will be in three podcasts. So wait. But as you said, you value every success. We are still in the 80s and the successes, even if they are smaller or in comparison to where you got it later are smaller, but they are significant. And now we will get to a huge milestone. And that is the Death Metal Season Festival which was organized by Vlasta Hennig. And there were 1500 people there. 300 people didn’t get inside. And it was still behind the scenes. So you had to finish copies of the lyrics which were approved by the communists. They had to be corrected but you sang them live normally. I was afraid. I didn’t sing those lyrics live. We had a song called The Mystery of Hrbitov. I announced it as a mystery. I was afraid to say it. Because there were 20 policemen with dogs in the hall. They were checked by the Estonian police. But it was a huge coincidence because Fata Morgan was there because of the war. And they got a place. And Baja sent a newspaper and it didn’t seem that it was written by Hennig. But when Hennig wrote it, he gave it to us as a gift. It was a letter from Hennig. And when we got there and he called us and told us how to behave and what to do. I looked at him like at God. It was incredible. They finished the evening when Thor was playing there with Schwarz. It was a dream come true for me. It was a very strong experience. What line-up was there? The first one was Jesus Maria. Morior. Then we were there as Krebator. Then Tormentor from Nové Paky. Then Abax. I know they were there with keyboards. High spirits. I don’t know. Then there was Root. And the last one was Thor as a guest. It was like a review of amateur bands. I think Vlasta knew Božena Hetzlova who protected it with her name and was the playwright of the evening. But I think Vlasta Hennig was the playwright and he had Božena as a mediator so he could do it legally. Because she was working at Vltava. It was a cultural house of transport companies. KDDK. I think I know what you mean. I lived there for the first time but I was there for Exodus and Destruction and Sepultura once. It was at Vltava. Yes. Then it was called Belmondo. And when we were there as Krebator in 2015 it was called Fabrika. I really don’t know. Fabrik. I was there for 14 years. But when we were there with Krebator we played in another hall. But here in the big hall I got there twice. Once it was with Cannibal Corpse. It was great. We recorded the two music videos and the cover. And Unnecessary is the same stage as Dead Metal Session. It’s the same hall. Yes. So Vlasta Hennig was an important character of the underground at that time. Yes, he was. For me he was the biggest at that time. He made two Dead Metal Sessions. One was in May. There was Debustrol, Kryptor and I don’t know what else. It was in November. And I asked for a leave in November and I thought I would be allowed to go to war with Christopher to limit Krebator to the shortest time. And they wrote me that I didn’t meet the requirements for military service. So on January 3rd I was at war. So at that time in Vlasta Hennig and then I found out that Aleš Brichta also organized concerts. I didn’t know that. I don’t know for sure but I think that Aleš Brichta organized Metalmania in 1990 in the sports hall where Kreator and Protektor were. Yes, that’s the concert. I think that Brichta did it and I heard that he spent money and coins on the Trash to Trash from the first album. It’s very strange that the festival Death Metal Session had 1500 people and only 300 got there. And there weren’t that many people at Protektor. Yes, there were more people. It was a much bigger space. And where was it? It was a sports hall in Sparta. I was a soldier. I wanted to ask you about that. My wife told me that my second name was Míra Dušín and that I wouldn’t do anything that shouldn’t be done. So I withdrew from the war and risked a bass. Did you get imprisoned for that? Yes. You went to Kreator. Yes, and Stýna nad Vltavou was 150 km away. That was my free release. You went to Kreator and when you catch him, where do you sit? That’s good, Bruno. I would get 14 days off. I had to borrow a civilian and go there as a civilian because if I went there as a soldier, I would be checked by the police who checked the soldiers. And if they find out that you don’t have a residence permit what do you do? And you don’t have a residence permit. That’s a problem. What did this festival mean to you? You record two demos and the third one hasn’t been released yet. No, no. Somehow you get paid and you play for 1,500 people. That’s unbelievable. And it was the first concert. And it was the first concert. Dead Metal Session is not like Kreator. It’s one of the things that helped us a lot. The whole republic knew about it. It spread and there weren’t that many bands. And I know that there was a short article by Alex Schwamberg who is doing political commentary and podcasts with Milan Mikulec. And we were praised. Arut was praised. We bought the young front and we were praised everywhere. Everyone knew about it. It was a huge promo. I don’t know if it could be compared It can’t be compared. Imagine that we never played for 1,500 people and we have a big board. But even if you played, the impact for you as a band wouldn’t have been as big as it had for us. From that moment on, Kreator knew the whole republic. I’d like to repeat once more. There’s a band called Kreator. They played their first concert for 1,500 people. Ladies and gentlemen, for 1,500 people. But those people didn’t go to Krabator because they didn’t know about it. They went to the Dead Metal Session organized by Vlasta Henich. But I’m talking about how it must have been for you as a musician who never played in front of anyone. You went to a rehearsal for 10-15 people. What was it like to get on the stage and see… We were a bit nervous. I know that Bajo didn’t play the guitar. He was solving half of the song Someone was trying to force his way through. But yeah, about 30 people were on the train with us. You were drunk from the morning. No, I wasn’t. During Krabator, you kept saying that you were abstinent. More or less. Not that I never got drunk or didn’t have a beer. I had a beer a few times a year, but I didn’t drink at all. So I was completely sober. 30 people were on the train with us. They had flags for Krabator. And before we got from the main station to Vltava, we were checked by the police three times. They asked us what we were doing here. And now I remember when I was talking with Nekron, how we were recording the old stuff for Demonizer, he told me that he was working as a brigadier somewhere on the airfield and he had a problem with the police because of the bullet-throwers. And that he was being watched by the Brno STB. I was already in the military and they followed him. So what, Bruno? That they had found something but I don’t remember what it was about. But they were watching him. They had it under control. So he got scared. He was 20 years old and he was afraid that they would throw him out of the school because he was on the airfield. Nekron didn’t want to risk it. You mentioned that there were police officers There were about 20 of them. I guess. Stage diving was forbidden. Yes, and people were jumping. But they jumped to the roof. And maybe to the track. But I know that Vlasta told us that the moment you see someone jumping on the stage you should immediately stop playing. He didn’t want to risk anything. And there was a problem with biceps. One of the lats was missing. Yes, but that was my problem. Because when they gave us instructions about what to take for the concert it said to take the lats. But we said lats to the guitar boxes. That was a lats for us. We said lats to the biceps but I didn’t get it. So I went there without lats. And there were two kicks. I could do a bit on those kicks but during the rehearsal there were lats for Hava Stor. There were two lats. But I know that when we came to play the concert and there was a lot of people and I came to the biceps and there was one lats. And I know that there was a guy from Kryptor and I yelled at him that I only have one lats. But he didn’t hear me or I don’t know. I played the concert on one kick even though I recorded the demos on two kicks. I could do a bit on those kicks but there weren’t a lot of people. But we survived. The concert left you a cult status. There was Jakub Jodl with whom we were in contact for many years. He had a lot of active correspondence abroad with underground fans. There was Petr Korál who is still a metal journalist. So we got to know each other and it was an incredible start. I’m interested in Petr Korál. I’d like to talk to him. He remembers a lot. I found out through your books that he was a journalist from the beginning. He sang in Asmodee for a while and then he started to write texts and he started to write as a metal journalist. I remember when I was in the war the only music magazine in Czechia was Melodie and it was popular in Slovakia. He took music in general like pop, rock, and it was a lack of material. It was a problem and I remember that when I was in the war Melodie got to me and there was a whole page about thrash metal. It was called Thrash Nářez. Korál wrote it. He talked about Krabator and praised it. He mentioned De Bustrol and I guess it’s also in the book. It had a huge impact on Melodie. I remember when there was a short article about Thor from Melodie. I read that article a hundred times. There was a picture with Hawa with his tongue and Henrik with his De Bustrol. It really shaped us. After the festival comes the third demo. Brutal Death. This time to improve the sound you tried to borrow a camera. We went to another cultural center to a friendly band and we were filming on a different camera. We thought the result would be better. It was better because there was a hall in the mix so some things sounded like in a cave. But the sound of the demo is probably not better. It was without bass. It wouldn’t matter to us. Even Ruti played without bass but the sound was bad. I’ll jump into it now. Frank, how much time do we have? Five minutes. I’d like to ask you one last question before I finish. You’ve already mentioned them. Is it another thing that belongs to communism or to the regime that was here? It was obligatory. If you wanted to play with a band you had to pass the exam. You had to pass the exam and play in front of the commission and the commission had to agree. One of the members had to be a band member so he had to take a band course. It was a six month course and at the end he had to pass the exam. Christopher took a band course so he had to know musical notes, musical history, but there were also some political things. But he managed to do it. He learned it. He was a bit of a nerd so he learned the notes. He took a band course and then we started playing. We did it a month before the war. He had to prepare 30 songs but we didn’t have 30 we only had 25 so we wrote 5 fictional songs with some names. 25 of your own songs? Yes. Maybe we had a cover of Countess Bathory by Venom. And the one we didn’t know so we played another instrumental. We played with some brass band and there was someone with us. They gave us the first group which was 1, 2, 3 and you could take money depending on it. It was calculated how much money you can take. We got the money and it was partly thanks to Mrs. Černíčková who worked at the Cultural Center in Hradiště. And apparently she had some problems when the players took the money from her. They admitted it. But as I said, I was already in the war and these things came to me indirectly. So I don’t know if it was the right thing to do. We’ll finish here. Maybe I was wrong but in three hours we’ll go through Krabator. So we didn’t go through Krabator but we went through the period until 1989. Anyway, we agreed with Bruno that he’ll stop here and we’ll continue. Next time we’ll continue how Bruno went to the war and where Krabator went next and other things about Krabator. Now I said it like an idiot. Should I say it again? But you know what? I don’t even want to talk about Krabator because it seems to me that I’ve mentioned it a thousand times. How many times have I told myself if anyone would be willing to listen to this. These are things that are notoriously well known. If you’re in this community you should know if it’s worth doing this podcast or not. I think it’s 100%. Your point of view is justified from your point of view because you feel that you do it all the time and you think it’s everywhere. I keep repeating myself because things don’t change. Things have changed and they’re still the same. I keep talking about the same thing. And what the guys said when they left was that Krabator should be gone. They know it a million times. There’s a new scene of metalheads who are under 20 who play drums and they call themselves dead metalheads. The band has been around for 6 years and there are people for whom we’re like you were a generation forward. It’s hard to understand but I admire that someone plays music that was supposed to be Zenit before his birth. You said you were born in 1989. At that time dead metal was just starting. Leprous is from 1988 when it all started. In 1989 and 1990 we released Anthem and Pestilence, Consuming. I don’t know if I could burn like this for music that was created before my birth. I wouldn’t be able to play hard rock like Deep Purple even though I like them. I admire and appreciate that the younger generation sees the meaning in Bathory and Venom. 100%. I don’t know how to describe it but I’ve been organizing concerts for 12 years and I’ve never experienced what I’ve experienced in the last 4 years. We played once in Kladno. There was a 13-year-old boy who is now 16 and his brother. Both of them have a band that is inspired by our band and our drummer and they were really into it. I want to show that maybe they know and maybe not but they don’t know it in depth. Maybe they’ll like what we’re talking about. You’re right. It’s two decades back. I don’t think it’s still relevant if you recorded X interviews before X years. It’s still a book and I repeat a lot of things I talk about. A lot of people have read it. Who wants to hear it will hear it. We’ll see. I’ll give you a report later. Today we talked about the 80s. I don’t know where to start. Probably not. We can’t talk about it anymore. We’ll talk about other things. I’m looking forward to it. I’m really happy. Thank you for agreeing that we don’t have to talk about everything. I appreciate it. At least I wasn’t stressed about it. We could talk about it. Bruno, thank you. Guys. Let the scene bloom.