Summon: How did the band get started?
Marko: The band was established in 2008 with our first EP called »From anger to pain«. We started serious working and practiced a lot more. Me and Rok have been playing together since we were first introduced to guitars and soon after that, my wish was to make it bigger, more serious and heavy. There were some band formations in the early stage but with the arrival of Sebastijan on vocals, Tilen on drums and Klemen on bass guitar things were starting to get really cool. It was all about wanting to create music, to connect as musicians and just enjoy in playing.
Summon: What kind of music do you play?
Sebastijan: We play heavy trash/core metal. We noticed that it’s hard to put a label on a product that you did, cause each song is different than the other, some songs have more break downs, some more thrash rhythms or heavy… So it’s a slap on the wrist if we would say that we play strictly one genre of music, because we don’t. It’s all about feeling and motion through what we create music and each time is different.
Summon: How has the fan response been?
Sebastijan: We have to say that it is pretty good. Over the years we’ve build our image and sound, so that we could be batter and heavier for every fan out there, who likes thrash metal, heavy metal, hard core or any metal. We try to cover as much genres as possible, but at the end we found ourselves in this type of genres as we talked about earlier, since than we have a lot of support from fans and our fan base is growing and we are very happy and thrilled to see our fans satisfied.
Summon: Where did the band name come from?
Rok: This is actually very funny and interesting, at the same time, it is part of the history of our band. The short answer could be that the first time we’ve met the word »Heretic« was at high school during the lesson of our home language. Somehow we feel the power and importance of word which form a set of composition that cannot be overlooked in our lyrics and powerful meanings.
Summon: Introduce the band members and what they do in the band.
Rok: The band consists of 5 members. Tilen Marzidošek on drums, Klemen Ribič on bass, Marko Hlastec on first guitar, Rok Satler on second guitar and finally the most important Sebastijan Založnik on vocals which together compose destructive power of band called Heretic.
Summon: Who writes the music? Lyrics?
Marko: Lyrics are mostly written by our singer Sebastijan. Sometimes we all help him with some words or rhymes but he is the master mind to bring messages to people. Me and Rok usually write the riffs and the structure of the songs to let’s say 85%. Then we sit down, talk a little about it, try with different but powerful and strong inserts and together do the rest of the song.
Summon: And where do the lyric ideas come from?
Sebastijan: Lyrics ideas mostly come from news around the globe, how some of the news impact on us. How those that make us feel like .So mostly our lyrics are answers or opinion on the things that happened around us, which are very bad at this time. Let’s hope for the best and maybe someday we will have something nice to write about it.
Summon: What is your view in Satanism and Occultism?
Sebastijan: As far as Satanism and occultism goes, we don’t have much to say. Some people believe in God some in Satan some in paranormal. It’s a choice of free man to choose his religion and believes. And who are we to decide, what is wrong or right.
Summon: How many albums/CD’s have you released?
Sebastijan: Well we have released one full length album called “New era”, which we recorded in Rock hard studio with producer Lorenzo Antonucci and one EP album called “From anger to pain” which was recorded in 2008. If everything will go according to plan, we will hit studio next year for our second full length album. So fingers crossed that we will gather enough money from gigs, to make this dreams come to life.
Summon: Tell me about some the songs on the latest CD?
Marko: All the songs on our latest album were carefully written and with a lot of effort. I think that each member of the band has put his soul and heart in the album. I think that each song on the album is different from another. There is some heavy fucking Pantera riffing, some metal core breakdowns, thrash rhythmic, a lot of groove. It is definitely a headbanging album with a lot of melodic and harmonics. New era consists of 8 songs and an outro. I hope all you reading this will enjoy it.
Summon: Do you have any side projects?
Sebastijan: Our drummer is gathering some people for his side project, there genre is death core, so we hope, he’ll get some good boys or girls in his team to make that project happened. Even I had project on my own, the band name is called “One out of hell”, and we have recorded one EP and a few videos. Unfortunately the drummer and bass player left the band. So if anyone out there is ready do make some good music, we are more than happy to work with any of you as long as they are ambition and not egocentric.
Summon: Who are some of your musical influences?
Rok: In brief, we can say that our musical influences are various individuals – music legends, which have acted or are acting in a similar »musical waters« as we.
Summon: Which current bands?
Rok: Well, if we’re talking about bands we should mention some new wave metal bands like Lamb of god, Killswitch engage, Parkway drive and some others. We can say that our music also reminiscent on the world metal legends Pantera because of the great vocal and guitar riffs.
Summon: What is the band like when you play live?
Marko: We do a lot on performance. We also practice it a lot at our rehearsals, so we are prepared. It is an important role when you are at show, because metal is the way of living and nevertheless people usually wants to see who and what it is before they listen to it. When we play live we are relaxed, moving up and down the stage, jumping, headbanging and enjoying each second of the gig. Yeah and we do sweat a lot.
Summon: Have you guys ever played in another country?
Sebastijan: As a matter of fact, we did, our first out of the country gig was in Norway, over there was nice, but back then we were young, we didn’t have so much experience, but then again we gain experience by going on stage and rock the hell out of it. Few times we played in Austria in Graz, very beautiful and lovely city, also one experience we will never forget. Our last gig was in Hungry in some high school, which was pretty damn good. People there are rocking hard to. Which was a nice view and we can’t forget about ladies there which are very nice, they made our morning priceless with their photo shooting in underwear! In future we hope we will get more gigs in other countries. We do booking all by ourselves and do hell of a job, but still, it is stressful, so we are hoping that some good agency will take us under their wings.
Summon: How big of crowd shows up at shows usually?
Sebastijan: It depends on where you play in which city or country and how the metal scenes is developed and accept over there, cause metal is not that popular especially in our country. So some gigs are pretty god damn crowdie, some not so. It is a constant battle but then again we struggle and we won’t cave so easy just because society doesn’t get metal, cause metal is “evil and pointless”. Guess some people are afraid to think out of the box.
Summon: How is the crowd response when you play?
Marko: As Sebastijan mentioned, it is different from place to place. In some towns kids go wild and do crazy stuff…drinking, moshing, applauding…but some towns are so passive…crow is just not into it, they listen, applaud, want more but they do not give the right energy back.
Summon: What do you think of the US Black Metal/Death Metal scene?
Sebastijan: We think is more accepted there, than it is in our country, more people, different thirst for music. But we think metal in general is accepted pretty well in US. A lot of good bands over there and they are fighting with everything they got and we think metal is climbing their way up to huge population of metal heads.
Summon: What do you think of the Overseas scenes?
Sebastijan: We think same as for US. In every country you must struggle, especially for the things that you as a person like and most of population doesn’t. So we must stand as one and fight to the end, to the point, where people who doesn’t agree with that type of music should respect it no matter what. It’s time for people not to judge but to except, cause metal is here to stay.
Summon: What are some of new favorite black metal/death metal bands?
Sebastijan: To be honest we don’t know much about new bends in black or death metal scene. So we don’t have any favorite new bands in that particular genre. I guess we are a bit old school. So we know mostly old bands in black and death metal. Like Dark throne, Burzum, Mayhem, Taake and so on… Deicide, Cannibal corpse, Mortician…
Summon: When do you guys plan on writing any new material?
Sebastijan: Actually we have new material ready for second album and for upcoming concerts, but we are in state of trying a new down tuning, so as soon as we figure out what tuning will fit us the best, you will be able to hear it. New material is going to be a slight different from our debut album New era.
Summon: What does the future hold for the band??
Marko: Right now we are planning to write a script for the upcoming video that we are going to shot at the begging of summer. We still have more than 8 gigs to continue the promotional club tour over Slovenia. We will not fall asleep, not even for a second. We will work hard, write new material, try to find some sponsors, enjoy as many festivals as we can. For fall and winter 2013 we are planning to go on a small European tour to promote our album across Slovenian boarders.
Contact them at:
http://www.facebook.com/hereticslo
http://www.myspace.com/her3tic
http://www.youtube.com/user/hereticofficial?feature=mhum
