Summon: How did the band get started?
Iapethos: After a long personal history with black metal I decided to start Iapethos in 2010. Behind the band was an idea to play a Scandinavian style raw black metal mixed with industrial type of drumming and maybe to bring something new into the scene.
Summon: What kind of music do you play?
Iapethos: Raw Black Metal mixed with a cold machinery and a bit of influences from the classical music and ambient stuff. But mainly Iapethos stands for the raw black metal in order to execute an unique Black Metal to create the strong atmospheres.
Summon: How has the fan response been?
Iapethos: So far there has been very small amount of response in general but it has been good.
Summon: Where did the band name come from?
Iapethos: Name Iapethos originates from Greek mythology. “Iapetus” is the name of the titan who is the father of Prometheus. According to myth Prometheus created mankind and brought the gift of fire for men from the gods. So Iapethos stands the grandfather of mankind. For me it also symbolizes the old and strong pagan religions and the era of wisdom before the Christianity. Christian church denied all the fruits of the achieved civilization and made the development of science to stop for centuries. The whole old continent fell in to regression for over a thousand years. Thats exactly what is happening in Islamic world at the moment. The dark medieval times.
Summon: Introduce the band members and what they do in the band.
Iapethos: I am the only member of Iapethos so I compose the music and play every instrument. I also of course write the lyrics.
Summon: Where do the lyric ideas come from?
Iapethos: Lyrics deal with anti-Christianity, misanthropy, end of the world scenarios, weird dreams, demons etc. The ideas for the lyrics might come almost anywhere. Inspirations can be found everywhere. In Finland we have a strong alternation of seasons which is the big part of inspiration for me as probably for anyone in northern countries. Ideas for lyrics can also come from travels, dreams or even from every day life. On the first demo I used some really old lyrics along with the very new stuff. Even though the demo was released on 2012 the oldest lyrics were from nineties.
Summon: What is your view in Satanism and Occultism?
Iapethos: One of the goals of Iapethos is to spread occultism and anti-Christianity with the music. In my opinion satanism and occultism should always play a strong part in Black Metal. Without that it would just be an extreme metal wouldn’t it?
Summon: How many albums/CD’s have you released?
Iapethos: Iapethos has so far released only one demo called “Shrines of Chaos” released in 2012. But more will follow.
Summon: Tell me about some the songs on the latest CD?
Iapethos: There is a song called “The Call of the Necropolis” which is some kind of personal death scenario. I composed and wrote it while being really sick and having a really high body temperature and some hallucinations. Musically I think this was the most successful song from the demo. This song can be found from youtube with lyrics. Another song “Shrines of Chaos Constructed of Hate” is lyrically based on a dream I once had. A Weird omen-like visions followed by an occultic ritual. Demo songs were across the production intended to have cold and lifeless sound.
Summon: Do you have any side projects?
Iapethos: Not anything worth a mentioning at the moment.
Summon: Who are some of your musical influences?
Iapethos: Basically the musical influences are everything I’ve ever listened. Every Black/Death/Doom metal band that has a place in my shelf as well as various classical composers. But I guess the basic idea of playing Black Metal with the machine based drums comes from mid 90’s BM bands using the computer drumming. Pioneers such as Manes, Mysticum, The Helheim Society, Octinomos etc. They had a big influence on me.
Summon: What is the band like when you play live?
Iapethos: As long as Iapethos is an one-man band, there will be no shows for sure. I’m not also planning to recruit new members anywhere near future, as I enjoy the moments of creation alone. And of course I don’t have to make musical compromises when I write the songs by myself.
Summon: What do you think of the US Black Metal/Death Metal scene?
Iapethos: US has always had a strong Death Metal scene. But Black Metal scene has also grown much stronger lately which is really good thing. I can’t remember many BM bands from US from mid 90’s. Absu and Grand Belial’s Key were almost only known acts in Europe when I got involved into BM. Lately the scene has grown huge.
Summon: What do you think of the Overseas scenes?
Iapethos: As a Finnish I’m of course more vary of the European scene than of the scene of US. The Black Metal scene is getting stronger and the musical evolution seems to be endless. With new bands I’m more into the creative BM than into bands out there that are just copying the old acts such as Burzum or Darkthrone. Luckily there are many good and original acts in Europe. Of course there is a strong scene on the South America too. And I like the fact that Internet is nowadays spreading the Black Metal and BM artists can be found from some countries of Asia and Middle East where you wouldn’t much expect them to occur.
Summon: What are some of new favorite black metal/death metal bands?
Iapethos: There are so many good bands out there and it depends much of the day what would sound best at the time. For example today I’ve been listening older production Hades, Perished and Fleurety tomorrow it might be Autopsy or Abigor. But 90’s Scandinavian black metal and related material in general works for me. Some old death metal too.
Summon: When do you guys plan on writing any new material?
Iapethos: At the moment I’m recording the new material and I will continue to write the new songs as I have finished these recording. The future release will definitely have stronger sound than the demo had. I think demo sounded OK but the sound was a bit thin and I was not satisfied with the sound of drums. This will all be fixed in next release as well as some keys will be added.
Summon: What does the future hold for the band??
Iapethos: The near future will bring a release of some sort. What kind of release, I don’t know yet for at the moment I haven’t got a contract. There have been some contacts but we’ll see…
Thank you very much for the interview!
Contact them at:
http://www.facebook.com/iapethos
http://www.myspace.com/iapethos
https://www.reverbnation.com/iapethos
