Blackened Horde: How did the band get started?
Khairil: The band started as 2-piece band in July 1991. The original guitarist left the band in 1993 and has since disappeared from the metal scene. The band became inactive from 1993 to 1999 when it reformed as a 4-piece band. Khairil is the only original member left, moving from drums to guitars. Andy on vocals, Iman on guitars and Zainal on drums completed the line-up in 1999. Zainal was supposed to help out in the recording and left the band in 2000. After that, Edi took over and has been playing with the band until today. The current line-up is Andy on vocals, Khairil on strings and Edi on drums.
Blackened Horde: What kind of music do you play?
Khairil: Although back in 1992 we intended to play black death metal in the veins of ABHORER, BLASPHEMY, SAMAEL and IMPALED NAZARENE, but our music has been closer to death metal. From 1999 onwards we have been attempting to play brutal death metal along the veins of INCANTATION, GRAVE and NILE. Since 2006, we are more comfortable and feel more at home playing death metal in the veins of 90s American and European death metal bands.
Blackened Horde: How has the fan response been?
Khairil: In terms of sales, it is moving slowly. But we received a lot of positive feedback from those who have listened to the album on YouTube. Many are surprised that we are still playing death metal and they liked the old school feeling in the song writing and overall sound.
Blackened Horde: Where did the band name come from?
Khairil: We got the name from a book about occultism. This book talks about all the demons in hell in a very organized manner, elaborating on each demon’s rank and tasks. VRYKOLAKAS is a demon who is tasked to search for the inhabitants of hell who grew tired and fell asleep due to the torment of hell’s torture. VRYKOLAKAS will find these tired souls and suffocate them to death, only to be revived again to continue being tortured. We liked the name because of the sound and because it was very rare to find a word which starts with “V” and “R”. As the band’s name gets spread around, a few metal-heads from Greece revealed to us the existence of the VRYKOLAKAS in Greek mythology. The Greek VRYKOLAKAS is a mythical creature which shape-shifts and can appear as a vampire or a werewolf. Whichever version the name stands for, we began believing that the stories behind the name give the creature or demon an important image, crucial enough for us to ensure the songs fit the image or legend behind the name.
Blackened Horde: Introduce the band members and what they do in the band.
Khairil: Since 2007, there remains the three of us: Andy, Khairil and Edi. Andy is the vocals, Khairil handles all the strings, while Edi plays the drums. We had been a 4-piece band from 1999 to 2006, but our previous 2nd guitarist retired from the band to pursue personal commitments.
Blackened Horde: How many albums/CD’s have you released?
Khairil: We are supposed to have recorded 4 albums. But due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to re-record our 3rd album, along with 3 songs meant for our 4th album. Another 3 songs from our 4th album became the songs in our “Into The Shadow Of Death” tape EP released under Evil Damnations Records from Argentina. We currently have 7 releases put out in CD format: “Vrykolakas 2000” MCD; “Supreme Brutal Legions Volume 1” Split CD; “Spawned From Hellfire And Brimstone” CD, “Nocturnal Demons Of Death” Discography CD; “Fire Death Chaos” Split CD; “Unleashing Vrykolakas Upon Mankind” CD and the 3rd album, “And Vrykolakas Brings Chaos And Destruction” CD. We happen to have duplicate versions of most of the releases. Our Demo 1992 appeared as demo originally in 1992, reissued in 2020 under Zzooouhh Records from Argentina and was included in “The Cult Of Nocturnal Death” demo tape which was released in June 2021 under Bleeding Concrete Records from Thailand. If you read our discography in Metal Archives, each of our releases would have at least 2 versions. This is mainly because we needed different labels to spread our music in different continents.
Blackened Horde: Tell me about some of the songs on the latest CD?
Khairil: We will mention our favorite songs. We especially liked “Transcending The Quantum Realm Of Barzakh” because the song started off with a guitar riff that sounds similar to DIO’s “Holy Diver”! We really like “The Storms And The Shadows” and “The Jasad On The Throne” because we believed we succeeded to emulate our idols IMMOLATION. We also enjoyed “The Dajjal Brings Chaos” and “Yajuj Majuj Versus The World” because there are many things going on in these two songs – many riffs, many tempo changes and drum patterns as well some challenging vocal patterns for Andy!
Blackened Horde: Who writes the music? Lyrics?
Khairil: The song writing duty was shared between Khairil and Shafiee when the band started in 1991. From 1999 onwards, Khairil has been the main song writer and lyricist. Andy and Edi help to improvise the songs when they listened to the first version of the songs.
Blackened Horde: And where do the lyric ideas come from?
Khairil: Back in 1991, we really wanted to go deep into the concept of satanism and occultism. But we were merely writing lyrics about the two subjects from the angle of a spectator. We were not practitioners, so the lyrics came out as a narrative. We decided to explore the concept of death and afterlife, because many faiths follow and believe these concepts, which means we can explore different perspectives. Different cultures and religions discuss death and afterlife differently. Living in Singapore, we have many cultures and religions here. You get to attend many funerals and see the whole process and philosophy of death at the funerals. If you listen to our latest album, the song “Seven Steps Above Six Feet Under” is a song about a funeral and the prayer gathering after the ceremony.
Blackened Horde: What is your view in Satanism and Occultism? (If this applies)
Khairil: We started out young and eager to talk about these subjects. In the first demo, we ended up writing lyrics about demons and the entities of hell and their organization. After the first demo, we realized that the two subjects do not run in our blood. We wanted to be desecrating. We wanted to write about VRYKOLAKAS as an entity of blasphemy, even towards subjects considered blasphemous. We wanted to be the master of Satan and make Satan and his army our slaves. But again, we are not able to convincingly write those thoughts into lyrics and decided to prevent ourselves from sounding childish in our lyrics.
Blackened Horde: Do you have any side projects?
Khairil: The band started out as a project of the members of BESTIAL COLONY and DEMONIAC. Within a few weeks, the two bands stopped their activities and we decided to continue VRYKOLAKAS as our main band. Iman joined from his previous band, NEUROTIC VILE. Andy was previously in OBSEQUIES before joining NEUROTIC VILE and then joining VRYKOLAKAS with Iman. Zainal was playing in NECREOUS which later became BILE PUSCESS. When Edi joined, he was originally from HOMICIDE but had been playing in CASTIGATE for a few years before joining us. We still contribute to different bands at this point. Khairil plays in MORBID DECAY, Andy plays in CHAOS REGAL and Edi in ANTOLOGI. These three bands are important for us because they allow us to expand our ability and playing style as musicians. Which helps a lot in our latest album bringing in all the different ideas from our different bands into the album.
Blackened Horde: Who are some of your musical influences?
Khairil: We are practically influenced by almost all 90s American and European death metal bands. When you listen to our latest album, you may accuse us of plagiarizing ideas from other bands. But we really set out to write songs that really sound like the bands that we like and grow up listening to. We are also influenced by our local pioneers such as NUCTEMERON, DREAD and ABHORER. These bands inspired us to write our own songs, record them and release them. For the sanity of the readers of this interview, we will state only a few bands which really influence us in the past ten years when it comes to song writing: INCUBUS (Florida and Illinois), IMMOLATION, INCANTATION, GRAVE and FUNEBRE.
Blackened Horde: What is the band like when you play live?
Khairil: We had our first live show only in 1999. We were considered new to the live scene because there were many bands which have been playing live shows regularly in Singapore. We slowly built a fan base at live shows but we became a “gallery band” after a while. During the “Supreme Brutal Legions” and “Spawned From Hellfire And Brimstone” era, our songs were definitely not suitable for live shows. They were short, filled with many riffs which were not repeated enough times for the listener to get into. So, when the mosh pit was just starting, our song ends. After a while, the audience just stood, arms folded and try to analyze our songs, as though we are an art piece in a gallery. Our last live show was in 2007 when we opened for GRAVE when they played in Singapore. We probably won’t be playing live shows in the near future as we prefer and want to focus on what we can do in the studio. In the studio, we can change, re-record and rearrange our songs until we are happy to present to the listeners. Whereas in a live show, you only have that ONE chance to ensure the listeners enjoy our set. If the sound didn’t turn out as expected, we leave the stage feeling lousy for the listeners who paid for the tickets.
Blackened Horde: Have you guys ever played in another country?
Khairil: We only managed to play one show overseas, in Thailand back in 2005. When we returned, we focused on our second album recording and immediately after that we started recording our 3rd album which was unfinished. We were more eager to write and record songs rather than playing live shows. At this point, especially with Covid-19 affecting everything, we are not sure when we will be interested to play live shows again.
Blackened Horde: How big of a crowd do you normally get?
Khairil: When we were actively playing live shows, there would be between 200 – 500 people attending the shows, depending on the size of the venue. However, the audience are usually split depending on the bands they follow. So, if they don’t follow a certain band in the roster, they will usually go out for a break. The gig organizers grew in confidence and started getting bands from overseas to play here. That is when the venue will be packed to the door.
Blackened Horde: How is the crowd response when you play?
Khairil: As mentioned earlier, our music during the time when we were active playing live shows was rather difficult to headbang to. So, the audience would come forward and try their best to headbang to our songs. And we stopped playing cover songs after our second show. So, we understand that it was difficult for the audience to enjoy our set. But we will include the song “In Filthy Vomits”. This song has a lot of headbang parts.
Blackened Horde: What do you think about the underground scene?
Khairil: We believe the metal scene has evolved and produced many variants, just like a virus. There are so many variants in genres and some goes beyond the original version and description. Then, there are those who thrive on social media and those who spread their music more effectively away from the internet. We believe that this is a positive phenomenon and should let nature takes its course. There are metal-heads of the 90s who despise the current younger generation for their attention-seeking agenda but we should be hoping that some these young ones understand the meaning of underground and eventually choose the path, underground or not, for themselves. There are quite a healthy number of young metal-heads who prefer the old ways, so there is hope that the underground scene which we are more familiar with would persevere a long time to come.
Blackened Horde: What are some of your new favorite black metal/death metal bands?
Khairil: There are many to mention here as well but we will control ourselves. In Singapore, we like DARAH. Do check them out. Young musicians who play death metal influenced by the old school. We just discovered MORBIFIC from Finland and it was nostalgic for us because there was a band in Singapore back in the 90s with that name as well playing similar style of death metal. There are many more we are listening to but the two mentioned bands are usually one of the albums in our playlist.
Blackened Horde: Since the Covid Pandemic has that hurt the band in making music at all?
Khairil: Honestly, no. Like we explained, we are more into writing and recording songs. Every few weeks, we will be in studio to do pre-productions. Also, we seldom rehearse. From the pre-productions, we will study the songs, the way we put down our basic guitar and drum tracks and we finally do the actual tracks, we will try out suggested changes. On the contrary, the pandemic has removed other activities that usually take time away from the band. We found more time to invest our energy into our music now.
Blackened Horde: What advice would you as a musician give to a fellow musician just starting out?
Khairil: Be honest to yourselves. Especially in metal music – it is about writing and recording original songs for your eventual listeners who may become your friends. Write the style you like and be confident putting out releases for the international audience. Work on your musicianship to the standard that your music demands. Metal music has been about the abundance of bands and releases produced. Join in the scene! When you spend time writing and recording music and working hard to improve the quality, you will find less time for esteem issues, politics and other social ills.
Blackened Horde: When do you guys plan on writing any new material?
Khairil: We can say that we are always writing songs and always preparing ourselves for the next recording and then the next. While we are answering this interview, we are recording our “The Necromantic Revocation” album which contains 7 songs of death metal of blackened filth. We are going to record 2 songs to contribute to a split and a compilation, and then in December begin recording our 4th album which we have completed the writing process.
Blackened Horde: What does the future hold for the band??
Khairil: Basically, writing and recording songs until we are not physically able to. Our original target is to release 5 full-length albums, so you can say that is the band’s main goal for the next few years. Once we achieve that, we are hoping to sustain our existence by recording and releasing shorter duration material either as Ep’s or demos. At this point, we want to sincerely thank Altara Blakthorne and BLACKENED HORDE ZINE for taking the time to interview the band. We come from the era where bands can only get promotion through features in zines. Interviews like this really convince us that there are metal-heads who could be interested in VRYKOLAKAS. If you like death metal music, get our 3rd album “And Vrykolakas Brings Chaos And Destruction” on CD either from Dark Blasphemies Records or from us.
Contact them at:
https://www.facebook.com/vrykobrutaldeath
https://www.instagram.com/vrykolakas_sg_1991/
https://vrykolakas666.bandcamp.com