RUS
Weekend’s journalists had a chance to try themselves as guides for very specific audience Swedish doom/death metal band October Tide. They came to play on Doom Over Kiev festival that was held on April 16 in the Monteray Nightclub. It was the first visit to Ukraine, thus Weekend decided to show our capital to musicians.
Judging by their appearance, they may seem to be gloomy pony/kitten haters, but in fact they turn to be pretty joyful and merry guys.
Swedes wanted to see the Mother of Motherland and even a long walk from Kontractova square didn’t stop them.
They took many photos, captured videos and get acquainted with local scenery. Onlookers, in their turn, were gazing at October Tide: youth was curious, while elder generation looked with an askance at black clothes and long hair.
To make a walk more extreme, Weekend showed local city transport such as: funicular, subway and classical yellow “marshrutka” bus. The first one was in fact gimmick for the band while third one was the most risky and dangerous. Yet, boys coped with that without complaints.
Half-way over to our destination it was decided to drop in a local pub and take a bite. They were so hungry, that even the guitarist Emil Alstermark forgot for some time that he is a vegetarian to dig in a sausage. They learned how to say “Thank you” in Ukrainian (Dyakuyu) and how to count to 8. This new knowledge was proudly shown to everybody around.
Metalheads asked about each monument and memorial on their way. Besides, their attention was drawn to painted in white tree trunks in Mariinskyi park. It was pretty hard to explain that it’s a way to repel pests since they don’t use it in Sweden.
Later, musicians bought a traditional Ukrainian souvenir – refrigerator magnet with a capture that briefly clarifies who is Mr. Who in the neighboring state.
Finally, our tourists gained their aim – monument the Mother of Motherland”. Even though they were a bit tired, we made a photo shoot on the background of tanks and picturesque sights of Kiev. After our journey the band went to the festival as they had to throw a show that night.
[gallery:27316]Weekend didn’t miss an opportunity to take a quick interview.
— Do you like Kiev?
— Yes, great city! Old and beautiful.
— Can you name some of the festivals you played on?
— We gave concerts on Doom Over London and Doom Over Malta a year ago. There was also some Doom festival in Moscow, it was very depressive.
— Your band took a break for some time. So, which period do you think was the most successful: before or after reunion?
— I guess after. We spent not that much time on the project and didn’t do any interviews in the beginning.
— Could you tell us about your new album “Winged Waltz”?
— The song writing took almost a year. I guess it’s our most diverse album.
— And who writes lyrics to your songs?
— We have three guys who write the lyrics. Juha Raivio from Swallow the Sun ( the majority of lyrics is written by him), Laurence Jonathan, he worked a lot on the previous album and Mattias Back. They are very poetic.
— Will you play songs from new album on the festival?
—We will play four songs. Some of them can already be found in the Internet, you might have listened them. Besides, we will play several songs from each of our albums, so there will be something for everybody.
— Which bands influenced your music?
— Obviously, Paradise Lost. Well, so as all the death metal. By the way, one of our songs was written for other band, we decided to keep it.
— Did you always play in the same genre?
— Yes, death and doom metal but we don’t put labels and just write good songs and play the music.
— What do you do besides playing in band?
— We all have jobs. He is a teacher, he is a concert promoter and Matias for instance works on a steel factory. The Music has united us. In addition, we all play in other bands. The drummer works with Amon Amarth now so we have a session drummer now. We played 4-5 rehearsals together and he would like to become a full member of our band. October Tide doesn’t take much time and we don’t see each other too much. We even live in different cities, play our parts at home and gather once in 6 month to finalize songs.
— And how about your private life? Do you have time for it?
— We live this way for many years and get used to it. We all have families. And we haven’t had a big tour, just several shows in different cities. This fall we will come to the Eastern Europe with our new album : Poland, Czech Republic, Germany. And we will go to Moscow and St. Petersburg in two weeks.
— What is your dream? Where would you like to give a show?
— We would like to play on some big festivals, but no invitations yet. Yet, we will be on the Brutal Assault Festival in Czech Republic this summer. We all gave up a dream of being a rock stars long time ago and we are happy with our band.
— It was a pleasure being here. This is our first time in Ukraine and people here are friendly and hospitable. Thank you.
[gallery:27318]Translation: Dmytro Bazylevskyi
