Interviews: BAALZAGOTH

We have had the opportunity to interview the Death Metal band BAALZAGOTH from Poland. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name, you plan it or came out just like that?

We normally invite those who are interested in finding out about the name to investigate for themselves haha :D One thing I can say for sure is that it has nothing to do with the old UK band Bal-Sagoth, as some suggest. Our name comes from a mighty character, and the key to finding out the truth is the first four letters.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

All band members come from totally different metal areas, our likes were from most brutal death metal to stoner rock and classical rock. When we started creating our music, it came out just naturally that it must be old-school death metal. We brought the first riffs we heard the first growl - it just could not be anything else. Death metal was the only way...

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

The vocalist and the drummer are father and son, so we can say yeah some of us knew each other, haha At the same time the drummer, Vulture, and the guitarist Veles played in a band together before, and the other guitarist, Maathi, knew the vocalist through a friend. We all live in a small town, therefore, it is difficult not to know people, at least by sight, from the streets. I (Asmodeus, bass) was the only stranger but I adapted quickly and we are all bandmates now.

4. Each band member favourite band?

It is difficult, all of us listen to and love many bands. I will just name them quickly:

Oktavius - Revenge, Archgoat

Vulture - Death, Immolation

Veles - Behemoth, Immolation

Maathi - Vader, Azarath

Me (Asmodeus) - Slayer, Hate, not possible to name one, even naming two is not really giving the picture

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

When it comes to the music, it is of course the bands we listen to, but when we actually create music it is about the sounds - when sounds come together whether they are played fast or slowly when we like them it becomes our songs. When it comes to lyrics, it is human beings as a whole - all the bad and evil things inside them, all the bad things we experience. The list of bad things about humans is so long, that it is enough to write our whole discography, and how many albums it will be, it will only depend on how much into details of bad things we will get haha

6. Where was your last gig?

We played our last live gig at the end of November. We took a break in December and January, but we have scheduled a show in Wrocław, Poland early in February. It is all about playing live, man.

7. Where would you like to act?

Since we played in Poland, and only in a few places in the West - it would be great to play one in the capital - Warsaw. Also, we live very close to Berlin, and an "export" gig is also our dream, so we would love to play there in Germany, we know that people love death metal there, and we play for people you know.

8. Whom would you like to feature with?

This question could be related to the one about our favorite bands, haha, but of course, we will not play with Death or Slayer, sadly, they are gone... I think for the beginning it would be great to play together with some well known polish death metal band, be it Behemoth, Vader, Hate, or Decapitated, it must be a great experience to share the stage with someone who is already a big name in the industry, to meet them say hello and exchange, or more like learn from them.

9. Whom not?

Nickelback haha

10. Any of you has ever suffered from stage fright? Any tip for beginners on how to beat that?

I think we all did at some stage. I played shows in the early 90s, but when I entered the stage after all those years in 2021, that experience meant shit. I felt stage fright only for the first minutes, then it was ok. I believe Oktavius the same, we are both old people you know but we did not play live concerts in the last 20-30 years haha. It was also a new experience for Maathi, but in the end we quickly got used to it. Veles and Vulture, they played live shows together before, they even did it in the daylight so despite the youngest they were the most experienced in playing live, funny enough.

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

All the death metal bands that we have named. We want to play powerful music that makes you wanna mosh, you know, it would be fantastic to play and watch a sea of people moving to your music. If you listen to our songs you will probably hear a little bit of all we have named before, so that is all of them, not one or two.

12. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

First of all, it is important to note that we do not know if we have any fans at all haha However when we played a show in Bydgoszcz (difficult to pronounce to foreigners) at an event called The Last Words of Death (you can see some shots from that live on YouTube), then Oktavius came out onto the stage with a big wooden fucking cross, which we took from waste, funny enough, someone threw it away, haha, and of course, he kept it upside down, and then one girt from the public shouted to him: "hey, you are nice! why don't you hang me on that cross" You can imagine us there painted demons with blood on our faces trying not to fucking burst laughing, haha

13. What do you think of your fans?

As I said, we probably do not have any fans yet, maybe apart from some of our friends, but then they are probably more fans of us as people and their friends and not as a band they look up to, so I should answer: I will tell you when we have some haha, but in fact, I can tell you that fans of death metal music are wonderful people, very united in music!

14. What do you think of our site?

Actually, we did not know it, but when we got the invitation for this interview we of course had a look. I think none of us are core related people, we are metal. I used to listen to some hardcore, but I wasn't so much into it to follow the core-related magazines. Fortunately, when I had a look at www.breathingthecore.com I actually found out that you write and share a lot of different genres of music, therefore I will surely read it from time to time, and I followed you on Facebook. What I really liked about it was that you write about all kinds of bands, that you give the chance to the new ones, like us, but also many others, big respect for that! 

15. Something to add?

I would like to greet all the people playing hard music out there, keep doing it, keep playing what you play, no matter whether it is rock, metal, core, punk, just stay strong and never give up!