Thalarion
Wywiad przeprowadził Bartosz Donarski
Although Slovakian THALARION hasn't gained a household name as yet, the truth is that the band is one of the most interesting groups in its unique genre. Their fourth album (and third for Danish Mighty Music) is fraught with generic diversity, memorable vocalic duality and attention-grabbing arrangements. Song structures on "Tunes of Despondency" teems with a lot of musical suspense, rough guitar work is saturated in moody atmosphere, mid-tempo riffing frequently accelerates up to merciless velocity of sound and regular rock set is at times enriched by sophisticated dins of wind instruments. In regards to the all aforementioned there was no question, whether interview the band or not. We simply jumped to it for you to be the first to know on their new record. No doubt many different genres are melted in your music. Is this an outcome of individual preferences of particular musicians, or is this sort of collective aim to get a proper recognition within metal scene?
Juraj Grezdo: "I think we stand apart from other metal bands. We try to set us free from a grey mass of the huge abundance of metal bands. Our styles' combination is not intentional. Each of us listen to the different musical genres therefore our music is so diverse and slightly original. But, it can be evaluated by yourself or the listeners. You have to find your own individuality and inner interpretation to write a quite original sort of music and achive a real success. We try to harmonize both vocals into one cohesive unit and explore all the possibilities of using them to open new dimensions in our music. 
It´s no fucking pose or following the trends!!! It´s just a natural course of creation of the songs. We are free so we do what we want. We only try to follow our own inner emotions by the writing of the songs and all the vocal parts. We try to express and unveil the mystical charm of the nature and union of good with evil, black with white etc."
I guess your audience is very broad and derives from various scenes. Don't you think that despite you play an excellent blend of sounds, "Tunes of Despondency" might be a hard nut to crack for all the people that are into a particular kind of metal? I got schizophrenia actually!
"Look, everybody has a possibility to choose among the huge multitude of metal bands, so we don't care of any orthodox fans preferring only one metal genre. As I remembered above, we mix some metal genres and try to form a cohesive unit. We have our minds open to all the music genres, not only metal music, and we unleash our deepest emotions and thoughts through the music we make."
All right, but please don't beat me! There are at least few great bands from your region (Slovakia and Czech Republic) that kind of fill the bill of music extravaganza. I mean here mainly Forgotten Silence, SSOGE or Sad Harmony (or our Lux Occulta) which try to run away from what is known as music impotency. Are you familiar with those names?
"Yeah, I am excellently familiar with those bands and like their music, especially Sad Harmony are very good friends of Thalarion. Their new album "Tete A Tete" is cool and I own all the albums and demos they ever released. By the way, the guys of Sad Harmony live cca 100 km from my homecity. I think all the mentioned bands are very original and really run away from a prevailing bands playing metal music. Regarding the Forgotten Silence, I prefer their old material on "Thots", it´s absolute cult!!!"
I assume it's a trite question as hell, but what actually your band name means?
"Thalarion is a fictitious name of the ancient city where only mad poets walk, where hungry demons fly in the gardens of eternal grief and where all the things beyond belief are real. Once upon a time I read a story by H.P. Lovecraft entitled "A White Ship" and the word in the story interested me greatly. I thought it could be a cool name for our band because it describes exactly what we are and play. We just liked it when we were looking for the new band's name. I just liked the sound of the word."
Is Exponent Studio one and only place for all your bands to enter? Buddy, it really seems like that. And you know, I'm not trying to find fault with it, even though the studio seems to be pretty overrun these days. Then, why there?
"Look, we recorded all of our releases from 1993 at Exponent, so we absolutely know the studio and guys working there. We belong to the first bands that were recording at Exponent. Here´s a lot of bands that were following Thalarion to record at Exponent Studio. Sure, Exponent isn´t only one studio in Slovakia, here´s a lot of studios of high quality, but the Exponent is the best for metal music with no doubt. Not each one Slovak band has a possibility to record at Exponent because of high prices of running time. Exponent is cheap for Western bands, but expensive for home metal bands unsigned to any record label. I don't think Exponent is renowned for brutal acts, because many of hard rock, heavy, black, doom metal bands, rock, jazz or brass bands recorded their albums or demos there. Anyhow, perhaps you know only the brutal metal bands recording at Exponent like Krabathor, Hypnos, Thorium, Godless Truth, Depresy etc."
Could you remind me how you entered into a contract with Mighty Music?
"After recording of "Tales Of The Woods ... Thus Was Written" in March of 1998 we sent a lot of promo copies to the record labels all around the world. Some weeks after, we were offered by some labels to sign a contract, but we chose to Mighty Music because they offered the best conditions for the band. Anyway, "Tunes Of Despondency" is the third album we released through Mighty Music and we are still 
satisfied with the activity which Mighty Music do for us. Their worldwide promotion and distribution of our albums is really cool and this label surely established the name Thalarion in the international metal scene."
What are the main differences between the album and the previous one by your reckoning? Sadly, I haven't heard your former materials, but as it's been reported the last but one record was more into gothic mood. Is that true?
"Well, there are surely some little differences but only in terms of the whole atmosphere. We also used female vocals in a bigger scale on the previous album "Four Elements Mysterium" since Nela entered the band as fulltime member. It was necessary to use her vocals in the songs because it was extorted by the songs´atmosphere. Anyway, the whole feeling and mood of the "Four Elements Mysterium" CD is more mysterious and dreamy. Also, the sound of the album is far more heavy, severe and aggressive as ever before so it sounds cool I would say. On "Tunes Of Despondency" we used Nela´s voice in a lesser range because the atmosphere and songs´ structure didn´t call for it."
To the best of my knowledge you are not afraid of using some wind instruments as well. Who play the instruments, whose idea is it and is this a permanent element of your sound?
"We used some folk acoustic musical instruments like tambourine, Chinese wind or Old Slovak pipe on "Four Elements Mysterium" CD and now we used only alt-saxophone on the "Tunes Of Despondency" album. I was amazed by saxophone in rock music when I listened to Dog Eat Dog´s "All Boro Kings" album in 1993. That really hit my heart and I wanted to try how the instrument would sound in death metal Anayway, we used a flute on "Towards The Obscure Slumberland" album and it sounded great. We don´t use any of those acoustic instruments on our live shows, they are repleaced by keyboards."
Have you ever thought to make an acoustic album? I presume it might be very interesting with all the diversified structures your songs definitely embrace?
"No, we have never thought to make an acoustic album for being still metal band, not folk or country ensemble. Also, we don't feel any need to write such songs, we need to feel and listen to the power of electric guitars and strong aggressive drums, not playing any unplugged."
Do you have any chances to perform your music onstage? How does it look like present-day?
"Yeah, we stay on stage two times in a month by an average. Thalarion is very active band regarding the gigs we play, but only in the region of Slovakia and Czech Republic. We performed our songs on a hundreds of live shows and our shows are killer!!! We fortified the band with new guitarist named Michal on December 2001 so our gigs are more powerful with two guitars in the present time."
What's a perfect band you'd like to go on tour with?
"That's hard to say what the band would be the best for Thalarion to tour with. We would like to go on the tour with any cool band, personally and musically. We would prefer In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Solar Dawn, Unmoored etc. As you can see, they all are Swedish melodic death metal bands, because playing music closest to our hearts."
Is there any significance concealed behind your music? Is there any attitude, any general thoughts to spread forth?
"No, there's any significance behind our music, no messages nor attitudes. Regarding my lyrics, they are very special and personal for me. It's a combination of experiences and fantasies. My lyrics are not optimistic at all, I can say they are melancholic a bit. I have no reason for being optimistic. I was 
disappointed too many times to be happy. Also, some of the lyrics pay homage to the pagan gods of ancient Slavs - our ancestors. The chief mean of expression is metaphor but every one can individually interpret them in his own way."
What is your next musical step you'll take in near future? Any closing remarks before we stop chewing the fat?
"In the future we want to promote our actual CD "Tunes Of Despondency" as good as possible and play many shows. We would like to play some more gigs and visit the West-European countries where we could deliver our music. We are working on a new material and have completed seven brand-new songs. If all goes well, we'll record our fourth album in the Summer of 2003, time will tell! Our aim is to go always a step further than the others. I think we are on a good way. Huge thanks goes to you for this interview. I hope you will live long in the way of the underground. For all those atmospheric music lovers the time of sadness has come. All real life starts from there both figurative and in exact senses. Keep the pagan Slavic fires burning!!! Let the grandsons of the windy god Stribog lead your steps through the obscure hills of the Carpathians. If you are interested in something regarding THALARION, don't hesitate to write at thalarion@ba.telecom.sk or info@mightymusic.dk. Don´t forget visit our official homepage at thalarion.cjb.net or www.mightymusic.dk."
Bart Donarski
