Jani Stefanovic
Miseration
I´m doing great thank you.
Yes 10 years later here we are. But no, nothing special was ever said. We didn´t end the band or anything like that. Life just happened. Working on other bands yes and many of us got our first child so that naturally slowed things down while they were toddlers.
Business as usual, new label but same patterns of making up release schedules and planning everything around the release with singles videos etc. Our being away for 10 years was in no way a guarantee that anyone would want to sign us. Not that labels wouldn´t dig what they hear but it´s all about business and what the forecast can be businesswise. So, was Miseration still something worth investing in? Glad we were, (laugh).
Oscar, our past drummer, went along building his own studio around "Tragedy" album which today is an ever-growing successful studio. Marcus went on doing nonmetal things, so we felt that why not just do this together as the original founding members. Back to the roots so to speak.
Well, it´s not like we´re inventing any wheels here, hehe. These topics have been quite heavily used in metal, but I had never touched on these matters. I had the idea for many years that someday I would want to make an album with this grand feel, both musically and lyrically, build up this almost score like ambiences telling these grand stories. This album was actually born in an unconventional way for me. I had most of the lyrics written before I had any music done, which is in itself very rare for me.
No not really. Sure, one could perhaps draw parallels. I started working on this album in 2018 almost 2 years before the pandemic. So, my intent was purely to write about these past stories and had no knowledge about what were to come. But if you look into it, you can surely find a red line that has repeated itself over and over through out our history. One thing is that you have always had some kind of power-hungry rulers who´s willing to destroy, conquer and divide in order to gain power.
I am a strong believer in that the world needs to heal from persecution and oppression. It needs Love. Something I strive for is to treat every person with dignity and respect. Treat others as you´d wish your self to be treated. I also do not believe in this vindictive mentality. Because this and that did that, so I will make even worse to pay back. Eye for an eye will never be the solution. Blood fuels more blood, hatred fuels even more hatred. But I´m afraid this is a thing that is too difficult to overcome. I still try to do my part.
I think that´s a pretty good explanation. I think this album has a lot of layers and all the different dynamic passages invokes these different feels of sovereign rulers, anger, brutality, worship me etc. Even if you´d take away the lyrics I think the music paints a very almost cinematic like story. There´s a lot of middle passages and intros outros, which one might feel is too much, but they were deliberately made in order to invoke the feel of the stories.
I am actually not that educated on what´s around on the death scene today, so I couldn´t say. Personally, I don´t feel we´re doing anything new. However, I think this concept works extremely well. To incorporate orchestral cinematic passages gave us an opportunity to paint an even more wide picture. Which I think was a pivotal part of the whole album. So, all I can say, this is what came out and we´re extremely satisfied with the result, hehe.
I think a lot of the lyrics are very ferocious, dark, gruesome or epic and grand, so quite naturally calls for aggression and all the different emotions and aspects you can hear in the music.
Nothing is really intentional, it´s just our way of doing things, I guess. Everything starts out as very improvisation basis, until I come up with something worth recording. Usually when I nail that first riff, the rest follows quite easily. Once I get a skeleton of a song I then go back and tweak, rearrange, delete parts, create new better parts etc. I´ll do this until I´m happy. Sometimes it´s in an instance sometimes not so much, hehe. I´m rarely sharing anything until I am satisfied first. Ok now this could be considered a somewhat ready structure and off it goes to the band mates. Then the song goes through further arrangement ideas etc. once Christian has done his vocal ideas.
Well, we worked a bit differently on this since I did most of the lyrics before any music and it´s not always a good fit when you have written text that is not fitted into the rhythm of the songs. So, I basically had to try out if my lyrics made any sense, could they work in the context of these songs? So, I demoed those songs, I think it was 5 songs out of 8. Christian really liked what he heard and insisted that we should utilize this contrast of our voices together to broaden the sound and feel. I had no original vision of doing any vocals on the album but think it turned out pretty cool.
You obviously pick up things along the road which develops your skills, writing, way to work etc. I do think I´m at my best right now when it comes to work habits, knowing what one wants, easier to determine what´s not working and so forth. To fit in orchestral elements into an already dense metal mix was a challenge and eye opener, teaching me yet again something new for future escapades.
It was evident quite early on that this is our single hit, (laugh) death metal hit clings badly. Is there such a thing as death metal hits? (laugh). No but seriously, it´s a good song with memorable parts in our opinion and the clean vocals fits very well. So yeah, it was an obvious pick for us. It´s a song that has all the elements we love about metal. fast thrash/death like grooves, a very bombastic and atmospheric intro and middle passage to add dynamics.
We were extremely satisfied and happy that this beast of a project came out so well. Every album is like a desert walk. You invest every ounce of your self into the process. Countless rounds of analyzing every little single detail. Once the Master is done I´m usually quite drained and while I´m happy and extremely proud it´s put aside for a few months. But it´s always nice to return to it with fresh ears when the pr cycle begins and the first singles are released.
I won´t say, no we are not a live band. But that´s what it looks like at the moment. If we´d get some interesting offers, we would obviously address that then. But no plans of playing live at the moment at least.
Thank you Lior
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