INTRO

So here it is - another one and uglier than ever. Despite me saying „never again”, I may be addicted to making zines. I wrote quite a few sentences here in the polish version, which came out some time ago, but now I have no idea what to say... With so many terrible things that happened around me recently I’m glad I mana-ged to finish this piece. I’d like to thank everyone involved, eve-ry photographer and band, and most of all - Bartek Tajak of Fu-eling The Fire for helping me with tranlations and Pascal of Evil Greed for believing in this project. I’d like to think that there are no mistakes here, but fuck it, it’s a punk zine, right? DIY or cry.

xx Bastian

P.S. That wicked cover art is a photo by Gingerdope Photography edited by PWEE3000 ;)

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^^photo by Nous Davidse

SOUNDCHECK: Nick Cogan (Drug Church).........4

INTERVIEW: Rain ...............................................8

INTERVIEW: Youngbrother................................12

SOUNDCHECK: Boy Tillekens (Swain)..............16

INTERVIEW: Tomek Jazwiecki (Skateaffair).21

INTERVIEW: Wherethebirdssleep....................26

INTERVIEW: Lochy i Smoki...............................31

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(Nick Cogan)

What guitars are you currently using? Which one is your favourite?

My live guitar(s) are constantly changing because I have an actual addiction to buying gear. The guitar that I use the most is also the guitar I’ve had for the longest. It’s a 1980 Gibson Les

Paul Custom. Everything is stock and it sounds perfect. The next guitar in line is my ‚73 Les Paul Deluxe. I love those guitars but I absolutely hate the stock mini-humbuckers, so I take them out

and put P-90’s in there. Preferably stock Gibson ones, or Seymo-ur Duncan Antiquities.

What was your first guitar?

My first guitar was a no-name Stratocaster copy. It was red and it was far too big for my body at the age of 7.

My first „real” guitar was the ‚80 Les Paul Custom I mentioned before. One of my father’s friends was selling it for pretty cheap when I was about 12 or 13. So I really lucked out on that one.

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^ nikospl3gas.tumblr.com

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What pedal effects are you using?My pedalboard is constantly changing because I’m neurotic abo-ut those sorts of things. The pedals that never seem to leave wo-uld be my Rat, Small Clone, Small Stone and my Memory Man.

Your favourite amp/head? Why?My favorite amp is the one I’ve had forever. It’s a ‚79 JMP. It’s

a 100 watt and it’s really loud. I use that for everything really, at least rhythm wise. I also use a ‚74 Silver Face Twin Reverb. My recording/live set up switches between those to amps. Predomi-nately the JMP with a TS-9 in front, A/B’d with a fender twin with

a Rat. What kind of guitar gear are you dreaming of?

Haha the list could go on forever. I’ll just give you my current

„saved searches” on eBay and Craigslist. Lately I’ve been looking for an early 60’s SG Junior, a newer Gibson Firebird, and a Mar-

shall 1959 SLP. Those are my current obsessions. Thank you for your interest!

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//Bastian //translated by B. Tajak8

Hi man, introduce your-self please and tell me abo-ut the origins of RAIN.

Harry: Alright mate how’s it going? I’m Harry and I play bass and sing a bit in Rain. We’re a band from Swindon, in the south west of En-gland. Before Rain started, Cam (Drums), Rhys (Guitar) and I were all in a hardcore band together and decided we wanted to do so-mething different so started prac-tising casually. We’d always talk to Jonah (Vocals / Guitar) about this type of music and when it came to making a band it was an easy de-cision to ask him to join. Recently we’ve become a five piece as our good friend James has joined to also play guitar, it’s been great ha-ving him in because it really seems to add an extra dynamic to the sound and the band as a group.

How did you come up with that name, is there any story behind it?

H: I can’t even remember to be honest, It just seems like it’s al-ways been the name. It must be annoying as hell trying to search for us online though.

Traditional question – what bands would you mention as the big-gest influences for your music?

When we went to record the EP we watched that Slowdi-ve documentary together and

were blown away by it for sure. As far as other bands go we all have different influences. You’ll be able to tell when you hear the EP that Cam has a huge love for thrash punk and hardcore music because the drums are so aggres-sive. We all love bands like Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Lush, and The Jesus And Mary Chain too. Me and Jonah have also really been into LSD And The Search For God recently, they’re great.

Oh ok. As you are one of the fewer bands on the scene, that (in my opinion !) can be de-scribed as, more or less, sho-egaze band, don’t you think that this label is soooo overu-sed and misused nowadays?

H: I definitely think since that Title Fight record dropped people have been quick to say that anything he-avy with a chorus pedal is shoega-ze, which is obviously not the case. I’d never classify us as a shoegaze band because the real “shoegaze” bands from the 90’s don’t sound anything like us really, we could never make music as good as that.

Yeah I definitely see what you mean. Your debut re-cord is gonne be released soon by Close To Home Re-cords, right? Can you tell us about it? How did it happen?

H: We recorded the EP in June 9

The Ranch in Southampton with Lewis Johns. Lewis had done so many great records we thought he’d be our best bet in trying to cap-ture the huge sound we were after. When we finished the record we sent it across to some independent labels that we thought would like it including Close To Home. We were confident that working with Joe was the right choice and we still are, he puts so much work in and does everything he can to make the bands on the label happy. We co-uldn’t be happier working with him.

Could you tell a bit more about its content? What can we expect?

H: Like I said in the previous qu-estion, we wanted to capture a huge, heavy wall of sound and Lewis did that perfectly. The re-

cord has got quieter moments like on the track ‘Dandelion’, but even that leads to probably the heaviest part of the record towards the end.

Can’t wait then! Harry, your other passion is videography, espe-cially good, old VHS. How did it all start? By the way I love your work, especially the „Slur” video!

H: Thanks so much mate. Obvio-usly I’ve been watching music videos all my life, so it’s cool to be able to create things similar to those that have been such a huge part of my life. It’s so exciting seeing the SLUR video being sha-red around everywhere obviously because it’s our band, but on a selfish note it’s really cool be-cause it’s something I’ve made.

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Nice! Now tell me - what are your favourite 2015 releases?H: As a band we’ve all loved the la-test EP by the Danish band Com-munions, that’s probably our col-lective favourite. Other than that, I loved the new records by Cha-in Of Flowers and Tame Impala. 9. To end with, what are you plans for the nearest future ? We’ve got a really busy start to 2016 actually which is exciting. We’re doing a live session, a few headline shows and obviously the record is coming out which we honestly can’t wait for sin-ce we recorded it over 6 months ago. Thanks a lot mate, take care.Thank you and good luck!

FB.COM/rainisaband

rainisaband.tumblr.com

label:CLOSE TO

HOMERECORDS.

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//Bastian

Hey man! How are you? Can you introduce yourself?

Hi, my name is Dmitriy, i play guitar and sing in a band called "Youngbrother"

Ok, so Dmitriy, tell me how wo-uld you describe the music that you're playing and what bands inspire you the most?

Hm..i don't like genre clishes, but i think we play some kind of loud, mid tempo punk-rock with

90s emo and alternative rock influ-ences. Other music inspire me all the time...in one hand it would be some bands from 90s and in other hand some modern kind of music. Too many bands, i can call you some names if you want.

Yeah, name a few please :) I’ts always interesting and maybe I will find some new bands to li-sten to haha

Hmm..right now i have in my play-er some stuff from Dinosaur Jr.,

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Face to Face, Sleeping Weather, Nothing, Knapsack, latest Kurt Vile album, latest album from Thurston Moore and some Sonic Youth, also have some sludgy doom metal stuff like early Electric Wizard, YOB, Cough, Windhand, Sleep, With the Dead... Also i like indian folk and some soundtracks, experimental ambient music, drone doom music.

Oh nice! These are pretty di-verse and interesting inspi-rations! By the way, how did it happen that the band started? What’s the story?

I started this band with Yegor, the drummer. Our previos band just broke up and we just wanted to play. Simple story.

Ok. I’ve noticed that you play a lot of shows with hardco-re bands. How does the sce-ne look like in Russia? Are the hardcore/punk scene and al-ternative scene connected?

Yeah, few raw hardcore bands with some post-rock or emo band or al-ternative band in list at the gig is a normal practice. Of course we have a lot of shows with only hardcore bands or some other stuff, but mul-ti genre shows is a frequent. I think it’s interesting because you can di-scover something different, some-thing new, feel other direction. And peole often play in a few bands at once, this make that connection. You can play some beatdown hard-core and then mellow emo stuff...

Yeah that’s right...and I also think that it’s an awesome way of making shows :) Can you tell me what guitar gear are you using?

Right now my main guitar is a Gib-son SG Special Worn Brown, a great workhorse for every kind of music you want to play. But i also like „Fender shape” guitars and right now making an master-build custom guitar. I have only 3 pedals in my board: Boss Tuner, Ibanez de-7 and Electro-Harmonix Big Muff pi with tone wicker. That’s my sound.

You’ve recently released a sin-gle called „Drown”. Tell me so-mething about it and why did you choose Bob Cooper to ma-ster it? This is the first song that we wrote with a second guitarist, and last re-corded with old bass player, i also record some bass parts on it. We just looking for someone who real-ly knows how that kind music sho-uld sounds and chose Bob.

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I don’t really know why. He just inspires confidence...And we like his work for Nai Harvest and Hindsights and other bands Ok, do you plan any new music out soon?

Now we’re just writing new songs. We play couple on shows. I hope we can record some new music in the beggining of 2016. Ok so to finish with - can you recommend me some rus-sian bands :) ? Yeah, i would recomend you to listen a few bands: Selfcha-se, Rooftops, Jinx, Get Cold, Us Pàlm, Materic, Bicycles for Afghanistan, Kovarski, and WLVS if you want something heavy

Ok thank you ! Thank YOU for the interest :)!

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^^photo by Nous Davidse

studio edition.

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What guitars are you currently using? Which one is your favourite?

I’m playing a Fender Jaguar HH and for some songs on thisrecord I also used Noam’s Gibson The Paul.

What was your first guitar? My first guitar was a red and white Squier Strat from one of those

starter packs with a small amp. I bought it when I was 13 or something and got into rock music. It’s obviously shitty but I used it to play along to Blink 182 records playing from an even shittier

boombox so it got me excited enough to keep on playing.

What pedal effects are you using?An MXR phaser for obvious reasons. Several boost pedals to

especially make choruses sound bigger and heavier. These were made by a guy who works in the same building as the studio. I

have an EH Nano Clone, which I think I only used for one part on the record. I prefer using the EH Pitch Fork, which if you turn it all the way down kinda sounds like a chorus, but it’s prettier and has a less distinct chorus sound. I also use it to add an extra octave to a lead at times. For the heaviest parts I used this nuclear sort of pedal that J got from someone a while ago, only two of these

were made and it makes your guitar sound like your amp is about to blow up, it’s great. The nuclear image describes its sound

pretty well. The Angry Sparrow I used a lot for leads, to add some gain. It’s some sort of diy pedal that I don’t know anything about, except that it sounds pretty sick. I used the EH Small Stone for one or two songs that needed a more over-the-top phaser than the MXR, which is more of a safer phaser, I guess. The volume

pedal I actually only use for one song that has a verse where the guitar slowly fades in. The ZVEX Instant Lo-fi Junky is a pretty

cool one, I’m still not entirely sure what is does exactly, but half of it works as a sort of chorus, but it warps the sound a bit more, to the point where you start to feel a bit sea sick if you use it an en-tire song. It’s cool. I also use a splitter to use two amps at once.

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Your favourite amp/head? Why?

I don’t really know, back home I use a sort of 80’s Marshall plexi copy that I bought off some guy who couldn’t tell me much more

about it for very cheap that sounds really cool. In the studio I used a Fender Bassman with, for most songs, an Ampeg Gemini II, and for some other songs a Gibson amp that I don’t remember the name of. The Bassman I used for a more cleaner sound and then the other one to add some weight. Both combinations work

really well.

What kind of guitar gear are you dreaming of?

Nothing, really. I can’t say I’m that much into guitars or gear, or that I actually know what I’m talking about or whatever. Although, I am starting to get invested in pedals more now that I’m finding

out more. But I’ve always cared more about songwriting, I guess.

^^photo: Jonatan Carlsson18

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Hey Man! Please introdu-ce yourself and tell us brie-fly what is Skateaffair.pl about.

TJ: Hi, my name is Tomek Jaźwiec-ki, and I lead a web portal Skateaf-fair, which oscillates between ska-teboarding and street fashion. Our website has a daily run of news from the world of skate clothing (not exc-lusively), as well as we tend to cover some news about equipment and fo-otwear. What’s more, we test gear, trying to do that as often as it’s only possible, we put out tutorials, and just like you, we invite people from our “environment” for interviews. There’s really a lot to say, so if anyone wo-uld like to know more – please just visit our page at www.skateaffair.pl.

Besides that, or maybe should I say most importantly, I’m occupied with skateboarding. Sometimes I study on top of that. For the last two years I’ve been enjoying surfing, but my newest passion on which I spend all my time and money is music on vinyl.

Where did you get the idea for Ska-teaffair?

When it came to starting with Skateaf-fair, I was mostly influenced by great products released by the legendary footwear company éS. Everyone who knows that company would know their shoes were always based on cool new technologies. I couldn’t find a website that would thoroughly describe that, and especially not in polish language.

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With some time I started finding all tho-se different producers providing inte-resting technologies in their products, for example P2 decks. I figured it wo-uld be great to find more examples of that, and publish it all in one place. I shared the idea with my buddies at a skatepark during one of our countless night sessions. Between them the-re was Wiktor S., who told me a few weeks later that he loved the idea, and I should pursue that, or he would have to do it. Eventually we started working together, figuring out the who-le business side of it, and now nearly 6 years later we‘re both still in it. The portal still evolves, and we still have new visions, currently bringing lots of upcoming changes for Skateaffair…

Awhile ago you expanded your activity and created a web store. Maybe tell us something about that?

TJ: We were always interested in pro-gress and new challenges. The sto-re is probably the biggest challenge we’ve taken so far. I think it’s also a natural step for us. We’d been getting lots of e-mails asking for whether it was possible to use our platform and buy some product X that we would have described earlier. There was so many of those messages, it made us think. After a few months of preparation stages, around the end of July 2014, we were able to open our Skateaffa-ir STORE. Without being too modest, I’d have to say we carry a really wide range of skateboarding equipment. There’s obviously clothes as well, some stuff for snowboarding, some-thing for girls, and who knows what. We’re always easy to get in touch with,

giving our customers some tips, that are backed by years and years of expe-rience. Everyone here used to work at a skateshop before, and Wiktor even owned two stationary shops himself. We’re constantly filming some tutorials and skate edits. First effects might be found somewhere on the web. And to finish my boasting, I’d only have to add that we carry only selected brands, that we were consistently posting abo-ut years before the store came to life.

Ok, stepping away from the web scenario, how many years has it already been for you with the whole skateboarding venture?

JT: I took up skating right before the summer of 2005. Once you step on your deck time flows quite diffe-rently, as much looking at it short--term, as long-term as well. I’d re-commend that to everybody. Thanks to skateboarding I’ve met so many inspiring people, travelled around some cool places. The last 10 years, or even more, I had something to make me happy, and I still have it.

The first edition of Skate Yard Sale took place at the end of November, and you were the ones organizing it. It’s an awesome idea, could you tell us something more about it?

TJ: One day I looked at that huge pile of gear and clothes that I hadn’t been using for some time, and tho-ught to myself I wouldn’t even be able to sell it for example on facebook, or somehow auction all of that stuff separately. I instantly came up with an idea of trading all of it in the real life, in a form of a second-hand sale.

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Fortunately, In Cracow we still have the Forum Skate Pool, so I didn’t have to search for a host too long. A lot of kindest people helped me with some organization aspects. So the first edition is behind us, everyone had so-mething sold, and the prices were ridi-culously low too, which probably made both sides happy. The sellers were to pay for their stands, and all of the pro-ceeds from that served as a donation for the skate bowl. During the sale we had some cool competitions in which people could participate and just have fun. But I was mostly satisfied with the charity collection for the Saint Louis Orphanage in Cracow. We gathered 40 t-shirts, around 10 sweatshirts, lots of caps, shoes, and plenty of sweets and other gifts, all in the right time for the St. Nick’s Day. High five to eve-ryone that donated the goods. We’re already planning the next edition.

Do you remember your first deck?

TJ: Yeah, of course. I bought a com-plete skateboard at a local toy shop (hehe), all for 40zł. It was a lot for me back then. Its design was horrible and poorly made, but I didn’t mind. I still remember the moment I tried to ride down the first small driveway outside of that store, I immediately knew skateboarding is something very special. I still have that deck to this very day, seeing as I felt it’s go-ing to hold a lot of value for me.

I know that one of your pas-sions outside of skateboarding is also guitar, right? What have you been listening to lately? J

T: Yes, it’s true. I’ve been trying to learn guitar for years now! Maybe someday I’ll get there (haha). If it comes to what I’ve been listening to lately, I couldn’t forget to mention

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a band called Reverend Baron. As for my current playlist, whatsoever, I can’t stop spinning Neil Young, Lyk-ke Li, and Jozef Van Wissem, while the cherry on my cake would have to be a group called Cheap Tobac-co. It’s a polish band, partly from Cracow, and partly from my family sides. You can check them out on youtube, but they’re much better live.

While working on a skate-portal you kinda have to be up to date with everything. Which polish and international companies/te-ams stood out the most lately?

TJ: A company that definitely de-serves some attention is HUF, which is a brand that as one-of-not-too-many is still “skater-owned”. They regularly come out with interesting products, and they’re not afraid to experiment, having countless collaborations with other passionate companies, that’s just a common thing for them. It’s quite similar with the guys from PA-LACE or Polar Skate Co. It’s also worthy to keep an eye on RIPNDIP, Isle Skateboards, Cliché. If it comes to our native skate-companies, I’d have to admit that not a single one makes my heart stir as of now. Ge-nerally I do like the ethics of Egzul Skateboards, and I’m curious how will the new Straight Krukt collection look like, but I guess that would be it.

Seeing as it’s already New Year and we’re in the middle of the en-d-of-year round ups, I’d like to ask you to name 3 of your favori-te SV’s of 2015. And while we’re at it, I’d like to thank you for the in-terview, and wish you a great year!

TJ: Last year what I liked the most would be Boys of Summer, which breaks all the stale patterns, and for one more time, proves that what real-ly counts in skateboarding, is actually just us, meaning ordinary skateboar-ders. We’re the reason those compa-nies and factories exist, not the other way round. The next production that appealed to me was Propeller, which was made in a very stand formula of having an intro/part/part/part/outro form. It’s probably the only downsi-de of that thing, but I’m mostly exci-ted about its ‘cast’. Another part from Rowley, AVE or DanLu? Yes, please! Last but not least, I’d name a polish production, seeing as we’re quite un-healthily so in love with the west, so I thoroughly recommend the newest one from Aram Socha, meaning YTH Video. It’s a noteworthy continuation of the already staple Easy Livin’.

Interview: BastianTranslated by: B. TajakPhotos: Łukasz Jaracz

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Hi, how are you? Introduce your-self for us here and now please.

T. Masłowski: Hi, I’m good, thanks. Relaxing before tomor-row’s Turnstile gig, which I happen to have a pleasure of organizing. My name is Tomasz Masłow-ski, and people call me Masło.

Yeah, that gig’s gonna be a good one, but anyway, tell us some-thing about your band wherethe-birdssleep. How did it start and where did the name come from?

TM: Wherethebirdssleep is a name that our bassist Witold came up with. He would surely answer this question more accurately than me, as actually I can’t really recall where that name came from speci-fically. We had a few options, and in the end we decided that it was the one that suited our band well enough. We started the band in 2014. I was on my way back home after rehearsing with my previous band, in which I already played with Japa, and I mentioned some-thing quite spontaneously about wanting to play something diffe-rent. Coincidentally it occurred we were both somehow tired of the he-avy stuff, I guess, and we wanted to look for some forms of escape.

Here I’d like to send a smile to Witold, seeing as I know he’s pretty sensitized to what I’m about to ask, but maybe you’d be able to define your genre of music somehow?

TM: I actually have some hard time with that. I’ve been in a few other bands, and it was easier to describe them before. With whe-rethebirdssleep it’s difficult to pi-geonhole us, it’s just more emotive and sad, it should provoke some reflection.

Do you feel it does the job well with making the listener think?

TM: I’d hope for that. Our group is not only about music, but also abo-ut some stories. We’ve got a lot to say and we share that openly.

That’s right, during your shows you often use the stage to spe-ak out about how big of a deal mental illnesses might be for people, especially when they’re constantly pushed aside. Isn’t it an example of that?

TM: Exactly. It’s a very serious to-pic in my opinion, even more as it’s been touching me quite much directly for some time now.

//Bastian //translated by B. Tajak

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When I started battling against de-pression and panic attacks I reali-zed what kind of disturbance it can bring. Since then I also notice how many people in our society deal with the same problems. I see it everywhere around me as well. At our shows I use some time to talk about that cause I think it’s impor-tant to share our stories. I want to let people know that there’s nothing to be ashamed of, and we could talk about our problems openly, in this way helping each other with the burden. For me personally, playing music is a form of therapy.

I couldn’t agree with you more! Changing the subject we could talk more about your EP. Could you tell us something about it?

TM: Hmm. Maybe I could start with the process of its creation. The EP came to existence com-pletely naturally for us. What do I mean with that? Right at the be-ginning we instantly felt how well do we get on with each other, and how easy it is to write songs to-gether. The whole EP was written during our rehearsal sessions, we talked a lot about the songs and crafted all the details as a group. We didn’t have anybody that wo-uld set a full-blown concept for the music, it was just collected from every separate member, and eve-ryone had their equal roles. I can easily admit we make up a good team. When it comes to the layers

of music and lyrics, our EP blends plenty of different things together. There’s some punk, some post--rock, some people say melodic hardcore, or just post-hardcore. But in the end, I think we managed to take all that’s good out of that, and create a cohesive collection of songs. We’re really satisfied with that. And as I mentioned before, the lyrics depict some portions of our personal lives.

You’re the one writing lyrics?

TM: Some of the lyrics are written by me, and other parts are written by Witek, our bassist. I personal-ly tend to think he does it better than I. I’m not a poet. Sometimes I manage to write something down under the influence of a given mo-ment, or some stronger emotions, but it doesn’t always come out ri-ght. I just try to select all my best fragments to use them for songs.

Only not so long ago the EP fo-und its proper release, am I cor-rect?

TM: Yes, although the album was released online in June of 2015, it wasn’t until now we had a chan-ce to see it out there in a physical form.

How would you describe the new material you’re preparing right now? Is it different than the EP?

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TM: It is a little different this time around. Some moments it might move more towards our post-rock influences. In its whole it will surely have its own flow. Some of the new tracks are already being played live, so if you see us at a concert, you also can hear the new material. So, to sum it up, what are your future plans?TM: We’re not really planning too much. There’s no actual plan for the foreseeable future. We’re playing all the time, having fun and that’s ge-nerally fulfilling. We’ll surely take a few steps to record our new LP soon enough, and we’re really excited about that. We want to play as many shows as it’s possible, as this is the most fun thing in all of that. Alright, so I’ll wish you guys just that, enjoy your gigs, good luck with your LP, and have fun!

TM: There’s nothing more I could ask for, so thanks a lot.

facebook.com/wherethebirdssleepwherethebirdssleep.bandcamp.com/

wherethebirdssleep@gmail.com

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LOCHY I SMOKIHi! Introduce yourself bud-dy, let the world get familiar with one of the three leaders of the boy band Lochy i Smoki!

Hi! My name’s Arek, in Lochy i Smo-ki I play bass and sing along. Be-sides me there’s Paweł on guitar and second voice, and there’s also the third guy, Krzysiek, playing drums and being handsome.

I’ve heard you guys are metal ve-terans, are you active in any other bands? And what made you play this kind of music for girls like me?

Well, we’re veterans of metal, punk 77, metalcore, beatdown… There was a lot of that, and there’s even more plan-ned, but besides Lochy i Smoki the whole trio currently plays in a sludge/

hardcore band, it’s called The Throne. Moreover, Krzysiek and I both play in WC, and I play in ODC. Lochy i Smoki came to life out of the need to play that specific kind of music, and as well just to try ourselves out at so-mething new – that’s where Paweł’s and my singing came from, as well as playing as a trio, which to my mind is a perfect way to go with guitar music.

Ok… So here comes the key question of our interview. Which Jawbreaker record is your favorite and why?

You’re really bad at building up any su-spense then :P It would definitely be “Dear You”, but that’s basically becau-se it was the first one I stumbled upon.

//Bastian + fot. piątaesencja

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Haha, ok! Got that one behind us, so maybe you could tell us something about what inspired you while writing your debut EP?

It’s generally just difficult to say. Out of different reasons that thing was being written over the span of more than 5 years. In that time the project entitled “hey let’s just play emo” was just in the works, shaping up for what it is, with things getting through lots and lots of changes in between. It’s the same when it comes to our inspirations. In terms of music it’s probably quite possible to spot it out. It’s worth noting that before we had our first practice I made sure that the rest of the guys would be down for having sort-of-exclusively my ideas in the works, and that I would always have the final say on song-decisions. That’s an awfully foolish attitude to-wards playing music, but it didn’t come from nowhere. Everyone who plays in a band knows that a band is a product of every member’s craze. I definitely cared too much for my then-nameless--project to go down that road and fall far from what I had intended to do with it. With other bands I could never stick to any initial arrangements. However, it took me too long to understand that it’s kinda stupid and it takes away all the fun of creating that whole thing with your buddies, and only later on it really picked up steam. Anyway, our first attempt to play something along emo/screamo music was The Trone ;]

Yeah, you could obviously try to catch some resemblance to other artists in you music, but I’d be also interested to hear what’s your stan-ce on the part about spotting out your main music influences, just because it’s usually something dif-ferent than people might assume.

Alright, alright. It would mainly be bands like Street Smart Cyclist, Sno-wing, Grown-Ups, Small Brown Bike, Cap’n Jazz, Algernon Cadwalla-der, Die Last… Let’s say these wo-uld be the ones I intended to rip off the most, but seeing as I can’t play as well as them, it is what it is hehe.

Haha, ok – that’s fair! So may-be now you could tell us some-thing about recording your la-test material? From what you’re saying it seems like you were really having your time with it!

We were dragging the whole process mostly because of a great grip on time management, or precisely the lack of it. Add that to the fact that mean-while we released two albums from The Throne and ODC respectively, did some touring, and sometimes it came to a point where we just didn’t feel like doing anything more. Even-tually we recorded the music at our rehearsal space on Krzysiek’s equip-ment, seeing as Krzysiek is not only a drummer, but also does sound engi-neering under the moniker 515 Agen-cy. We recorded it under the watchful eye of our friend, Marcin “Panu Mar-cinu” Rybicki, out of Left Hand Sound from Poznań. Besides producing he also took care of quick mixing and mastering. We actually recorded our vocals at his place, having his parents and sister right behind the wall. They took it quite bravely, and we even got meat chops for dinner. They had to be wearing some earplugs or otherwise I’d only expect us to get some boiled potatoes at best. Anyway, I’d recom-mend Marcin to any sort of recording sessions – it’s enough to go and listen to the last album from In Twilight’s Em-brace, which he produced entirely, you can clearly hear he knows his stuff.32

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Generally it’s plain to see you have this kind of a ‘nerd-ish’ theme surrounding your ban-d(Lochy i Smoki means Dunge-ons & Dragons in polish -Bastian), could you elaborate on that?Yeah there’s been a set idea of fo-cusing everything we do on a certain topic, and seeing as we all have only love for those, as you call it, ‘nerd-ish’ things, it was easy for us to choose. Moreover, we’re all fans of Forgotten Realms – Krzysiek still plays Baldur’s Gate (he even forces us to throw some references here or there, and we har-dly agree on that), I enjoyed all of the books with Drizzt Do’Urden back in the day, and Paweł is the best DnD player I’ve ever played with. Other than that, I always liked to find references in the lyrics of the songs I liked, whether it would be to pop culture, or literature. I have a feeling it allows you to bring your listeners closer to what you intend to say in your songs. If I was a better lyricist, I probably wouldn’t have to use that form as much, but what can you do.

Come on, it’s not that bad :D By the way, why in Polish?Dammit, I don’t see why not? Maybe to make it a bit more difficult – there’s no denying that it’s much easier to write in English. But it’s mostly because lyrics in your native language might hit you har-der (at least in my opinion), especially when they’re really good, where I think we have plenty of those “sad bands” wording it all out so well. Besides that, there’s too many English-language bands, with which we don’t come up to scratch hehe. I also have a feeling, that with this type of music, it’s much har-der to yell your own native equivalents of words like “I need you”, than just some sounds that aren’t necessarily

understood when played live, so the emotional aspect also has got its role.

I get it and I back it up ;) You also had your debut released physically, but in a form of cassette. Why’s that? Ge-nerally, we’ve been witnessing quite a comeback from vinyl and casset-tes, what do you think about that?

The reason we chose a cassette form for the EP is quite prosaic – it’s just that none of my other bands have ever done anything like that hehe, and be-sides that, we couldn’t afford a vinyl option, whereas I gotta admit, I’m a little bored with standard CDs. I figu-red lately, that in our times with all the streaming services and mp3s and so on, you need to somehow encourage people to even want to have your mu-sic in a physical format, it has to be so-mething more than an average CD in a plastic case. Let it be some screen printing on a cardboard vinyl cover, or a CD with a cover sewn together from bits of felt. There’s plenty of dif-ferent options, and it only makes an album stand out from the others within a collection. I myself saw something like that for the first time when I was throwing a gig for now-defunct Words Mean Nothing, and I bought their CD released by Basement Records – a CD slipped into a ‘case’ made of black car-dboard, all wrapped in a jacket of grey paper with a cut-off in the middle. I just like this sort of things, and I have loads of fun with finding releases made that way, or with preparing them myself.

I guess you’re right, now physi-cal releases are more like gad-gets made to be put on a shelf… And still concerning the so-cal-led emo scene in here, how do you think is it shaping up around?

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Hard to admit, but I’m not really up-to-date with that, at least not to an extent of an expert or something. There are bands - though quite young – which I’ve seen live, or got some of their releases, and they just keep up the good work. But let’s say there’s not too many names that I could list like right away, and that’s mostly

just my fault.Ok, so to sum it up, I’ll ask you about your future plans in Lochy i Smoki!

And I could even pretend that I care :DI’m actually well aware that you for one, as our biggest fan, wait and follow our every step hehe. Plans over here are just the same as with every other band, to play as much as we can, and in some time to get some new material, and

release it somehow. Maybe next time on a floppy disk? We’ll see.Thank you for the interview!

Thanks! It was terrible!//translated by B.Tajak

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