Author: Rok Klemše
Interview date: February 16, 2008
Chaosstar are a relatively young Slovenian metal band rooted mainly in progressive metal. One of the few groups of this kind on our turf, they showed a high level of professionalism right away by reaching out for the following interview themselves, and with honest, clear answers and well-formed opinions they proved they’re not just good musicians but also know exactly what they want. After long months of recording their debut record Lifetime, Chaosstar are finally closing in on the release. Judging by the tracks already up on their MySpace page, the album definitely promises a lot, especially with its outstanding instrumental and vocal work and a well-crafted concept story. You’ll have to wait a month or two more to hear the long-awaited Lifetime, but until then you can read an in-depth and fun interview in a relaxed atmosphere. The answers say more than enough: Jure, Vasja and Dare weren’t born yesterday…
RockLine: To start, introduce Chaosstar: who are the members, how long have you been around…
Vasja: Chaosstar is Jure Jurca on vocals/guitar, Vasja Čepič on guitar, Dare Ramot on bass and Primož Jelševar on drums. We’ve been playing in this lineup for three and a half years, and before that Jure, Dare and I played in another band with a different drummer and under a different name. If you read the bio of any foreign band, it always goes like this: two members met when they were 14, 15 years old, and Chaosstar is a similar story, because back when we were younger I taught Jure to play guitar, and later he called me up to audition for the band.
RockLine: So where does the name Chaosstar come from?
Jure: We had a lot of trouble with the name… First we were called Corpus Delicti…
RockLine: Pretty black metal name, haha.
Jure: Yeah, damn it (laughs).
Vasja: Then we were Buliwyf for a while, after the Viking king from the movie The 13th Warrior by John McTiernan with Antonio Banderas. But there’s a whole pile of anecdotes about that name, because people didn’t get what we were or what we wanted to say with it, so in the end we were everything from Blueway to Buffy to Butwipe… (laughs). When Primož joined the band we decided to pick a new, strong, recognizable name that would also hint at the style of music. Chaosstar was always a suggestion, but we never actually made a decision, and then after a few months we finally said that’s going to be our new name. The name and the logo also represent each of us with the four points, and the side points are our alter egos. There’s actually a story behind the name too, because chaos theory says that every chaos is orderly and harmonious at its center, and each force line pulls in its own direction with a different strength, and that’s how chaos is created.
RockLine: If I’m not mistaken, there’s already an official recording from 2006 called Lifetime?
Vasja: Yeah, that’s a story that’s really been going on for a whole “lifetime”. It’s our debut album, which should have been recorded back at the end of 2006, but in the end we decided to do everything ourselves. If we’re a progressive band, we wanted to do everything ourselves too. In between, building the studio took a huge amount of time, then testing the gear and the recording, and digital recording especially can go on forever.
Jure: The thing is, we have an idea about the music that we want to be perfect. We figured that if we recorded in another studio, it would take too much time and money.
Vasja: You can’t go back and fix things, because during rehearsals you might want a track produced differently, and in your own studio you can fix that. On top of that it’s a concept album, so the songs connect to each other, there’s a story behind them, and it’s all the more important that the whole album has one unified sound while the songs themselves stay varied. Lifetime will be ready in a few months. Our drummer Primož took over production and mixing, and two different people will do the final mix and mastering so the album goes through more ears, but we’ll hand over a pretty rounded product from our side. Sometimes it’s worth waiting another month or two so you can hand over something that’s really good. The first album matters.
Dare: Another reason for the delay is that all of us have jobs and college.
Jure: And there’s something else. When you start recording, you have no idea what’s waiting for you. I personally learned so many different techniques that I wouldn’t have been able to play before. It’s interesting to watch yourself progress.
Dare: Once you have the material recorded, only then do you see the final picture of what would actually fit on the album.
Vasja: Finding the production sound is demanding too. We wanted a harp, for example, and now we have excellent recordings of a real acoustic harp that we’ll use for the intro and outro and a middle section. A black metal vocalist and a keyboardist will also guest, and the keyboardist still has to record a few lines, and then we’ll slowly be near the end.
RockLine: So this album has been in the making for quite a while. Did you need more time to write the material…
Vasja: No, no, that’s exactly the problem. The material was written at the start of our career. It’s like you’ve already written the book, but you still need someone to publish it, proofread it, print it. It takes a while before it gets onto the shelf. We first wanted to put out a demo, but we decided to release something substantial, since that’s a major dividing line.
Jure: But I can say the album will be really high quality. Given all the time that went into recording and Primož’s effort on production, I can say the album will be top-notch.
Vasja: Meanwhile we’ve of course written enough material for two albums, but recording is a huge amount of work, and all four of us have jobs and college on top.
RockLine: Is that also why you decided to make it a concept album, to make it something really big?
Jure: In the band, Vasja and I write most of the songs, and we decided on a concept album given that Dream Theater are among our idols. It just happened on its own; after a few songs it turned out the record was going to be a concept album.
Vasja: It’s not only Dream Theater as an influence. I’d single out Seveth Son of a Seventh Son as one of the best metal concept albums, and Pink Floyd too, not so much as similar music but as a rounded product with an idea and a concept.
Dare: Combining several different ideas into one concept is hard and there were some slight frictions, but I think we pulled it off.
Vasja: You have to ask yourself what you actually want. You can record a jam session and release an album, but you have to ask yourself whether you’ll still like it in ten years, and even more importantly, whether some kid from Sweden will like it.
RockLine: So what’s the story behind the album’s concept, anyway?
Vasja: It’s a slightly veiled story. In our music we try to keep our distance from religion, politics and swearing…
Jure: That’s saved for rehearsals (laughs).
Vasja: It’s a theme that appears in H.P. Lovecraft’s novel The Crawling Chaos. Lovecraft has already been picked up by Metallica (The Thing That Should Not Be and The Call of Ktulu) and by Iron Maiden in the Live After Death booklet. The book has stories about cosmic demons, and instead of Satan we went for a more cosmic, intangible theme. It’s about the determinism of a man who was born as some alien thing on earth, evil, and he’s determined to be bad. Over the course of the album he struggles with his “father”, and the album is marked by duality too, especially in the solos, since Jure and I have quite different guitar sounds. The final track, with black metal vocals and high heavy metal vocals, also plays out like a duel.
RockLine: Haha, it doesn’t get more metal than Lovecraft. The lyrics are in English; did you try Slovenian too?
Vasja: Yeah, because of that I sometimes feel a little guilty, since we should do something for the Slovenian language too. But you have to admit – would Helloween have achieved what they did singing in German? And Germany has 82 million people.
RockLine: So you’re aiming abroad?
Vasja: Yeah, definitely. That’s what we want and what we’re thinking about.
Dare: With the EU it’s easier for all bands now.
Vasja: But we don’t want to downplay the importance of the Slovenian metal scene, since it seems well organized to us, we have festivals, there are places to play. In the end, though, you realize the scene is followed by 100 people and you know 80 of them. We’d like a bit more, not playing a club for 200 people, even though it’s great when all 200 are listening to you. We’d like a bit more, maybe 1000…
RockLine: Opening for a bigger band is a good opportunity too.
Dare: Sure, although you still have to do a lot yourself.
Vasja: Yeah, that can be a breakthrough, having someone notice you like that. Totally unofficially, even Judas Priest’s and Bruce Dickinson’s producer noticed us through MySpace. It doesn’t mean anything will come of it, but it’s huge praise and validation.
Jure: We also put out one track each on two compilations, New Order and Kuolm v glavo. On New Order we released Rebirth, which will be a completely different track in its new form. What I’m trying to say is, the progress is noticeable.
RockLine: What about gigs? Will you wait with them until the album’s out?
Vasja: Gigs are a problem and we’re aware of it. It’s not that we don’t play; we play under a different name, I won’t say which, and that’s how we polish our stage performance. But there’ll definitely be a tour once Lifetime is finished. In the end we stick to the economic principle: why play if you can’t offer an album?
Dare: The metal crowd is very grateful. If they like you, they’ll buy everything. We have ambitions, metalheads are our target audience, and why not offer them as much as possible?
Vasja: I personally see a big plus for us in the vocals, which the producer told us too. Jure sounds a lot like Bruce Dickinson. After all, Iron Maiden became a “household” name in the eighties. The production itself will be a rounded, dynamic whole too. The whole point of the album is that you put it in the player and listen to it from start to finish.
RockLine: Will you self-release the album or are you looking for a label?
Jure: We’re looking for a label, yeah.
Vasja: And if that doesn’t work out…
Dare: There are plenty of labels in Europe willing to work with you, you just have to offer them a good product.
Vasja: As far as I know, it’s not even that hard to get a label. The question is what the label is willing to do for you and what it can offer you. If it turns out it won’t work, we’ll send the CD off to be pressed, release it and sell it at gigs.
Jure: We’ll just have to settle for Nuclear Blast or InsideOut (laughs).
RockLine: You actually have quite a market niche here, considering you’re one of the few progressive metal bands in Slovenia.
Vasja: Actually, Lifetime wasn’t even written as a strictly progressive metal album, but the new material is much more progressive. And here’s the trick again: the first album isn’t what matters, it’s when you release the second one and how good it is.
Jure: But it’s nice to know you’re one of the few prog metal bands here.
RockLine: So in ten years, InsideOut and opening for, say, Iron Maiden?
Jure: Yeah yeah, of course. Actually, we could start with Symphony X (laughs).
Dare: Where do we sign (laughs).
Vasja: It’s really our big wish to play before a bigger band, even here at home as an opener.
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Interview by: Rok Klemše
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