Location: Rock Cafe / Postojna / Slovenia
Interview date: April 1, 2010
Almost Rage, from Slovenia’s coastal region, are a great addition to Slovenia’s sprawling thrash metal scene, which is going through a real renaissance right now. Maybe the climate is the main culprit behind how Almost Rage, who grew from a trio into a quartet last fall, developed their own recognizable thrash metal formula: a colorful mix of the traditional Bay Area thrash story, touches of Pantera riffs and handy garnishes from modern metal trends. With the indispensable venomously nasty vocals that this kind of music demands. Almost Rage sat down with RockLine in Postojna stronger than ever. The guys have matured into a rock-solid entity, as their excellent set at this year’s Epic RockLine Contest confirmed, and they’re boldly looking ahead to recording their studio debut.
RockLine: You recently grew into a quartet.
Edi: Yep. If I’m not mistaken, that was last September. Tonight, after a long break, we finally have a new gig here.
RockLine: Did you look for an extra guitarist for long?
Edi: We actually waited for Bojan for quite a while. We invited him into the band ages ago, but he didn’t have time back then.
RockLine: Was that also the reason you’ve been so hard to catch on stage lately?
Edi: Partly. Lately we’ve been busy reworking our existing songs, with new arrangements. The songs had to be restructured to a certain degree and adapted for two guitars. So there was less time for gigs. After this summer we’re planning more shows. We’re hoping for at least six in a row.
RockLine: What was the main idea behind entering the Epic RockLine Contest?
Edi: We needed another gig. And if we happen to win the contest, all the better. Recording an album isn’t cheap.
Igor: We’ve been trying to record an album for a while now, though. It’s no easy job. And thank God we didn’t record it earlier, precisely because we turned into a quartet. As a quartet we dressed the old tracks in new clothes, and we feel a lot better now with two guitars. That’s why we’re happier with the new look of our songs. Our music is even more polished now. We feel it’s the right time to go record an album.
RockLine: Is a demo planned in that connection, as many metal bands do when they’re in the middle of recording an album?
Edi: It all depends on how much money we scrape together. We need to have all the songs for our album rehearsed “down to zero”. We’ll see how ready the band is.
Igor: We’ve been playing for five years. We have a lot of songs. Some stayed mostly as they were, others developed further. There’s a kind of natural selection going on among them. Some songs already feel ripe enough to make the album. Others we keep listening to over and over, looking for the right cues to take them to the next level.
RockLine: What led to the decision to change the band’s name from The Fifth Season to Almost Rage?
Edi: Because there was already a band from Italy with that name.
Igor: We happened to run into each other at a festival in Gorizia. They came up to us and said they’d been around for 12 years under that name….
Edi: If we only played in Slovenia, there’d be no problem with the name The Fifth Season. But since we play abroad too, and we’re tied to Italy every single day anyway, it can get annoying.
Igor: Yeah. Sometimes I feel like I even go to the post office in Italy, ha, ha…
RockLine: Is it easier for Almost Rage to land gigs in Italy, then, seeing as you’re from the coast?
Igor: Our advantage is that we speak Italian. That opens doors.
Edi: But we haven’t seriously tried to set up a string of club gigs in Italy yet. I believe we’d pull it off, though. We just have to roll up our sleeves.
Igor: Right. We always preferred rehearsing to dealing with booking our shows. We’d need a manager for that.
RockLine: Do you plan to keep your thrash metal stance, the one that blends Bay Area influences with Pantera riffs, going forward too?
Edi: Yes. That really suits us. Personally, Pantera is still my number one band to this day. Sadly, they’re no more. We’ll also use Bojan’s fresh new ideas and keep going in that direction. With arrangements for two guitars, of course.
Igor: Thing is, our songs come together totally spontaneously. So we don’t try to sound like Pantera. The Pantera connections are obviously there because we’ve always loved that kind of music and listened to a ton of it.
RockLine: Edi, how do you keep your vocals in shape so they stay fresh through a whole show and don’t wear out?
Edi: There’s really no formula for it. At rehearsals I do watch myself a bit, and I only “mark” the songs if there’s no other need. Otherwise I never paid any particularly special attention to it. When I’m driving in the car, I crank up the music and sing along. My dad once bought me a microphone and headphones. He figured, or maybe just quietly hoped, I can’t tell you exactly, that something would come of me one day. Maybe the next Pavarotti, ha, ha, ha,…
RockLine: How’s the thrash metal scene on the Slovenian coast?
Edi: Hm, around here? There are a lot of black metal bands. Not much thrash to be found in this neck of the woods. Some slightly younger bands are popping up now, going back to more traditional heavy metal sounds.
Igor: There’s also Hiram.
Edi: Oh right. I forgot about them. We’d love to do a joint tour with them down the line.
RockLine: You already played together once at Metelkova in Ljubljana.
Edi: Yep. And at the Rog factory. In front of five people, ha, ha, ha… but it was a great party.
RockLine: And how do you see the state of thrash in Slovenia? Can you offer anything special with your music?
Edi: Thrash metal is hugely popular among the metal crowd in Slovenia today. There are quite a few Slovenian thrash bands leaning on the Bay Area thrash legacy. I honestly don’t know where to put us…
Igor: We have a different approach. We’re the only thrashers with short hair.
Edi: Yeah, that’s it. We’re the pretty-boy thrashers, ha, ha,… We’re trying to be a likable band!
RockLine: What about the summer festival season? Will you use it for any shows?
Edi: Yes. If Haliaetum festival happens this year, we’d really love to play there. We’ll see about the rest. We loved playing festivals like Metal Mania Open Air in Komen. That was a real homegrown scene where Slovenian bands got a genuine chance to show people their music.
RockLine: A question for Bojan: what does he expect from being a member of Almost Rage, given the experience he gained playing in Root a’ Balluta?
Bojan: Almost Rage and Root a’ Balluta are two completely separate and different things. Being a member of Almost Rage is a new challenge for me personally. I like that we’re united by a love of similar music, we listen to a lot of the same bands. With Almost Rage, everybody pitches in on writing the songs, whereas in Root a’ Balluta I wrote pretty much all the songs myself.
RockLine: Do you feel loyalty and belonging to the band?
Edi: Oooo…. Careful what you say now, Bojan!
Bojan: Well, the fact that at the start I had to call them twice before they called me back once, so we could finally get together for a rehearsal, is a good indicator of my loyalty.
Igor: You know, our rehearsals are really wild. Lots of jokes, fun, enjoyment. We needed someone who’d put up with all that while actively taking part in the creative process of writing new songs and polishing the existing ones. In short, Bojan is a person who puts up with us very well.
interview by: Rok Klemše & Aleš Podbrežnik
text edited by: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos by: Martin Prezelj
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