Author: Rok Klemše
Location: Cutty Sark, Ljubljana
Interview date: April 26, 2009
Cold Dew, Slovenia’s first and only doom metal band, took quite a while to get ready to storm the stages. But their very first gig, played at Orto bar on April 20, 2009, alongside Russian folk/pagan metal outfit Alkonost, won the crowd over completely. The band’s mastermind, guitarist David Videnšek, and bassist Vasja B. Šinko talked about the band’s short history and future plans.
RockLine: You’ve already got a few gigs under your belt, so how does it feel now that you’ve finally hit the stage and shown your vision live?
David: I feel very Olympic, haha. I feel good. Just today I was looking at the poster for the last gig I played before this, and the date was May 27, 1999. Nerves aside, the Russians (the band Alkonost – author’s note) turned all my hair gray anyway.
Vasja: Yeah, the vibes are very positive.
RockLine: The band’s beginnings actually go back to 2006 with your band Endless War, right?
David: Yeah, I started it with Robert Zupančič, whom I taught guitar. We had nothing better to do, so we started a band. Robert was heavily into the German band Dew-Scented back then, so death/thrash metal, and a few songs were written in that vein. They never made it past Guitar Pro, but they were very promising. We also tried technical death metal, which got as far as one song and a pile of wet towels, because the summer was just that hot. Then Robi dragged in Swallow the Sun, and under the influence of them and similar bands we started heading in a new direction. Of course, it was time for a name, and after a few beers Cold Dew was born. Even better, there was no band with that name yet. Then I soon got to Vasko…
Vasja: At a few gigs, while drunk.
David: The final word was spoken at a Dekadent gig at K4.
RockLine: It took quite a while to put together the perfect lineup.
David: Yeah, demanding music takes the right people. You don’t exactly find doom metal in every Slovenian village… well, actually, in none of them. The three of us kept working, and in 2006 Šwed (Primož Novak) joined us on vocals, but only for half a year.
Vasja: Yeah, and we talked for ages before the first rehearsal even happened. After Metalcamp 2006 both Šwed and Robi left the band, and it took quite a while to rebuild the lineup.
David: At the audition we had Boris Filipovič, who joined us later, and Jean-Sebastien…
Vasja: I’d already played with him in Dickless Tracy.
David: And even Blaž “Ramious” Lončar (today on guitar in Sweet Sorrow). Jean-Sebastien brought the most ideas, but he didn’t stay in the band long either.
Vasja: He felt boxed in, since David and I already had certain patterns and models we wanted to work by, so we parted ways on good terms.
David: We brought Boris Filipovič back, and in 2008 we recorded three instrumental songs with him.
Vasja: The drums were programmed, I recorded the bass, and the next day David and Boris tracked the guitars.
RockLine: And you recorded with Matej and Beny from Metalsteel?
David: Yeah, recording with them was great. Beny and I nailed the first song right away. We tracked guitars over two days. Beny did the rough mix and did a great job. If I hadn’t known the drums were programmed, I’d have thought, what kind of madman is playing this? That’s Drumkit From Hell! I got it from Matej for my birthday a few years before that.
RockLine: And then you searched for a vocalist for a long time?
David: Yeah, I looked for vocals for a really long time.
Vasja: In between we tried Kuzo (ex-Sweet Sorrow), but it didn’t work out.
David: I was really looking for a vocalist who could cover both low growls and low clean vocals. I’m a perfectionist and a huge My Dying Bride fan. A ton of people showed up, including some interesting characters, especially some crust punk from Celje. Guitarist Pero Frol was picked quickly, and so was drummer Tomaž Kogovšek. Hours and hours of rehearsals followed, all to a metronome, which is why it took a while before we got on a stage.
RockLine: Did you ever think about going on stage without a vocalist?
David: No, I wanted at least a male vocalist.
Vasja: The funny thing was that we found a female vocalist first.
David: Tamara Cerovič Erjavec is a friend of Tomaž’s, and we happened to hear some recordings of her singing. Then, after we put out the ad, Maj Jamšek got in touch. I’d met him at Fabrika a few days earlier, and I know his dad too. Maj won us over fast and turned out to be an excellent choice in the end.
RockLine: Did you want two vocalists from the start, male and female, “beauty and the beast”?
David: Not really.
Vasja: At first we only wanted a male vocalist. I don’t even know exactly when the idea of a female vocalist came up.
David: The gigs came pretty fast after that. The first one was supposed to be in Postojna, then the chance came up at Orto with Alkonost, and Črt from Dirty Skunks was always saying he’d be the one to put us on for our first show.
RockLine: Are those newer songs you’re playing being written with the new lineup, or did they exist before?
Vasja: Three songs are from before, and the rest we wrote together later. The new members contribute a lot to the songwriting.
RockLine: How do you write your songs?
David: You make a basic line, and then build everything else around it.
Vasja: Sometimes opinions clash too.
David: I think you can already hear in the new songs that there are new members and new ideas involved.
RockLine: Who writes the lyrics?
David: A few of them are already old.
Vasja: Robi wrote a few, I contributed some, now Tamara is writing them, and Tomaž wrote one.
RockLine: Your influences come mainly from bands like Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride…
David: Katatonia, Swallow the Sun, Draconian.
RockLine: How does it feel to be the only doom band in Slovenia?
David: After every gig so far I’ve been surprised, because people were really into it. Now we’re officially the only Slovenian doomers. We’ve got another word next to doom, but let’s leave that alone. We’re the slowest metal band in Slovenia.
RockLine: The obvious question to finish: a demo with vocals, an EP, an album?
David: After the gigs we’ve got lined up, we plan to write a few more songs and then record an album, with vocals of course. Over the summer we’ll record as much as we can, and then maybe a short tour with one of our sister bands.
Photo: Cold Dew
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