CULT TO OUR DARKEST PAST: INTERVIEW with BLACKOSH

BLACKOSH debut full-length is about to be released, for all of us who enjoyed the songs featured on the splits 7” with MH, “Kurvy, Chlast a Black Metal [Whores, Booze and Black Metal]” is like a gift sent from the Devil himself. So I contacted Petr "Blackosh" to talk about the debut full length and also about all the bands/projects he is/was involved. So take a drink [or two] and read on…

How long did you work in the creation of the album? How do you use to work on the songwriting, and how was the production process like?

Hi Chris !

I'm just so lazy and at the same time busy with dozens of different things, so sometimes I abstain from music absolutely for half a year and more, and then something catches me and the whole process starts over and over again. I put together a basic skeleton or just chaotically record riffs and then I go back to it later. I record in all sorts of studios in different ways, with the old tape, with a 4tape recorder, and even in my job on a dictaphone and then take it all, put it into a computer. So provisional recordings in studios, yes, but never not sitting down on a couch in my living room. I have to stand up to record guitars and vocals and also have to drink a lot. Else I don't enjoy it. I'm not the serious artist type, wearing glasses, one leg over the other and playing something over and over, until it's machine precise. I'll stop playing in some parts, puff on my cigarette and let it like it is, if I feel it's ok.

With a title such as “Whores Booze and Black Metal” I may ask… what are your sources of inspiration? Is it’s a conceptual album? Is it lyrically some kind of autobiographical work? Were you spinning Sarcófago´s “Sex Drinks and Metal” at your record player? Now “Seriously”, tell us about the whole concept.

I don't consider the name anything fancy, it just came about along with the first song content. I didn't look into the matter anymore. We cannot speak of some inspirations from other bands, in addition to those classic on which I grew up and since then probably not even heard again. Everything has been written by life itself. The album is not conceptual, but somehow everything nicely fits in.

I recently read a review/article about “the album”, where there were sentences like... “Black metal isn't about drugs, sex, and fun. It's about satanism, paganism, occultism, hatred, war, and death” What do you think about this…

Nothing. Why should I be bothered with lectures on what is or is not black metal?!

Let me just point out, that this album is not a deliberate retro, as I have also read somewhere, but anyway, people can write what they want, even if they heard just one track on the net.

Humor and Fun are words rarely linked to Metal and I would say almost popularly rejected in black metal, except for a few personalities like Fenriz from Darkthrone who has shown a radically opposite attitude to this ideology (pose) of being “Serious and Evil” all the time. Taking a look at your album cover and the cartoons posted in your fb page it seems that you share Fenriz attitude towards this matter, am I wrong?

If someone finds it funny, what I'm doing, it's cool, but I'm not sure if I have really done anything strictly with the intention be comic. Why pretend to be something that we're not? We're gonna have fun and not fuck with anything, it does not have to mean we have wimped out, that's bullshit. Silly vampires, wizards, and bogeymen are enough in numbers, we've also been through it ... twenty years ago or more. I don't need to take the pictures with paintings on my face, it's impractical and poserlike. I know, most BM bands pay a lot of attention to their image and its atmosphere, but the music is often a lot worse and instead of a surprise it is just a fucking boredom. Yes, it may be fun as well, it's just about some individuals with the absence of self-reflection, they don't understand anything and are stuck in some poser spasm. The social shitworks- face today's reality, show the exact opposite, which proves that black metal and warpaint are a continuous source of humor and fun, so I don't know what we're dealing with.

Blackosh debut record was the split 7” with Masters Hammer in 2013 with the song "Corrterrigena", the atmosphere and your vocal work on this song totally rules! Would you care to deliver brief insight about the lyrics, artwork [absolutely cool!] and all what it stands for?

Thanks. We originally had a photo of a chimney upside down and some kind of cthulhu monster with a guitar, painted by one little boy. Then one punk girl sent this thing and wanted to be signed as Yog-Sothoth or how you spell it properly. I don't know exactly what it is intended to indicate, but it was clear that it would be a bit of a fun on the account of Lovercraft when František Štorm was just doing some carvings for a new book edition. The English translation is available freely on the Internet, in addition to the inner booklet.

Then last year you release another split 7”, again with Masters Hammer. “6.66 Promile”. Tell me about the lyrics and the artwork [once again, very cool!] associated with the song.

That was when Franta accidentally found letters from Euronymous and Varg Vikernes from the beginning of 90s and on the impulse I pulled out this archaic piece of music.

I think that the text will be published in the English translation in the CD, perhaps early next year, at the latest in the spring.

So, having released two splits with Master´s Hammer the questions is obvious…how is the relationship with Franta and the guys in MH?

Still the same, we just live in different relatively distant cities, else we would go together for a beer more often, like the other day. We're only doing each his own projects and other matters. From time to time we exchange a few lines about sluts with Necrocock, otherwise I don't know. With Franta and the guys from MH we used to sit around pubs, when BM was still in its infancy. We made mess for a while, played concerts together and then MH stopped their activity, I was sometimes in contact only with Necrocock when we released debuts of Cales and Kaviar Kavalier under the same label. I got in touch with Franta after the release of Mantras and so we celebrated the reunion properly and had some fun in his newly built studio. There was no special aim. We are pleased that, in addition to ourselves, a few listeners also had fun with our achievements.

Although Blackosh may be relatively new to most of people, you have been in the scene from a long period. Having been a founding member of the legendary Root (alongside with Big Boss, in 1987). What memories do you have of those days and your long period in Root?

Haha, I think everything essential is already captured in articles and histories. Sorry, I don't feel like recovering any cheerful incidents and try to remember all the places that we took a shit or piss. It was all great, but my life wasn't linked only with this band. On the whole we lived all the time from party to party, with many friends, whether on this scene, other scenes or outside the scenes.

ROOT´s cult debut album "Zjevení" recorded in 1990 will be re-released on vinyl by Swedish label I Hate Records in September. What are your memories of the recording of "Zjevení" How important is this album in your life and your career?

Things keep being released, again and again. I hate records released Crux after some years, too. For the first time I got into a professional studio and then the roundabouts of concerts, etc. I don't know anything about any career. I may not be the right career seeking type. None of this is so vital for me. More important to me is that I'm still doing something new. No nostalgical sighs on my part, I'm afraid.

Next one is a typical question but it is always interesting to know the point of view of a musician who has been into this for a long time, what would you say are the main differences between nowadays Black and Death Metal scene compared to the one in the 80s and 90s?

Seriously, I am not concerned with this type of things. There was the first wave and then came another, and another. Today, when we see some depressive suicidal black metal or what is it cold and after an accidental clicking sound boxes start to sound some flat ramble, really remotely reminding of music, I don't understand and I'm probably totally out. The same goes form some ambient crap that any little talented child can handle and still add something interesting. I don't know what to think and I don't need to think anything. Let everybody do what they want, the best way they can, but please don't force me to consume it, I'm sorry. Specifically DM is a long dead genre, stuck at on one point since the early 90s , so there is no difference, but I do like the sound.

In short, the Internet is full of bullshit, but at the same time of excellent things and everyone is getting lost in it. But it is essential that extreme music is alive, and it goes on and kids have good role models. It always comes out one way or another.

Tell us about CRUX and ENTRAILS, two other bands you took part and whose stuff have been re-released not so long ago. How do you look back nowadays at those bands and the material recorded. On the other hand, tell me about CALES, last album out was “Return from the Other Side” released in 2011, and then you recorded the cover version of “The Golden Walls of Heaven” for “Onset of Twilight - A Tribute to Bathory” split with Sorts in 2012. Do you have new music composed or recorded for Cales? Do you have a release date in mind for the next album?

Crux was a side band of Root members. At the time, we really lived it and did it with enthusiasm. Then I found the Swedish Black Metal. Marduk etc. I never liked the Norwegian type so much, only later Darkthrone, Mayhem and Emperor, but I heard them also just around the clubs or so. We wanted to put together something extreme - combine blast beat rhythms with the old thrash and death metal classic material and Entrails was thus created. We did the noise in various clubs, damp rehearsal rooms and enjoyed it a lot. Then Marthus moved to England, where he began to play with Mantas from Venom and I think we just didn't give a shit anymore. Return from the Other Side was the last album of Cales, which I had done and then put the project on hold, because there was no more inspiration to go on with it. Bathory ... it was just such a private cover the band Sorts forced me to issue on a split 7" with them. I recorded the basics for the song just after Quorthon died.

Who are some of your influences/favorite guitarist, drummers, bass players and singers?

I don't even really remember and I don't consider it as substantial. It's classic what all say all over again, well known boring names. I'll be gladly influenced by new young and enthusiastic blood. I'm not stuck in rock n roll dinosaures. I'm listening to music as a whole, and I don't care who plays what and how. The music has to contain at least some spark of uniqueness, some ideas which suck you in and give you something magic, inspirational.

How important for you is the level of technical skill and practice? What is the instrument with whom you enjoy playing most?

I'm a guitarist in the first place and a bit of a singer. I don't need to have everything perfect, that's not black metal, and I have never did things like that, even if I could. I could invite someone, to send their results over the Internet, as it is normally done, but that is not my point. I work alone, which I enjoy most, or collectively as a band, not guest type of band.Technical skills and practice are an advantage. Everything is faster and there is no risk to such failure, when you have extra time. Tickling the strings and snare, rather than exercising strength. Overall bad playing anything, especially the drums, always affects the recording. But it always prevails when the author can work out some magic that catches the listeners. Learning how to play and do some drill to achieve certain skill is easy.

The LP and CD will be available next November 27 but the cassette version is now available from Iron Bonehead and it includes bonus tracks, is that correct?

The tape contains virtually nothing completely new as a bonus material, only the raw demo versions of songs fro the splits with MH. A really new, although originally also an old song features drums by Honza Kapák, and it will be published for the first time with the digipak to be out perhaps in November together with the vinyl, but maybe even later, since I am still working on these songs a little. So the tape includes versions without mastering, in this way the vinyl and also the CD contain different versions, with slight modifications in the sound and in arranges.

How did you get linked to Iron Bonehead? Have you listened or do you listen to other Iron bonehead releases recently?

Tom Corn introduces them to me, when they released their Cult Of Fire record. I just started watching their activity and liked it extremely. I don't mean strictly the musical stuff, but how well they do it and the appearance of all their goods. And I knew that this the brilliant label that is just ideal for the release of a Blackosh title. I sent some working demos to Patrick Kremer and we agreed on the release.

Will BLACKOSH tour or play some gigs in a near future?

One man playback? [well, I meant with a live line-up - Ed] No. As I have mentioned, I don't like guest bands and also keeping any party together is something I have had bad experience with. I see a lot of other different ways, how to spend your time better, than somewhere in the rehearsal room hiring musicians and keep hearing that somebody is leaving the band.

Tell us about your next steps after the release of "kurvy…

It's gonna be still the same - when something comes out of me again and there will be enough material for an album, I will do it. A few things are shaping, but so far I can say nothing in particular. I have chaotic stream of extreme and mood creating riffing in my speakers and there are a few ideas for lyrics, with absurdly mystical and uncomprehensible content. Czech lyrics are something I mostly come up with as late as possible, in some cases just whatever comes out of my mouth during recording. I get drunk and then it comes naturally. I'm no poet, who would roam around with a notebook in my pocket. I dog everything under the influence of alcohol and I have never enjoyed the completely serious professional approach, in which everything has to be scheduled, respecting deadlines, no alcohol etc. I don't make money with music and I never wanted to rely on income from some repetitive playing and allow it to happen to become an everyday routine.

What´s the strangest place and the most shocking place you have been?

In my mind. No, really, I'm just a normal dude from the country who can't even speak perfect English. I'm kinda like an Asian shepherd and travelling somewhere is not my type of thing. For me is special the small town and the karst landscape, where I live. I walk through misty forests, around steep hillsides and primeval caves, instead of partying all night in the city. I had enough of this fun, far too much, and yes, I still love it from time to time. Nothing special and out of the ordinary, apart from the fact that I don't care for the family stereotype and hunting for some illusions of luck.