Mortalium Interview

1.Can you give us an update on what is going on with the band these days?
A lot of things have happend to the band since releasing latest album: line-up changes, gigs and festivals in Ukraine and abroad. Currently we are taking a small break from our activity and set the project on hold, but suppose it gives us power to continue with renewed vigor in the near future.

2.How would you describe the musical sound of your current music?
Started with mostly pure gothic doom our sound with time has become heavier and gained more death metal traits. Now we continue moving in this direction and adding to our music more polyphony and complex structures.

3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band has explored over the years with their music?
Mostly social ones. We try to reveal the vainness of our being in the songs and inspire people to spend the time we have on earth with benefit and use. We believe that each person, whoever he or she is, in fact, is lonely in life and, actually, is a separate independent individual whose primary purpose is self-realization. We call people to be inquisitive and active to leave a rich heritage to our descendants.

4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Mortalium'?
The word has several meanings one of which is “actions of mortals”. This is again the reflection of the main idea we carry through our works.

5.What are some of the best shows that the band has played over the years and also how would you describe your stage performance?
We have had so many of them already that it is hard to be objective. I believe, all of us will agree that the brightest memories have left from the festivals. We enjoyed Metal Crowd in Belarus very much. Agressive Music Fest in Czech was also fantastic. And the latest one we played at this year – Black Sea Metal Festival – in Ukraine turned out to be surprisingly good. We are very proud that Ukrainian providers can do good job in this respect!

6. Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?
Now we don’t, but hope we will soon. There are too many undiscovered places left in the world for us.

7.In the latest album you had done a cover of The Beatles 'Eleanor Rigby', what was the decision behind doing your own version of this song?
Why? Eleanor Rigby’s lyrics are pure doom! They have so much darkness and despair in them that we decided that a respective musical framework would be just suitable for the song. So we made our own doom version of this genius composition.

8.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of goth, doom and death metal?
The feedback has always been fairly versatile from enthusiastic one to boldly negative and even angry. We believe it is not bad all in all. At least our music does not leave people indifferent which is in itself is very important for us. It was surprising that we received a lot of positive feedbacks from Central and South America and South Asia. We couldn’t even think that people from such distant countries from us would have the opportunity to learn about us and listen to our music.

9.When can we expect a new album and also where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?

So far we do not conduct active wok on the album although the material for it is collecting gradually and several new songs have already been composed. However, we do not plan to record them in the near time.

10.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
Our music taste has been considerably influenced by such great bands as Amorphis, Sirenia, Tristania, Moonspell, Necrophagist, Unexpect. This does not mean that we tried to copy or imitate them but their works definitely affected our musical outlook. Personally, currently I prefer to listen to silence.)

11.What are some of your non musical interests?
We are usual people and we have a lot of interests beyond music. We all have regular job that eats out a lot of time from our hobbies. For example, our vocalist Maria is keen on pole dance and goes in for this sport quite profoundly, participates in competitions from time to time. Our bass player Sergey prefers going to the gym and riding a bicycle. He has always been a fan of new electronic gadgets and has a large collection of them – phones, tablets, laptops, scooters and so on. I (key boards player Yaroslav) has gone in for yoga recently. Besides we all have a lot of pets – cats, dogs, rats, turtles and even spiders. By the way, Serg has a Scotch terrier who is a champion of Ukraine and so he breeds dogs.

12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Prosperity to your journal, peace to the world, f*ck the war. And in general, good people (like we are) must unite … and kill all the bad ones. Hallelujah, brothers and sisters!