Well, if you remember I had a chat with René (guitar/vocals) in the 1st issue. Since that time a lot of things happened with DEMENTOR. First of all, they have out their new masterpiece, called "Enslave the Weak". Secondly, they signed a deal with the famous French label, OSMOSE Productions. Thirdly, new members have been added to the band's line-up, namely Rasto (bass), Alex Suchacek (guitar, ex-NOMENMORTIS) and Peter Stenda (drums). Questions were answered by René.



Tell me about the recently released CD, "Enslave the Weak". It is your first release for OSMOSE Productions. How did you end up on OSMOSE Productions? You have signed for two albums with them. Please tell us more about this contract.
- Well, "Enslave the Weak" is our first release on OSMOSE. We signed for two albums. We got this deal because OSMOSE liked already our previous stuff "The Art of Blasphemy". They wanted to edit it but it was too late because we already signed to Qabalah production. Then we agreed on signing for another two albums.
The CD has been out for a little while, so how has the response to it been like? Are you pleased with how it came out?
- I would not say it is out long time. It was launched on the market only at the beginning of February. In America the sell will start only in April. Anyway the promotion started sometimes in the middle of January and therefore we have already collected some reviews and responses from our fans. Some reviews are positive but we also got some negative ones as well. Some people can not accept our similarity to MORBID ANGEL. They think we are only a copy of them but I think they should listen to "Enslave the Weak" more carefully to note the difference. What is more delighting for us is the interest of our fans who really like it more than "The Art of Blasphemy". We do not have any reason to complain.
How do you see it in comparison to your previous output, "The Art of Blasphemy"?
- I think we reached much better result with "Enslave the Weak" and responses just confirm it. You are probably interested in knowing what is the difference between the support of our current and previous label. Here I can tell you that I can not be satisfied with Qabalah/Repulse at all. They only ripped us off. They still owe us some extensive part of our royalty. There is no reason to praise them. They did almost nothing over their routine work. They just distributed promo CDs and exchanged our album with another distributors. They really fucked off any other additional work for DEMENTOR. They just care of their "biggest" band AVULSED. But it is their choice but I do not see any perspective for them if you plan to continue this way. The situation has totally changed with OSMOSE. They are real professionals and they want to support their bands as much as possible. I did more interviews during the last two months that during the whole previous year. I hope it will be even better.
What symbolizes the cover painting for "Enslave the Weak"? Who came up with its cover concept and who painted it?
- It shows the eternal opposites & fight of good and evil. The god in the middle symbolises the good and those devils symbolise the evil. I do not believe in existence of any god. Christians made up these opposites to have some good instruments for controlling people. They always speak how strong is their god but he is totally unable to change anything in the world. On the other hand they use hell, Satan and devils to fear people when they want to attain some target. For example they say: You must contribute with your money to the church otherwise Satan will take your soul! Well, it is very humorous for me!
You have chosen the same studio, namely "Pro Art", again. How long did it take to record "Enslave the Weak" and who did the mixing/producing? Are you going to record your next stuff there as well?
- We started the recording sometimes in June and finished up in September I think but we had some breaks during the recording work. We did not have to hurry up because our album was supposed to be out only in January 2001. Pro Art studio is close to our town therefore it was not a problem to sit to the car and go there. I do not know whether we will record our next album there because we do not like some things on our mixing. OSMOSE proposed us to record it in Germany at Stage One Studio with the producer Andy Classen but I do not know yet. We will probably stay at Pro Art but we will co-operate with some better producer.
Last year you caught a mini Russian/Belarus tour. How was it? Any stories?
- Yeah, it was great experience for us. There were many good stories. We are going to CIS countries again in May 2001. We will play some dates in Ukraine as well. I hope we will appear in Kiev.
What are the band's plans to support the new record, tour-wise? Will OSMOSE be funding an overseas jaunt? By the way, tell us more about your forthcoming "Blasphemous Enslavement of Darkness" tour with INTO DARKNESS. And what about a mini tour in Ukraine?
- As I said before we are going for some another CIS tour again. We started to co-operate with Belorussian agency FATAL ECSTASY from Minsk who are in charge of preparing this tour. We should play five up to seven dates covering Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Then we plan to make some another tour to CIS in September, which would include more dates. At the end of March we depart towards our 2nd European tour with German band INTO DARKNESS. We will play 9 concerts in Czech, Germany, Belgium, Spain and France. We could play more but we do not have so much free time as well as INTO DARKNESS. OSMOSE will not send us for any overseas tour. I think we still have time for it. First of all we should concentrate on playing in Europe and then to start building our name overseas. As for mini Ukrainian tour we are not against but first of all there should be any agency able to set it up in Ukraine. We have never got any offer from your country regarding a tour. We played only one concert in Dnepropetrovsk 5 years ago.
Your style called Blasphemous Death Metal. Why you decided to categorize your music in this way?
- Actually we play classical kind of death metal. The only purpose of the word Blasphemous is to tell all our fans about what our lyrics are. OSMOSE initially estimated our music like brutal death metal what I do not like too much. I asked them to change it to blasphemous death metal.
Peter Hasselbrack of Bloodsoaked Promotions wrote a big part of the lyrics to "Enslave the Weak". How did this co-operation is come about? Are you pleased with how they turned out?
- I was in touch with Peter who was quite a big fan of DEMENTOR. I asked him to write some texts for us and he agreed. I like his lyrics very much. They fit to our lyrical concept very much. It could not be better. I hope Peter will write something for us in the future as well.
What is the basic concept of "Enslave the Weak" in general? What do you try to express through your lyrics?
- We have always been an anti-christian band and we continue with this direction on "Enslave the Weak" as well. I think we have the best lyrics just right on this album. They are purely blasphemous and full of hate towards christianity. We want to express our opinion about christianity which is very dangerous and greedy religion. We hate their hypocrisy, filth and malignancy.
Holloshman's drumming on both the new CD and "The Art of Blasphemy" is simply amazing! How long has he been playing the drums? Did he take any lessons early on or is it all self-taught?
- First of all I want to tell you that Holloshtwat is not DEMENTOR member any more. Well, he did good work for us but it has finished and both DEMENTOR and Holloshtwat are going own way. I know he has played drums for more than 7 years and I think he could be even better after so many years. As far as I know he never took any lessons. He learned it oneself. I think our new drummer Peter is better despite he is 5 years younger that Holloshtwat.
Once I've been told that you're going to re-record your first album "The Church Dies". What's up with this idea? Please, give us more info on that subject.
- It was only some idea from ISP who own the copyrights for this record. They wanted to do it but it seems they do not have money for it because of some another projects. We can contently forget this project.
Your first label, Immortal Souls Productions, has re-pressed both "The Church Dies" and "Kill the Thought on Christ" albums. Did they change there anything? I mean re-mastering, additional bonus songs, the cover conception or multimedia stuff here.
- As far as I know that only change appeared on the cover of "Kill the Thought on Christ". The complete booklet was changed to make it more interesting for fans. There were no any other changes executed.
What merchandise is currently available?
- Almost all our merchandise is available. You can check it on our web site www.dementor.sk. I must also warn you that our web site does not work well at the present time. It should be improved during the nearest days. Moreover our web master is preparing a new version of it. It should be upgraded very soon as well.
At the end, can you tell us what DEMENTOR's future plans are? Last blasphemous words are yours.
- Thank you very much for your eternal support. I revealed all our plans during this interview. I can just add that we will start creating new stuff very soon. New album seems to be better that "Enslave the Weak" since we have new and great potential in our new members Peter and Alex on guitar.
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