- For us Demimonde means a parallel unreal world, owned by Demimonde members as a "spiritual possession". (If I translate demimonde from french to english it means "halfworld"). We try to describe this Demimondial world by our musical and lyrical expression. The other definition of Demimonde: it's a mirror of our real world, so if you read our lyrics, you will find there also something from today's reality. Of course our artistic expression could be interpreted also as an escape from every day reality (which is not happy) to our "halfreality" in our "halfworld".

- If concern the music on our first release "Warrior's Poets", it's maybe a gothic doom metal (atmospheric and faster) with strong influences of black/dark metal and medieval atmosphere. But the reviewers found there everything possible - from death to artrock. I can't speak about direct influences from others bands, because every Demimonde member has really a completely different musical taste (Afagddu - industrial and medieval, D'aven - black and EBM, Jaacob - opera and progressive, Ankhabuth - house...). And we NEVER said "let's play the similar music as band XYZ...". On the contrary, we are glad to have our own style of atmospherical metal. The only band being admired by every member was (if I remember) Nocturnus. But, did you hear some Nocturnus influences in "Warrior's Poets" release? Me not. (Maybe in our new material will emerge some Nocturnus-like riffs, but with our own touch).

If you want, I can name some bands that a press use sometimes when reviewing "Warrior's Poets", but it differs song by song. So they found some elements of Theatre of Tragedy, Amorphis, Cradle of Filth, Anathema, Paradise Lost, Gathering, Bal-Sagoth. Maybe if you could close all musicians from these bands in a room together, the result of their songwriting should be similar to the older Demimonde compositions.

- I must a little return to the question number 1. - basicaly our lyrics are connected with the whole Demimondial concept. Afagddu (bassist, who writes majority of lyrics) says often that some of his lyrics really describe a reality of today, mistakes of human society, defects of civilization evolution, etc... Then it is covered by poetical words and transformed into "Demimonde language", but our goal is not to speak about old times, our lyrics are only touched by this middle-age/fantasy atmosphere.

The best example of this conception is maybe a text of Shadow Symphony. Anyway it's really difficult to explain here more about contents of every song, it depends of course on your personal feeling what you will find in our lyrics. But I will try some examples again:

Queen's Pilgrimage - it express the fear of uncertainty and also some pessimistic (but not atheistic) vision of this world.

Empire of Bal-Sagoth - this text is little bit exceptional. It's exactly what we don't write normally. It's a "tale" - the full name of it is "Empire of Bal-Sagoth, from the Chronicles". There are five musical themes, one after another, and each one is named too: "Dance on the King's court", "King's coming", "...after the coronation - the feast party", "Riders of Doom", "Valkyre's Flight". If you read those names and listen to this song, it must be more than clear - short history af an imaginary kingdom, beginning by a happy celebration and ending by smashing of it all.

Roar of Thunders - (except the first part) was written by me in a deep depression and I tried to catch and describe one short and abstract moment which will never return back.

- Ankhabuth - (18 years, lead guitar): Studies english, interests: house parties, peach vodka and girls (he change them as his socks). Afagddu - (18, bass guitar): Studies english too, interests: occult sciences, reading and writing. He have also his oneman technoindustrial project named Afagddu. Jaacob - (19, deep vocal, guitar): His job is a technical university - engines, machines, but he would like to study classical music guitar playing. D'aven - (21, keyboards): I study journalism on university. Interests: my girlfriend, golf , books and of course music (classical, electronic and metal). Tannya - (24, female vocal): She is accountant/book-keeper in a bank, she likes drumer T.o.n. (= her boyfriend), and also singing. T.o.n. - (19, drums): the most interesting fact is that he is very often angry and furious as a mad dog (it must be his hobby). He is also a so-called "manager" of Demimonde and runs a distro (so he is well oriented in ug scene). [There were also seventh member who participated on "Warrior's Poets" recording, called Kashtan (31, higher male vocal, guitar), but we split with him last year because of completely different opinions and visions about our work].

As concern religion, we are not a christian neither satanical band, although somebody from us can agree with any ideas of it. Every member has indeed his own philosophy, synthetised by many of ways, opinions... Generally we are without some concrete religion.

- Unfortunately nothing - the only release that were realized on SAP is Demimonde. In the beginning, Sorrow Art was only a distro, same as thousands in whole world, owned by T.o.n. and Jaacob. After a failure with Leviathan rec. (They said: music is good, but you must go to other studio and remake it - then the deal will be sure. The only thing they missed - to give us some money to rerecord it.) So, we decided to publish "Warrior's Poets" ourselves on our own label, as a regular full-length pro MC. T.o.n. said, that he would like to release also others bands under the mark SAP, but it depends all on money possibilities and for now, all money are needed for our band.

- Now we are looking for a label that could be interested on our next project - we are composing a new material which is planed to be released in the beginning of 1999. We have now cca. 40 min. of quite insane avantgarde metal. There were great changes in our style just after realizing "Warrior's Poets" - one day we said that we must change our music: now it's faster, more black and death influences and the structure of compositions is more difficult, maybe chaotic (but it's our choice). Example: one of new compositions is 18 minutes long, with 20 riffs in many different arrangements, it's fast, furious, symphonic... there is more of experiments, we use the computer for doing house, industrial and hell effects, we included there also some samples from Wagner's opera or a solo piano drowned in brutalcomputer noise, and many other experimental elements... (Here are some comparisons or definition of our actual musical style little help for journalists who will review our next release: imagine Nocturnus, Dismal Euphony, Laibach, Misanthrope and Front Line Assembly how they are doing together black metal in a madhouse. What has remain the same is our significant atmosphere and the musical feeling. And what about more distant future? Maybe we will split after recording of a new material. It can sound as a joke, but it's a real danger. We have no personal problems, but there is really a great difference in a musical taste of every bandmember. The result is that we are not able to find together a common opinion about future of musical style of Demimonde. Afagddu and Ankhabuth, two very important persons who bring majority of ideas, began to be oriented on computer/dance music and miss their interest on metal music. (There is some probability that almost some members will continue on the musical work together, but as I see the trends in a band, it will be probably Nine Inch Nails/Front 242 electronic body music...)

- No, during 2,5 year of Demimonde existence we had only 5 live shows, because some members don't like to play live. And mainly: on most of live shows, the sound engineers are not able to create a good sound for so huge band (some time ago, we played with 6 instruments and 3 vocalists). So we have permanent problems, because we can't do a live presentation of our musical expression as good as we would like to do. The third negative aspect is that if you go into the czech countryside, the spectators there don't know to create a good and "hot" atmosphere (almost there, where we were). If I take it step by step: first two concerts were here in Prague (capital town) and it was with quite a decent sound and very warm response from fans. But from the moment, when we decided to play in some countryside shows and fests, it was all wrong: shit sound everywhere, fans who came to drink a beer, not to listen to the music... (And once we had also a funny trouble, when we found 2x2metres "great" platform for musicians in some small club. We turned back, returned at home and didn't play there, because 7 persons with instruments really doesn't fit there.) In Demimonde now logically emerged an idea to be only a studio project.

P.S.: some very actual news (or rumours): It's said, that in winter, Demimonde will maybe play live in Prague (after a very long pause) with Love History or Forgotten Silence (both are top quality czech doom bands).

a.) the underground scene of Czech Republic - The Czech ug scene is very large, metal is still popular here, many of persons runs zines and distros, we have here thousands of active bands, waiting to be discovered by the rest of the world. Generally the Czech fans are most liking two kinds of metal: brutal death/grind and slower doom. Majority of Czech bands (but not Demimonde) fits into those styles. About bands: some of them succesfully penetrated in world, you will maybe know three legends: Krabathor (classical death), Root and Master's Hammer (veterans of black metal). From the new generation, I highly recommend the experimental metal band Forgetten Silence - they are really very cool (give them some time and it will growth into second Misanthrope), it's probably the best Czech ug band - they are so great band, that they are able to sell thousands of MC/CD's without live playing (0 concerts and 3 full-length releases during 5 years!!!). Then I suggest doom metallers Endless and Love History as the best representants of this genre here. In our country is also a strong base of grind core bands (highly praised are Contrastic, Ingrowing and Garbage Disposal). As concern pure black metal, Unclean and Sorrath could be interesting. And of course I must note Demimonde as a mix of all these styles.

b.) nowadays growing Black Metal trend - Me personally I like Black very well (maybe most of all metal genres), but indeed this style began to be a little bit boring nowadays. The reason is simple - there is a few bands that discover path and the majority are only "epigones or followers" - every of them have a same sound. My most appreciated Black metal bands are those really original and avantgarde: Dismal Euphony, Solefald (and maybe Limbonic Art). I like also those with perfect sound and top playing skills (for ex. last Hecate Enthroned album - although they are not much original, and Emperor). Also sometimes I listen to early Cradle of Filth (especially Vempire...). But 90% of today's BM bands unfortunately didn't interest me.

c.) the retro movements in Thrash and Heavy Metal styles - Sorry, but we don't listen to Thrash and Heavy, it's little bit another world (only two "heavy stuffs" interesting for me emerged actually: comeback of King Diamond and the amazing masterpiece of Italian speed orchestra Rhapsody). Generally I think that retromovements of any styles (not only in music) will be present ever. Regarding metal, we can note really a regular periodicity of Death, Black or Thrash comebacks.

d.) DEATH's new masterpiece "The Sound Of Perseverance" - I'm not very oriented in American metal, I don't understand it (if I can choose a deathmetal band, I will surely prefer Septic Flesh much more than Death). So I asked for opinion our drummer T.o.n. Here is his answer: "write there, please: Chuck is genial, genial, genial...."

e.) serial killers - If you are interested by this theme, surely look at Oliver Stone's film "Natural Born Killers".

f.) reincarnation - I think we have no negative or positive opinion about this theme - we don't trust on it, but we don't say that it is some rubbish or nonsense. As I said once, we can synthetize our philosophies from anything we want - we are children of postmodern age... Reincarnation theory is indeed a part of one (important) way of human culture.

- Yeah, it's not sure if this development is good or bad regarding civilization interests. But the growing of worldwide Net during 90's years is amazing... Me, I use the Net services very well (and often). Without email, our band couldn't sell hundreds of tapes in few months, cooperation with ug (zines, distros, bands) is easier, faster. Also we created two Demimonde websites. As a student (and journalist), I can't imagine a life without computer. The other way to use this machine is what our member Afagddu shows us - he makes a very quality electronic music on it.

- Thanks to you, of course, for a possibility of presentation in your zine. I hope that also among your readers we will find some fans who could be interested by Demimonde music. Hail to you all!!! And, I would like to announce an offer of our Sorrow Art Distro. We sell CDs, MCs, Vinyls, most of them are czech production, and in the near future our mailorder will emerge on Internet. Now we are interested on changing and selling Demimonde release, so every bands, distros and labels who are interested in some cooperation are welcome to get in touch.