ENCOMIUM 2005: Merlin

Ladies & gentlemen I have the pleasure to introduce you the most Brutal Death Metal weapon from Russia, called MERLIN. Their ravaging albums amazed thousands of metalheads through the years and will definitely earn even more in the next decade. I've asked front-lady Mary Abaza (bass/vocals) about everything that came to my mind. The result is simply killer! Now it's your turn to support the legend - MERLIN!

- Well, we've just returned from a mini-tour, we were in 3 cities of Povolzhie-Engels, Toliatti and Samara. There was cold as in hell but we have had a great time, ya know!

There was a hard time for the band after the car accident of Nick Byckoff (R.I.P.). I am sure it was a very serious loss for the band. How did you manage to go through that sad period of time?

- Yes, it was very hard for us to go through that, you know. We suffered an irreplaceable deprivation... Nick was a brilliant drummer, his enormous technique amazed not only the audience but the musicians too, many idolized him and were quiet right, ya see, he was out of any competition...

We played with Nick from the very beginning of MERLIN and he became a kind of brother for us. We still can't believe that Nick died; it seems to us that he simply got tired and left for a while!

Was it hard to find and to work with a new drummer after such a long co-operation with Nick Byckoff? What should we know about your new drummer Alchothrone?

- That was pretty hard to find a new musician instead of Nick, it seemed almost impossible. After trying a few challengers we dwelled on Anatoly (Alchothrone) Boychenko, and now we see that haven't been mistaken with the choice. Anatoly is very interesting drummer, with modern and independent way of thinking, he quite arranges us. For a floor of year we have restored practically all our old program and now we're working on new songs. I hope in the summer we shall already start recording a new album.

"Brutal Constructor" is your latest release to date. As I know it was recorded yet with Nick on drums. Please compare it with your previous releases? What are the main differences?

- Yes, on "Brutal Constructor" it is still possible to hear Nick's magnificent work and his influence is very appreciable on this release. It was Nick who imposed on the band those incredible speeds and extremely powerful sound. This guy was fast, tight and intense as hell!

I think "Deathkoteque" and "They Must Die" were pieces of real good work, but "Brutal Constructor" album is the most brutal and heavy we've ever done.

We recorded "Brutal Constructor" hardly, have begun in May, have finished in January. It was very painful to do something after Nick's death. My voice vanished because of nerves, a few times we lost the guitar tracks, besides the engineer got serious problems with health... a kind of some mysticism, ya see!

From the downloaded "Spirits of the Dead" song I've understood that you got a more brutal interpretation of Death Metal on your new release. How do you see it?

- Well, we wanted the album to be as brutal as possible. At the same time we managed to play it in our own MERLIN style, extremely fast and intensive, maybe even in expense of music, not sure, ya know. I think this work appeared a deserving tribute to Nick's memory!

- Really dunno! I grew up listening to BLACK SABBATH, especially with Ozzy, and they still are my favorite band, I think they are the parents of death metal at all. Besides I love modern classical music and I had got some jazz education. I think these are the main influences...

Do you follow the appearance of new promising bands or you better stick to the old-school bands instead? If you have some new favorites, please tell us them.

- There appeared a lot of interesting bands worldwide, wherever in Japan, Indonesia or in Europe, which pleases me very much. In my opinion very good band is HATE from Poland, yet GORE TORTURE from Finland impresses... And Canadian CRYPTOPSY of course. I like that intense sound and complex structures distinguishing so called new school but I love more the classic of the style, DEATH or VADER for example.

Arteom Nazarov joined the band in 1998 and first appeared on "They Must Die" album. Since then you became to work with two guitarists live. It seems really work fine. But as far as your music is very complex and fast I should ask how did you synchronize all the instruments live? Was it hard at the beginning to play live or it just came natural?

- Quite the contrary, it became easier for us to work with Arteom! He is very competent guitarist with brilliant sense of rhythm and infallible memory. Besides as a good composer he brought some fresh ideas in the band.

Unfortunately he quit the band which was very pity, we'd managed to understand each other from a half word for 6 years we played together...

And good news: we've already have got a new sickest guitar-player instead of BOLT, he's name is Sergey (PSYCHO) Chebanov and we've already played several shows with him.

- Alex and me are restorers of ancient Russian icons. It's a very interesting job and proud to tell ya that one of our works was presented to President Eltsin! Great, isn't it?!

We two started MERLIN 13 years ago, so we are middle aged, ya see. Anatoly and Sergey are younger, they're 24.

There's really a small amount of female musicians in the Death Metal scene. What was the motivation for you to growl besides bass guitar?

- First of all, I love death metal, its high speeds, its harmonies and rhythmical structures, all these are very close to me. Besides my voice completely suites to this extreme style. And finally it's a great sense to feel all strength of your throat, isn't it?

As for the bass I started playing it necessarily, we couldn't find a suitable musician for MERLIN and I had to try it myself, even more so I'd had some experience of rhythm-guitar playing.

What's your opinion about other female musicians' level, e.g. Rachel (INFINITED HATE), Sabina Classen (HOLY MOSES), Jo Bench (BOLT THROWER), Angela Gossow (ARCH ENEMY)? Do you like the bands they involved in?

- I hold in high respect these musicians, they are real professionals. Yet, I wanna say that I would like to see still more female-musicians on the extreme scene, especially front-ladies, they still are very rare phenomenon and most of them unfortunately look pretty miserable, ya know... It's pity, but I can understand those guys who say that women can't perform extreme music at all, they simply haven't heard good, qualitative musicians yet...

As I know Angela of ARCH ENEMY started to write a book about "Females in Metal". Any comments on that subject?

- It's true, Angela Gossow is writing the book and I gave her a huge interview a year ago. I think it must be a great work, nobody has written on such an interesting theme before, the book will be successful, sure!

Do you keep in contact with the above female musicians? Who is your closest friend and why? How was it to play with SINISTER (R.I.P.) and to meet Rachel, by the way?

- I always take a pleasure in contacting with good musicians, especially ladies; they're interesting for me professionally and I like to talk to a good company, but we don't keep in touch very often, only necessarily...

As for Rachel, that show was great! There are a lot of fans of old SINISTER in Russia and they wondered if Rachel was as good as their previous vocalist. And they were not disappointed... Rachel got a low growl sounding like males, at the same time she looked like woman... and a lovely woman, ya know! Maybe she should have been a bit more aggressive to my mind, but anyway she got balls!

We talked a lot, took some pics together (you can see 'em on our site). Don't know why, but she didn't want to sing jam with me (as Martin from PUNGENT STENCH for example). To not purpose, seemed it would have been cool. Anyway I found her very nice girl...

Your lyrics mainly deal with serial killers, maniacs and other kinds of abnormal freaks. Do you find exciting to analyze their motivations, psychological level and deeds in general? Tell us more about your lyrics, please.

- You're right, this is my favorite theme. People like thrillers, so do I, so do our fans... And I love sick humor, besides.

All I need for writing lyrics is watching TV or reading a paper, especially criminal news. Look what's going on around! Kids shoot down their classmates. Terrorism blossoms out day by day. Maniacs flood the entire world... Tones of fresh ideas... Total meat, ya know!

I think the lyrics are an important part of a song but the music is still the main part. You can write really cool lyrics and a boring music and nobody will listen to it. So I always write lyrics when the song is ready. I want the text to correspond to the music, sometimes it takes a few months to find the suitable theme.

What kind of contract do you have with GWN Records and their sub-label GRIND IT Records? Are you satisfied with their work (promotion, distribution, tours, etc.)?

- It has turned out, that they found us their selves, suggested to release 2 albums, then re-issued our first album "Deathkoteque". For that moment it was pretty good contract. We got to be known around the whole world, now we are written even from Bolivia or Syria. They made a real good promotion for us! But nothing more unfortunately, they could only promise, we even still haven't got our batch of "BC" CD's from them! A kinda pretty rip off!

So now we're going to change the label, we've just grown up for these years, we want another level of cooperation, ya know...

In 2001 GWN Records released your second album "They Must Die" (2000), while their sub-label GRIND IT Records managed to release the same year the re-mastered version of your first record "Deathkoteque" (1997) as well. I think it was a great step ahead for both the band and the label. How many copies of each release were pressed, by the way? Are these releases still available for the mass?

Later on, "They Must Die" was re-pressed by GWN with a totally new cover and booklet. Was there any change content-wise, I mean for example additional bonus tracks or re-mastered sound?

Your latest album "Brutal Constructor" was released by two labels. In Canada by GWN Records, while for Russia and C.I.S. countries by CD-Maximum. How this double co-operation came about? What can you tell us about the selling points of the new album as well as the fans' reaction?

- It sounds like absurd but our Russian fans couldn't buy our production before, they had to order it from Canada. Now owning to CD Maximum they got this possibility and it's great! As I know the first pressing of "BC" has been sold within a few days and they had to repress the album.

By now CD-Maximum released your first two albums too. Are there any changes from the Canadian versions? Maybe some bonus tracks have been added or a multimedia part?

You've done two video clips for "Brutal Constructor" album. One of them, i.e. "Why Did I Kill Them", I've downloaded from your site and it's simply killer. Tell us a bit about the process of making. How was it to work with the team of Music InFection? Maybe you have some strange stories behind its creation?

- We've cooperated with Music Infection for a few years; they made some interviews and live clips for us. They are very nice guys and it's a real pleasure to work with them.

We shot this clip at our rehearsal place, each member had to play their part for a few times from different positions and then we played the song together twice. Then they concoct a little and it appeared what appeared; the clip is really cool!

The other clip you've done was for the song called "Memorial to the Dead". It features the famous Russian porno-diva Darya Uzdechkina in the main story of the song. Was it hard to arrange it and to work with her? And whose idea was to invite her, by the way? Was it fun to shot this video clip?

- It was not hard to arrange this, she's a friend of our drummer who played a role of a maniac. Daria is a trained actress who applies the Stanislavsky system in her work and as a real professional she played a victim from the first take.

We shot that clip in a forest where tones of people were resting and walking at the time, and it was ridiculous to see their reaction when Anatoly was seeking after the girl with a huge knife! Luckily nobody called to the Militia!

"Brutal Constructor" CD also features a cover version of DEATH's famous "Zombie Ritual" song. I am sure about its dedication as we lost one of the biggest musicians of all time. What do you felt back in 2001 when that tragic thing happened? I remember that we were in studio (with CASTRUM) when that painful yet unpronounceable thing happened. Never forget that sad period in my life...

- Like all death metallers we dreamed about playing a show with DEATH, especially wanted to meet Chuck...Unfortunately, it became impossible... At first we wanted to dedicate the album to Chuck's memory but after that tragic car accident when Nick died we had to dedicate our work to Nick, I think the album got to be a good tribute to both these brilliant musicians.

Will there be any kind of DVD releases by MERLIN soon? Would be really cool to achieve your live brutality and to have your video clips with maximum quality. Is there any plan to release a DVD by the near future? If so, what kind of material will be included there?

- Yes, we're just working on this last time. We're planning to shoot a few clips besides these two, by the way a pair of them are almost ready. And we got tones of live material, interviews and some cool shit on the road... We'll release that DVD via CD Maximum at first and later we wanna translate it in English and release somewhere in Europe.

How's the situation with gigs, festivals, etc. Did you make a lot of gigs in support of "Brutal Constructor"? Tell us your most memorable one and usually what is the crowd's reaction during your shows?

- I can't say we play very often. It sounds absurdly but most of clubs fear of metallers... there are only few clubs in Moscow where extreme music is welcome and in other cities we often have to play in foyers of cinemas, circuses and even schools for the same reason.

Have you played any gigs outside Russia? If so, where those concerts located, with what bands you played there and how the fans treated you there?

I've heard that you sung "Carnal" song for VADER when they played in Moscow. How was it to play that song with them? Was there a kind of excitement when you performed it? Your opinion about VADER's music in general.

- I love VADER's music, it's really high-grade death metal! They were three times in Moscow and we played with them in St-Petersburg yet, it's a very professional band! And Peter is a sickest guy, he prefers to consort with the audience in their own language, in spite of that most of the fans understand English.

I sung "Carnal" with VADER twice and it seems it was cool both for me and them, I think they hadn't had such experience before! The first time it was as early as Doc played on the drums, seems in 2000, and I remember that he performed the song very slowly, I even was nervous if I had enough of breath, he-he...

I know there's a big Death Metal scene in Russia. Could you mention us some promising bands or who are those ones in your opinion who deserve to be better known worldwide?

- There are tones of good bands in Russia, almost in every town. For example, we heard a very promising band KARVER in Toliatti when played there a few days ago. All they need is a good promotion!

Is there a possibility to see you playing live in Ukraine in the near future? Are you played with Ukrainian bands so far?

- We'd love to play in Ukraine, we haven't been there yet. It would be cool to see our Ukrainian fans, we know there are a lot of them! And to play with Ukrainian bands, of course! We know there is a good death metal scene in Ukraine!

OK, that's the end of our conversation. Do you have any special message for the Ukrainian MERLIN maniacs? Thanks for the interview! Last brutal growls are yours.

- Hey guys, enjoy death metal, listen to MERLIN and keep it fucking brutal!!! Be sure, we'll come to Ukraine and make there a real carnage, ya know!!! See ya soon!!!