Capgrass Interview

For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the band?
Yes, we are a black metal band from Argentina (Buenos Aires) composed by four young members (around 20 years old), who are just a group of friends that got together to make the music that we love. Everything we do is absolutely independent, and comes out from our heads and our effort.

In June you had released your first ep, how would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the recording?
Well i would say that our sound in this ep, is just a precarious intent to sound rough and heavy, but also tight and structured. Let me be clear, we know that we didn't have the tools to achieve a professional sound, so the only thing we could make was to try to do our best with the things that we had. We were fortunate to work with Fernando Muiños, a young musician and music engineer that lend us his home recording studio and his knowledge to get the best from us, in terms of sound and production. So this ep worked as an instrument of learning, both to us and to Fernando, and the sound is just a reflection of that.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the lyric topics the band covers with their music?
At the time when we released our ep, we discovered that someone already created a metal archives page for the band, and we noticed that this person assigned us "Depression" as the lyrical theme of our music. Personally i don't agree a lot with that, because i think that is just a simplistic way to interpret our lyrics. I'm not saying that our lyrics are too complex or deep, but there is more than just depression in them. First of all, in this ep three of the band members wrote lyrics, so even from that, you can perceive the diversity. Yes, in a way the stories as they are told in the lyrics, are in fact depressive, but that is just a consequence of be dealing with psychological and psychopathological aspects of life, such as addictions, isolation, perversions, tortures etc. I think every song has its own point of view and deal with different situations, but if i have to include all of them in one category, i think it would be “Social Criticism" because all of them in a way tend to question some problematics of the postmodernist society in which we are all living.

What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Capgrass'?
The name came from a rare delusional syndrome named "Capgras”, which involves the misidentification of people, places, or objects that used to be familiar to the patient. Also the Capgras syndrome is named after Joseph Capgras a French psychiatrist who first described the disorder in 1923 as symptomatic of schizophrenia, but later in the 80's, the disorder was understood as a neurological disorder in which the delusion primarily results from organic brain lesions or degeneration. This whole thing was very interesting to me, and the name itself sounded cool, so I suggested it to the other members, with the "s" letter added at the end, because that makes it look more symmetrical (later when we decided to make an ambigram logo that change helped a lot).

According to the Metal Archives page the band has been around since 2010 but the first recording was not released until this year, can you tell us a little bit more about the delays in putting out the first release?
Since the beginning everything about this project was done very slowly, in fact there were only two of us when we started this whole thing. The first song we finished was "Shade" and back then, we didn't have a name for it, and we just called it "Song 2" (because there were a previous one, that we finished later and came to be "Dead In The Crowd") and even today we still called it that way in the rehearsals. So we knew that if we wanted to progress we needed more musicians, and that's where Gabriel and Isaias came to solve the problem. But even with them, the idea behind this project was to do things slowly but with a lot of effort to make it right. We made rehearsal recordings (demos) that really had an awful sound, we play some gigs that also were awful, but all of that is just an experience of learning, because everything was new to us. The ep was not an exception, It was very difficult and strenuous, It was very long (took us around a year to finally make it), but in the end all that remains is the satisfaction of having accomplished our goals.

What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and also how would you describe your stage performance?
I believe that our best shows were the ones that we played in "Speed King" a classic place here in Buenos Aires, were extreme metal bands play. Is not a big stage but it sounds good. We didn't played a lot really, but i would say that our stage performance is all about passion, we got on stage with no makeup, only ourselves with our instruments trying to give our best. You can see a great live video of our last show here: http://youtu.be/Gj5sDqpWmzk

Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?
No touring yet, but surely we will be playing this year. The thing is that we are currently adding one more member to the band, a second guitarist, this is not confirmed, but we hope that it can be done. So we will have some work to do with the new lineup in the rehearsals, so we can make better live shows in the future.

Currently you are unsigned, are you looking for a label or have received any interest?
Not really, we are fine right now with doing all this things by our own. But about this, I can say that in Argentina there are only a few labels working with black metal or extreme metal bands, so the possibilities are diminished a lot. We will see what happens in the future.

On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of black metal?
I think that is very positive, we didn't reach a lot of people yet, but everyone who has listened this ep told us some positive feelings but also some constructive critics that i think are so important to keep getting better. If you don't listen to what the people say about your work, then you are lost.

When can we expect a full length album and also where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
Maybe next year, i hope we could make it happen as soon as possible, we will surely work a lot to accomplish it. About our music, i hope we can experiment more with this genre in the future, i have some crazy ideas that i need to work, but I can’t tell anything by now.

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 main inspiration is Burzum, personally i think that Varg Vikernes is the person who most understand what black metal is all about (I’m not talking about his ideology, only the music and atmosphere he creates) and how it should sound, he is truly a music genius. But also we aim to achieve the level of music production and compositions from bands like Shining or Ascension who are of course superb. I think black metal is the best genre in metal, because is really open to experimentation, and we are heading to an era in which the limits of the music keeps getting pushed and so many fresh ideas are discovered that is difficult to keep the track from all of them. Some of the bands that i personally admire are the previously mentioned of course, and others like, Fäulnis, Fen, Alcest, Zuriaake, Entropia, Nachtmystium and so many more...

What are some of your non musical interests?
I love cinema, I think that is one the most perfect types of art, that combines a lot of inputs from others specialties, like music, photography, acting etc. I really want to work in the creation of a music video for a song from this ep (I will not say which one), but that is just an uncertain dream by now.

Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Yes, i want to thank you for taking your time to make this questions and showing interest in our band and our music, that's something amazing and i hope that your blog have much success, so you can keep writing about music from all over the world. Also i just want to tell the people that our music is available for free in our bandcamp site "http://capgrass.bandcamp.com" and you can also follow us on our facebook page "http://facebook.com/Capgrass". Thanks Again!