NekroChaparro Interview

 

1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the musical project?

NekroChaparrO is a Trve Transtejanian Communist Black Metal band, formed in 2020 as a one man band by Lord Chaparraeth and since the start of thus year it became duo with Matter Chaparrum S. joining to play bass/guitar. We try to play what we want to play and not get too attached to a specific style of Black Metal as long as it's "krieg" or "kvlt" or whatever you wanna call it, in our eyes.

2.So far this year you have released 2 full lengths and a single, musically how do they differ from the stuff you have released in the past?

We released "nekrochaparrum" which was an experimental thing I (LC) did, it's much more atmospherical and kinda removed from the rest of the things NekroChaparrO has released before.

Then we released "..thus ends the age of man.." that is a single for the full album coming out on June 6th this year, where you can see what MC S. brings to the band and how we are evolving and discovering better ways of making music.

The EP you reviewed, "Hell's Hammer and the Satanic Sickle" was based on a couple of songs I had written lyrics too and while rehearsing we tried them on and enjoyed what came out so we recorded and released it.

3.A lot of your lyrics cover satanic themes, can you tell us a little bit more about your interest in the dark arts?

Both of us have been into the "dark stuff" for many years, mostly because of music and literature, but the main reason for the satanic stuff in NekroChaparrO is that it felt right. As I (LC) have read a lot about it and listened to a lot of Black Metal it kinda came naturally when I began writing lyrics, and it became part of the image of the band almost by chance.

4.A lot of your lyrics cover communism and Marxism, can you tell us a little bit more about these views and also how do they mix in with your stanic beliefs since those philoisophies tend to be more on the atheistic side?

Well, both of us identify as communists and follow the ideals behind it, and we don't really see a contradiction between the normal atheism in communism and the satanic beliefs. The latter says that you should do what you want and what's best for you, but as communists what's better for me is also what's better for all. Satanism tells us that you must fight against the established order by yourself if you have to and live as you wish to live and communism has always been a fighting ideology, especially in this times of single-minded neo-Liberal thought, both communism and satanism are voices of rebellion and that's the main reason we feel they fit together pretty well.

5.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'NekroChaparro'?

A chaparro is a kind of oak tree that is emblematic in the Alentejo, a traditionally rural, agricultural and communist region of Portugal. The name and the idea behind the band came when I was in a (now unfortunately extinct) metal festival in Alentejo, SMSF, and the thought of having an Alentejo themed black metal band came with the name, Nekro because it's such a stereotypical "dark" metal name and Chaparro to represent the Alentejo. You can see a Chaparro both on our logo and on the cover of "Transtejanian Hunger" the very first release by NekroChaparrO.

6.Since 2020 you have released a great amount of material, do you spend a great amount of your time writing and creating music?

Back in 2013 when the idea for the band formed I started writing some lyrics and through the years I'd have an idea and wrote it down, always thinking that one day I might find people who would like to play and form a band. Eventually during the first major confinement, watching MC S. working on her stuff (that I'll talk a bit about on another answer) I saw that with this new technologies I could actually create the music I always wanted to make : some raw, DIY, black metal, for myself and did the first EP with some of the lyrics from before. I enjoyed the process and working from home found myself with both time, means and motivation to do more.

I'm not always writing but I do anyways have somewhere where to write down a idea or sometime even a word, and I'll eventually go back to it and turn it into a lyric.

Now, with MC S. on the band what happens is that I have an idea, write something and then program the drums and when we go to rehearse I tell her what my ideas are on what the music should be like and then she tries on some riffs until we both like one that fits, record it and I finish the song with vocals.

7.Both of the band members are also in other bands, what is it that you bring into the music of 'NekroChaparro' that you are not able to do with your other groups?

NekroChaparrO by it's own definition is somewhat limited lyrically and musically but at the same time it has a freedom that comes from not taking ourselves too seriously and that allows us to do really heavy, dark, and sometimes silly, stuff. For example in "the lord Satan is my shepherd and I will dwell in His house forever", the next album, we'll have a song inspired by a church song, but turned on its head.

8.Currently there are only 2 members in the band, are you open to expanding the line up or do you prefer to remain a duo?

For writing stuff we will probably keep being just the two of us, living together means that

we can, at any time we are home just to pick up the instruments and do something if we have an idea we wish to try. But both of us are interested in doing some live shows eventually, and for that we'd need more musicians. We have some interest from some friends but nothing solid yet.

9.Currently you are unsigned, are you looking for a label or have received any interest?

We've received a few offers but never anything that felt like it was worthy of abandoning the freedom of doing our own stuff by ourselves or that didn't feel like a rip-off. If someone with a label and a real interest in our stuff shows up and invites usnwe aren't against it on principle, especially if it's a small underground label. The main benefit of it would be to release some physical albums and promotion.

10.On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of black metal?

I've had very mixed reactions, but in general if someone takes the time to react it's positively. The biggest two things were The Psyfrost youtube channel ( https://youtube.com/channel/UCHGAFhGWVWMDG-HtbgbrPkw) reachin out to us because he wanted to post some of our stuff in his page that started last year and became a regular collaboration where he always posts what we release and the other, that I actually found out the next day, was the inclusion of one of our songs on a communist metal compilation last year (https://youtu.be/hv_Uncz6mlo). And of course, your review and interview!

11.What is going on with some of the other bands or musical projects these days that some of the band members are a part of?

I, LC, have Ar-Minuluzir ( https://arminuluzir.bandcamp.com ) that is a Tolkien inspired experimental/atmospheric black metal that was an idea I had and that didn't fit with what I was doing in NekroChaparrO. It's a project that for now is on hold, until I have something else that makes sense with the "brand". Then there's nxpr ( https://nxpr-noise.bandcamp.com/ ) , a harsh/noise/cave-like metal thing where I try different stuff. This one is always on, and I'm working on a few things for it, soon.

MC S. has her own spoken word poetry project ( https://mcsantiago.bandcamp.com/ ) that has been a bit more on hold because she has been focusing on learning the bass guitar but not forgotten. At the moment she is learning and evolving to release something heavier and darker soon.

12.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?

Where ever we want to go! We have some.. non-traditional ideas to play around with, from a sci-fi concept album to a more heavy/power inspired black metal songs, and there's always the more traditional black metal toybox to play it. We both really enjoyed making the punk-inspired Brigada Anti-Facho song so there might be more of that kind of sound in the future!

13.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?

From the start there's two strong influences in terms of approach to metal, both Portuguese bands : Alcoholocaust for the boose and party and Filii Nigrantium Infernalium for the style and approach. Besides that there's the mandatory 90s second wave things and also a bit of everything that feels like it would fit.

As for what we are listening to.. I listen to a lot of stuff in the background, mostly black metal lately but never exclusively, I think one should always be discovering new things and finding different ways to make metal that is dark and heavy and dirty. The last thing I discovered is actually quite old, the first album by The Black and my first dive into black metal was Limbonic Art.

As for MC S her greatest influence in the bass is of course Lemmy but also ex-Nervosa's Fernanda Lira and current-Nervosa's Mia Wallace as well. To get into the mindset to create for NekroChaparrO she's been listening to lots of black metal. Her latest discovery was the UK band Sidious and her first obsession was Wolfheart

14.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?

First we would both like to thank you for the interview and for the kind words on the review. Besides that, we'd like to point out that everything we ever released is available for free (pay what you want) on the band's bandcamp page ( https://nekrochaparro.bandcamp.com/ ) , and that June 6th the next album comes out, it's already done just waiting for the date. 

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