“We had the best drummers in the world playing!.. What pathos!!!”
The DRUKNROLL band has been active since 2006 and has already released seven albums. Be that as it may, this is quite a large volume of creative work that the musicians have done over these years. And most importantly, the team continues to play and record discs.
Interestingly, the band started with Melodic Heavy Metal and Hard Rock and gradually evolved into Melodic Death/Thrash Metal.
I had to review one of DRUKNROLL’s albums (2014 Boiling Point) and I can say that the guys give it a real blast, not being shy about the means, not sparing the instruments and themselves. Quote from the review: “The composer DRUKNROLL does not shy away from pomposity and healthy optimism when necessary. Because this is supported by a solid musical base, each time energetically as strong as it is necessary according to the meaning of the track. By the way, the lyrics are printed in the insert, I am saying this because the listener will be curious to refer to them more than once.”
And this time I listened to the most recent album of 2022 with the purpose of determining what proportion of thrash and death is there.
Everything is at a good level, and thrash shows its poisonous grin there…
That is why today we will talk with one of the founders of the group under the nickname Druknroll.
So, here we have already turned on the playlist, and of course, listen to the album and read the interview further…
https://vk.com/music/album/-2000913209_16913209_cb065..
1 – Druknroll, hello, how are you, how are you in the new year?
– Hello! Great! Just got out of the studio – put a couple of tracks in the new eighth (I can’t believe it myself) album, of course, Modern Melodic Death Thrash Progressive Groove Jazz Metal! Damn, I forgot Symphonic!
2 – You know, recently Mille Petrozza from KREATOR said that thrash generally feels good on the world music stages, I think that he, of course, knows better. But that’s there …
And your personal opinion – how do thrash bands feel in Russia?
– I don’t know about Russia, but here in Saratov the situation is like this – everyone rushed to play covers and earn money in clubs. What kind of fashion is this, I don’t understand, there is little original material and, accordingly, bands are also disappearing! In short, it’s all trash, or rather trash, but in a different sense!
3 – And you know, here’s some statistics right away, you’ve recorded seven albums, and how many labels have you collaborated with in just this time of your musical activity?
– The first trial album was released on the Moscow label “New Rock”, then 10 years and 6 albums were released on “Metal Scrap Records”, by the way, we felt great with this label, released discs, the label did promo all over the world. And at the end of 2022, the digital version was released on “Polygon Records”, and physical media will be released on the label “Dark East Productions”!
4 – Druknroll, please tell me, how are things with your drummer now? It is written on the metal archives that you still have a drum program…
– Yes, that’s right, I really want to record live drums, but so far it hasn’t worked out! We don’t have exactly a drum program, as you called it, the process is a bit more complicated here, first we fill in the drums, then we 
take the recorded pieces on live drums of famous drummers of the world (there are many such programs now) and insert them into the track, of course, this is painstaking work, but we can say that the best drummers in the world played for DRUKNROLL! (that’s pathos!!! I didn’t even blush!)))
5 – Well, I listened to the songs from the new album and I can say that they are quite impressive, aggressive and dynamic. Tell me, please, who composed the music for this album? Is this a collective work or? How often do you throw out ideas that were already spinning in your head and in the end did not pass your internal “customs”?
– I made all the music myself, collective work comes after recording all the instruments, you need to align everything, insert effects and solos, etc. Why take an idea and then not bring it to life, I don’t understand it! If you start working on a topic, you need to move on, it gradually acquires other topics and eventually a track is born! No customs, you just have to do it the way you want! I don’t have the ability to rummage through my trunk and get out a dozen more things for an entire album! Everything and immediately into action!
6 – And by the way, who writes your lyrics, is writing lyrics for songs a problem for you? In short, what are the lyrics of the new album about?
– Yes, I write all the lyrics, earlier on the first few albums Dmitry Tolgaev (our vocalist’s brother) supplied me with poetry, and then with the transition to English I did everything myself. The only problem is the language itself, you have to carefully polish the text, with such an approach to the text as mine, you can give everything in any language, even in Cambodian! (Google translator to the rescue!) The album is not conceptual, but the lyrics are mostly about human feelings and experiences that are hidden somewhere in the anuses)) of the subconscious and can break out at any moment and devour us all!!! (I went a little wrong)
7 — You know, you have your own vocalist, and I see you also invited a vocalist. What was the point of inviting him? Who are these people?))
– Vocalist Uzhas does all the work, but in several songs there are places where Diman reads the lyrics, by the way, in the video DRUKNROLL – My Black Envy he does it in his place, as they say, with feeling, with sense, with arrangement! Yes, he is considered a vocalist!
8 – And as frankly as possible, please tell me, how do you like the sound of your latest album? Do you like it?
– The sound is great, we experimented a lot, but as it usually happens with any musician, there is just a little something missing, but this is exactly what moves the DRUKNROLL locomotive forward, so we will again turn up the knobs of the devices, like in the old joke about Petka and Vasily Ivanovich, when they are flying on a rocket and VI asks:
– Petka, what are the devices?
– Devices – 40
– What 40?
– And what about the devices?
Therefore, we will also turn up something on the devices, but where this will lead, no one knows, and if we don’t know, then we need to set it to 40!
9 – I know that your musician Oleg does the mixing and mastering. In principle, it’s not bad, such a clear sound… Does he have his own studio or is he straining himself to the maxi
mum just in time for the release of your album?
– Yes, he has his own Live Line studio and no stress at work, we have been working on the album steadily for about 2 years, as they say, those who understand life are in no hurry! Oleg does the most difficult work, in addition to mixing and mastering, he is an excellent musician (he did a couple of solos), although all the main solo parts are done by Denis Malyuga, Oleg also does all sorts of electronic tricks, which diversifies our material!
10 – Druknroll, please tell me, will the 2022 disc be released in physical form and do you see any point in releasing albums in the form of discs, cassettes or vinyl these days?
– In January-February, we will be making a CD on the Dark East Productions label, as I already said! In my opinion, physical media have become more of a gift item, now musicians are not chasing large print runs, but are releasing small, but more sophisticated (multi-page booklets, vinyl, cassettes) products. In short, you need to go to the garage and tear out your old cassette player! And for some reason they unfairly missed the reels, they were standing right between the vinyl and the cassettes (if you rummage around in the garage, you can find a reel-to-reel tape recorder)! In general, I am for physical media, although they will soon die!
11 – When will your concert activity begin in 2023, have you already planned anything?
– Unfortunately, we are not doing concerts yet, we do not have an extra $ 100,000 (that is how much we wanted to invest in our show), so we enjoy studio work, although you never know what it would be like to have a blast on stage! I watched a little Wacken – 2022, there were tons of people, crisis or not, no one cares, everyone is there, shaking their heads, when will we have such a rag?
12 – Let’s go back in history a little, please remember how you discovered Heavy Metal?
– I was still in school in the 5th grade, I was listening to Cruise, Purple, etc., but one day a nerd came up to me and said: “Listen to this band, dude, and you’ll feel like a lump of shit is rolling on you!!!” And that’s how it happened, I was crushed! It was the Motorhead band! Of course, I didn’t absorb anything, then I smoothly switched to Metallica and Accept and only many years later I understood the greatness of Lemmy and Motorhead! By the way, I started listening to Metla on reels!
13 – Here’s your personal playlist, which consists of old old bands… And please, then tell us about new Russian bands that are worth listening to – in your opinion.
– The playlist may be a bit of a mixed bag, but it’s something like this: Paradise Lost, Slipknot, In Flames, Soilwork, Testament, Children Of Bodom, and I recently pulled in something from Ice Nine Kills – great albums from 2019 and 2021 (I don’t know if it’s old school or not)! I won’t go into ours too much, but I recently got into Korea! In general, I’m omnivorous in terms of music, but you know, you can barely listen to one band to the end once, and another one 5 times in a row!
14 – I know that you have a strong fan community that enthusiastically received the latest album, and together with them I send you a big hello and wish you creative activity!
– Great! I only just now learned about a STRONG fan community from you, and they’re just annoying me with their silence! Light metal to everyone, dudes, listen to more jazz! F*CK’N’DRUK’N’ROCK’N’ROLL!!! Translated from khrenugl, this means that whoever listens to DRUKNROLL will be happy!
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