DRUKNROLL and music psychotherapy: do they cure or provoke?
What happens if heavy metal passes through the prism of psychiatry, black humor and the philosophy of a thrown-out puzzle? An interview with DRUKNROLL is not just a conversation about music, but a real journey into the depths of mental labyrinths, where an explosive mixture of syndromes, zombie ballet and sound madness comes together to form the “Gross Puzzle”. We asked the strangest and most shocking questions — and received answers that can heal, frighten and inspire at the same time.
- If “Gross Puzzle” were a board game, what rules would definitely cause a seizure in its players?
Druknroll: Well, not a seizure, but rather Ganser syndrome (in common parlance – hysterical psychosis), especially when everyone sat down to put together puzzles, and you deliberately threw out one puzzle in advance and pretend that you know nothing and play with everyone until the end, and then you are the most indignant, why there are not enough puzzles!
- Granny in the Black Forest – is this a metaphor for leaving the mainstream, or did you just really lose a relative?
Druknroll: Both, indeed, my beloved granny passed away, as if she got lost in this damn forest forever, but I know that she did not stay there, but went straight to heaven!
- What medical diagnosis best describes the sound of the new album, in your opinion? (With ICD code is possible).
Druknroll: Here I will say, as a psychodrundulitist, that this is already Ganser’s syndrome, or rather its darkest side – Cotard’s syndrome, in short, a person believes that he or individual parts and organs of his body have already died, rotted, decomposed or are simply absent (it’s just awful, even the cerebellum in the skull winced from such terrible words) …
- Are your songs psychotherapy or a provocation of a nervous breakdown?
Druknroll: Of course therapy! A nervous breakdown can be provoked, for example, if you count the bars for more than 10 minutes in the group Meshuggah or, for example, scroll through Slipknot photos for a long time (what a hellish clown there)!
What is the craziest comment you received from a listener after the release of “Gross Puzzle”?
Druknroll: As one music critic said, or maybe more than one, more precisely Diana Tepes, or even more precisely Isis Bite, or even more precisely Anastasia Samotiya, Iron Meidenovsky, Alisa Kuperovna Poison, Raspai Zheleznykh, in short, a cool music analyst: ““Gross Puzzle” seems to mark a new era in the development of DRUKNROLL, who have completely gone crazy and reached a new level of mental paradoxes!” Right on target, you couldn’t say it better!
- Let’s say you’re sent to an international music summit, but you have to perform on a violin and in a fur coat. Who’s going and what will they play?
Druknroll: Did you come up with this question yourself or did someone suggest it, this already smells like Fregoli syndrome, it is connected with the rapid change of appearance, here the violin is in the theme and especially the fur coat, and who and what will play – it is not important, although the track DRUKNROLL Pandora’s box, filtered through the depths of the subconscious, would definitely fit here!
- If DRUKNROLL were a cartoon, who would be the main villain, and who would be the mad scientist in the team?
Druknroll: Did you come up with this question yourself or did someone suggest it, oh, sorry, something got stuck! So what are we talking about… Yes, we would definitely have a gang in white coats, maybe a gang of doctors-scientists-experimenters (an explosive mixture already, you will meet such a doctor in the clinic – a heart attack).
- Your album sounds like it can be used to treat insomnia … unless, of course, you never want to sleep again. Is this an intentional effect?
Druknroll: Yes, indeed, DRUKNROLL is a cure for insomnia, but the main thing, as you know, is not a cure, but a strict prevention of Ganser syndrome, as well as Cotard and Fregoli syndrome!
Imagine: you are invited to write a soundtrack for a new Netflix series about zombie ballet. What will be on the tracklist?
Druknroll: Here’s a tracklist especially for this event, the best tracks from DRUKNROLL – White Walls (2010), Adrenaline (2012), White Death (2014), Behind the Line, In the Abyss of No Return (2016), Unbalanced (2018), Destruction Inside, I’m a Parasite (2020), Brain Experiment, I’m a Tranquilizer Man (2022), Höllenwald, My spiteful clone (2024) and the yet to be released track Moral Leprosy! I remembered a song about a zombie who has a ticket to the ballet, but there is no ticket for “Gross Puzzle”…
- How many takes does it take to record a solo that makes the studio wallpaper fly off? And was there ever a time when you decided: “This take is too dangerous”?
Druknroll: Listen to the solo and I’ll tell you who you are, that’s how this folk wisdom sounds! Solo is the thorn in the side of the entire metal body! These super-dudes who recorded cool solos in this album, I can’t help but name them: Oleg Kireichuk, Igor Kazakov, Andrey Stepanov, Grigory Melkumov, Alexander Blinov, Artem Rybintsev! Even now, the solo in the track Bots makes the fur on my back stand up angrily!
- Is your music still music, or is it already a form of collective madness, carefully documented in the studio?
Druknroll: Mass psychosis affects a group or a collective of people, as a result of which a person loses the normal ability to judge and the normal way of judging, which makes a person obsessed with something (from Wikipedia), but not with anything, but obsessed with heavy rock of course! Psychiatrist V. M. Bekhterev also pointed out that the mechanism of transmission of hysteria from person to person remains not fully understood!
If you could resurrect one great musician so that he would play one song in DRUKNROLL – who would you choose, and which one?
Druknroll: Of course Dio, if I can say so figuratively, I lived my life with him, and I drooned the track Holy Diver when I was still a kid! And in terms of playing with Dio, we would knock out the slow Sorrow from the 2022 album!
- What saves an album more often: a technical re-recording of a part or a sudden insight at 3 a.m. with the sounds of a refrigerator?
Druknroll: Unfortunately, nothing saves it, especially re-recording – a waste of time, we do it once and for all, only painstaking hard work for the good of sacred metal saves!
- Are your tracks an internal struggle, a musical exorcism or just a way not to dry up in the world of disposable tracks?
Druknroll: Since we have delved into the problems of psychoneurotics, it is more likely an anti-cacodemonia, which translated from ancient Greek roughly means an obsession with a good force, not an evil one, as one might think! Regarding disposable tracks, I will say that this is a big problem of wasting precious time to find decent music – you have to shovel through a bunch of all sorts of nonsense, especially when it comes to new music! Recent shoveling has opened up fresh material from cool bands Daath and Volucrine for me!
- What will happen to DRUKNROLL in 10 years: a symphonic concert in the Philharmonic or sound terror in the orbit of Elon Musk’s satellite?
Druknroll: Enlightenment…
It’s a bit of a pity that our conversation was like a conversation between two psychotherapists at a conference on mental pathologies, but we really wanted to talk about music!
DRUKNROLL is not just a band, it is a diagnosis, a lifestyle and an antipsychotic in one bottle. Their new album is like a schizophrenic dream, in which each part is an act of musical exorcism. What’s next? Philharmonic, space or all at once. One thing is for sure: if you hear “Gross Puzzle” – your brain will never be the same. And that’s great.