Interviewee: Niburu
Year: 2009
Website: damaste.it
MySpace: myspace.com/damaste
Label: None... yet...
Featured on: Loucifer Speaks Exclusive... So far!
After reviewing Damaste's "The Crumbling Vaults of the 5th Sun" EP, it seemed only natural that I should ask them some questions... Lou: Hi guys, thanks for agreeing to this interview. Who is in the band and which role does each of you play?
Niburu: Hails, and thank you for giving us the chance to talk about us and our music, especially in a foreign webzine! Today Damaste is a 5-man project, with a classic formation: I am the singer, besides the one who write all lyrics and offer most of the main impulse in the developing of the "general sense" of our proposal (i.e. "war propaganda", as Nergal would define it AHAH); Thanatos is the lead guitarist and the artifex of the main riffage, sided by Phobos, our ex-bass player and now rhythm guitarist; Hypnos is the new bass maniac and newest entry in the band; and, last but not least, Panoptes is the drummer, even if he's got an important part in the songwriting process and in the arrangements
Lou: How long has the band been together?
Niburu: The project was conceived by me, Thanatos and Phobos, having been friends from when we were kids: we've been playing together for five years, and we've musically grown together. When we decided to stop playing covers and "do it seriously" we passed through a couple of ill-omen years of line up changes and other problems... we changed 3 drummers and some rhythm guitarists, but with this line-up, which is only one and a half years old, we finally found the right battle formation to face the future challenges.
Lou: Where does the name Damaste come from?
Niburu: Damaste, or Procrustes, is a character of late greek mithology: he used to kidnap the passerbys, lay them down on a bed-shaped anvil and mangle them with an hammer (from which comes our logo), amputating the excessive length of the taller victims and stretching out the shorter ones on the rack until them fit. Accordingly to this myth, the expression "procrustean bed" explains an hard or intollerable situation, or an attempt to force people in conforming to an arbitrary standard, a uniformed and massified way of thinking and acting... that is the modern age demon we do hate and try to fight every single day of our lives.
Lou: Are you involved with any other bands or music projects?
Niburu: None of us, except our drummer Panoptes, who spend some time in an hard rock band. Personally speaking, I don't really like side-projects, because they divert time and energy from the main projects... I prefer to focus all my creativity (and time, that unfortunately is not abundant) on a single artistic work.
Lou: What equipment do you prefer to use?
Niburu: As a singer, I have to say I hate Shure. Today there are so many other products of very good (and better) quality... my front-line weapon of choice is the Electrovoice Raven, ...and with that shall I smite the peoples!!
Lou: Which bands/albums have had the biggest influence on your sound and/or songwriting?
Niburu: When I write I'm not influenced by other bands, because my inspiration comes from literature. I respect, though, the fine works of Anders Jacobsson, from the swedish gothic-doom band Draconian, and Amon Amarth singer Johan Hegg's ability in lyrics arrangements and narrative patterns.
Lou: Which individual musicians have influenced you?
Niburu: Nergal, from Behemoth, and Johan Hegg, from Amon Amarth. No doubt about it, 100% European motherfuckers, no trans-oceanic bumpkins.
Lou: What sort of subjects do you like to write about?
Niburu: I write about past, present and future. As archaeologist, I possess a very clear vision of history and evolution... The future of our planet and the destiny of our species has become one of my most frequent worries and occasions of meditation. In fact, one of the main subjects in my compositions is the concept of "end of the world", absolutely not painted with banal millenaristic tones, but following the empiric consideration that the world of today, far from evolving into a sustainable and futuristic one, is following a course which will leave ravaged the face of the planet and - finally - collapsed this society... in a matter of only few generations. I know such themes are not unusual in the contemporary metal scene, so keeping that in mind I try to improve originality, especially on the aesthetic side, making use of the sonnet and other verse structures and poetical figures, being greatly inspired by English and Italian Romantic literature, besides the classics of our Greek and Latin heritage.
Lou: I thought "The Crumbling Vaults of the 5th Sun" was brilliant (as you can tell from my review). What have the other reviews been like for it?
Niburu: Your judgement honors us. Luckily, this EP is receiving very good reviews, both in italian and international webzines and magazines, and I honestly have to admit we've been quite amazed by that. We eagerly await the moment we'll be ready to release the full-length album, because we believe that the interest shown for our music could be the propitious wind in our sails boosting us toward a label and a greater audience.
Lou: What is your favourite track from it and why?
Niburu: For me, Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age, my first composition to be used in music, which gave me the chance to sing about a topic, the legend of Atlantis, I always felt close to my heart.
Lou: Which track seems to be the most popular with your fans?
Niburu: Apart from the consideration that terms like "popularity" and "fans" are not quite suited for an underground situation such ours, we do not dare to use words like these in describing our situation since we still move in the shadows... However, I'd say that "The Opalescent Path" seems to interest many of our our listeners, particularly those not at ease with extreme metal.
Lou: Do you have any other music available? Are you working on anything at the moment?
Niburu: Oh, yes, absolutely! We are constantly busy in writing and arranging new music, especially now that we're focused on creating our full-length album, planned to be recorded by the beginning of autumn. The album will be a musical and thematic continuation of "The Crumbling Vaults of the 5th Sun", and will feature 8 tracks of our Melodic Thrash-Death.
Lou: Do you have any merchandise available? If so, where can we buy it from?
Niburu: No, we don't have any available merchandise by now... we prefer to concentrate our (scarce) resources in musical equipment and recording. We think there will be time for merchandising, hoping to sooner or later sign with a label...
Lou: Have you got any gigs coming up? Do you have any plans to tour in the UK?
Niburu: We've got of course some gigs planned in the spring/summer period, and we want to set more of them, in major clubs and festivals located in northern Italy; we also hope to start including the rest of the country from winter on. Our biggest hope for the near future, however, is to be able to invade and conquer the stages outside Italy... Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Poland, France, UK are all countries where we'd like to play, much more than Italy. In order to do that, we hope to someday be supported by a good label or booking agency...!
Lou: What has been your favourite gig so far and why?
Niburu: Well, I would say a gig still to come. Our live experience is young, the road in front of us is long, and we are eager to conquer more and more stages on the path which, I hope, will lead us to the chance to offer our music to an ever bigger public.
Lou: Have you had any embarassing moments on stage?
Niburu: Ahah, few are the gigs untouched by some strange happening! Though, I believe the most embarassing moments take place when all are waiting for the intro track to start, in pompous positions, ready to unleash hell... and the intro track, thanks to some asshole "sound engineer", doesn't start, leaving us like idiots in the silence of the stage... I assure that pisses me off
Lou: What's the best thing about the metal scene at the moment? Is there anything that you'd like to change about it?
Niburu: The only thing I would really change is the consumeristic attitude which 90% of people has developed toward music, a shitty attitude derived from our cancerous western society, that lead music (as everything else) to be fettered by fashion and market, and artistic products to become trash feeding a famelic throw-away behavior. It makes me absolutely sick, and sad.
Lou: Headbanging vs Moshpit?
Niburu: Headbanging, for sure! Leave moshpits to metalcore teenagers!
Lou: Now's the time to promote yourselves to the world of Loucifer Speaks! Feel free to plug your websites, MySpaces, shows and whatever else!!
Niburu: Well... music business, even the "underground one", is a crowded and cruel battlefield... we're in the middle of the fight, making our way straight to the front-line, so I say to everyone: follow us, for we won’t stop!! All of you are able to listen to our music, read about the project and know more about future releases and gigs on our myspace page www.myspace.com/damaste , besides our site on www.damaste.it ... Join our crew on our Facebook page (http://it-it.facebook.com/pages/DAMASTE/31468072972)!! Keep those resources checked out for gigs and news about the forthcoming full-length album, which we swear will tear your ass apart!!! Thank you... and horns fucking up!!!