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Interview with

Luka, Matija and Berislav

Ashes You Leave and their fight for a better chance


Ashes You Leave played at the second edition of Metal Female Voices, a festival in Belgium.  They shared the stage with bands like Nightwish and Epica. They are very well known in the gothic metal scene, but the break through to the more mainstream scene is very hard. After their show there was a nice conversation with some members of the band.  To talk about their fight for a better label, the devotion to the music and much more. 


Fire

In January 2002  there was the release of their latest album called Fire. This album was more a break through in the gothic metal scene. Berislav (leadguitar and vocals) thinks it’s a totally different album than the older three records. It’s not that the band wanted to make more commercial music, but it was a natural developement since the first record in 1998.

Luka (bassguitar): “This last album is gothic but there’s a lot of chemic and there’re a lot of heavy metal guitars. For people who don’t listen to gothic it’s more acceptable, but it’s not more mainstream than the other records.”
Berislav (leadguitar and vocals): “We always try to find a balance between the male and female vocals, the classical parts and the guitarlines.”




Own sound

Luka, Berislav and Matija are sitting on the table in the canteen of the backstage area near their dressingroom. They all talk easily, enthousiastic and with the same goal.  Both women in the band, the violin player and the singer, are taking a rest at the moment. The conversation goes on, talking about the music and how to work together as a band.

When I ask them if it isn’t hard to write the music all together all the guys are clear to me. It isn’t hard because they’re all statisfied in the end. Also they have many ideas. I talked with the violin player briefly after my interview and she said that it can be hard for her. She told me that it’s difficult to make new violin parts which connect with the guitar riffs.

Luka: “We have some songs in more than ten different versions and all of them are made in some weeks. The chemistry between us works out very great.”
Berislav interupts him: “We first make some demotracks, than we listen and then we discuss about what has to be changed.”
Matija: “Also we talk about the music with some people to have a second opinion. It also makes it easier because we’re good friends.”

About the inspiration they’re very clear. It’s Luka who talks much about it. “We listen to a lot of music like death, trash, heavy and black metal.”  When we talk about the performance, the guys said that it isn’t something they have to practise. It comes naturaly and the audience gives them a lot of energy. It also helps when the sound is good. Luka almost screems: “When you give more you get more, so when we’re on stage we give everything.”




Fight

The breaktrough in west side of Europe took a long time and the guys immediately say that they still have to fight for it.
Berislav is realistic: “We’re not from Finland or Sweden and for the record labels it realy matters that we’re from Croatia or even in the European Union. They don’t give you much credit from the label. A lot of people don’t know that there’s no war anymore and that’s said. It’s difficult to fight again and again but we have the strength to go on.”

Luka and Berislav screem together: “We enjoy it and we love this life!” Luka: “We hang out with eachother, love our music and this is what we want. Thsat drives us to go on.
They all don’t want to think much about the furture. Luka thinks that the most important thing is that the band enjoy this and they all have jobs. They rather want to live for the music but at the moment it’s not realistic.    

In the east of Europe the metal scene is small, but they don’t like it very much. Luka explains: ”No record company wants to sign a band from Croatia. They don’t trust us, only think about the money. They don’t see  that a Croatian band can do something important in Europe. Some bands are very good but they fell apart and they had no future. We played a lot in Germany, were on tour with Darkwell, played in Poland so there’s a change.”




Nice to hear

Ashes You Leave have very complex melody lines: grunts, woman vocals, heavy guitar lines and also a violin. The band doesn’t see it as something complex.
Luka: “It just comes and every member tries to give the best for the band. When something is missing we try to make it a bit more catchy. The vocals are complicated but we all work hard for it.” They really want to make a fifth album. They have some material and already have recorded  three songs of it.
Luka laughs and says: “I think the music is more commercial but harder than ever. We played two new songs.”

They called their music a bit doom metal, but also there are some folk influences. They agree that is maybe has to deal with the culture and the important sound of the violin.
Luka: “Our country has a strong folk scene and the violin is very different from other bands. It’s not that we think ’let’s make a folk part’ but somewhere in the back of your mind it’s the tradition. We don’t have any pressure. It’s not that the next album has to sell better than the last one. We make the music as we want, we love our songs and that’s the best process. We made said music, but some songs are realy powerfull and transmit some energy when the violin come in. It’s not realy doom but we’re not very said. I think that we’re more heavymetal, but all our songs has a dark feeling.”
Berislav: “It’s dark but always in a possitive way.”



After the show they go home and want to concentrate themselves to make the next album.
Matija: “The next record will have some acoestic guitar parts and light melodies. A combination of everything and some technical death metal riffs. The song has a flow and it sounds naturaly.”
Luka: “Our music is totally unpredictable.

That brings us to the lyrics. They all admit that’s very hard to make them.
Luka: “The lyric express our emotions for instance we all know English but it’s hard to translate that emotion from our foreign language. Some lyrics are written by friends and fans who gave us some text parts. Some lyrics were written before by our guitarist who left the band and Marina, the singer, also write songs. We all write together, but it’s easier for the singer to do it cause she has to represent the emotions. She gives her best with our lyrics and she does it very emotionally.”

Their big dream is to have a good record label.
Luka says it very emotional: “We pray for it every day and we want to give gigs all the time and live off the music. We work to give gigs.”
Berislav: ” It’s very commercialised in the music scene. A lot of bands introduced a lot of bands because it sells well.”

Luka: “I was a fan of Ashes You Leave from the beginning. Personally I didn’t know a band in 1995 that had female vocals as a lead vocal or the combination of keybord and violin. The new bands introduced female vocals to be in the mainstream. A lot of bands make one killer and they come and go. We try to be constant in the scene. We’re still in the underground, cause we’re not famous, but a lot of people heard a bit of it. Others’ll fade away. We try to make something new, but we don’t want to disappoint the old doom fans.”



From the beginning the band has a typical ‘Ashes You Leave sound’ that’s the combination of a violin and a female vocalist. You don’t hear that combination in a metal band with a male vocal is something the guys repeat very often. They regret  the fact that they couldn’t a better production and good promotion. The promotion was only in Germany, where they have a lof of fans.
Luka: “Maybe we make a better production in the future.”
After that it’s time to leave the guys alone, so they can enjoy the rest of the festival. They realy had a great time and hopefully we’ll hear more of them in the future.

We'd like to thank Ashes You Leave, Bobo Markulincic, Julien and Philty from Metal Female Voices to make this interview possible


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