Vesania Interview

Vesania member Orion has a knack for participation in bands or on albums bearing adjectives used to describe something that's huge. He plays in Behemoth, whose name has taken on a completely different meaning with the newfound success that band has achieved over the past three years. Vesania's latest album, "God the Lux" is titled to describe how huge the concept of God is. Orion said in this interview lux is a word that sounds like "deluxe." This is a concept of behemoth proportions. Read on to find out more about the album's title and what makes "God the Lux" one of the biggest black metal releases of the year.


The Gauntlet: "God the Lux" is your first release on Napalm Records. Explain to our readers the contract you gained with this label. How do you feel about the contract with them and your new management?

Orion: Before this record, we had a contract with Empire Records, that is local Polish label. They released the first album, promoted it very well in Poland; they did a tour and few single shows for us. The album was licensed to Crash Music Europe and CD Maximum for the East. Then the deal was over. When we prepared our second album, they decided to offer the management deal for us � the same people that own Empire Records are running Massive Management Company. It was a huge breakthrough for us. They have bands like Vader and Decapitated. Together with Massive we chose the album deal from the offered ones. We chose Napalm Records and it seems like it was the best choice we could make. The cooperation is going very well and smooth.


The Gauntlet: How has the new album been received by fans/by the media?

Orion: Surprisingly well. We're getting very good reviews in metal medias, I'm getting tons of emails from the fans with words of appreciation. I'm pretty much all the time on tour with the other band � Behemoth, so I have the opportunity to talk to the fans all around the world. They know my other band, they have the album and congratulate for it. Lately on one of the shows in Canada I met one guy with 'penthavesania' symbol tattooed on his arm (styled pentagram from our cover). That was the biggest appreciation and honor I could get.


The Gauntlet: You mention on your website the significance of your band's name. Can you tell our readers what Vesania means?

Orion: It's an old Latin word. It means everything that is connected with madness, insanity, dementia and mental disease.


The Gauntlet: Why did you decide to use this word as your band's name?

Orion: Once I studied the history of dementia really deeply. I was just fascinated by changes of it's meaning through centuries. Madmen were kings, fools, sears, jesters, brilliant artists, heroes and prophets. I thought it was a good name for a metal band that has some of the theatre-themes running through. Besides, madness is pretty much how do common people see us from their point of view, isn't it?


The Gauntlet: What is the meaning behind your album's title "God the Lux?" Can you give us a bit of information to the background of it?

Orion: I am always playing with words. So each our title, song titles and album titles are the result of it. I am always trying to include in the titles and lyrics as many meanings as I can. "God The Lux" is "God-light", English and Latin mixed, but it sounds like you'd say "God deluxe". It fits the whole idea of the album, describes the questions that I ask in lyrics. It's the statement of the reference that is the main theme running through the album. Human being between these forces, and, what is more � the bearer of the light referred to god. This is the background of this title.

The Gauntlet: Why did you decide to make this track the name of the album? Why not use another track for the name?

Orion: It was just the idea to call the album like this, long before I wrote the words of this track. The whole concept of the album is based on this title. Besides � I think it sounds good as the album title.


The Gauntlet: Your vocals on "God the Lux" are quite frightening. How do you get this sound? Are you using any effects?

Orion: Obviously I do. In these strongly modified moments I used distortions, reverbs, delays, you know, there's nothing unusual. It's all about the way of singing. A significant thing � there is not even one pitch shifting used on this album. During the 'regular' vocal sound there are two separate lines running; for one of them we overdrove the preamplifier a bit. That's it.

The Gauntlet: Considering Poland used to be part of the Iron Curtain, is it hard to be in a satanic band like Vesania and live in Poland?

Orion: Not really. We haven't had any serious problems during these years. Cancelled shows, banned stuff, it doesn't make any impression; it's not very hard to get over. I just don't really care and don't have the time to think about how fucked up it is. Instead of it I'm finding the other ways to do what I like to do, if you know what I mean. Poland is very Christian indeed, but shit, man, it's too stupid to use your time for trying to fix it. People are stupid, it's quite common, and it looks like we can do pretty much nothing about it. So let's just do our thing well enough to be satisfied with doing it.


The Gauntlet: You come from the same country as some of the world's most infamous Black and Death Metal bands. Those bands would include Behemoth, Graveland, and Vader, just to name a few�

Orion: We were kids when we listened to bands like Vader. We were practicing our skills listening to this band. We were listening to the albums trying to analyze what was going on. They were the idols, the perfect ones. We were attending the shows as often as we could, even if we were too young to attend them. Same thing with Behemoth, but a bit later. You always have your local heroes; you're always a fan of something. It drives you, it makes you doing something. It's a bit strange, because I'm now a part of Behemoth and Daray is playing with Vader. It all happened really quickly back in 2003 and we really appreciate it. It's like jumping into the fairy tale from the childhood. Obviously, it's not the perfect world, but it's one of the dreams coming true. So we're now a part of something that influenced us years ago� It's weird man.


The Gauntlet: What is the scene like where you live?

Orion: It's pretty good. We've got many excellent bands, especially death metal ones. Poland is quite well known concerning this thing. Only to mention bands (except Behemoth and Vader) like Decapitated, Lost Soul, Azarath and many more. But we suffer due to lack of good labels in here, plus nobody wants to sign Polish bands abroad. I don't really know why� Maybe because of some infamous incidents in the past ha ha ha� So, we're getting more and more good shows over here. People seem to be quite supportive. Poland is an important force on metal market I guess. At least it's becoming important.


The Gauntlet: Tell me about shows/tours you've participated in?

Orion: Before we put out the first album we were doing just local small shows in few towns in Poland. Though we get quite good response then. After we released 'Firefrost Arcanum' we started to play some bigger events, including the biggest metal festival in Poland, 'Metalmania' with bands like Samael and Marduk. In September 2003 we did first tour in our history � the tour called Blitzkrieg part I, with Vader, Decapitated and Frontside. That was an awesome thing, especially for us. We've learned so much then, man� It was like a dream � touring with the biggest band in Poland. We were shitting our pants listening to Vader few years before; we were kind of brought up on this band� It was the first experience of this level for us, first step into the 'mature' life of Vesania. Now, we're starting our tours to 'God the Lux' album very soon. It's gonna be 50 shows within two months, February and March. Starting in Europe, then Poland separately, then Russia and Baltic lands. Can't wait.


The Gauntlet: There is a division among Black Metal fans: those who enjoy gothic, keyboard-laden Black Metal, and those who only acknowledge bands that play guitar-oriented, poorly produced blasphemous Black Metal. What do you think about this whole issue? Which category does Vesania fall into?

Orion: I don't know. It's a strange thing, but in general I don't like keyboards in metal music. It seems a bit gay� But at the same time, there are some bands that I cannot imagine to exist without this instrument. One of the few is Vesania. Its atmosphere is strongly based on keyboards and I just find it really good marriage with our riffs and stuff. But to be acceptable, the keyboard player needs to be really good. It's really hard to use this instrument properly, to feel it correctly. Concerning that two divisions of black metallers � I totally go for well-produced albums, but it doesn't mean that I'm a fan of gothic music. To be honest � I don't like it at all, except of some old stuff. I just like to listen to the good sound. But at the same time I even love some demo tapes� Man, it's so hard to judge. There's a band called Watain from Sweden � it's quite new, but they play this raw, old school black metal, and they sound quite raw as well. I don't really go for all those new bands trying to sound old-school, but this one is so fucking special. It's got the spirit and the soul, I just love it. So it looks like there's no rule about it. And Vesania � we definitely care about the sound and the production, but we're fucking far from being gothic. It's just 'modern' kind of black metal I'd say.


The Gauntlet: Where would you like your band to be in five years?

Orion: The most important thing for us is to keep the uprising tendency in what we do. Each following step needs to be at least a bit better than the previous one. Everything's going really well at the moment, we've come through few breakthroughs lately. Vesania needs to show up in Europe and that's what we're doing right now. In five years? I'd love to make it to U.S. with this band.




Read More News

Tags:  Vesania  , Orion - Guitars And Vocals, interviews

Darren Cowan    September 27, 2005