I presented you this great chilean band about two weeks ago with their new double album "Tierras Infertiles" (here) and announced an upcoming interview that I finally just received back from Nacho (guit/voc)... - thanx to you man for your interesting words ! - I hope this will help you to know more about KAYROS and their amazing blend of crushing Stoner and Psychedelic Doomy Rock, but also their local scene, live playing conditions in S.A. and more ... now listen the album, read carefully what follows and support those talented guys !!!
Your new album recently came out after a long process of composition and recording, was it planed from the beginning to be a double album ? Why such a title, are the “tierras infertiles” those surrounding you ?
No it was not really planned that way from the start. What happened is that since 2009 we publish black hole we were always writing nonstop and we accumulate a lot of songs that we all liked and did not want to leave any out, also we realized, unconsciously, that there was a conceptual thread in lyrics and so even though everybody said that a double album could be a commercial and economic suicide for the group as it could be very expensive and no stamp is interested in, we said "we are a band with an independent spirit and never have done this for money, fuck all that, we record it all and we edit a double album independently. ", Tierras infértiles is a concept that I can adapt to any reality, not only in Chile, reflects how hard it is existentially survive in a world falling into ruins before your eyes, in which the political and economic system is criminally annihilating people and the planet.
I guess so. We looked long enough ,between painter friends of our city, an image representing the concept of the album and when we found this woooow!!! We immediately said this is it, we contacted the author of the work, Ricardo Mella (heisenberg Il) and he loved the project. interestingly also he knew the band's music and liked it, so he facilitated his work to use it as album cover, it was great, fairly represent the pain and darkness that we wanted to transmit.
The double album is about 85 minutes long but paradoxically (or not) there’s no very long songs in it (nothing that exceeds 8 minutes), is it a deliberated choice ? Do you fix a limit to the length of your songs or can we expect for example a long epic song of 15 minutes for example in the next album ?
True, what happens is that many of these songs in the live shows can last 20 minutes or more and we play a lot with improvisation, but the disc by a matter of time we decided not to extend beyond what we believed necessary for a disc that already was in itself quite long, but we have never put limits on the duration of the topics, on the contrary, in fact for the new album the band decided to put 6 or 7 songs "short "duration and more defined song structures and two songs of 15 or 20 minutes based much more on improvisation and jams, luckily for the material the day before Choclo died, we recorded these seven songs, in fact the song 8 ,disc 2, of Tierras Infértiles “Lleno de vacío" (bonus track ) was recorded at last session with Choclo. We were very lucky to record those songs before the tragedy and we will start working full time next year finish and edit that material.
This new album is darker and heavier than your debut, how did you approach it after “Pozo Negro” ? Did the debut gain good reactions from the fans ?
Pozo negro was our first album and we didn’t did have much experience in studio and we recorded it very fast, but we were very happy with the sound, people liked it a lot here in chile and allowed people knew our music even in other countries and so we began to get invitations to play from other parts of Chile and Argentina because of it and the song "Pozo negro" became kind of an anthem and the fans always ask for it and they sing it along with an endless passionately.. Now, about thye focus…. it was clear to record a new album hopefully with better production for which we would take as long as necessary and as musical influences we ride always bands as Sleep, Soundgarden, Melvins and heavypsycho and space rock of the 70s.
You toured Chile and Argentina consistently over the years… Did you organize the tour(s) by yourselves or had the support of a tour-promotor ? Both countries are very extended, wasn’t it too difficult to organize this logistically ? Were the conditions generally correct or was it sometimes kind of epic ?!
Managers have never worked outside the band, I manage the dates and Choclo when he was with us. In Argentina we have great friends as “Banda de la muerte”, “Elefante blanco”,”Buffalo”,”Knei”. We generated a very strong bond, so when they come to chile we move our contacts and we generate the gigs. In Argentina is the same thing, they move their contacts and locations. They got good places or bars to play where you get good money and the conditions are good. there are other shity places but we have always this strong desire to keep on playing live and touring. And as you said…long distances are very exhausting and Chile is very long…but with our van there is enough space for us and our equipment. So we don’t think much about that…we just do it. We got already some “name” so we play most of the time under good conditions.
The Chilean scene has always been pretty active when speaking about death and thrash metal but what about Stoner and Doom at the moment ? At Devil Dirt are pretty cool, Procession too but they are now European based… could you please present a bit some worthy bands ?
In Europe are very well known metal bands like Criminal, Undercroft, Pentagram, however, we got very good bands making psychedelic stoner or doom, but they never generated impact beyond our borders. My favorite bands are “Orate” , “Yajaira”, “Supercabron”,”Umbria en Calafate”. I recommend absolutely those bands, and now there is small but strong scene of new bands who bet for heavy psychedelia like “Icarus”, “Chinaski” or “Demonauta”.
You certainly know the South American Sludge movement founded by Cultura Tres and fellows, do you feel Kayros as a part of it and see any particular interest to gather forces this way ?
From a perspective yes we feel it that way, we believe that there is a real commitment to mutual support among the stoner-doom bands in South America, in our city , Concepción, we always received with open arms all the bands that visit us. They stay in our homes, we party together and assemble them shows, in fact in 2011 we had “Cultura tres”, a great band and great guys and I got the best impression. Now…I think is very important to unite forces and push forward a movement that is basically underground and which often have no support and you have to fight against. Musically I think there is no “sludge-southamerican” sound. We try in our songs to include some rhythms of South America as the "malambo", "cueca" or "diablada" and in some songs (Pozo negro) are a few of our indigenous native instruments like trompe or trutruca, hopefully this “southamerican sludge” is grow ing and doing a lot of noise and that make us stronger. In Perú there are good bands like “Tlön”, “Mazo”, “Reino Hermitaño”,” La ira de Dios”,”Don Juan Matus” . A few bands played last year in Concepción.
Are you looking for a label to release physically the album (cd or vynil) ? Do you expect this new album to bring you new contacts in Europe and why not follow the steps of Cultura Tres who gained quite much interest during the last year over here in Europe ?
We got out Tierras Infértiles independently in a limited number of 500 double cds although we were in conversations with some local labels for editing it, we had much trouble to release it on the 20th of October. The day Choclo turned 30 and we wanted to release it that day as a tribute, the album has sold well here.It would be incredible that an european label would be interested in releasing and promoting the material. We are totally available for it and to generate more contacts in europe in the near future.A tour in europe would be wonderful, the intention from the beginning was to edit the album on vinyl, love that format, but here in South America is complicated because there is no pressing machines, which are destroyed or lost. Around here those machines were discontinued many years ago with the rise of cds. If a label is interested in our material to put it out on vinyl or cd and distribute it contact us without a doubt.It would be very important for us.
I’m sorry but I can not understand more than 2 or 3 words in Spanish, so please tell us what are your lyrics generally dealing with ? is there any themes that you’re sure you’ll never write about for KAyros (political subjects for example…) ?
our lyrics talk about inequality, how weak people is push to the side, subjects related to our native people the Mapuches, who are criminally repressed by the state and from a more intimate perspective we write about the innerself within the world ... it is not easy to live in this sick society, I think…we will never write about girls in bikinis, parties and fast cars hahaha !! that's not our roll, political issues are very present in our songs.
What are the next plans now : promote the album, tour… ?
for now promote the album as much as possible in chile and play in as many places as possible, slowly we are starting to play again after the death of Choclo, and we had a gig in October for the album release that was incredible, a lot of people watching us. Now we are planning more gigs in our city and in January we are gonna play in some festivals: “Woodstaco” the biggest festival of independent rock in Chile is outdoors by a mountain in “Teno”. Very hippie in a way and then we are invited to a festival in Patagonia, by 2013 we want to go in summer to Peru and Argentina, hopefully the disc get a good atention in Europe so we can make something overthere too.
You’re selling nice flashy T-shirts of “Tierras infertiles” (orange, blue…) could you please give details about your merchandising ? (including shipping costs !)
Yes we have t-Shirts for sale from Pozo Negro and Tierras Infértiles, 10 dollars each and the shipping costs range from 10-15 dollars, our e-mail is correokayrosrock@gmail.com... Contact us and lets coordinate. Our double cd Tierras Infértiles cost 8 dollars plus shipping.
Last September, Cord died tragically in an accident… you wrote me that he fell into the sea, so did he die of drowning ? how did this happen, was he working or practicing sport or … ? was Cord the main compositor of Kayros ? Did you ever think of stoping the band activities after this tragedy ?
Choclo was in an abandoned pier in the city of Lota taking photographs. So he fell down due to the bad conditions the pier was , Choclo could not swim and nobody was there with him so , nobody could do anything. He was paradoxically in a place. He always went there to meditate and be inspired, in fact the Pozo Negro song was written in the same place where he fell down, compositionally Kayros work well, someone came with a small idea, a basic riff, and then we get all ideas together, Me and Choclo were the writers of the lyrics, Cholco was a great composer.Is a tremendous loss for rock …He still had much to give, we never think of stopping after Choclo’s death. We were killed as a group and went into a strong shock not only because we lost an important group member…. we lost our best friend and just days before days of editing Tierras Infértiles, but we never thought stop playing, I’m sure Choclo didn’t want that for us,Kayros was the most important thing in his life… every time we play our songs we feel a direct connection with him that helps us to heal from this pain which is his death.
So, what are your expectations for 2013 ?
Play as much as we can, work and rehearse a lot to regain the level live, and present our work in as many places as possible in Chile, Argentina and Peru, would be incredible that the material could be edited in Europe in 2013, and as I told you I had work on new material that we recorded with Choclo and we will put all of our energy to compose some more songs to complete that album, we will also make a video clip for the song Oveja Negra, we already started to work on it and in a few weeks,possibly, we are gonna make a DVD with live performances…. greetings to all the readers!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh0lJsbgKeg
ReplyDelete