In today’s A-Z challenge, we find out all about Arctic Dreams through 26 questions!
A song that made you want to make music?
Alex Y: Enter Sandman by Metallica.
Sydius: SNES Donkey Kong Country 2 OST.
Gena: Europe Superstitious.
Nenad: Van Halen’s Respect the Wind.
Roman: For me, two tracks are the turning points in my musical view evolution. First, it’s kind of everybody has a track like this but not everybody remembers it – it is the very first rock song you listened to. For me it is Korol i Shut – Kamnem po golove. After that, I realized that I really wanted to listen to heavy music at 9 years old. The second, track that was the insight to me is Blind Guardian – Mirror, Mirror. How it is even possible? You can just mix everything you love in music with no compromises and as a result, you’ve got Blind Guardian.
Best rider you’ve had?
Alex Y: Sleeping at the club where we performed.
Sydius: Easy Rider by Peter Fonda.
Gena: A fridge full of beer.
Nenad: Limitless coffee from the bar.
Roman: Inflatable rubber swords.
Craziest moment you’ve had in the band?
Alex Y: Somehow it happened that we had such a fight during the tour in my first group that we traveled 2000 km home in different train cars.
Sydius: Never met my bandmembers.
Gena: I can’t really talk about it as there was a lot of illegal stuff going on 😉
Nenad: Haven’t been in the band for a long time, but by end of next year there will for sure be some stories.
Roman: I’m not so long in the band so ask me in a few years.
Deepest lyric one of your songs features?
Alex Y: All our songs have a deep lyric. It’s very hard to compare.
Sydius: Alex growls so I can’t catch the lyrics.
Gena: I think for me it’s The Waltz of Chernobyl. The atmosphere of the music and vocals are very well combined and convey the depth of the tragedy.
Roman: My favourite lyric in the lyric in the Join to Space.
Easiest song you wrote?
Alex Y: The Arctic Dreams. I made it in a day on one of my birthdays.
Sydius: When got in the flow.
Gena: Writing a song is like giving birth, it’s always in agony or it’s not a good song.
Nenad: Probably one from one of my projects. One of my old ones that I made is going to end up on the album, it was pretty easy to make as I already had the main melodies in my head and fingers.
Roman: I think the easiest song is lost in the abyss of gp5 files on some of my old computers.
Favourite song in your set?
Alex Y: The Arctic Dreams.
Sydius: Depends on the mood.
Gena: The Arctic Dreams.
Nenad: The Arctic Dreams.
Roman: Join to Space.
Guest you’d most like to feature on your record?
Alex Y: James Hetfield.
Sydius: W. A. Mozart.
Gena: Sober bass player.
Nenad: Per Nilsson.
Roman: Hansi Kürsch.
Hardest thing about being in a band?
Sydius: Get paid.
Gena: Pay the bills.
Nenad: Have everybody be at the same place at the same time, playing the same song haha.
Roman: To earn money somewhere else.
Interesting fact about one of your members?
Alex Y: Sydius took dance lessons.
Sydius: Alex studied composition in Finland.
Gena: We’re boring.
Nenad: One interesting fact that connects us all, is that none of us are native to Serbia, even if I’m the only Serbian in the band.
Jokes you have in the band?
Alex Y: I agree with the guys, they will show up in the future.
Sydius: If you don’t know any jokes in the company, they might be about you. I don’t.
Gena: There are none as far as I know, but there will be.
Nenad: There will be some soon, as I am still pretty new here.
Roman: I don’t know I just got here.
Key to writing a song?
Alex Y: Inspiration.
Sydius: Any key if equal temperament.
Gena: Get your ass off the couch and pick up a guitar.
Nenad: Three things that must follow each other, the first two are interchangeable depending on the feel. First is getting to a good melody that sticks out and slams. The next is a good hook that intermediates between the melody. The rest can come naturally, either easy or hard, and that is the third key – structuring the concept on where to take the melody (or melodies) and hook.
Roman: It should be fun to play and enjoyable to listen.
Longest distance you’ve travelled to play a show?
Alex Y: About 1800 km from Rostov-on-Don to St.Petersburg.
Sydius: Not much compared to some real big tours.
Gena: 1697 km. From St. Petersburg to Taman to play at the opener fest.
Nenad: 800km, from Belgrade, Serbia to Linz, Austria.
Roman: When I lived in Omsk the farthest city I visited as a band member on a tour was Perm. It is 1300 km, not really far away by Russian standards.
Most inspiring musician you’ve experienced?
Alex Y: Alexi Laiho. We talked to him in the bar after the concert at Hartwall Arena in Helsinki.
Sydius: Lenny Wolf, when I was a kid.
Gena: Jonne Järvelä, we even have a photo together, very cool dude.
Nenad: Recently, Guthrie Govan.
New band you’d recommend?
Alex Y: The Warning. Those girls impressed me at Wacken.
Sydius: Mixed Up Everything, Willow, Bonavega, Sarah Bonnicci, Joko Reantaso.
Gena: I can only recommend the old ones.. The latest band I like is Ferrymen. But they got together in 2016. Is that a new band or an old band?
Nenad: Mechina. Chicago based project that does sick immersive world-building sci-fi metal.
Roman: Newest discoveries to me are Polnalyubvi and Green Apelsin.
Opening for this band would be ideal?
Alex Y: Metallica, Rammstein.
Sydius: Lady Gaga.
Gena: Rammstein.
Nenad: Dark Tranquility.
Roman: Soil Work.
Place you’d most like to tour?
Alex Y: Wacken Open Air & Hellfest.
Sydius: Vietnam – to go the Coppola route deep into the heart of darkness.
Gena: USA.
Nenad: The Americas.
Roman: Siberia. I would like to face the world where it is possible again.
Quote you’d like to pass on to our readers?
Alex Y: No matter what happens, never give up.
Sydius: The great thing about having a long life is that one can correct his mistakes.
Gena: On Friday, don’t forget to grab a beer for Saturday too!
Nenad: There is no try, do or do not.
Roman: Do what you should and hope for the best.
Reason for the title of your recent/forthcoming release?
Alex Y: We wanted to write a song about a primal element, something not touched by the modern world. And only the sea and the mountains are suitable for that. And we wanted to betray the northern aesthetics. That’s how we got Storm.
Sydius: For me it seduces to think about The Tempest by Shakespeare: a personal and political madness, which is relevant, – and a bunch of images from Russian literature, where the Storm has been used to symbolise the blind darkness of traditional culture (Ostrovsky). Viking is the metamodern barbarian invasion of our brutal archaic unconsciousness challenging all achievements of the Enlightenment. Then the devastating nietzschean euphory of modernistic revolution (Gorky and further social realism), building the totalitarian societies. All these three ideas now come back like the waves of an anxious see of our contemporary conscience lasting on antidepressants
Gena: Storm is an awesome title for a Viking song. It sounds cool, disturbing, and menacing.
Nenad: Storm encapsulates the creative and private life struggles that we have to go through to make music, art.
See us live at?
Alex Y: Very soon, somewhere.
Sydius: to be or not to be.
Gena: Somewhere, once upon a time.
Nenad: 2025 definitely, first stop Belgrade, Serbia.
The old days of music were better than the current, do you agree?
Alex Y: Well there’s a lot of good music coming out right now. The problem is that the music industry has become accessible to everyone, so a lot of low-quality music gets on the Net. And very often the listener just doesn’t find worthwhile music.
Sydius: Period. Because “greater” is an obsolete term from modern hierarchical consciousness. You can’t have “greater” since post-modern.
Gena: The grass was greener. The light was brighter.
Nenad: Yes. In the old days, even the most uptempo lifestyle was calm enough for someone to enjoy some well thought music, be it metal, rock, rnb, jazz, anything. Nowadays it is fast food music and production.
Roman: In the old days, it was easier to move in the music industry because it wasn’t overcrowded.
Unusual merchandise?
Alex Y: This will be our merch. That’s why we won’t reveal the names yet. Otherwise the idea may be stolen.
Sydius: A planet with the band universe style. Looking forward, Elon.
Gena: Pants. Everyone’s selling t-shirts on gigs but no one’s selling pants…
Nenad: I am up for Arctic Dreams to sell mini freezers that purposely doesn’t work.
Roman: Condoms with the print of the tower from the album cover.
Variations you’d like to do on any of your songs?
Alex Y: Re-arrange the first album in a dark wave style.
Sydius: Acoustic.
Gena: I always want to redo things from scratch, but the best is the enemy of the good. And if you give in to those actions you can get into an endless loop of working on the same track over and over and over and over again.
Nenad: Variations on our own songs can be extremely fun, kind of being our own cover band of sorts. But it has to be mutually felt, decided and worked on so that we don’t end up having 5 guys on stage pulling a song in several directions.
Roman: It is the thing that needs to be discussed beyond the closed doors of musical studios. Outside of it, let’s consider songs as perfect.
What do your fans mean to you?
Alex Y: They mean everything. We can’t exist without them.
Sydius: It’s hard to come down to a personality who pays with his choice, time and money from a perception of a number.
Gena: Show me these people! Why aren’t they on our show yet! =)
Nenad: That we are doing a good job.
Roman: Are they exists?
X-rays or any treatments needed for band related injuries?
Alex Y: None. Our project doesn’t cause injury. Not yet, anyway.
Sydius: Lobotomy to calm down.
Gena: I broke both my arms, I had to get x-rays for that…
Nenad: No need to call the coroner just yet.
Roman: Em… Oral ethanol intake, idk.
You’re late for a show, whose fault is it?
Alex Y: Depends on the situation.
Sydius: The space and it’s wrong curvature.
Gena: A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.
Nenad: Nobody’s, I am late on time.
Roman: My. Are there any other options?=)
Zoo animal that next describes the personality of your band?
Alex Y: Arctic wolf.
Sydius: Don’t know about the band, but I choose the red panda from Berlin Tierpark. I’m his true fan and even have merch with him.
Gena: Honey badger.
Nenad: Cicada. Not particularly a zoo animal, but once in a long while we come together to make aggressive music.
Roman: Salmon. A geographically distributed group that meets only once in a certain period of time to give birth to something musical.