Brazil as always been a reference when we talk about South American (and World’s) Underground Metal, now it offers to us their new black jewel… Sodamned is a Brazilian Black Metal trio, their demo “On The Gallows” is an interesting mix of Death, Black and Heavy Metal with bowles and an incredible underground feeling!!...  So we contact them and they kindly accepts to answer our questions…

BB: Thank you very much for giving us this interview. Can you tell us about the band’s history?

Juliano: Sodamned began on the beginning of 1998, when Juliano, Gerson and Gilson come together to play Death Metal, not following just this way on Heavy Metal, but  trying to mix the many influences of the band’s members into our own way to play hard and extreme music. Since then, we keep as a power trio, trying a second guitar player three times, but without success. We released our first demo on April/2003, and we keep spreading that since then. Now, we are about to release a track on a compilation by Violent Records, from Sao Paulo, and trying a second guitar player again (the right one this time, I hope!).

BB: How you define the sound of Sodamned?

Juliano: Is hard to define, ´cause, as I told before, we mix many influences into our own way to play hard and extreme music. All of us like, mainly, Death and Black Metal music, but we like Doom and Heavy Metal too, and we bring all this “likes” into our own music. For example, I compose the music waiting a Death Metal music, and Gilson, the drummer, who really like old Thrash Metal bands, put his influences into my compositions and the music become different from what I’ve imagined. That’s a good point, to count on two different ways to see the same composition; it turns the music rich under the identity point of view.

BB: I been reading some very good critics of “On The Gallows”…How have been the reception of this demo?

Juliano: We are working really hard on spreading this demo and we’ve been received good words about it. We’ve been sent this demo to many countries in South America, Europe and even Asia, to USA and here in Brazil too, and the answer to our work has been very positive. Now, we got some help on distribution from Turkey and from EUA, by Beowolf Productions. We want to spread our name through the whole world.

BB: Actually, it is a demo or a self released Mcd debut?... I mean the sound is good, the composition level too… It sounds a little “too good” for a demo…

Juliano: Well, we don’t think like you. When we recorded this demo, we were so “beginners” about to be on a studio and about work on recording our music, so, after some time we started to hear our demo on a different way, finding things we could do better, instrument levels and things like that, you know, the first time on a studio we didn’t know how to get the best from ourselves.

BB: How much time takes you the composition and recording process of “On The Gallows”?

Juliano: We recorded this demo on Curitiba, a city 6 hours far from our home, so, we did two record sessions, amounting about 25 hours to record all the work. We kept together on the mixing sessions. Just our drummer was living on Curitiba at that time, so, he heard the final version before the whole band.

BB: The lyrical composition has a high level… Can you tell us briefly about the lyrical concept behind each song?

Gilson: Well, in fact there´s not too much too talk about. I try to write using my own feelings concerning facts I watch everyday, and some ideas based on philosoply, literature, etc. I write trying to show the lyrics on a personal and metaphoric way, doing my best to don’t look like pretentious or look as I would like to preach something. We look for freedom inside the band, even concerning people interpretations about our lyrics..

BB: My favorite song is “Hanged” lyrically and musically, I think it recapitulate the musical “quintessence” of Sodamned… What’s your favorite song? Why?

Juliano: Well, that’s a hard question, ´cause I composed all that music, so, I like each of them on a different way. Dreams and Tears is the most melodic and slow on the demo, “Hanged” is the most direct one, but I think my preferred one is “Graveyard of Secrets”, ´cause I work with many different riffs on this music, mixing melodic riffs with brutal riffs, slow and ultra-fast parts, cleaning vocals mixing to growling/screaming ones. We worked hard on build this music, that’s my preferred one.

BB: I will do the next question risking a hard beating… The vocal contrast reminds me a little Cradle Of Filth (specially “Hanged” with the female voice intermission), but without the hysterical, irritating Dani’s screams… It has CoF something to do with this style of vocal contrast? (NOTE: If don’t… I didn’t mean to offend you guys!)

Juliano: Well, I don’t think so. In fact, we enjoy the old times of Cradle of Filth, before Cruelty and the Beast album, but we didn’t try to do something similar to CoF. Gerson did just some backing screaming vocals when we began, and as the time follows we are becoming a two vocals band, but nothing to do with CoF.

BB: The whole music of your work is very varied and dynamic, you can find hints of Death Metal, Heavy Metal, and Thrash… did the whole band has the same musical tastes? How do you compose the music?

Juliano: All the members have their own tastes. Gerson and me really enjoy Death Metal and Black Metal, Gilson likes that as well, but he likes a lot of old Thrash Metal bands, that’s his preference. I like a lot of atmospheric, dark ambient, classic music and some brazilian music outside metal, and it reflects on our music. I’m the band’s composer, I create the riffs, usually imagining how the drum should sounds like, imagining the vocals, etc. So, I show it to the entire band and each one puts their own “touches” on the music, which comes to life totally different from what I’ve imagined.

BB: What are you favorite Brazilian bands? …and your favorites foreigner bands?

Juliano: There are a lot of brazilian bands doing a great work, some of them: Ares Wrath, Flesh Grinder, Pain of Soul, Melancholic Art, Amaduscias, Amen Corner, Rythual, Gammoth, among many other ones. About foreigner bands, I really enjoy the work of Rotting Christ, since the old times until now, Amon Amarth, Satyricon, the old times of Ulver, Obituary, My Dying Bride, Rapture, Desaster.... it’s hard to remember, there are uncountable bands I like.

BB: What do you think Sodamned has in common with the “first wave” of Black Metal?

Juliano: Strong feeling we try to spread to people. Our lyrics haven’t too much to do with the lyrics of those old bands and we use some melodies on the music which haven’t to do with that kind of black metal. In fact, we believe the feeling is the same, hate to the christ’s weak religion.

BB: What do you think about the immense number of variants in Black Metal, like Gothic BM, Techno BM, NSBM, etc? Do you think that’s discounted value of Black Metal or improves it?

Juliano: I think the most of its labels was created just to put the music into boxes and sell it. At the same time I think there are too many differences between all this styles, I think is not so necessary to put names on all this differences, it really sounds too much commercial to me, but the people who really likes black metal knows what they want to hear without needs any label.

BB: What do you think about the MP3? Do you think that can threat the underground scene as we know it?

Juliano: I really don’t know what to think about. That’s a good way to spread your music and make people really far from where you live to know your music without spent hard money, but at the same time there are a lot of people giving up to buy CD’s ‘cause they prefer to download the full albums from the internet. I believe the real underground won’t die ‘cause this way to get music, the real bangers will ever buy their preferred band’s albums.

BB: About the bonus track “Sky and Earth”, is this part of “On The Gallows” or is an advance of future material? When can we expect new material of Sodamned?

Juliano: We recorded “On the Gallows” about three years ago and the track “Sky & Earth” we recorded on February/2005, ‘cause we will be released on a compilation through the label Violent Records from Sao Paulo. But we’ve decided to put this track as a bonus on the demo, just to people knows some new stuff from Sodamned. We are spreading that music as a bonus on our own way, Violent Records will spread the compilation on its way. This compilation will be released about July/2005. That’s all at this time, we are thinking on record some new stuff on the next year, but it’s just a plan.

BB: Thanks again for your time and congratulations for your great work!! Is there anything else you want to say to our readers?

Juliano: We are really grateful to you by the space at Burning Black Zine and we ask the interested people to write to us, all the messages and letters will be answered. Keep the dark flame burning.