Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 721 - Enemy Inside’s "Venom" - Nastassja and Evan K on Crafting Their Latest Album

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 721 - Enemy Inside’s "Venom" - Nastassja and Evan K on Crafting Their Latest Album · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  We try to be as original as it gets, you know?
• 0:03
  I mean, it would be a safe choice for us if we try to sound
• 0:07
  again like our first album, which is, I don't know, I think
• 0:10
  a pretty successful recipe. I mean, the numbers on Spotify
• 0:14
  are, are huge. I don't know.
• 0:15
  It's just not how we are at this point.
• 0:18
  So we try to write music and express our feelings and
• 0:22
  situations depending on the I don't know, life point where we
• 0:26
  are at now. What's up everybody, it is Kifi
• 0:36
  and I am super excited to be joined today by Enemy Inside.
• 0:40
  Natasha and Evan, how are you guys doing today?
• 0:43
  I'm super. Thank you so much for inviting
• 0:45
  us. Right on.
• 0:46
  I'm so happy to talk to you. Shout out to Curtis and the PR
• 0:49
  team for putting us together. Followed the band for a long
• 0:53
  time. New album Venom coming out soon
• 0:55
  on Raining Phoenix Music. The excellent Raining Phoenix
• 0:58
  Music seem to have all the big albums this year.
• 1:00
  Lot of thoughts about the new record.
• 1:02
  But before that, since this is our first interview and what I
• 1:04
  like to do customarily is get to know you.
• 1:07
  So tell us a little bit about the history of the band.
• 1:09
  And I know you guys have been around quite a bit, quite a
• 1:11
  while. I remember your first big
• 1:14
  release in 2018. So take us back a little bit
• 1:17
  before we talk about today. Should I or do you want Evan of?
• 1:20
  Course ladies first. OK, so Evan and I'm basically
• 1:25
  met in 2013 when we were studying music and at this
• 1:30
  university it was obligatory to form bands and we started to
• 1:35
  write music together. And when we finished our
• 1:37
  studies, we decided to keep going and we formed the band
• 1:41
  Enemy Inside and we started like 2018.
• 1:44
  It's also the year where we put it out our first album called
• 1:47
  Phoenix. Then we released, obviously we
• 1:50
  toured, we played some shows and then we released our second
• 1:53
  album in 2021. And now we are releasing our
• 1:57
  third album at 28 of February, which is called Venom.
• 2:02
  We're modern from from Germany. Yeah, basically we started as a,
• 2:06
  as a, a university project and I don't know, we were too excited
• 2:12
  about it when we had the, the, the our first album ready then
• 2:17
  with, and we thought that it would be a great idea to, to
• 2:21
  create a new band, an actual band.
• 2:23
  Because I mean, you, you mentioned already our first
• 2:25
  record Phoenix, which came out in 2018.
• 2:29
  Yeah, this is, was basically just us 2 trying to, to, to make
• 2:35
  it through our exams. So basically my.
• 2:39
  Bachelor project. Yeah.
• 2:41
  So, yeah, The thing is we we are already toured through Europe,
• 2:47
  sorry Germany and played in Europe a few festivals.
• 2:50
  So this time with our third album Venom, so the first time
• 2:53
  that we are going on our own headline tour through whole
• 2:58
  Europe. So it's, yeah, very nice moment
• 3:01
  for us. Right on.
• 3:03
  Everything is coming up you guys, which is great.
• 3:07
  Put a lot of work in 2021. A very difficult time to put a
• 3:10
  record out in the world. But definitely the reviews were
• 3:13
  good and the album was good. I like the fact that through the
• 3:16
  whole history of the band, you guys are very adventurous and
• 3:20
  and ambitious about trying different styles even within the
• 3:23
  same part of the same song. I think it speaks a lot to the
• 3:26
  talent of the band. But also I like that you just
• 3:28
  throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
• 3:31
  Like not afraid of anything. I like it.
• 3:33
  Thank you. So.
• 3:33
  We tried to write to make our music sound.
• 3:36
  Sound, I don't know, I would say spontaneous, which means we
• 3:40
  just, we just tried to write whatever comes out first.
• 3:45
  So yeah. Right on.
• 3:46
  I, I think it's, you know, like we're in a kind of a day and age
• 3:49
  where music is everywhere, right?
• 3:51
  Spotify and streaming and everything.
• 3:52
  I still like records. I still buy records.
• 3:55
  You see some behind me. I I listen to stuff all the time
• 3:58
  and I don't know, I feel like I know that they say, oh, you
• 4:01
  know, younger kids don't have an attention span or anything, but
• 4:04
  I think it's more than that. I think we're in a kind of a
• 4:06
  musical age where you can excite and throw people with good
• 4:10
  songwriting. A good song is a good song and
• 4:12
  you got you, you know, whatever you guys put down, whether it's
• 4:15
  just, you know, wild and spontaneous, like you said, or,
• 4:19
  you know, something like very specific and heavy.
• 4:22
  I like I like that, you know, again, the band is not afraid to
• 4:26
  try anything. I think it's rare because I
• 4:28
  think a lot of people are worried about what other people
• 4:30
  think or how is this going to, you know, be received.
• 4:33
  What we didn't have with this album, we were just like, OK, we
• 4:36
  write whatever we want and we don't care.
• 4:37
  For example, with one song like Sayonara, of course it was
• 4:42
  obvious that not all of our friends will like this because
• 4:46
  it's so different from the first two albums.
• 4:48
  But we were like, OK, we want to do music that we want to write
• 4:51
  and we enjoy and yeah, so. Yeah, it's also more, I think we
• 4:56
  we try to be as original as it gets, you know, and if, I mean,
• 5:01
  it would be a safe choice for us if we try to sound again like
• 5:05
  our first album, which is, I don't know, I think pretty
• 5:10
  successful recipe. I mean, the numbers in Spotify
• 5:12
  are are huge. So yeah.
• 5:15
  But we, I don't know, it's just not how we are at this point.
• 5:20
  So yeah, we try to write music and express our feelings and
• 5:24
  situations depending on the, I don't know, life point where we
• 5:29
  are at now. Fair enough.
• 5:30
  I mean, you know, it's tough out there.
• 5:32
  I always feel like I know Spotify is a big bone of
• 5:36
  contention right now with everybody and streaming.
• 5:39
  I feel like Spotify is just like Google.
• 5:41
  It's a it's a search engine where people can discover you.
• 5:44
  If you're going to try to make money, you want to sell them a
• 5:47
  physical record or go have them please come to a concert,
• 5:49
  everybody. I feel bad if people are home
• 5:52
  watching YouTube and not going out to see live music.
• 5:55
  And I'm super excited for you guys to do a big headline tour
• 5:59
  because you know, you've been working toward this and I saw
• 6:01
  you guys are even doing a few huge festivals like Bakken.
• 6:04
  That's crazy, and especially for your German, it's like it's got
• 6:07
  to be like a dream come true to play vodka and open air.
• 6:10
  I've always wanted to go. Yeah, they call it the holy
• 6:12
  ground, so yeah. Yeah, it's also also great
• 6:16
  because it's our second time at back in this time.
• 6:18
  I mean the first time some some people can say, I don't know,
• 6:22
  OK, it happened, but I don't know.
• 6:24
  It wasn't no, it wasn't just luck.
• 6:28
  So yeah, it's also even nicer that it's for the second time
• 6:33
  this time and not this time also with a new album, because the
• 6:35
  last the last time we didn't have a new album out.
• 6:37
  Right. Hopefully the rain holds off
• 6:39
  this time. I know that was a problem last
• 6:42
  summer. We had we had somebody go out
• 6:44
  there and it was a tough goal. But that seems to be the case.
• 6:47
  I mean, you know, Europe in the summer, the rock and park, rock
• 6:50
  and ring, always lightning storms or something.
• 6:52
  You know, maybe the metal gods are angry at us.
• 6:54
  I don't know. But yeah, I really, I really
• 6:57
  like Venom. I want to talk for a second
• 6:58
  about the record for a few minutes.
• 7:00
  Like I said, beside the song making, you know, obviously,
• 7:04
  Natasha, great job on the vocals.
• 7:07
  Like, I, I feel like you could sing, you could scream, you can
• 7:10
  rap. You know, you're spitting some
• 7:12
  fire here on the bars. A lot of things, like just
• 7:16
  personally, do you try to like take every album as a new
• 7:19
  approach or are you just kind of building off of where you guys
• 7:22
  started? You know, just personally with
• 7:24
  the vocals and the lyrics. I just feel I let myself, like I
• 7:28
  just get inspired by the music. And for example, at one song
• 7:32
  like Sayonara, Fuck that party, the song was just so energetic.
• 7:36
  Like I was, I was trying. I'm always improvising for
• 7:38
  finding a vocal melody and it was just in my head immediately
• 7:43
  I I was like, OK, this needs to have a rap part or just needs to
• 7:46
  have a screaming part. It's not like before an album, I
• 7:49
  don't say like, OK, I want to have rap parts and screaming
• 7:51
  parts and whatever. It's just like I listen to the
• 7:53
  music and then I get inspiration from it.
• 7:55
  Right on. I dig it.
• 7:56
  And again, I feel like what you know, you guys could do
• 7:59
  anything. So I like the surprises, like an
• 8:02
  album that surprises me. I listen to so much music and I
• 8:05
  do so many of these conversations.
• 8:07
  When a band surprises me, I'm a happy because I don't know
• 8:12
  what's coming next. And I can say that's a high
• 8:14
  compliment for me. And and again, also with the
• 8:17
  music, I want to say I feel like, you know, they're the
• 8:22
  record has got kind of a journey sequencing wise.
• 8:25
  It's important to me to listen to like a whole album.
• 8:27
  So it's not just a couple of big singles with collabs.
• 8:30
  It's actually like a whole excellent record to listen to.
• 8:33
  Actually also important to us, when we were thinking about like
• 8:36
  what songs we wanted to release as a single, we were like OK,
• 8:39
  this one we like and this one is good as well.
• 8:41
  And it was difficult but actually it's a good feeling,
• 8:44
  like it's not only like 3 good songs on an album and the rest
• 8:47
  is filler tracks. So yeah, we are quite happy how
• 8:50
  everything came out. Awesome.
• 8:51
  In terms of sort of extra musical stuff, there's I hear a
• 8:55
  lot of like there's some dancy tracks on here that kind of
• 8:57
  remind me of Electric Call Boy. I think there's some some really
• 9:01
  cool. I'm not sure if they're like
• 9:03
  anybody plays since or does programming, but I hear like
• 9:06
  some programming that kind of reminded me of a little
• 9:08
  industrial metal in a way. Not just the dancey beat part,
• 9:11
  but like the actual keyboards and things.
• 9:13
  Is that something you guys put in?
• 9:15
  Put the time into also when you make a record?
• 9:17
  Yeah, sure. I mean, it's else it's on my
• 9:20
  main focuses as well, to be honest, because I'm doing the
• 9:24
  production of the album. So the synthesizers, I mean, I
• 9:28
  mean, myself, I'm a guitarist, but I try to listen music from,
• 9:33
  I don't know, listeners perspective or a fan perspective
• 9:36
  somehow. And yeah, it's important to me
• 9:39
  not just to focus on one instrument or one, I don't know,
• 9:42
  element in the production, but everything must, I don't know,
• 9:46
  harmonize. So yeah, the the arrangement is
• 9:50
  something that takes a lot long time in the in the process.
• 9:55
  I mean, you can imagine, I don't know, we have one day, for
• 9:59
  example, writing a song, one day for, I don't know, recording the
• 10:04
  drums, one day record the guitars, etcetera.
• 10:07
  And I don't know, three days arranging it.
• 10:11
  So yeah. Well, it's, it's quite a bit of
• 10:13
  time there. Obviously, like everything is a
• 10:15
  labor of love. And I, and I think you know what
• 10:17
  I was mentioning before, just kind of you gave you gave the
• 10:19
  timeline of the history of the band.
• 10:21
  I know there's a lot of pressure to constantly grind and do
• 10:25
  things and, and you guys seem, you know, fairly young despite
• 10:28
  having a bit of a career now. I I know there's a lot of
• 10:31
  pressure to just kind of like always put out stuff and always
• 10:34
  be on. And I like that you guys have
• 10:36
  kind of just taken your time to put out music strategically and
• 10:39
  carefully, you know, just, you know, when the time is right as
• 10:43
  opposed to maybe putting a lot of pressure on you.
• 10:45
  I don't think Rainy Phoenix is pressuring anybody get a record
• 10:48
  to us now. I don't think that's happening
• 10:49
  over there because they're veterans in the business, but I
• 10:52
  don't know we. We had the record ready when we
• 10:55
  signed, so we're going to find out in the next month.
• 10:59
  Oh, nice. OK.
• 11:00
  So that's like a Led Zeppelin move where they had the first
• 11:03
  record done and they were like, here it is.
• 11:04
  You don't have to say anything. We did it.
• 11:07
  Yeah, somehow. Yeah.
• 11:09
  There's a little freedom in that, actually.
• 11:11
  So in a way that's kind of like, I like that DIY spirit,
• 11:14
  obviously. I imagine you guys have your own
• 11:16
  studio then and you did it yourselves.
• 11:18
  But I really like that spirit because I think we need a little
• 11:21
  bit more of that now in the business.
• 11:23
  I think the music industry is changing and I think artists
• 11:25
  need to be a little more like a hand on the steering wheel a
• 11:28
  little better, you know? Nice work.
• 11:29
  Let's talk. Oh yeah, let's, let's talk for a
• 11:32
  second about guest appearances because I like these tracks.
• 11:35
  Also, like I said, the whole record is awesome.
• 11:37
  I especially like Fuck That Party with Zach, but also
• 11:41
  Siamese and Davey. I mean, that's insane.
• 11:44
  Some great collabs and they really work well with with your
• 11:47
  voice also. So did you write those songs
• 11:50
  specifically for them or did you have the songs and then pitch
• 11:53
  other people and see who came in with something?
• 11:55
  How did you go about making these songs actually?
• 11:58
  We had the we had the demo ready, for example, for Fuck
• 12:01
  that party. I was, I was wrapping the part
• 12:04
  of Zach before, but we were like, OK, no, we need, we wanted
• 12:07
  a rapper for this part. It was like obvious.
• 12:09
  I didn't want to wrap this part. And then we were just like like
• 12:14
  thinking about who could it be? And we supported Clawfinger at
• 12:17
  one show in Germany in 2022. I think so.
• 12:21
  And then we met them on the full metal cruise again and we just
• 12:24
  kept in contact. And then we were like, OK, Zach,
• 12:27
  would would you be down for that?
• 12:29
  And he was like, yeah, of course.
• 12:30
  And then he also came for the video and it was really amazing.
• 12:33
  He's such a cool guy and really down to earth and funny and
• 12:36
  everything. And I love so much how he what
• 12:39
  what he like, how he collab with the song and how he put the song
• 12:42
  to another level. And in fact, for the visitors of
• 12:46
  our shows, they're gonna listen to the to the version of the
• 12:50
  song how it was before Zach, because you, he probably won't
• 12:54
  be with us on stage. So.
• 12:58
  Yeah, so I will be spitting bars.
• 13:03
  So, yeah, but no, we didn't, we didn't write the song from we
• 13:07
  didn't have the the guest in mind while writing the song.
• 13:10
  It was like, OK, as soon as we had it ready, the demo, we were
• 13:14
  thinking about OK, who who could be matching this one or this one
• 13:18
  or this one. So how it came out and?
• 13:20
  Then we just sent the demo and then yeah.
• 13:22
  Yeah, and I think David Suicide was also an artist.
• 13:25
  We were thinking along for a long time, longer time about it.
• 13:30
  Yeah. Great part.
• 13:31
  Absolutely great. I think it actually, you know,
• 13:34
  maybe the best hope is that the song becomes because of the
• 13:37
  video, maybe the fans will wrap the part back to you.
• 13:40
  Yeah. Kind of like Evanescence and
• 13:42
  bring me to life, right, where Amy doesn't do the rap part, she
• 13:45
  just sings her part and the crowd sings back.
• 13:47
  I know they hate. I know she like, kind of hated
• 13:49
  that song for a long time. But like, you know, everybody
• 13:52
  would love to have a big song like that.
• 13:54
  So I hope it happens for you. That would be cool.
• 13:56
  Yeah. That would be cool.
• 13:57
  I will film it if it happens. Yeah, yeah, definitely share,
• 14:01
  share some videos, excited about the tour, excited about all this
• 14:05
  stuff. Just as as we wind this up, I
• 14:07
  want to give you back your evening because it's night time
• 14:10
  where you are, It's probably the dinner hour.
• 14:12
  But you know, as as you go through these, this process
• 14:16
  ramping up to the to the new album.
• 14:18
  And obviously, again, like I said, Raining Phoenix is such a
• 14:20
  great label and I know they've done a very nice job with the
• 14:23
  marketing and the album. It's got to be very exciting to
• 14:26
  have your records on vinyl. I personally, as a older guy, I
• 14:30
  was like, I didn't think vinyl was ever going to make such a
• 14:33
  big comeback like physical product like this powerful.
• 14:35
  But I'm pretty happy about it. I'm sure it's exciting for you
• 14:38
  guys to hold your own record too.
• 14:40
  Yeah, yeah. So we have two really cool
• 14:42
  limited edition, one in one in blue and one one in magenta.
• 14:45
  They look really cool. Yeah, blue, blue, red.
• 14:49
  Right, Yeah, yeah, or like the album.
• 14:50
  It's got the like the the album cover has that like little color
• 14:53
  scheme too, right. Fun times, fun time for you.
• 14:56
  I'm really excited for you guys. I think this record is super
• 14:58
  cool. I'm really excited for everybody
• 15:00
  to hear it at the end of the month.
• 15:01
  Thank you so much for hanging out with me today.
• 15:03
  I I really appreciate the two of you making the time.
• 15:05
  It's with the time zones. It's crazy.
• 15:07
  I'm in California, but super fun.
• 15:09
  I hope we get you guys over to the States at some point for a
• 15:12
  festival or something or a tour. That would be really neat and I
• 15:15
  wish you the best of luck. Thanks for hanging out with
• 15:17
  Ghost Cult today. I appreciate you.
• 15:18
  Thank. You so much appreciate.
• 15:19
  Thank you very much. Thanks for having us.