Vrani Volosa (Bulgaria)

Vrani Volosa (Bulgaria)
A creative and musically ambitious band like Vrani Volosa makes a certain type of metal in which you can hear the black metal base swirling in prog/folk, but it sounds better than that description: it’s definitely memorable and just done very well.
“Pink Floyd goes metal”? Maybe. Regardless, it’s a wonderful album.
High quality, too, of course: “Heresy/Epec”: an album that’s over an hour of music.
The professional guitar twister by the name of Hristo gives an insight into Vrani Volosa. www.myspace.com/vranivolosa

I have enjoyed your album “Heresy” for the high quality of the songs. It seems like you have found a great equilibrium between metal, melody and the atmosphere. How old are these songs? When was your previous album made?
Hello, Mauricio!!! Really great pleasure talking to ya, mate! Well, the early ideas for the “Heresy” album go back to the beginning of 2005 when I started thinking about the follower of our first album “Where The Heart Burns.” At that time we split with our former vocalist Atanas and I was really confused what was going on with the band and I actually decided to change a little bit the musical direction of Vrani Volosa.
Our first album was recorded at the end of 2003 and middle 2004 and was released on a digipack cd by Corvus Records. I think our music at that time was inspired by bands like Bathory, Enslaved and Primordial spiced with some elements in the veins of Pink Floyd, I think we can name it ambient black metal. Most of the songs are very long with repeating melancholic atmospheric themes and we used screaming vocals at that time. So it was kind of difficult process to explore the new musical vision of Vrani Volosa in terms of a second album. The composing started in 2005 and ended in 2007 when we actually started recording sessions for “Heresy”, we got about 30 songs and we had to choose 10-11 tracks that had to stay inside the record. I think the half of the tracks we used were composed in 2005-2006 and the other half in 2007.

How long were you in the studio recording? Where do you record? I like the quality of the sound. It is not too “modern” and “technical” and “computerized,” that’s good.
- Well, we spent about 2 years recording music, not all the time of course, in Set Nitro Studio in our home town Burgas. We had really productive sessions in 2007 and beginning of 2008, then there were problems with the computers in the studio, we lost some recorded material, so we had to wait a while all the technical stuff to be solved and of course we re-recorded the lost material, the mixing also took us a lot of time. I’m not pissed off about delaying our album, I remember those times with so much good, we didn’t feel any pressure, we didn’t have deadlines, so I think “Heresy” is an album of band’s joy of making music, we feel it as a statement and we wanted to finish it some day, to see it released on a cd and of course we were curious about the reactions of the fans.
But we really didn’t want to hurry up! Yeah, the sound is straight in the face, it’s not polished, the guitars sound exactly as we want them to sound in the rehearsal room, breathing and pumping. We used a couple of tube amps, because we wanted to hear the dynamics of playing the guitar, you know, the right hand bombing like hell and few minutes later caressing the strings. I like mostly the sounding of the old bands exactly because of their rough and natural sounding!!!

I do not know too much about your band. How did you arrive at your sound of a metallic combination of Pink Floyd, Rush and black metal?
Hey, Mauricio, I fucking adore these bands you mentioned!!! Well done, hehehe! I don’t know, I just love listening to good old music, I am a fan and I always wanted to make good music for my band, too. It’s so much easier to create if you don’t think of the product, if you don’t think how journalists will name your style. It’s just music. And our music has roots. We all in the band listen to vintage rock music and heavy metal next to the extreme styles, so I think we naturally reached ours now and I think that our future will be even more colorful and varied!
You asked me about mixture of ambient and extreme parts in our songs. If you play any of Metallica and Iron Maiden LPs you can find such moments, varieties, changes of tempos. I think it’s coming from the vintage music as it was not that radio-orientated, but theatrical and dramatic, trying to capture and spread different feelings in the same song. As fans we are coming from that time, so we are strongly influenced by those classic rock and heavy metal records!

What is the history of the song “Sun”? It’s such a fun song! What about your most Pink Floyd-like song, “We Are Not Alone in Our Universe”?
Ok! “Sun” is about preparing for a battle, it’s the sun that you see probably for the last time in your life before you meet your enemies and it’s so purifying, beautiful, squeezing, giving so much strength and belief for good for your families and friends! The first four lines spoken are taken from our classic Peyo Yavorov’s “Exiles” and I strongly recommend you, Mauricio, to read this poem (I know it’s translated into Italian already!)!!! This song is inspired by the feeling to fight for what you love till the last breath, but also it’s a farewell with the beauty of everything you loved, sacrificing your life for it!!!
“We Are Not Alone” is a different story. The concept deals with the pantheon of our age-old culture (the greatness in so many aspects as military success, science for that time!), state and there is a dialogue between the old spirits that remember those times and the nowadays Bulgarians that obviously lost connection with their predecessors. I think this dialogue can be held in most of the countries in Europe, can’t they?! I love the music in “We Are Not Alone” - it’s gloomy, dark, epic, and the grand finale is smashing my face and tears my heart. I wrote the finale introduction when my grandmother was at my place, winter time, we talked a lot about the roots of our family, relevants, etc. I was with my guitar jamming all the time. She died a couple of months later and what she left behind is that tiny melody that twists people attending to our gigs.

You are based in Burgas, Bulgaria, correct? How is the metal scene for you in Bulgaria? Do you play concerts frequently?
Yes, correct! Burgas was the Mecca of metal in Bulgaria! So many bands we had, a jungle of underground metal. I was a teenager when I was attending underground gigs in my home town, to see bands like Necromancer, Biophobia, Diabolism. It was cool, no worries about anything, just metal! I miss those times! Nowadays is cool too, we have a lot of amazing underground metal bands, active, playing in clubs, pubs e.t.c.
You must check out The Revenge Project, Dark Inversion, Shambless, Uhumanity, Dimholt, the new Demonism is awesome too!!! We played a lot last two years, we managed to make a small European tour (at last!!!) and I hope that we can play as much as we can in the near future!

Does your bass player Alex play guitar to write songs, too? He used to be in the death metal band Act of Grotesque?
Yes, Alexander was one of the main songwriters in Act of Grotesque. But he left a couple of years ago, he is a happy father of a son right now and he is deeply concentrated in what we do together in Vrani Volosa. I love to jam with this guy. He’s awesome blues-player and a total High On fire-maniac.

Is Hristo Krasimirov the main songwriter? He is a founding member of the band. What was he doing before 2003?
Yes, all ideas come from my head, for bad and for good. I feel purified when making music and it’s so since day one of Vrani Volosa. That’s the band of my life, it’s everything I wanted to do musically, and it also gives me freedom to be an artist, to share what I feel with my friends and with my music.
Back in the day I used to play with a couple of bands, amongst all of them I can mention Korozy, where I took bass duties for a short period of time. Korozy was big back then in 2001, 2002, we hoped we’d tour Russia, but they took me to the navy and we were forced to go to the army by law and so I quit Korozy and after finishing all my duties to the army, I was free to open my heart with a new musical experience, which I later named Vrani Volosa!

Do you have songs in Bulgarian or only songs in English? What do you think about recording music in Bulgarian?
I think that lyrics should come naturally, so I use every single good idea. I have my own notebook, always a pen with me too and I always write my ideas in this notebook! For me personally it’s not easy to write lyrics at all, I should be in the right mood for it, and most of the time I don’t feel inspired, but sometimes there are events that fire the spark and after a couple of hours spent in writing I find some good lines that could be the lyric of a song! So was the case with “Sun” which is one of the most popular Vrani Volosa-songs and probably because it’s written in Bulgarian. People recognize it on gigs and sing along with the band, which makes me tremble every time! Also “Where The Heart burns” is in Bulgarian and one of my best lyrics! People in Bulgaria love the message in our Bulgarian lyrics and fans in Europe find these songs exotic in a way! It’s strange hehehe!

Do you use the acoustic guitar in all your songs? “All to Ash” certainly has the acoustic guitar, right? By the way, do your band usually just have guitar, bass, vocals and drums?
In “All To Ash” I used a 12-string acoustic guitar, also in the intro of “Sun” I used the same guitar. In the other songs we have electric guitars plugged into tube amps and cabinets and that’s why the whole record is so warm sounding! But I definitely would use an acoustic guitar in our next record too!!! Yes, we use that classic rock n roll scheme having two electric guitars, bass, drums and vocals! Pure energy for me!

Where are the cities and countries where you have found that people show most interest in Vrani Volosa? Have you played in any festivals?
-I love all the places we’ve visited so far! But one of the best gigs we’ve ever had was in a very small town in Serbia, called Apatin (the famous Serbian beer Jelen is brewed there). We played in a small motorcycle club, it was full with maniacs that sang along and had really good time!
Yeah, we played several festivals, the biggest was Spirit Of Burgas 2010 on the Black Sea shore, and the most interesting so far, Fimbul Festival in Furth, Germany. I love German festivals, they are so well organized, you don’t have to think a lot of anything, you just have to find the beer!!!! Heheheheheh!

How can people contact you? What are your future plans?
You can find me in facebook, I answer all fans’ letters, my name is Hristo Krasssimirov. There is also a band page in Facebook, too. I’m not a fan of band web sites, so we don’t have one. In Facebook and MySpace we have a real contact with our fans and that’s a lot more important to me!!!
Our future plans are to tour more in Europe, we have some plans already. Also we have tons of new Vrani-songs that wait to be recorded, so I hope that in 2013 we’ll have a new Vrani Volosa-album!!! www.corvus-records.com
www.myspace.com/corvusrecordsbg
THE END.