interview: Bestial Invasion

Knowledgeable thrashers will quickly recognize the name of the band for being the name of the old song by Destruction. If you are thinking that they play thrash, you’d be correct in this case, but with a twist: the band calls its music technical thrash. Bestial Invasion is from Ukraine, a country that has been in the news in recent years due to separatist movements and Moscow’s involvement. With that in mind, this publication asked the band about its current situation and also a bit about its country. In 2015 the band had the album Act of Retribution and in 2016 they have the EP Trilogy: Prisoners of Miserable Fate.

Greetings! What can you tell us about Bestial Invasion?

Greetings! We are Bestial Invasion and we play metal! Bestial Invasion formed in 2014, in Sumy, Ukraine. Members: V.Zadiev – vocals, E. Maestro – guitars, A. Klaptsov – guitars, Metal Priest – bass, I. Semenchuk – Drums. I’m metal priest a leader and a founder of the band. Today I’m gonna answer your questions. The Bestial Invasion band plays technical Thrash metal. At the moment almost all the members live in the different cities. But that doesn’t hinder us to be productive.

Originally we have played music with female vocals and it wasn’t bad but we needed something more powerful and oldschoolish. So I decided that we should find a male vocalist with high pitch singing and wide vocal range. In 2015 we met our new singer V.Zadiev. Since then we have recorded and released our first LP album ‘Act of Retribution’ and EP Trilogy ‘Prisoners of Miserable Fate’.

What bands were your inspiration for a “technical thrash” band in Ukraine at the start?

Well, there are lots of bands that inspire us like Atheist, Toxik, Wathctower, Anacrusis, Coroner, Mekong Delta. And it wasn’t easy to find right people at all. Even to find a band members was a big problem because technical thrash is not much popular here as a genre.

What can metal people do to support your music?

Obviously, the great thing you can do for us is purchasing our CD’s and merch and visiting the shows. That is the main thing that will help us to keep it up and make new music. Also we extremely need to let people know us and our music so sharing Bestial Invasion’s music and stuff with friends is also very helpful.

What can you tell us about the equipment/instruments that you use and do you use real drums on the recording?

First of all, needless to say that we are fans of oldschool sound and music. Therefore we need to use more live sound instruments and equipment and less sound replacement technologies. So the answer is yes – the drums are real played by our drummer. And that’s how it should be. I got my custom bass guitar MP28 made specially for me and I really love it sound. And our guitarists prefer BC Rich and Jackson guitars.

In the news we read that the economy is not very good in Ukraine. How does the economic situation affect your band?

Almost in all former USSR countries there are problems with standards of living. In our country it’s a low-paid work, no social protection and etc. So you never know what you’d get in the future. Unpredictable. Certainly it effects on us either, because if you don’t have enough money you can’t go touring abroad and can’t afford good equipment. So, yeah, it’s difficult but who says it should be easy? It’s metal!

What is your opinion of the political situation in Ukraine? There is conflict in the eastern part of the country, right? How has the conflict affected your life and your band?

My opinion is that the former Ukrainian government and the present both are criminals and despots. They are killing people and making them unhappy. The war hasn’t affected on a band because we live in the north of Ukraine.

What is your opinion of the Ukrainian government? What is your opinion of the Russian government?

As I say our government and officials are big criminals. They care only about themselves and do not care about the people. Many people here already are very disappointed. So that’s the answer. And I can’t say much about Russian government. I don’t live there.

In the news we read of separatists in Ukraine, of cultural and language conflicts. What can you tell us about your own experience?

I just let you know guys that more than a half of Ukraine population speaks Russian, just as I do all of my life. Almost all my friends and relatives do speak Russian. So there are no tensions or oppressions or something between Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking peoples in Ukraine. It’s just a myth. You can freely speak Russian here.

What other news do you have?

We are planning to finish and release our second LP album. This is going to be something special! New sound, new music and songs. And people will be able to see our progress and I dare say it’s gonna be a new level for a band. So guys, it’s worth to wait, hopefully we will make it done on this fall. Thank you Metal Bulletin Zine and until next time!

www.facebook.com/bestialinvasionua

www.soundcloud.com/bestialinvasion

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