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Teaming
up with the King himself - King Diamond - and Secret Sphere on the
Scandinavian part of King Diamond's European tour, we - Thomas
& Kenn - had the opportunity to talk with them before their
second show of the tour, when the tour made a stop in Aarhus.
Here's what they had to say:
First
off, how was your music received in Esbjerg?
Teddy - Very well, considering that most of the people
hadn't heard the music before. The audience was kind of stiff, so
we just tried to make it fun, and started with a "Hey, we are
Loch Vostok from Sweden - and we suck!" hehe - people started
laughing.
(Thomas
- a Primus quote)
Teddy - Yeah exactly.
We
have to prepare you for another typical Danish audience again
tonight - stiff.
Teddy - Yeah we know.
You
label your music as "extreme prog metal" - is it really
prog? Isn't it a lot more?
Teddy - Off course there is.
How
do you define the extreme then (in your music)?
Teddy - The vocals, that really isn't that extreme anymore...
Everybody uses them nowadays, it says on the sticker (on the
album): "progressive death metal with a cheese topping!
Who
or what inspires you, when you create your music?
The entire band - KING DIAMOND!
Teddy -
Lot's of different metal bands, modern death metal, stuff we grew up
with. But also newer stuff like Children of Bodom and a fantastic
new Swedish band: Scar Symmetry.
(Kenn
- Fairly new band)
Teddy - Yeah but they rule!
Who
writes the songs, is it a band effort or...?
Teddy - I write most of the stuff, some of the guys does
come up with ideas. But most of the times I bring in fairly
finished ideas that we use to create the songs.
I
bet you've been asked this a million times, but why did you choose
the name (
Loch
Vostok)?
Teddy - He he - well because it's hard to say...
Who
came up with it?
Teddy - Yeah, and it's not like we have a fascination for Antarctica
or anything, it just sounded cool. We just thought it was funny
because of the UFO stuff and so on... And we just changed Lake to Loch, and when you google it it's the only thing that comes
up.
What
sets
LV apart from Mayadome? And why did you change the name? After all
the core members 3 of Mayadome are also part of LV.
Teddy - I don't have to carry drums anymore - I love that...
hehe. But basically I wanted to sing and be up-front. And I
thought: "Hey I write this shit, and I want to be up-front".
I am a pretty good front man, but I suck as a singer, but it
really doesn't matter...
And it was definitely necessary to change the name, because the
material is so far apart - especially the 3rd album, that never
came out. That one was so fucking cheesy that I couldn't take it!
A few changes were planned but that didn't work out, so we broke
up.
Your
new album "Destruction Time Again" has just been
released. What are your expectations - what is going to happen?
Teddy - Well it's a records label, so I am not expecting
anything... hehe. But I got to say in all honesty that I have been
fooled by labels before, but these guys seem to have a general
interest in the band, and they've been through a lot, and they
know what not to do! They have always been fair to us and
telling the truth. The album is going to be released all over the
world and they got good distribution everywhere.
The
artwork - what has inspired you there?
Teddy - Old propaganda from World War 2, not just Russian
style also Italian, just old propaganda stuff.
Let's
go a bit back in time - "Dark Logic" - how did that one
do?
Teddy - I really don't know, but it sold like 300 copies in
Russia. I think the European version sold around 1600 copies. I think
that's OK on a very small label that didn't have any distribution.
I think 900 copies were sold through the CDbaby website, which was
pretty cool.
What's
the state of metal music in Sweden at the moment?
Teddy - It's OK, it's not impossible to get gigs. Even the
stores have a special metal section (again). But we are nowhere
near Finland
- that's a fucking metal
Mecca
now. If you look at the charts in
Finland its metal, metal, metal, metal, Madonna, metal, metal and ... I
love it! And they know how to drink to too... hehe
You've
all sited King Diamond as one of your main influences, how does it
feel touring with him now?
The entire band - BRILLIANT.
Teddy - When Lars from IntroMental called me up in November
and asked "If you get to tour with anyone you wanted, who
would that be?" King Diamond off course I said! And he's like...
YEAH,YOU'RE ON!
So when we saw them setting things up and their stage set, I
simply couldn't help myself and I started crying.
I have been following King Diamond since I was 13 years old,
that’s 23 fucking years now, man... So it was a big fucking
moment for me.
The entire band - Yeah for all of us!
Teddy - It was so cool (at the gig in Esbjerg), we stood at the merchandise stand and everyone was singing
along - every single word. My neck still hurts from that evening...
hehe.
One
final question - do you have any pre-gig rituals?
Teddy - We do, it's so fucking silly you won't even believe it...
hehe. We have 2 different one - one is we have stupid Spanish
names for each one... (Jesus, Armando, Felipe, Carlito and the
Greek guy!?!).
(Kind of hard to describe - listen to the interview from around 13
minutes).
That's
it for us.
The entire band - Thank you.
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