BLAGOVEST PETROV (Drums & Vocals)
NIKI BOJAKOV (Guitar and Vocals)
1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
BLAGOVEST: The band was formed In 2004 by Niki, guitar and vocals, who was joined by Steff on the bass and vocals and by me on drums and vocals. We played as a trio for some time, doing local shows and building a name for ourselves in the local scene until we decided to invite our good friend Ivan to join the band as a second guitarist. Since then we’ve been in the same line up.
NIKI: I decided to found Eufobia, because I was playing in another band, but the other band members didn't want us to play exactly what I wanted to. That's why I left them and started looking for other musicians for my own band. That's how I ended up with these fellows by my side eventually. There was a pretty good chemistry right from the start. We're very proud of the fact that since the beginning no band member has ever been replaced and that's rarely the case, isn’t it?
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
BLAGOVEST: Niki came up with the idea for the name. It comes from Greek language and it means “fear of good”.
NIKI: Well. That's true, but in fact ,when we had to give the band a name, I just made a long list of diverse names and then we chose the name Eufobia together. I must say that it fits our band like a glove and besides, it's very easy to remember too.
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
BLAGOVEST: The band is based in Sofia, the Capital of Bulgaria. The music scene here has grown in the last years and there are many good bands doing a lot of shows, releasing albums, and also touring.
NIKI: That's right. The metal concerts in Bulgaria are usually pretty well attended. There are many fine bands in Bulgaria like Last Hope, Dash the Effort, The Revenge Project, Hyperborea, Past Redemption, Coprostasis, Dreg Starz, Ophan, Velian or Enthrallment for instance. On the other hand, there's not a single world famous Bulgarian band, so therefore probably people here are more interested in the underground in general.
4. How would you describe your style?
BLAGOVEST: We all listen to different kinds of styles of music and different bands, and everybody tries to incorporate their own influences in the music of our band. So in the end we have a mixture of different styles which is not necessarily intentional, but that’s how we create kind of our own thing. If it has to be labeled should be something like death/thrash metal with a touch of melody and rock ‘n roll attitude.
NIKI: Most people say that we play death metal, but I don't think that Eufobia has ever been a typical death metal band. We've never been afraid to experiment and that's what makes the music of Eufobia unusual and unique. I don't think that we'll ever change our ways or that our music will ever fit any established musical genre, because, for us, as musicians, this freedom of expression is extremely important.
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
BLAGOVEST: So far we have released one demo and three full length albums. Also a bunch of videos which can be seen on youtube. You could expect kind of an interesting approach to music and definitely not the typical metal band.
NIKI: We've always been trying to be completely sincere with our audience. Our main source of inspiration has always been the life itself. We've been through a lot, as most people have, but the metal music has always given us the opportunity to transform the negative energy of the world around us into beautiful music and meaningful lyrics.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
BLAGOVEST: We have material for a brand new album which we’re working on right now. We hope it will be recorded until the end of the year and released sometime in 2019.
NIKI: We've been already playing some of these songs live, by the way, so those who attended our recent concerts are quite familiar with them. Judging by the reaction of the audience, the future album is going to be very well accepted.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
BLAGOVEST: We won the Wacken Metal Battle of the bands in Bulgaria this year, and we’ll get the chance to represent our country at the biggest metal festival in the World. So we are very excited about that and we’ll give our best to have a great show there! Before that we have two shows in Romania coming up. On the 29th of June we’ll be in Timisoara, playing at Capcana club with the local bands the Faceplant and Kwalia, and on the 30th of June we’ll be a part of the Metal Camp festival in Satu Mare, where we’ll share the stage with bands such as Firewind, Jinjer, Sinoptik and many more. After that we’ll focus on the work for our new album and won’t have many shows until we record and release it.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
NIKI: In addition to the upcoming concerts and the recording of the future album of Eufobia, we're going to release a brand new video of the song "Cyber Pervert" very soon. It's almost ready and it's going to look great, so stay tuned. In the autumn we're going to make a few more shows in Bulgaria and Romania, but we're not going to make another big European tour anytime soon, because, like Blago has just mentioned, we'd like to concentrate on the recording of our upcoming album.
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
NIKI: You could order our albums from the official website of our label www.wizard.bg. For more information about the band you should visit our official website: www.eufobia.com, or our Facebook profile. I would recommend you to watch our latest videos on youTube as well, because they were really nicely and professionally done. If you don't believe my words you should watch the video of the song "Hater" or the one of the song "Graveyard" for instance and I'm shure that you will agree with me thereafter.
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
NIKI: You know what? We'd like the people to remember the message. I told you that our main source of inspiration was the life itself. The lyrics of our recent songs, for instance, were inspired by the famous novels of George Orwell "The Animal Farm" and "1984", because unfortunately the world nowadays has started to look a lot like the dystopia, which the writer had described in his books. The freedom of expression and the freedom of speech are practically suspended. The big brother is constantly watching us and our so-called political leaders are nothing but a gang of greedy pigs, wouldn't you agree?
No comments:
Post a Comment