VADER Interview with Peter
via phone May 5, 2000

ID: You guys have switched labels quite a bit. You've gone through Earache, Repulse, and now Metal Blade, with a few others putting albums out here and there. Are you sticking with Metal Blade?
Peter: We just signed a deal with them, so we just started. We have better promotion than what's happened before. Cooperation and reality, that was like the main reason we quit record companies before. But there was so many of them because when we started, we started with a deal with Earache Records in '93 for our first album. The next one was Impact Records in Germany, and now Metal Blade. What's happened in the meantime, with past records, those guys got a deal for mini albums or for something which happened between the main albums. So we get a deal with like two main record companies, but Metal Blade is a kind of hope for us; especially in promotion. That's what we expect and that's what we need as a band. Vader never had like regular promotion. If we can talk in general about something like success, it's because we're busy guys. And we play a lot of shows; about a hundred shows a year. I think that's why so many people out in the world already know the name Vader. If we're talking about promotion, it wasn't something that was there until now. The deal with Metal Blade, it's a whole specialty promotion. Which is our big hope, to have better promotion as a band.

ID: Is that what Metal Blade mainly had to offer you? Is that why you chose them?
Peter: We just started, so it's really hard to talk about what's gonna happen. But the other problem is I'm the composer in the band. We also have our own manager that we've had since the beginning, since we've started to exist as a band. I think this is part of the job, so I try to keep out of the business [aspect]; I don't understand its rules, you know? I'm better at the composing, creating, playing...That's why I'm here.

ID: So how do you feel about the latest disc, Litany?
Peter: I'm pretty much happy, I can pretty much do what I wanted to do since the beginning. Since the beginning we wanted to be a pretty extreme kind of band. We wanted to play around the world to give this energy, to give this power, to everybody who's looking for that, who need this. We survived the problems, and I think it makes me happy. I feel good.

ID: Well, you know, some bands will have a complaint here or a complaint there, and not everybody can get it perfect...
Peter: We, as a band, on the musical side, try to be perfect, but we are humans. The human race in general is not perfect. We shouldn't even talk about perfection in something like this. We create the music for humans; I cannot understand all those people just looking for something, I dunno, something real pefect, you know? If they're looking for that, they need, like, robots or something like that. Not music, like heavy metal. Heavy metal for me means, like, real...reality. That's what I still think that the main point of the existence of heavy metal is, especially for playing it live. Of course, recording albums is very important because of business and because of promotion for every band. But I think the main point is playing shows live. Recording albums is alright, but first of all, playing live.

ID: Definitely...Why only put the video clip for "Cold Demons" on the Polish version?
Peter: It was a pretty much homemade video clip, a low-budget one. So we made it just to use as a multimedia track on the CD. It's kind of a [special thing] for those looking for more than just music. I think in heavy metal, lately, video clips are not so important because there is not so many people in the mass media, not so many people responsible for promotion in TV who are not afraid to play those kind of songs, like metal music. That's why I think that's why the video clips are not so important in promotion, but in a way they are. There's still people that are pretty much interested in that. We made it mostly for those kind of people. That's another story that is pretty important for us. If we create the music and also the lyrics, we try to use them as food for imagination. We prefer to be more like a book for our listeners, to feed their imagination. If you read a book, for example, you create your own pictures. You are your own creator. If you see the movie, or see the video clip, you see, kind of like, an already made picture. This is not your picture. We prefer to be kind of like a book, like to explain to all those listeners, to all those guys not afraid to listen to us, to use their own imagination. This is a very, very important part of life. It makes our life interesting. I think the last generation, they seem to forget about imagination, and I think we should remember...

ID: I so agree with what you just said. I totally understand what you're saying...
Peter: But a different story with the "Cold Demons" and maybe that's why we decided to use this song. Because for everybody who doesn't know the tales, what was our inspiration, to read this song. If you read the lyrics you can create your own pictures, and that's good. But maybe the story will sound like different or weird for you. The inspiration was total war machines or tanks, all those "steel dragons" created by the human race to kill. And this video clip, "Cold Demons," is about that.

ID: You've released a couple of live albums, and there's not a lot of bands that release live CDs. What do you like about them?
Peter: We are, as a band, a live act. We think this is the most important main point in a heavy metal band's existence, so we also think that a live album is pretty much important. It's nothing like we prefer to record live albums. To be honest, we recorded just one of them pretty professionally recorded, the last one, Live in Japan. That was the first live album recorded professionally with a multi-track recorder. That was the reason we chose [Japan] to do that. The professional sound recording, etc. It's not only that. It's many people asking me, "Hey man, aren't you too young of a band to be recording so many live albums?" What's the problem? Is there any rule about that? Of course, we already have recorded a live album in '93, it was The Darkest Age, but this album was recorded especially for the Polish maniacs because it was kind of a tribute to them. Because those guys just believed in us. You know, we had to wait almost ten years for a debut album; we had to wait [such a] long time. I think those maniacs, those fans, all those metalheads in Poland, they believed in us and they helped us in every respect. That's why we decided to record this kind of live album. The first idea was to release the album just in Polish territory. Nobody expected that Vader would become something known and that people were going to be looking for every album ever done by Vader.

ID: Will you do another one? How about Vader from the US?
Peter: Why not? That's not a problem. Personally, we may record a live album every [other] year. But I'm pretty sure there'll be some people who will call us money-suckers. [Laughs] Of course, it's not true.

ID: You'll be back in the States in May for a tour with Dismember. What was it like the last time you were here in the US? [Vader apparently wasn't on this tour, by the way...]
Peter: We've been four times in America. Each of the trips was great. The last time was the first time we were the headliner, so we got the chance to play a full set. That's great, but also in the American continent, there's so many people who're looking for us. For Vader, for music, for this kind of music. Everybody knows that America is kind of like the capital of the extreme kind of metal, in general. And we are from Poland, which used to be very different if we're talking about reality in the '80's or '90's compared to the rest of the world. We feel kind of like a guide from Europe, kind of like, chosen from Europe to play for American maniacs. I'm so glad when those people like what we create for them.

ID: Is there anything you want to accomplish this time, on this US tour that you didn't get to last time you were here?
Peter: I respect everybody who's not afraid to touch the energy we're bringing with us, so I cannot say which show, which tour, was the worst or the best. I really respect everybody and I really liked all the shows we've ever played; there was like hundreds of them. Each show is something special, each show is different, and each show can teach us a lot. One more time, we're here to play live; that's first of all.

ID: You have two European tours set for April and June. Would you rather be traveling to some other country like maybe South America or Australia instead of covering Europe twice?
Peter: Until now, we get one chance to play South America and it was last year. But it's not so easy to get there from Europe. It's maybe more easier to travel to South America from, say, North America. But there's still people who expect us over there. In Europe, I met many times people who came from South America, who came from Chile, Brazil, Peru...And they told us about the respect to metal music, to Vader also. That's also like a big wish to play in South America. Up until now, the most exotic country we've played is Japan. After this one show, two years ago, we're gonna get back on the Japanese islands at the beginning of September for four or five shows which are already booked. From Japan, we're going to fly directly to North America. So expect us in September and October. But if you're talking about Europe, we just finished the "No Mercy" festivals with Cannibal Corpse, pretty extreme package with eight bands. The shows were sold out, so we got to open for like two thousand people a night. Really great response, really great festivals. Also, that was the first time we played any songs from the Litany album. We're coming back for a real headlining tour in June. We're gonna play with Vital Remains, Rebellion, Fleshcrawl and Pandaemonia [?] on an intercontinental package this time. We got about thirty shows in Europe; this is going to be the main tour, the main promotion, of the Litany album.

ID: Doc left the band for a brief period of time and has since returned. Why did he leave in the first place and what made him come back?
Peter: Doc's still in the band from the beginning. Last year, he had a break; he got almost a five-month break. He had some problems--big problems--with drugs, and it started to be a big problem for all the band. We're his friends, we've played together [for] many years, so we had to talk about that with him and we gave him the time to think about what he's going to do with his life. To decide about his life, his future. Because drugs started to be a real problem, you know, I couldn't believe my eyes. I saw this guy become just like a walking zombie. He's [such a] talented and intelligent man, and in my opinion--and not only mine--one of the most talented and best drummers in metal music. It's so stupid if you can just lose everything just like this, in one minute, you know, because of fucking drugs. That's why we had to talk about that, and I'm so glad that he has decided to come back and to keep out of drugs. Of course, I'm not 100% sure if he will ever touch it again or not. I hope that now he's more experienced and he knows what he's doing now, and what risk will he take. That's for sure...There's no place for drugs in Vader. That's first of all, and he knows about it now. I'm glad he came back to the band. He came back in August, just two months before we started recording the Litany album. He came back in good condition and more experienced, I hope. It's good to be a team again, you know?

ID: I think that's awesome that you guys aren't into that whole drug scene. There's too many bands that are and it's a waste of talent.
Peter: Yeah...

ID: Is it difficult writing lyrics in English when Polish is your native language?
Peter: I think it was the band who was my first teacher in English. When I first started writing lyrics, I used translating books [laughs]. I also used lyrics written by my friend who was much better in English than me. And within the band, that was also kind of an impulse for me to learn more. Every next tour is practice for guys like me and the rest of the band. English is kind of the international language in the music scene, and that's good. I'm so happy there is a language like this, that can be the international one; it's nice just to [be able] to talk to everybody around the world. We love to travel, you know. To have something, like a language to talk, it's good. I think English is much easier to get, to learn than, for example, Polish for you. For me, maybe, Polish is like for Chinese is for people from China, you know.

ID: It's funny you say English is easy to learn because I've usually heard it's one of the more difficult languages to learn because we have so many different grammatical rules and crap...
Peter: No, the grammar and crap like that...There is a language like English that is easy to get the feel and easy to learn for everybody of the world. Of course, everybody speaks in a special accent. Even if I'm talking to you in like a weird accent you can still understand me, and that's most important.

ID: How do you feel your lyrics have improved over the years as your grasp of the language has improved?
Peter: You know, all those guys who're responsible for lyrics in Vader, all those friends of ours, started to cooperate with us, writing lyrics for us...So say, like, us in the meantime since we started doing this many years [ago], we are experienced, not just as musicians, we experience as man...Same about them as writers. They are more experienced in their view of the world. Every day, every year, every ten years teaches you so much so you can develop...it's kind of like practice. Writing lyrics means to write about your emotions, your experiences in life. If you're more experienced, you can tell much more using the words than it used to be, like, ten years ago. If you're seventeen, or fifteen, years old, of course your view of the world is different than when you are like 25 or 30 years old. I'll give you an example. The song, "Final Massacre," a song written on the first demo tape, Necrolust, in 1989, the song is from '88 even. The same guy has written the lyrics for like, "Carnal" on the Black to the Blind album. If you compare those two songs and see the difference between the times, the difference about the view of the world. It's hard to explain that, every lyric, every song is pretty much personal. Even if you can find something special for you, you still leave a big, big space for imagination in every song. You can still read between the lines and still feel something very special of the season. It's hard to explain. The most important thing in this is this space for the imagination. Lyrics is lyrics. For one, it's something important; for the other, it's not so important. Everything should be important, and even if somebody can find something different in the same song (compared to the other listener), it's still important, it's still personal. That's why we keep doing it this way. To make something special for each one, each listener.

ID: Yeah, as you grow, you age, you're going to gain experience and it's going to come through in your lyrics...
Peter: And you know, being 17-years-old, you're more rebellious; you're just in anger and nothing except that. You can feel it in Vader songs from the beginning. But now, we see the world not just in anger. There is much more. We are more educated. We are more experienced in this world, and that's why we can tell much more about the world now.

ID: Let me ask you about Panzer X. You released a demo at some point, right?
Peter: We had like two demos in '89 and '90. It was reedited under the title Reborn in Chaos. But those are still, like, all demos. When Vader became more known, so now people are looking for the earlier works. We had to do that, we had to make a new edition of that. By the way, it used to be released in the cd form, now it is to be just in cassettes.

I remember when we toured for the first time in the American continent, we met some guys who saw like 700 copies just in the California area. Even on like Headbanger's Ball on the British MTV channel, so this demo tape was called like the best-selling demo tape ever. The first release sold out like 7,000 or 8,000 copies.

ID: You're also working with a very young Polish band called Decapitated.
Peter: I'm just the producer of the debut album. Those guys are pretty young, but so talented. For me, it was just a kind of honor just to help them. I made the best for them because they are really talented guys and one of my favorite newcomers, in general, not just from Poland. By the way, that was the first time I was a producer.

ID: What was it about their sound that caught your ear and made you want to produce them?
Peter: I think what they needed was a kind of guide in the studio. They are talented enough to know what they want. That was much easier for me as a producer to work with guys who know what they want to do. It was their first time in a professional studio and they seemed to be lost. I tried to help them make it easier and not as stressful. I think the main job of mine was putting it all together. I tried to put all the experience from my life in it. This is their first one, the debut, of their career, and I wanted to show the best side of the band. Those guys are pretty young; they're between 15 and 18 years old. They are already so talented, so if nothing bad will happen they're gonna be a great band.

ID: Are you working with any other bands right now?
Peter: No, no. That was the first and last. I'm too busy of a guy. I'm so busy with Vader that I cannot even think of my project, you know? Three years ago I started with the idea to create something metal, but different, and even now I cannot find the time to release that.

ID: Would you ever consider moving Vader out of Poland? Are you happy living with the band in Poland?
Peter: To be quite honest, we have too many problems playing within our country of Poland. One of the main reasons is Poland has a pretty Christian government. Those guys are pretty powerful. They try to call the heavy metal music, in general, kind of, like, talk of the devil. That's why so many great bands playing this kind of music have so many problems in Poland. I think this is the only country in Europe which is so close-minded. What can we do [besides] try to talk to the young people who will be the future of this land? Try to open minds and try to fight against the regime in any country. It's pretty sad when you're a metalhead in Poland and you have to travel to other countries to see Vader live. We play maybe 5% of our shows in Poland. It's good for us; we've gotten the chance to play outside our country.

ID: Well, I'll let you go so you can do the rest of the interviews you have left to do today...Was there anything you'd like to say to your fans while you have the opportunity?
Peter: What can I say? Just to warn everybody...We're going to make a trip to America in September, we cannot wait for that. I think that it's America who has the land of the crazy freaks. We cannot wait to get back to America.