Hailing from the Underground of Brazilian Metal. Anphisbenah is one of the bands who have bright future before them. Anphisbenah is a brutal Death Metal band who will shrink your brains out. They just released their first demo and already got a worldwide destributor. Here is an interview with Ricardo Lopes, Anphisbenah's guitarist.
Interview taken by V.K. (on August 30'th 1999)
V.K.: Welcome, Anphisbenah is an underground Death Metal band from Brazil and
not very known in Canada. Could you introduce yourself and your band, please.
Ricardo Lopes: Well... my name is Ricardo Lopes and I am the guitar
player of Anphisbenah, a Death Metal band from Brazil.
V.K.: Could you name Anphisbenah's current line-up?
Ricardo Lopes: Yeah..
Carlos DeBem (Vox)
Cesar De Cesaro (Bass)
Marcelo Tibola (Drums)
Andre Marques (Guit)
Ricardo Lopes (Guit)
V.K.: Could you tell me about band's biography, how and when did you originate?
Ricardo Lopes: We started a long time ago with another name and other formation,
but we rather think we officially began when we made our first demo, in 98,
before that we were just a project.
V.K.: Anphisbenah has a demo out, could you tell me about it?
Ricardo Lopes: Well, we recorded that demo with a drummer, but this dude never been part of the band,
it was recorded in one of the best studios of our town, Porto Alegre,
and it has four tracks, adding up to 20 mins lenght,
plus we have it released by ourselves in two version, which are tape and CDrom,
and recently it has been released by a label on CD.
V.K.: Your main influences?
Ricardo Lopes: That's not a simple question... we have all sorts of influence,
beginning from our main lifes to the music we listen to... but let me say our main influence is our heart.
V.K.: What are your thoughts on current's Death Metal scene, and metal scene overall favourite bands?
Ricardo Lopes: Well... metal the metal scene is for me a great scene, people really help each other out, I like that, plus, you can talk to the guys of the bands you listen to, trade CDs, tapes, that's killer.
Well favs are hard... Cannibal Corpse, Malevolent Creation, Suffocation, Incantation, Hypocrisy, Mental Horror, Gorguts, Cephalectomy, Acheron, Carcass,
Cryptosy, Dying Fetus, Fleshgrind, Gorefest, Sepultura, Slayer, Krisiun, Ratos De Porao, Distraught, Immolation,
Mortician, Deicide, Impaled Nazarene, My Dying Bride, Moonspell, Abhorrence, Kadath, Monstrosity, Nile, Rotting Christ,
Regurgitation, Sinister, Nocturnum, Sorrow, Demented Ted, among some others... these bands surely are good bands to listen to...
V.K.: I heard it's really hard being a Death Metal band in Brazil. Could you please tell me what the difficulties
are, and if it's even true?
Ricardo Lopes: Yes, it is, people here, in Brazil, don't have money that other countries have,
and this makes it all very hard, bands have to work, hard to get their music out there.... we have a lot of people who really work hard to keep the metal scene alive, and they really work like beasts, but there's some good examples of bands who made it out of Brazil,
bands who worked very hard and constantly,
some times even undergrowng hunger and all just for the fun of being in a Death Metal band,
bands like Krisiun and Sepultura, these guys work hard and seriously,
we have problems but still our scene is united and everyone helps each other, bands play toghether and they organize the gigs
themselves and we just keep walking and never looking back you know... just doing whatever we have to do... and no matter what we will keep it going!
V.K.: You have recently signed to a label. Tell me please more about it. Is the promotion good?
Ricardo Lopes: Well, we didn't exactly sign anything..
we got our demo spread all over, and this dude Martin sent me a letter, saying he wanted to make a CD of out tape... so I said OK... then I sent him the CDR we make and he made his version of it...
I think he's doing a good promotion, I met this dude from the Netherlands (where the label is at)
and he told me that he bought our CD at a store, and Martin sent me some mail, saying he was sending CDs all over a stuff, Repulse got 15 CDs.. and were working on the advertisement ourselves too
... so were just happy some one is actually helping us with money and all
... and for all I know about Martin, he's a good dude with good intentions and works very fast.
V.K.: Which label is distributing your demo exactly?
Ricardo Lopes: OK... the name of the label is M & M hardgore music from the Netherlands
M & M Hardgore Music
c/o Martin
P.O. BOX 3083
NL-9400 DB GRONINGEN
THE NETHERLANDS
hardgore_music@yahoo.com
and
SO IT IS DONE PRODUCTIONS
P.O. BOX 891
NL-9400 AW ASSEN
THE NETHERLANDS
V.K.: Have you played any live shows? If you did, please tell me what is the atmosphere on them? What's going
on on them?
Ricardo Lopes: I have played in several live gigs, but with this formation Anphisbenah has never played yet
... we are rehearsing with a new drummer and he lives very far from our town,
this makes thigs go slooow, but we have already 7 songs ready and we will be playing werever as soon as we can
... we just need to catch up with the new songs and this takes a while.
V.K.: Lyrics are very important in music. Are you lyrics are natural or pure anger?
Ricardo Lopes: Well.. let me say we concidere our lyrics only part of a whole in the music
... we don't have a religion as most people comonly ask us,
and we dont try to express anything with our lyrics ,
we leave the imagination of the ones who listen to the lyircs to deIcide whether they agree,
whether they find a filosophy or not... this can change from time to time
.. we just don't want to be related to anything since we find mostly everything questionable,
we just say what comes on our minds.. nothing related to anything, just indivual thought patterns.. ehe.
V.K.: Reality and Music (your view on it).
Ricardo Lopes: Music is a reality, but you can use of the music to create almost anything,
people don't listen to music, only hear the real life or not
.. they want to see and hear your mind, your dreams, your nightmare
... they want to feel something different from what they do in their life, so they listen to music..
but music is also a great way to express the truth,
music is the most powerful weapon. so you can listen to music and reflect in what is reality or not.
V.K.: Your personal view on religion? Anphisbenah view on religion?
Ricardo Lopes: Let's say... religion's the most stupid thing a person could belive in...
people feel the need to believe, there's something superior and they want to be good that shit
. they want mercy for their sins.. bullshit, we are all just humans and bad and good is part of our beings..
religions are disgusting, they corrupt your mind, soul and whatever you got!
They destroy whole families and we want to see them all dead... one by one.
Fuck religions and what ever is related to it!!
V.K.: Politics? Any thoughts about that?
Ricardo Lopes: Politics are another great shit.. I mean why the hell they don't do what they are supposed to?
They keep promising very simple things and never acomplish their promisies, especially here, in Brazil, here we have big problems with that
.. but you can't have just a good politician you gotta have a good country
... people wiiling to help.. seem the more the wealth of a person the less they care for the others, and it's so sad to see people living on the streets
and going through difficulty and what the world needs is to listen to the undreground more
.. I hate politicians and I hate the whole process, it takes to get a message through.. it's a world of money
.. if you don't have money you're totally doomed and no matter what the politicians say - your fate is sealed even before they came around
... what we need is a new system with less failure... fuck poilitics!
V.K.: Alcohol, Drugs and Death?
Ricardo Lopes: Well.. drugs are cool if you can learn to manage them, you can hear a bundle of shit by just using drugs
, you can dream you can fly, but you don't need any of that shit to be a cool dude you know..
addiction is the worst thing a person can go through...
it's hard to live depending on several drugs, depending on a stupid shit to make you feel OK
... but drugs are OK. depends on what you're gonna do... I personally hate most drugs
.. and I tried a buch of them. Lately I've been totally clean, and I feel very good
... My point of view is... drugs are for kids... but when you get older you start getting used to the effects it's nothing new
.. nothing to add, just a big money consuming addictions and that sucks
.. You can do a whole bunch of more productive things other than using drugs!!
Alcohol is one of the worst addictions, people don't have a good idea of what alcohol does to your mind
.. but believe I've been drunk milions of times and the feeling is killer but it's one of those thing you don't need... and won't lead you to nowhere, only to illness..
V.K.: How important the fans are for your band?
Ricardo Lopes: The fans are the most important of all... you gotta listen to them!
Hear what they have to say, sometime a fan can teach a whole new way to look at your band
... you gota respect your fans, after all you make music and you want others to listen to i
t.. these are your fans, they support your band, they tell you when a song sucks, and the relation with fans is great.. I don't see our fans as fans,
but as friends I think I know most of the people who know our band,
and fan is more to a pop star thing.. we try to listen to everyone and fans are the best part of music
.. the dudes who go across the country just to listen to you.... respect them!!
V.K.: I am very curious about the Brazilian Metal scene, is it any good? Do you have a lot of contacts with
different Metal bands in Brazil?
Ricardo Lopes: Here, in Brazil there are milions of band zines ditros and all sorts of undergrouns related people
.. I write to many of these people.. I have my full days consumed with letters and stuff like that
.. people here are very united and try to help each other out as much as we can...
Brazil has probably one of the biggest metal scenes ,
if you could see how crazy this is, the main problem is money though
.. outside Brazil few bands are know but here among ourselves thers many going on
.. and most of the scene is totally independent,
everyone helps each other as much as possible because its the only way to make things work out
.. we are very proud of our metal scene and I am sure these billions of people in this scene working on it making it grow
and it's a very nice thing to watch and hear about, nothing is easy for us
, and that makes it more interesting, the people who are here do it for the real love of doing it
.. no money is earned and still we continue in the battle...
V.K.: Five favourite albums?
Ricardo Lopes: Hmmm.. thats a hard one.. I don't have one favourite album... there's so many good music to listen to
..most albums have one nice song and one bad song
.... so I prefer n to mention jsut a few albums... but I love 'em all!!
V.K.: Thank you very much for this interview. Do you have anything to say to Metal Vision readers and Canadian
Metal scene?
Ricardo Lopes: Well... first thing is: I would like to thank Blash for giving us this support,
we are very proud to be part of this web zine,
we would like to invite people to write to us, and to all other bands,
I mean we want to say that if you feel you can do something, the most minimum is great already
.. so write to the bands, contribute with the zines... who know... this world is so little
.. if people could just learn to help each other out more it would be a nice place to live..
Thanx to all of you metalheads all over and uh.. visit our web site.
