LORDSOFMETAL.NL (EN)

In this Lords Of Metal issue you can read the review I wrote about the album 'Frozen Circus' from a five-headed Polish monster called Eternal Deformity. These dudes clearly are not afraid of walking some new musical paths and by using a lot of diverse angles they succeeded in creating a sound of their own, something that is quite an achievement these days. There was not much info to be found on the band through means of the Internet, so we decided to send some questions to Poland to learn some more about Eternal Deformity. Guitarist Przemyslaw "Knife Thrower" Smyczek was so kind to return some answers to The Netherlands…


Because the Lords of Metal readers don't know Eternal Deformity very well; can you give us a short introduction of the band and each member?
Eternal deformity is a formation existing for fifteen years now. It embodied the dreams of three guys from Zory (a town in the southern Poland) who wanted to create a great metal band. They faced many problems and failures, however, against all adversities they didn't give up and after those fifteen years and recording five discs they managed to sign a contract with a good label. The previous records always found their supporters but due to the lack of promotion never reached the wider audience. The band didn't avoid personal changes as well. Only two people left out of the line-up which created the first demo 'Forgotten Distant Time': Aro "Lion Tamer" (guitars) and Smyku "Knife Thrower" (guitars). Aro is the great creator of the whole confusion called ED, he's totally freaked on music and the band, the man committed to what he's doing around the band for 100%. Smyku is more kind of realist, a bit out of action recently due to personal matters (mainly extension of the family) but still equally involved and thirsty for new experiences. Then we have Ciajo "Juggler" (drums), a person with his soul filled with the universe and mystery, one of the most progressive drummers in Polish metal underground. Thanks to him our music isn't schematic and predictable. And Kilo 'Illusionist' at last, the only person in the band having music education. The youngest member of our crew, not afraid of experiments and exploring the new music areas. He's having some problems now so the contact with him is a bit difficult. And last but not least, we've been joined by a new bass-player –Johnny, replacing Kofi. Surely he'll contribute to the new band's achievements, he's really cool and brought some fresh ideas to our band.

In the biography of Eternal Deformity I could read that your band used to be a black metal band in earlier years. Of course we can still here some black metal influences on the new album 'Frozen Circus', but why are you slowly changing the style? And how should you describe the new style of Eternal Deformity because you used a lot of different kind of metal sounds?
Well, I don't know this biography. Eternal Deformity has never been a black metal band, it was a doom metal one instead. And 'Frozen Circus' is actually our first work when you could clearly hear some BM influences. But it's true that our style changes and evolves. It follows our desire to explore the new music areas. That's why we're searching for inspiration in different sources what is hearable in our music I guess. I must add that in this case 'Frozen Circus' is kind of framed structure. The previous album "The Serpent Design" was far wilder and unpredictable which was the reason for none of labels wanted to risk and release it.

Can you tell me more about the concept behind 'Frozen Circus? It came out in a very nice way; beautiful artwork, the press pictures are awesome and the atmosphere of the songs sounds spooky!
The concept of album was changing in the same way as the music while being created. When we started our work on the new material we had no idea that it will go in this direction. It was a hard time for the band. Our ranks were left by the previous keyboard player who stated that he achieved all he wanted from music and so he quitted. What's more, any of the labels was interested in releasing "The Serpent Design". But the will to play the music was so strong that we made a new stuff, although it took us five years. While creating the songs we realized that it started to recall an ominous circus atmosphere and so we went in this direction. To make it all coherent we decided that both cover and our photo session will be held in the circus tone. Thanks to our friends' help we managed to do this and we're really excited about the final outcome.


You used a lot of different kind of singing on the 'Frozen Circus' album; on two of the songs we can hear a female voice. Can you tell me who she is and if she will appear on stage at live performances?
Yeah, it's all Kofi's contribution, he's vocal is becoming stronger and better. He's always liked to diversify vocal lines and he has a clear inclination to do so. Whenever I see him in action I'm always impressed with the timbre of his voice and expression. As for female voice we won't use it at live performances, since all can happen. 'Acrobat', our friend, has sung in 'Frozen Circus' but she also performed all the cello parts, as she's mainly a musician.

All the songs on the album are unique in a special way with all kind of different styles. The song 'Little 15' does reminds me of the German gothic wave band Deine Lakeien, because of the way of singing and the musical sound. Do you know this band and what do you think of the comparison I made?
'Little 15' is a cover of Depeche Mode from „Music For The Masses" album. I don't think Kofi would be inspired with Deine Lakeien works when arranging his vocal parts. No, I don't think it influenced our view of music. It's rather the song's atmosphere that determined his singing.

I was a little bit disappointed that 'Frozen Circus' is only 40 minutes long…
Well, it can be 'only' 40 minutes or just sooo long. We wanted the album to be well-arranged, drawing attention and leaving in suspense so that listener wanted to listen to it again and again. We don't want to get him bored but rather encourage him to get familiar with our previous works (although it can be a bit difficult and surprising, don't expect any similarities to 'Frozen Circus'). We also wanted to make him wait impatiently for our new album that we're working on now.

Let's talk about promoting Eternal Deformity. Maybe the first step into the outside world would be having a website that's also translated in English. What are other ways of promotional things that you would like to do to make yourself and the band famous?
We're just working on our new site, both English and Polish and will be maintained in the concept of Frozen Circus. We'd like to open for fans out of Poland as much as possible. That's why we send promo copies to all music magazines interested and soon we're going to conquer radio stations broadcasting metal. We also plan to make a video clip - probably in April. We're working on its concept now.

A lot of metal bands are rising up from Poland. How can you notice this in Poland or in the rest of Europe? Is the metal scene in Poland a lively scene?
We have very strong metal scene in Poland and of course unquestionable stars such as Vader, Behemoth, etc. But still Polish scene is not only death or black. There are many other bands performing many other kinds of metal. Improved availability of good quality music equipment and recording studios offering wider possibilities resulted in many Polish bands dropped their inferiority complex to their Western fellows. However, still kind of barrier exists, especially amongst very young people. Despite all of this we have the greatest audience over the world that comes to concerts and supports its favorites. I think Polish scene evolves in extremely dynamic way and a proof for this is the number of Polish bands signing contracts with foreign labels.

As a final word for this interview: what will Eternal Deformity bring us in the near future?
I think Eternal Deformity will be constantly surprising its listeners and fans with ideas and unconventional approach to the music. We hope that we'll go on tour at last and reach as much people as we can. We want to show them a great spectrum of emotions and expression that is hidden in our music and appears only while on stage. I invite all of you to listen to our new album and let's meet on concerts!