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Who Alive…

By HESPERION
Release date: 2017
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Biography

Hesperion was formed in 2014 in a Kyiv suburb, Irpin, by ex-members of Утренняя Звезда (Morning Star). The band desired to play more complex and melodic compositions, more focused on heavy music style of Western European standard. Many of Morning Start members left, so remaining artists decided to create a quite new band.
The date of birth of Hesperion is October 4, 2014, when the first line-up debuted on a small gig in another Kyiv suburb, Bucha. The band members were:
Gulnara Asanova – keyboards;
Vitaliy Petrenko – drums;
Oleg “Gera” Gerasko – bass, vocals;
Andriy “Andrik” Yaremenko – guitar;
Alexey Kharitonov – vocals.
The playlist partially contained a few songs from Morning Star, however it hardly fit into the narrow boundaries of Heavy/Power Metal style.
In late 2014 the band decided to start recording the debut album “Живим…” (“Who Alive…”), which combined a few old songs and, mostly, new tracks.
Later, a new guitarist, Denis Buslenko, has joined the band – he helped to record songs and, overall, improved the band’s sound.
During the years 2015-2016, the band continued to work on the recording of debut album, as well as preparing new songs and playing gigs in clubs of Kyiv, including some music festivals.
In August 2016, once the entire recording had been finished, Alexey Kharitonov left Hesperion.
The debut full-length album “Who Alive…” released at spring 2017 by Total Metal Records.
Currently, the band is working on a new songs and actively plays on gigs.

Line-up

Gulnara Asanova – keyboards;
Vitaliy Petrenko – drums;
Oleg “Gera” Gerasko – bass, vocals;
Andriy “Andrik” Yaremenko – guitar;
Vitaliy Kozubov – vocals.

Discography

“Живим…” CD & Digital; 2017; Metal Scrap Records.

HESPERION

Hesperion was formed in 2014 in a Kyiv suburb, Irpin, by ex-members of Утренняя Звезда (Morning Star).

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INTERVIEWS

  • Necromance
  • THE METAL MAG #19

Necromance

Interview was prepared by David Déniz (for Necromance)

 

Welcome to Necromance Digital Magazine. Since it’s your first time on our webzine, let’s start by introducing the band and its members to our readers.
Andriy “Andrik” Yaremenko: Hello! We are Hesperion band from Ukraine. Our history started in Irpin (Kyiv suburb). I don’t want to overload readers with tons of boring information, so, will tell a short story. Alhough the band exists more than 10 years, we decided to specify a band’s birth year in 2014, when we changed a genre and name. Currently our line up is:
Gulnara Asanova – keyboards
Oleg “Gera” Gerasko – bass, back-vocal, vocals (earlier)
Vitaliy Kozubov – vocals
Denis “Den” Buslenko – guitars
Yurii Petrishe – drums
and me – Andriy “Andrik” Yaremenkp – guitars.
Also we have a band manager – Dmytro Korniienko, who became a full member of our band.
We are not professional musicians, we just like to create and play music together.

What’s your best and worst habit as a band?
Andrik: Interesting question… Let me start from the worst one.
It is, indeed, a massive celebration [with alcohol, of course – Dmytro’s comment :)] after performing any quite big (in our opinion) gig. Usually it is hard to gather everyone after such celebration on rehearsals as well as ask others to work on a new material for weeks. We are relaxing instead or working on mistakes and wasting too much time.
The best habit… I think it is to be on non-music related activities together too 🙂
Denis “Den” Buslenko: The coolest thing is that we like to play together. Can’t say about bad habits.

What can you tell us about HESPERION’s creative process: how do you come up with your songs?
Andrik: It varies. Sometimes a sing starts from lyrics, sometimes from a melody, sometimes from an idea.
Overall, Gera or I create a part of a song or a “raw” composition (with or without lyrics). Then joins the rest of the band members and we starting to impove it.
Den: Usually it is a long process. We have a few new compositions in a parallel which we are working on simultaneously. Everything starts with music, somebody comes to a rehearsal and says “guys! I have a new idea” or “Listen that!” and starts playing some parts. Then we discuss it together and think whether it is good or not.
If majority thanks that this them is worth to born, we continue working on it, adding more and more pieces. Sometimes everything goes pretty smooth but then we don’t have more ideas how to finish it and we put that song in a box till better times.
Writing text is a bit more complex, before Vitaliy joined the band, we asked about writing lyrics from our friends or adapted some historic poems. As an example “Lenore” is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, and “Angelica” is our variation of an old french song.

Tell us about the choice of theme for your songs…
Andrik: Previously we didn’t have any specific principle how to choose music themes. Although currently we are working on a conceptual album.
If question was related to “Whom Alive…” album, I would say that we chosen compositions written in a period between 2009 and 2016. It is some kind of a report of everything we wanted to present to listeners. So themes are very different, sometimes we wrote music first, sometimes – created lyrics first.
Den: This is a difficult question. As I said some of our songs were written by our friends or relatives. Somebody listened to music and suggested lyrics for these songs.
Now we are working on the second album, I don’t want to tell about its idea right now, but would say that it is about representing a human’s life path in songs.

“Who alive…”, why did you choose this title?
Andrik: We gathered together and decided that the album should have this name. Probably it is not the best translation from ukrainian, as more correct version should be “For those who are alive”, however it is too long.
Den: Album name is a one of songs titles. That composition was written on a wave of events which happened and continue happening in our country last few years.
Many peoples were killed in a Revolution period and many more on the war, happening on the east of our country. Nobody can’t return people, who died… “Who alive…” is about people who are still alive in a cost of lives of dead ones. And whom need to finish all the things were started. We want to say our position about that and it shall be very clear message.

What can fans that didn’t still listen your album expect when listening it?
Andrik: And what heard those who listened? Perhaps a music… Bit I’m not sure. Some power metal, some progressive metal, maybe something else. Everyone may hear different things – somebody will like it, somebody – not. Personally I’m sad a little that we hurried a lot (we hurried too much because it took almost 2 years to record and edit all the songs) and we were not able to write english version of the album. I guess it would be more interesting and meaningful.
Den: They will get a non-standard approach in performing and very long songs (so someone may even fall asleep in the middle of listening :))

Your recent release “Who alive…” was put out on Total Metal Records. How did that come about and what can you tell us about the experience into this label?
Dmytro Korniienko: Once we started thinking about publishing I contacted with other ukrainian bands and called to other labels. Some of them rejected the proposal, some even didn’t reply. One of our friend bands recommended Total Metal Records, as they already published there and gave a very positive feedback. I contacted with Total Metal and send a digital version of the future album. Soon we got an agreement and started to discuss some technical details. Just because I’ve never had such experience, the whole signing process took more time that I expected (we were planning to release at the end of 2016!) but thanks to Anatoliy Konduk (the owner of the label) as he helped us a lot with different stuff in the publishing area I didn’t know about.
I like working with that label and I think we will continue publishing new albums there.

If people were to listen to just one of your songs, which one would you hope it was?
Andrik: Obviously it is “Lenore”! By the way, the original english lyrics perfectly fits the music we wrote.
Den: I think it should be “Who alive…” or “Dance over the abyss”.

How is the promotion of the album going? Have you already made gigs and is there a supporting tour?
Andrik: It is quite painful question. At least for a “young” band which is not familiar even in our country. Especially when we don’t have financial possibilities.
Dmytro: The label made a lot of work. As you this text – it works :). We are trying to promote ourselves locally and Total Metal Records promoting us outside the country.
Regarding the tour – nope, we didn’t have it. Not sure we could gather enough people on tours and it is quite expensive. We did have some tours (3 quite big festivals in 2 weeks!) in May, right after releasing the album, even sold some CDs and other merch and got followers on social networks during that period.

What do you have planned for the rest of 2017?
Andrik: We are working on songs for a new album, preparing for gigs with a new program and for recording. Maybe will release a single soon.
Den: At the end of may our previous drummer has left the band so we have been finding a new one. Currently we working on old and new songs with a new drummer, so I have no idea when we will return to stages.
Dmytro: As guys said, we are working on new compositions, learning songs with a new drummer. I also looking for new possible festivals and gigs where we can play starting from end of September.

Anything you would like to add to end the interview?
Andrik: Honestly, it is very cool feeling when somebody mentioned your band in a famous magazine! many thanks for questions. I hope we will release our album with new and interesting compositions!
Den: Stay metal!!!

THE METAL MAG #19

Interview was prepared by THE METAL MAG #19

 

Who and when did you start the band? Did you have line up changes and is the music changed over the years?
Our native town is Irpin` in Kyiv region Ukraine. Prototype of Hesperion band was created by me, Vitalii Kashenko (guitar and vocals) and Georgii Aryshtevych (drums) in 2008 and was named Morning Star (Utrenniaya Zvezda in Russian). In that times we played music that was more like classical heavy metal as Accept, Manowar, Iron Maiden etc.. Since then only Oleg Gerasko (bass and vocals) and I have remained in band. The band was reborn in 2014 as Hesperion. We decided to play more complicated compositions. Gulnara Asanova (keyboards) and Denis Buslenko (guitar) joined up to us in that time. Alexii Kharitonov (vocals) and Vitalii Petrenko (drums) recorded the album Who Alive with us. Unfortunately, Alexii left the band right after the recording was completed in the summer of 2016, and Vitalii left us in May 2017. Vitalii Kozubov (vocals) and Yurii Petryshche (drums) now playing in band. All we are no professional musicians. There were no significant changes in the line up or in the music during the period from 2014. Gradually compositions become more complicated. Although we don’t notice much changes. Maybe this will be noticeable in the next album.

Which bands inspired you?
People in our band were inspired by such bands as Blind Guardian, Death, Iron Maiden, Labyrinth, Rhapsody of Fire, Symphony X, Gamma Ray, Dream Theater, King Diamond, Judas Priest. Musical preferences of the members of our group are quite similar.

Your album is in Russian, does that limit the fan base?
The tracks in the album are sung in Russian and Ukrainian. In our opinion, the presence of Slavic languages and the lack of English does limit the fan base, even in our country. We wanted to record this album in English, however there was some kind of rush once we got all the records on hands and also a financial part of the question took place. Technically we could not afford recording english version of songs and re-record them again.

What are your lyrics about?
The lyric of the album does not have anything that could combine it into a common theme. Angelica is a translation of the French folk song. Thousands Sleepless Nights is a love lyrics. Dance over Abyss and Who Alive are philosophic thoughts about human life. Lenore is a translation of the poem by the American author Edgar Allan Poe. Ghost of War has battle lyrics about some nonspecific war. Guardian of Homeland is a song about battles but with some patriotic context.

Have you played abroad? how do you find the gigs? do you play with the same bands?
We have been playing abroad once. It happened in May 2017, in Bucharest at SoundArt festival. Our band manager found this festival and we were invited. In Ukraine we played on some huge festivals and periodically play with the same bands.

What means the name? who designed the logo?
Actually, the name of band does not mean anything, just a name. It is not worth looking for a meaning where is no meaning, in our opinion. The logo was designed by Georgii Aryshtevych (ex-drums). It has sharp edges like if it comes from 80’s when heavy and power metal genres were very popular.

You are signed to scrap metal records, how did it happen? have you had over labels interests?
Once we have recorded everything and got the complete mastered versions and sources we started thinking about publishing the material. As nobody of us had experience with self-publishing, the band members decide to find a music label. We started searching for it in September 2016 and found Metal Scrap Records by a recommendation from another band, who successfully published on this label. During the search period we were close enough to sign on another label,
but finally we have chosen Metal Scrap.

Do you have great instrument, records shops ?
Yes, there are some big, brandy shops with music-related stuff. However almost everything is sold and bought in Internet. Physical shops are the previous century 🙂

Tell us about your gears, do you use the digital tech?
Andrik (lead guitar) has LTD M-1000 Delux by ESP and Jackson JS-32T Warrior. As main drive he uses AMT LA E1 + Boss DD-3 Digital Delay and handmade delay pedal. At main rehearsal base as guitar stack Andrik uses Randall RX120RH with 4×12 cabinet. Gulnara (keyboards) use KORG Kronos. Along with Andrik’s DD-3 it is all the “digital tech”. Denys (guitar) has Gibson Les Paul Studio. Oleg (bass) play on Cort.
How is the Metal scene other there, the country is wide..?
Metal scene is quite large and diverse in Ukraine. There are some famous metal bands known ouside of our country, like Nokturnal Mortum, HellOn, Khors, Fleshgore, Balfor, Holy Blood, Datura, Morton, Sunrise etc. We have big, international festivals and lots of smaller, UA-headlined festivals as well. And small gigs with less-known local bands are performed almost every day There is a possibility to play every 3-4 month on thematic (Heavy or Power or Prog) festivals for us and we try to play on all of them.

How many albums have you recorded? is it easy to find music studios?
Its our first album which contains best of all our compositions from 2009 to 2016. Currently we are working on the second album and have some songs for another, conceptual album. Regarding the studios – in our opinion it is quite difficult to find a good studio with adequate prices where we can record our composition in good quality.

Is there one composer or the whole band gets involved?
Usually somebody from the band comes on rehearsal saying “check this!” and starts playing a new piece. Then the rest helps to combine these pieces into a final composition. That’s a way how, probably, 80% our songs were made. Sometimes lyrics comes first and then somebody thinks about music. New themes come the long way from an idea to completed song, and can be thrown away even they’re almost done, but guys can’t find the bridge or it sounds not how they wanted.

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