1. Hello my friend, pleasure to have you on Rotten Pages ´zine. How are you doing today? Let us set the scene first. Where do we find you right now? Please describe your surroundings.
-Klingsor: It is my pleasure to have the opportunity to expand the project’s sound to more regions of the world. Currently I am in my hometown, Thessaloniki, Greece and specifically in my office where I spend most of the day, reading and playing music.
2. Band’s origins are from Thessaloniki. How is this city for metal music? Friendly or opposing? How are the younger generations in Central Macedonia area in general?
-Klingsor: Thessaloniki is the second largest Greek city and because of that it has an active, albeit relatively small, metal scene. There a lot of metal bars/shops and some metal specific venues but nothing too crazy or expanded. And as far as the younger generations of “metal” I really could not say because I don’t consider my self a member of the metal community. Mentality-wise, I am black metal to the core, but I don’t like most “metal” people.
3. From the start, the Greek metal scene has been a special one, with many very important and unique bands. As for last decade or so, many great bands in various genres in extreme metal stood up. How do you see Moonshadow´s Slave in this landscape?
-Klingsor: Moonshadow’s Slave is a project that got inspired by a difficult time of my past. It got created out of my need to turn my deficiencies outwards. I never, for one second cared, about the perception the project would have in the “metal scene” of Greece or globally for that matter. I can’t ignore though that since the album is public and out there, it is out of my control and in the hands of the listeners. I only know of one other depressive black metal band that has a greek member, called Sorry, but I don’t really like their stuff. Lastly, Moonshadow’s Slave’s influence is limited to black metal, because the mentality behind the project is just that, total freedom and esoteric expression/suppression.
4. The band was initially envisioned to be a solo-poject. But now you have completed a full line-up. Could you please tell us more details about the other members and how did you meet them?
-Klingsor: From the moment I started listening to bands like Burzum, Xasthur, Leviathan, I found myself fully compelled by the solo-artist concept. The idea of having full creative control, and at the same time, all the responsibilities for things that go wrong really grasped me. Unfortunately, I don’t have the musical skills necessary to play the guitar or drums at the level I want. The project’s guitarist, Asmodeus, was an old friend of mine with whom we had lost touch for many years. I always knew him as a talented guitarist with a flare for the darker subdivisions of metal. In summer of 2022 I contacted him and asked him if he would be interested to do session work for a concept band I felt the need to create. He was immediately very positive and also proposed another common old friend of ours, 8itca, to be included as the drummer. Both of these people are talented musicians with a burning passion for their craft. Asmodeus is more of an elitist, like myself, but 8itca is very experimental with his music and that brings a nice balance to the overall project.
5. Talking about your album “Pantagruel's Dreams”, How do you consider this record as far as music skills and your black metal craft?
-Klingsor: Pantagruel’s Dreams is my love-letter to a self destructing, yet very creative part of my life. Despite of what lead to its creation, I love what the album stands for and how it transformed me. It is a part of me forever lost yet preserved in the form of a musical and lyrical effort. It is not a rushed effort either, since we really took our time honing in the details in the whole year we needed to get it ready after the compositions were written.
6. I must say, the production is quite solid. What kind of sound were you going for and how do you feel about the final outcome?
-Klingsor: I sent 8itca, the drummer, who also produced the album, 3 or 4 songs from dsbm bands I look up to and whose sound I wanted to influence the mix/master of Pantagruel’s Dreams. I won’t name the bands or the songs but they are both prominent and unknown figures from the American and European black metal scene. As a general direction though, from the start I wanted the sound to be raw, deep, bleak and atmospheric, with an emphasis on balance between the instruments and the vocals.
7. When Moonshadow´s Slave creates their music, what is the most important element: deep and mysterious lyrics or the band’s atmospheric sound?
-Klingsor: The most important thing when Moonshadow’s Slave creates music is honesty and a reason for the music to exist. I don’t write lyrics or music when I am bored, I write when I feel like I want to get something out of me that torments me on the inside. That means there can be long periods of no music or no lyrics but when the periods hit, they are always honest and transparent, not forced, not pretentious. I wish more bands were like that and didn’t write simply for the sake of adding one more song to their 1 hour long albums, just so they can have 8 or 12 in total.
8. Is it hard for you to create new riffs and ideas for yourselves in black metal, since so much of the genre was established before?
-Klingsor: The type of music I like creating is a hybrid of many black metal subgenres. As a result of that, although the individual components of a song might not be 100% original, the way in which they are synthesized and placed on top of the other is quite unique. Piano parts, deep in the mix tortured vocals, wailing guitars with creative drumming in the background come together to deliver something interesting to the trained ear.
9. How do you record your music? A pro tools set up? Garage band? Are you self taught or do you have a friend that helps out with the mixes etc?
-Klingsor: As mentioned in a previous answer, 8itca, the drummer, is responsible for the producing of the album and was also the person responsible for most of the recording process. He showed me how to record the vocals on my own and was the coordinator of the guitar and bass recordings, while the drums were recorded in a real studio. The software used for the home recording is Reaper, if I am not mistaken.
10. “Rotting Regicide” is one of my favorite songs on the album. Can you give me some details on it? It’s absolutely depressing…
-Klingsor: First of all, thank you. As far as this specific song goes, I had the melody stuck in my head for a while before I finally decided to try it out on the piano (I write all my music on the piano first). It has a lot of parts, starting with a more blues-ish riff and then going full out on the dsbm style. The third riff is an homage to Life is Pain’s only release called “Bloody Melancholy”. I think Rotting Regicide has very powerful/heavy, very true to me, lyrics, while it also beautifully combines a lot of melodic themes and rythms. It is slow, it is fast, it is hopeful, it is depressing. It is a Moonshadow’s Slave song though and though, and I think it has my favorite piano melody in the whole album.
11. What are the most challenging aspects when writing a song and how do you go about the approach?
-Klingsor: The most challenging part is time. I don’t write songs to pass the time. I write songs when I feel like I need to express something though the music. Inspiration and actually sitting down to create is the most difficult part. I need to go to a place I don’t want to go when I create my songs, but I think that is one of the reasons I get them out quite effortlessly when I do finally sit down and decide something needs to be externalized. I will just sit on my piano for a while, trying out different sounds, rhythms and melodies until I am satisfied with either a cohesive whole or even a single riff at times.
12. I'd like to make reference on a quite important thing: your lyrics. They deal with something deeper, somehow linked to your inner self and your own feelings, passions and desires. Where does all this inspiration come from?
-Klingsor: I am a student of philosophy and of the human mind and way of thinking. I am a troubled person, with a lot of issues and time to reflect on my life. My lyrics are an extension of me and I take great pride in them. They are essential to the Moonshadow’s Slave experience, and as I have stated before online, people who do not read the lyrics while listening to the music are not, in my eyes, getting the full experience. What I usually write revolves around self destruction, hate, the primacy of passions in man, despair and restlessness of the soul. Pantagruel’s Dreams was a very personal album, coming out of a very personal and self-destructive experience, and I don’t think that the next albums will be biographical to this personal degree. I think I will be more abstract and even more philosophical, going forward.
13. On an international level, how has your music been received? Do you try to promote your music on a large scale?
-Klingsor: On Youtube, I think overall the music has received close to 2 thousand views, with 4 underground important black metal channels promoting it. Two people have paid for the album on Bandcamp and there has been a very positive review from a greek metal website that happened without my knowledge. I think, as with every good thing, that time will be fair to the album and that patience is needed for now. I think I have managed to become better at waiting over my adult years, so I am positive about the future. And no, there has been no large-scale promotion yet.
14. What would you like to see Moonshadow´s Slave accomplish that you have not been able to achieve yet?
-Klingsor: I want Moonshadow’s Slave to reach and penetrate a few people as deeply as it has penetrated me. Money and fame will never be what the project strives for and what black metal strives for in general. I want honest, passionate people to listen to the woeful experiences of others and connect with them. I used to have a “I don’t care about anyone who listens to my music” mentality early on, but I realized that if that were true, I would not have recorded it and publically put it out there. It leaves the hands of the creator when it gets released, and I just hope the people it reaches have an open ear and an open heart to try and take some parts of the music in, without them getting crushed from it. Or if they do get crushed, then prove that they are powerful enough to take the bad shit to the face and seek their selves again.
15. Finally, is there anything else you would like to share with your fans and the readers of this interview?
-Klingsor: I want both readers and potential fans to stay honest, to stay true to what makes them human, to embrace their shadow, to eat their flesh and drink their blood. This is enough.
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