Interview to TENEBRIS ANIMI (Germany)

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.

Hello, thank you for having us! We are both in our homes, which are in Mainz and Schwerin (Germany).

2. Tenebris Animi is a two-piece Black metal project with members based in Bützow, Germany. Please tell us about your musical background. Have you played on another band prior to forming Tenebris Animi?

Yannick: I actually just moved from Bützow to Schwerin. I started as a drummer and played in several Rock and Metal bands, right now I am also guitarist in a Hard Rock band.

Lukas: I am drumming since I was 15 years old on Yannick's shitty E-drum set (we are brothers). I also played for several bands, at the moment I am hitting the drums for another Black/Death Metal project.

3. What is the scene like in your area? Is it important that there is some sort of local scene for a band to develop?

Yannick: Since we are located in different cities, the respective local scenes didn't really have an influence on our band to develop. But of course usually it is easier to find fellow musicians and gigs if the local scene is strong. In Schwerin, a small city, there is not much going on..

Lukas: There's not enough of the good stuff. It made me want to bring Black Metal to my hometown.

4. I wonder if you are finally satisfied with reached the desired goal with this project? Musically and personally as musicians.

We are quite satisfied with what we accomplished, we gained a lot of experience and of course there are things we would like to do better in the future - it's a never ending process. All in all, it turned out better than we had anticipated and set new standards and goals for the future.

5. What principles, what attitude to life do you personally represent?

We represent an open-minded spirit and although we don't consider us a political band, we find it really important to stand against racism and hate, so fuck NSBM! Hate yourself, not others.

6. “Seelenfrost ” is pretty well produced – in which studio did you record it? And who took care of the mixing and mastering?

We self-recorded it in a studio called "Beat and Breakfast", which is a vacation home with an integrated rehearsal room / studio. I (Yannick) took care of the mixing and mastering, so thanks a lot for calling it pretty well produced! It was our first recording and mixing/mastering experience ever.

7. How do you guys inside the band divide the compositional work? What has been your favourite part of all songwriting process?

Yannick: Lukas does the blast beats, I am doing the rest. No, seriously, we both wrote the texts, I create the fiffs, altough Lukas also had some melody ideas. My favourite part is when you put it all together and it becomes a real song - and I loved our recording week, it was really exhausting but I enjoyed how we worked together and made creative improvements to the songs. It was also the first time playing them together, since we usually work remote on our music due to the long distance between us.

Lukas: I agree :D

8. In general: What fascinates you about your debut release? What would be your moment of joy on this particular EP?

For both of us it is the first release ever, which is quite exciting. We especially enjoy the Intro of "Lebensasche", which we also came up with spontaneously during the recording session.

9. Do you ever feel any kind of pressure or lack of creating new riffs when writing new material? Does everything happen more in the flow way? Do you have to be in a certain mood?

Yannick: It is not always easy. We actually booked the studio session to create some pressure, which definitely helped me. A lot of my ideas come to my mind when I am outside in the nature, this often gets me in the flow. Usually, strong emotions - good or bad - help me to be creative.

Lukas: I am always stressing myself with improving my drum technique but I am not struggling with riffs, that's Yannick's part haha.

10. Germany had/has a lot of great BM bands, but it seems that they never were able to become very popular outside Germany. Why is this so in your opinion?

We think it just starts to change - with bands like Der Weg einer Freiheit, Groza or also Ellende (from Austria, but still German speaking), they all start to play international shows and tours, even in the US. With only few exceptions, german music always had it difficult, but especially in Black Metal, we think German sounds sick due to its rather harsh sound.

11. How do you define “underground” and where do you see yourself and your band in it?

We are so underground, no one listens to our music.

12. We live in a globalized world where there are no borders to be crossed thanks to the internet. How do you best utilize this to gain the outmost for you band?

Since we live in totally different areas of Germany, we couldn't exist as a band without the internet! Publishing records is of course really easy, but there would be way more potential to gain popularity. We don't really concentrate on our social media presence and don't advertise, which is something we should improve in the future. Our focus lies on the music itself.

13. Are there some parts of the world that really impress you due to the quality of the bands coming from the same area? I mean are you involved with what happens in South America, Asia, Europe???

There are too many awesome musicians all over the world to name a certain region here - we both listen to bands from Europe, North and South America, Australia.. there are no borders in music.

14. We have come to the end of the interview, thank you for taking the time off to answer our questions, and we wish you the best in all upcoming endeavours!

Thank you as well, maybe until next time!

https://tenebrisanimi.bandcamp.com/album/seelenfrost