Wednesday, June 6, 2012

an interview with the loud, raging and classy : ROZAMOV

Formed in August 2011, this four-piece out from Boston recently released a burning debut ep that contains 3 excellent songs of a massive and  face-melting mix of Stoner/sludge and Doom.
No doubt, musically they follow the steps of the biggest US names of the genre,  but this is noticeably displayed with a fresh and infectious energy which make this debut amazingly very compact and raging... The kind of band that you want to know more about quickly and  support consistently, that's why I asked the following few questions to Tom (bass/voc) :

* Where does this name come from (sounds like a Russian name), even if we invert the letters it seems to mean nothing except for a thrash band name maybe ?!!!
- Well the name was kinda thrown around a bit. Our guitar player Matt had the name lying around for a while. he had seen a biography about angre the giant and his last name was Roussimoff. So Matt had that name for a couple of years before we had even met, we just changed the spelling.

* Ok, this ep has been recorded just 6 months after you formed and you seem pretty young, I mean I find it pretty incredible how the band sounds yet mature with a very thick and rich sound and those backing vocals are particularly amazing... did you all have previous experiences prior to ROZAMOV ? do you rehearse often ?
- Yeah, we all have been in bands before this. We rehearsE a couple of times a week. when we all met we knew what we wanted to do, it was almost a cosmic meeting. We all answered each others adds online and when we met up it was instant chemistry.
It was odd really, I never have had a musical group that clicked on all cylanders like this one does. We're all extremely determined and artistically on the same page.

* That's great ! one of your guitarist is named Liz "doom" Walshak, is she the main Doom fan in the band ? is it her who introdcues those excellent slow doomy vibes that could sometimes remind Black Pyramid ?
- Liz is by no means the only fan of doom in the band, we're all fans of doom. As for the Black Pyramid thing, we're certainly fans of them and they are all really great guys. Clay, their drummer, produced and mixed the EP so I'm sure that has something to do with the similar production style but i would not really say that they are an influence on us. I think BP comes from a more traditional school of thought and we maybe have more of new school approach. Those doom parts just kind of developed, it came completely naturally.

* You know bloggers like almost everyone like to put names when describing a new band, so I guess you've yet yet heard about Baroness, Mastodon and eventually High on Fire when speaking about your music, but for the sludgiest edge of your music, you certainly have also more obscure influences ?
- Yes we are all fans of those bands and those comparisons have been thrown at us by some people, which we take as a huge complement, but we're of course trying to put something fresh out. We all have different music experience that we bring to the table from blues to death metal to of course doom and sludge. Electric Wizard, Thou, Sleep, and Yob are all bands that we hold in high esteem but we all have different influences so its a tough question for just myself to answer. I personally take huge influence from blues, 80's hardcore and progressive music in addition to metal and we all have our non metal influences.

* Let's speak about backing vocals from you and Liz, along of course with Matt's main vocal performance, they are a distinctive force in my opinion and for the most parts appear logically in up-tempos , raging parts but would you think about the possibility on working them on the doomiest ones or do you feel those don't need backing vocals, just crushing heaviness ? How do you generally work on backing vox ?
- On this EP Matt handled most of the lead vocals with exception of "Lexington is Burning" where I sing lead in the chorus. Liz has actually yet to do any backing vocals but I'm sure she will be singing on stuff soon. Me and Matt are splitting lead vocals a little more on the newer material, and theres really no formula to the way we do vocals. We all have a say in what the other members are doing both vocally and instrumentally, its a very democratic process. We're all honest with each other, if something sucks no one is going to beat around the bush. The dual vocal thing was something we wanted to do from the get-go and those backing parts are certainly something we'll continue to push as we move forward.

* You have a regular live activity, what were the best moments so far ? Which are the next plans for gigs ?
- I think our best moment so far was Bobfest at O'Briens in Boston. We got to play with a lot of our favorite local bands such as Dead Languages and Set at that one. But I think that our best moment will change soon looking ahead, we have a show coming up with our friends in Cortez and another personal favorite local band Summoner (formerly Riff Cannon) as well as our show next week with Astronomer, The Love Below and Pharaoh. We're also hoping to do some out of state gigs later in the year and possibly a short east coast run of dates as well.

* The ep has been downloaded for free in fair numbers rather quickly, so you had to put it as a "name your price" download, are people reasonnably generous with you ?
The download thing has worked out for us pretty well, hopefully we'll break even on it soon. Unfortunately there are all sorts of business things that need to be done once you start to sell your music online so we're kind of in the hole currently, as any new band would be. People have certainly been generous. MP3's are free these days anyway so anyone willing to give us money for them is extremely generous. We're not really trying to make money off of this EP anyway, its more a way to get ourselves out there. Hopefully people like it and hopefully it gets us enough attention where someone wants to put out our next release and enable us to tour on it.

*  Liz is also qualified for the art parts, is the cover her work ? she also did the design of your shirt... does she have other arts ready for the band's future ?
- Yeah Liz does all of our artwork and the cover is no exception. The art for the EP was actually in existence before Rozamov so it is more a representation of that time than a reflection of the music on the release. I think Liz will tailor art for the next release to the music, at least thats her intention I believe.

* Are you already working on some new stuff ? Can we expect a full length next ?
- We have a couple of finished songs that we have been throwing in the live set recently and we have skeletons for 3 or 4 others that we are working on but we all have enough riffs floating around. I'm not sure if we'll put out another EP or go for a full length, at this point we're just writing and seeing where it takes us. The newer material is a little darker and more aggressive, at least so far. I think the next release will be a bit more dynamic in terms of tempo and songwriting but at this point its hard to say. Right now we're planning to go into the studio in October with Clay again.

https://www.facebook.com/Rozamov






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