- Greetings and welcome to Antichrist metalzine! Considering the nature of your music I believe this is a very nice fit. Thank you very much for your time for this, so let’s start of the beginning; what are the origins of Smoke Rites? How did you come with the name?
Hello and thank you so much for having me here! I’m Satan’s most beloved daughter so yeah, it is a very nice fit indeed haha!
Making a not very long story even shorter – Lucas (guitarist) sent me some tracks they were working on, and I really liked them; he then asked me if I could record some vocals and I was very happy about this as I had some vocal ideas straight away after first listening to the songs.
The name of the band was decided when we were writing the first lyrics to our very first song. The name of the band is intrinsically linked to the nature of the lyrics. It also relates to our interests’ outside of the band 😉
- Listening to your EP Rite of the Smoke feels like a solid marriage between old horror movies and 80s doom metal…
That’s a true compliment for us! Thank you very much. Yes, we’re inspired by both, although I’m personally more into black metal than doom, but they both have the same kind of vibe, if you know what I mean. We’re also massive fans of old horror movies, I literally spent the first lockdown watching everything with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. This has influenced our music. The videos that Andy Picklington and Michal Sobocinski did for us have similar elements to those horror movies so they work perfectly for us.
- Some month ago Lugosi had his birthday; what’s your favorite featuring Bela?
If I had to pick one I’d totally go with obvious classic and pick Dracula, but I also love Invisible Ghost and White Zombie. It’s something beautifully tragic about his way of playing – and also his personal life (as far as we know).
- I was just wondering what the monologue is in the beginning of the first track.
‘Madam,
Do you know MOOD spelled backwards is?’
It’s a quote from ‘Valley Of The Gods’ by Lech Majewski and when Adam, our producer, showed this to us, we just felt that’s the perfect piece for that song.
- How did the recording process go?
Well my boys live in Poland and I’m UK based so it was a bit different to what I was used to in the past, but I think in the apocalyptic times we’ve just been through, it was different for every musician. After doing a few demos, exchanging ideas and developing the songs into their final versions, my boys recorded instruments in Poland under Adam Ziolkowski / Burning Tones eyes, then I did my parts here in the UK, guided by Tony Dolan – Demolition Man from Venom Inc. He is our Archdemon and was a massive help throughout the whole process, especially when it came to the vocals – his advices changed the way I used my voice and my kinda whole perspective of singing.
- Speaking of voice; what are your influences?
I think my always number one will be Floor Jansen, she can kick ass in every vocal style regardless of the band she’s singing in right now. I listen to quite huge range of vocalists in different styles and I always want to learn something from their approach to singing.
- Let’s talk about the lyrical concept, what is your main inspiration?
Satanic orgies and ritual murders, in any order 😉
Recently I’ve decided that there are no boundaries for me at this was reflected in my lyrics. I was just being myself, dealing with my own feelings and that was a truly wonderful experience, just to be able to be myself while creating and not holding anything back because of anyone or anything. Just the purest form of Yours Truly.
- Any gigs you have in plan?
We have many plans. But you know what they say about the whole the best laid schemes of mice and man haha.
But to be honest we’re in the process to set the best deal for us right now so hopefully we’re looking at next year 😉 however. we will of course be keeping everyone up to date with our plans on social media.
- Max, thank you very much for your time and wish you best of luck. Any last messege for Anitchrist metalzine readers?
Thank you very much once again for having me!
Stay stoned and tuned and enjoy The Rite, hail Satan but first hail Yourself 🖤
If you really would like to support Antichrist, you can just Share our article.
You can also support Antichrist by sending a couple bucks to cover some webhosting expenses. =>> PayPal
