Hanna Tsepesh: Moro Galzi! Thanks so much for accepting this interview and Welcome to THE GATES OF METAL! Galzi: Morjens! Thanks for beng interviewed, this is the first time in The gates of metal I believe!
Hanna Tsepesh: Yes It is Galzi! First of all: how are you and how are the things doing with your concerts?
Galzi: We`re all ok in Dead Shape Figure right now, just (finally!) got the second album out and now we`re just busting our asses off to get into a decent tour. It makes much more sense to get a few good support-slots and to do a long tour than to do a short weekend-things all the time. We`ve just learned that after our previous support slots during The Grand Karoshi album and now we`re just dying to get DSF on the road again!
Hanna Tsepesh: for those who do not know the band, could tell us a little how it all started?
Galzi: Well, there`s only me and Juhani (our guitarist and a songwriter) in the band from the really really original line-up. Seven years and an endless getting nowhere fast-mentality really eats you up I guess! But the thing is, we made a couple of demos before we got the first deal. After the first deal things started to move a bit faster and no matter how you convince yourself in the rehersal room to do whatever it takes to get the band forward, it still surprises you when the time comes to take the time off from your dayjob every once I a while to do the band things more.
Musically, DSF started as a really aggressive thrash riff-machine I guess, though we`ve never thought DSF as a pure thrash band. There`s much more variety in our stuff now than when we started. We`ve got a lot of very positive feedback already how The Disease Of St. Vitus-album sounds so very different than The Grand Karoshi and to be honest it really surprises me! It doesn`t sound that different to us as a band, but I guess we`ve had time to adapt ourselves into it..
That has been our leading thought from the beginning: we want to do as much music as we can under DSF, the only thing is it has to be right to be tight!
Hanna Tsepesh: What are your favorite bands? You have any musician that you admire the most?
Galzi: Everybody in our band are into a totally different stuff..The only mutual stuff is propably our own shit! Me for instance, i`m into a lot of singer-songwriters, very fucking old and heavy stuff from Delta blues to early nineties hip hop..just stanrted a book about Howlin` Wolf. My three latest vinyl-purchases has been Robert Plant, George Clinton and Sick Of It All.
The musician I admire the most right now would be Nick Cave. He`S done a stunning career and still keeps on doin` and altering it every way. Also I got to mention the first finnish doctor of music Aija Puurtinen, she`s actually paying a visit on my acoustic solo next year which is a huge honour!
From the metal field I got to mention a few obvious all-time favorites of the whole band: Dark Tranquillity, The Haunted, Moonspell, Samael and Septic Flesh. Just to name a few.
Hanna Tsepesh: I would like to know if you had or have any guttural technique lessons?
Galzi: Cheeze, don`t know about that, we should get Juhani and his all time guitar licks to be added here but you can check them on Youtube!
Well, actually now that I got my brain over this term guttural, the lesson for vocalists as a short goes like this: Take a singing lessons and listen to the teacher. The when he/she tells you you`re allright to sing in a choir, you know you`re ok with the technic. Then get back to rehersal room and try to cope with that technic when the boys are blasting their Marshalls like a motherfucker. Doesn`t work. That`s when you`re in the beginning of creating your own shit to serve the damn band! Don`t give a fuck! Just give it a fucking go!
Hanna Tsepesh: What was the highest and lowest point of your career as a musician?
Galzi:
Highest: Every time to find out there`s still a band going no matter what bullshit we`ve been through.
Lowest: On a totally black road in the desert of Ukraina with all the cases and a dead cell phone waiting for a bus that never came. It`s a miracle that we`re not still there!
Hanna Tsepesh: Let’s talk about the “The Disease Of St. Vitus” album. This album is amazing! Very energetic album… Can you tell to our readers what they can expect from this album?
Galzi: Thanks! I really appreciate you dig it! We sorta love it ourselves too!
What to expect…it is totally broad experience to what we`ve spent our time on last year.
Like I said earlier on this interview, The disease of St. Vitus is a natural step forward from what we did on The Grand Karoshi. Now that it`s ready and out, it really feels that we couldn`t have done it any different. We`re fucking excited about its variety. Though you`ll recognize DSF on this for sure, I want to believe this`ll give a hit of where we`re going in the future!
If this is the first time fore someone ever to hear DSF, I recommend you`ll check this out first and after that see what we did on our debut. It`s going to be much more interesting to see the difference that way between the albums yet to discover the interfrace.
The lyrical side is being adapted from Finnish to English. The original text was written by a poet called Panu Tuomi and I asked his permission to use the texts on our album and in co-operation with him and one other English professional we translated the poems for me to arrange. The only lyrics not from Panu Tuomi but Friedrich Nietzsche can be found on Idiopolis and Face on the nails.
Hanna Tsepesh: at recording studio, you guys faced with difficulties? If yes, tell which was and how as the whole process?
Galzi: This time in the studio(s) were actually very easy for everybody. Though our bassist just split a few months before the studio, there were no actual problems of any kind. We recorded the drums, guitars and the bass in one place. The guys lived in the studio for a month I guess and did nothing but fucked around when not played their parts which took more time than it would have really needed. The vocals we did later on in the center of Helsinki and wanted to play a little as if it was a real job for me to get in the studio and do nothing else in a week as well..
Hanna Tsepesh: what is your favorite music in this album and why?
Galzi: My personal favorite is a song called Shrouds. It being a totally, even arrogantly different than any other stuff this far plus a guest vocals by a finnish all star director-actor-producer Jussi Parviainen, the song is nothing but a star! Also Cities of the plain is something I wouldn`t wanna have missed!
Hanna Tsepesh: What is your big advice for a young musician?
Galzi: Do not want everything right away, all the time and at any price.
Do something else as well than just be a musician, it`ll broaden you a big time, believe me!
Also leave the arrogance and do not hide when you do/play your music. The coolest dudes are the most openhearted and –minded and not the ones with the most B.C. Riches on their wall!
Hanna Tsepesh: Do you want to send any message for the people who going to read this interview?
Galzi: You red it, you bought it! Meaning, if you feel like checking the St. Vitus or any other album or artist out, do listen a few songs from Spotify or from wherever but after that, buy the actual album! That`s for now the only damn way to support a labels and bands to keep doing what the do.
Hope to see y`all live somewhere, that`s going to be 100% when we do!
Hanna Tsepesh: Thanks o much for your answers and time. I wish the entire band a big success! Hope to see you guys very soon in here…
Galzi: Thanks! And like Mike Muir said: Remember, cool is only three letters away from fool!
Hanna Tsepesh: you are very welcome!
By: Hanna Tsepesh
To listen to some DEAD SHAPE FIGURE music’s and for future information’s go at:
www.myspace.com/deadshapefigure
