Hail my old friend, Eugene! You are very welcome to my humble metal blog, Archangel’s Lantern! First of all, tell the readers, how and when you started to enjoy metal music and the scene. Which one(s) was/were your first musical stuff (tape/CD/vinyl)?
- Greetings to you, Georgius, and to all readers of the Archangel’s Lantern! As a child I was a big fan of The Beatles and Kiss (I’m still now). At home I always listened to the classics of hard- and progressive rock. By 2001, when I was 9 years old, my dad’s friend recorded a cassette with several tracks from “...AJFO” Metallica ‘88 on one side and “Vulgar Display of Power”, Pantera ‘92 respectively on the other. This music amazed me and IMAO it is still the standard of heavy guitar sound! A little bit later, I bought these CDs, listened to them to holes, and as I got older, I discovered other classic Heavy, Speed, Thrash, Death metal and Grindcore bands. In 2004, I attended the first heavy concert in my life, in Uzhhorod – the second Death Metal Assault festival, organized by the notorious Castrum guitarist Kornel Kontros (and part-time Hulla guitarist these days). Then the aforementioned Castrum set the heat (to which you seem to have some relation, right? Joking 😊 Globalized Abstruse, Mental Demise, and, for the first time in our town, a foreign extreme band Parricide from Poland. It was the first time in my life I encountered such a genre as brutal Death-Grind live and life was never the same again!
When did you start play the drums? What was/were your first bands? Which musicians/bands influenced you back in the days? What are your favourite drummers nowadays? Beside the drums you play the other instruments?
- At the age of 9, my parents sent me to a music school to study classical guitar and piano, but since I was familiar with heavy music by that time, I also started to get very attracted to drums. I have a musical family, my dad is a guitarist, but he also plays drums a bit, so he showed me a couple of basic drum beats. Little by little I started trying to shoot the drum parts of Kiss, AC/DC, Metallica and everything that I was listening at home. I also tried playing their riffs on the guitar. In the summer of 2004, I already rehearsed with a local power metal band, but I never performed live with them. At the end of 2005, I met Kornel, and the next year, I already gave my first heavy concert and a two-week tour around Ukraine as a session drummer for Castrum. The dream came true!
I was influenced by a large number of musicians of different styles, not only drummers, but also guitarists, bassists, and how the chemistry develops between them; classical music and, to some extent, musical education, I guess. In extreme music, of course, Ulrich, Lombardo, Benante, Vinnie Paul, Scott Travis, Nicko McBrain, Bill Andrews, Gene Hoglan (all Death drummers are great!), Pete Sandoval, Nick Barker, drummer of Mental Demise Yevhen Shikarevskiy, Doni from Castrum… I can’t remember them all now. From alternative – David Silveria, John Otto… and also Peter Criss, Ian Paice, John Bonham… can’t count everyone. But as I said before, I was always more attracted about how drummers “coexist” with other musicians in a song and how it all works in a band.
You can hear me playing guitar in the Grindcore project Degradatus and in crust-punk band Displease on bass, backing vox, etc.
Let’s talk about your Goregrind horde namely Hulla. Who came up with the idea to use a Hungarian name for the band? What should we know about the beginnings of Hulla?
- Nowadays it’s hard to come up with some original name for the band, especially in the style of Goregrind 😊. So I decided to dig a little into other languages. This is symbolic, because in some way we continue the work of the legendary Liverpool four (this is not about The Beatles, ha-ha).
After more than a 10-year break due to my absence from Uzhhorod, I decided to “shake the old days”. I had some riffs and contacted Kornel (besides Castrum we also played with him in the Goregrind formation called Vulvulator in the late 2000s…) and in February-March 2021 we started rehearsing this stuff. A little later, Robik, my sidekick friend, who also once played guitar in Vulvulator and grunted in another Groovegrind formation ЙYЙ, was invited to sing. In summer of the same year, we played our debut gig in the Uzhhorod Amphitheater as a trio, and a little later the line-up was replenished with bassist Valera aka “Headless”, also a very good guy and musician.
Hulla released an EP “Supermassive Black Wound” in July, 2021 and in our private conversation you told me the story behind the cover. Share with the readers all the important information of that EP.
- We decided not to shelve the matter and quickly bungled this 5-track EP. I recorded drums, some guitars (in half with Kornel) and bass. Then we gathered at Robik’s house and all little by little contributed to the vocal disgrace 😊. Tracking of the material went well and fun, but we had some issues with mastering. (UPD: Alex, who mixed "The Recovery", has already made a new killer remaster, so it will be released on cassettes very soon by GorySound Productions! Check it out!)
(Hulla - "Supermassive Black Wound" EP (2023 Remaster)
In the end of May, 2022 you released another EP “The Recovery” and the line-up of Hulla completed with a bass player, Valery. How went the recording-process? What are the responses from underground media and fans so far?
- This time we took a more serious approach to production. Everyone recorded their own parts. We recorded drums and bass back in December 2021, then Kori recorded guitars in January-February, but at the end of February, as we all know, this fucking war began and we, like many others, fell into a complete slump for several months. Toward mid-April, Robik and I decided that we need to finish what we started and recorded his vocals. This time the mixing and mastering was handled by an experienced guy from Paris, Alex Sedin (Ghostalgy Productions) and we were pleased with the result!
Thanks to Grindwar Channel and Gore Grinder we got some promo and mostly good reviews for the release on YouTube. I also want to mention our good-old friend Valentin (Rotova Porojnina Records) from Kyiv, who released “The Recovery” on cassettes and to express our gratitude to him for this. In addition, Kornel has also released both EPs on his GorySound Productions, also on cassettes, with feature-rich design. Anyone interested, please contact us!
Hulla - "The Recovery" EP (2022)
Unfortunately I had no chance to see you live in our hometown yet but I hope it would be happened very soon. Where did you play concerts beside Uzhhorod/Ungvár? Your experiences?
- I also really hope that we will be able to do at least a small gig, because it’s good to have releases, but we are a live band and are best perceived live, especially Robik (vocals), hehe. We managed to play only a few shows, in addition to our hometown, two concerts in Kyiv (at festivals like Threshout and Grind Zajebis’ Party) and one in Lviv (Grind Noise Assault by Antenna crew). Those were great gigs!
You are a very talented musician and it was a pleasure to play with you Castrum’s “Gilles de Rais” on the XXth anniversary show in 2014. How do you remember the time when you played live with Castrum in 2006? What are your favourite Castrum tracks from their LPs?
- Thank you, Georgius, for the kind words! I was also very pleased to work with you, this is one of my favorite tracks, and in general, I really love “Pleasure…”, there is some special atmosphere on it, when I listen to it, I am transferred at the same time to Uzhhorod 1996, and to the Middle Ages! This release deserves a separate discussion; it stands a little apart from the rest of the releases. When we were kids we watched that video a million times. As for the rest of Castrum’s stuff, personally for me all the songs are hits, because the first death metal bands that I heard were Deicide, Death and Castrum! CDs from 2001 and 2002… The first track I heard was “Hatenourisher” and it blew my head off. What else? “Brand”, “The Gate…”, “Sinister Omens”, “Suffocating Thugs”… classics. “Phenomenonsense” was a little confusing for me at first, but it doesn’t come in from the first listening, you need to listen to it several times and experience it! It’s a slightly different Castrum, I think. Now I listen to it with pleasure and every time new things and parts open up to me. By the way, a couple of years ago I realized that apart from the early cassettes I didn’t have a single CD available and I decided to correct this situation. It’s funny that no one in Uzhhorod had them for sale, but I’m glad I found them in the online store in the collections of fans from different parts of Ukraine! So now I have everything in stock, hehehe!
About my first-ever gig, it was cool, although I was wildly worried then and, I have to admit, I played shitty then, hehe! Especially when I found out that Werkoff was in the hall, haha! And people where shouted “Where is Doni?? Bring him back!”. I did not disrupt the performance, and that’s good!
(Cornelius of Castrum, Eugene Stapler and me, September, 2014-G/)
You were involved and still are in different bands, projects. Enlighten us your past and current activity in these ones.
- As we have mentioned before, it’s Сastrum (death metal, 2006), Vulvulator (goregrind, 2006-2009), Skruta (2010-2011, grindcore), Rise of Cadia (2008-2011, deathcore), The Symbioz, Displease (2009-2013, hc punk, d-beat, also as a bass player), Rock-H (2009, folk hard rock), Battle Axe Culture (post-punk/indie, 2016-2018), ЙYЙ (groovegrind, from 2015), Degradatus (grindcore, 2020-2021) and many other bands. I also play in various academic musical bands and orchestras as a drummer and percussionist, this is my job.
Do you have any special hobbies besides playing the drums/music? What are your favorite albums, books and movies?
- Nothing special, mostly music related. Favorite books – biographies of favorite bands and musicians, biopics and documentaries.
(Eugene Stapler, Cornelius, Eugene Ryabchenko and me, July, 2021-G/)
You lived in Vietnam for a while. Would you be so kind to tell us more about these years?
- I lived in Vietnam for over a year, my job was to play with a band in an amusement park for 3 hours a day. Very cool job, a lot of free time. What can I say? Sun, sea, great food, scooter rides, loyal locals, low prices relative to our average salary… I really enjoyed, but because of the fucking pandemic, everything was shut down and I returned home.
Hulla - "Fatal Hobby"
Thanks a lot for the interview my friend, wishing you all the best in your musician activity and your private life as well. To complete the interview, send some thoughts in the end.
- Thank you again, Georgius, and the readers! I wish all of us peace, love and many great releases and concerts!
