Entrevista a Franco Olivera en 2000 por Gate Of Horror Zine

Ladies and gentlemen, one of my favorite bands... ELEKTRASH, here's my friend Franco answering my questions...

Your new album ¨Recycled Noise¨ is just excellent, tell us if there's a label interested in licensed it.

Recycled Noise was released in August 2000, we really start to send demos in the beginning of this year, some possibilities exist in Europe but we are waiting answers, for now we will continue sending demos.

Yeah, it’s very hard to take out an album in country where doesn’t exist labels, then do you think that people from Europe would be more interested in your music?

You're right, anyone knows the difficulties to take out an album in this country, I think that the possibilities are many in other places, we have received a lot of mails from Europa and our music is diffused by metalradios in Italy, France and Poland.

Can you explain us the structure of this new album?

Ok, this new CD has 10 tracks: Mind, Idiosyncrasy, Cryo, System, Célula madre, Morphine, Unknown God, Ozone, In every dark place, New plague.

The cover art is too related with the songs of the album, who was in charge of this work?

The cover was ready before finishing the recording, and was in charge of Katia Olivera (also she created the coverart of Filosofía del Caos) and Neto Bohorquez, (he recorded some tracks of guitar in Recycled Noise, also recorded vocals in filosofia del Caos), I was in charge of the diagram and the edition.

How many hours of mixing work does it have? I think the mixing work makes the difference with other Peruvian bands?

The recording delayed seven months, two months for recording, but most of the time we work a lot in edition track by track, for the recording of each instrument, we try to achieve a contemporary sound, according to the concept of the CD. The last two weeks we were mixing and mastering the songs, it was really a hard work.

Your first work ¨Excusa para Morir¨ had a big promotion, but what happened with your second effort ¨Filosofia del Caos¨?

"Filosofía del Caos" was the work where we put our strange ideas, each one from us contributed ideas trying to leave the concept of the previous CD, when FDC was ready we still gave preference to Excusa para morir and we considered to "Filosofía del Caos" an experimental CD.

What do you mean with ¨strange ideas¨?

Between 1994 - 1997, we composed songs influenced by Slayer and Kreator, but each one from us had a different influence, then in Filosofía del Caos the convergence of these ideas began, we incorporate keyboards, tribal percussion, external sounds, different mixes for each track, etc..for example the song Filosofia del Caos is a mixture between the New Age music, metal and other influences.

You haven't done live shows for the promotion of this new album, any reason for this...

The reason is simple, since one year ago the band crosses problems of stability, and we don't have an agreement for promote this new CD.

But these problems of stability don't mean a possible line-up change...

I don't think so, we hope to reach an agreement on everything related with Elektrash.

Tell us about the lyric concept, do you think that this is better than previous albums?

Well, the lyrics have changed a little, some talk about massacres covered by culture, the pain, the future, the new human being, etc..About the previous albums, I think that each one expound a different idea.

Which is your opinion about the genetic manipulation?

This is a deep topic, but I have an idea about this, I think that it is necessary really, unless let us stop and let us live like 2000 years ago, and this happens because the humanity doesn't have toward where to go, talking in natural way, the human being is dedicated and adapted to different things, these things go faster that our normal evolution and this makes that with our organism and other life forms be insufficient for the new changes.

So you aren't against clonation....

Of course not, the clonation is something that for now is not accepted, but like happened before, the retrograde ideas about this will be extinguished.

Tell me the truth, do you like those band considered Metal ones like Korn?

Korn is a band that I have listened and it has not bothered me to listen, it is interesting the musical projection that they have, I don't mind if the people consider it metal or not, this is bullshit, I stopped to discriminate and to label to the bands a long time ago.

Do the members have side projects?

Well, Alejandro played in a band called Dominium during the year 2000, at the present time he has a project named Akros, Darío plays in Ancestro, this is a band that he has been playing since 1994.

Which are the future plans of the band?

At the end of May we will release a new CD/EP named ANEMONE, this CD includes 4 new songs, 4 tracks recorded in live and the first version of 'Mind', in the next months the band will be in inactivity and we don't really know until when.

Is this new Ep Anemone like the second part of Recycled Noise?

The new songs from Anemone are different from Recycled Noise, I'd say that it is a CD that somehow compiles the last four years of the band and the different styles that were created between the previous albums, plus songs recorded in live.

Thanx Franco for your time, do you want to add anything for the readers of Gate of Horror...

Just, stay heavy metalfreaks! and thanks Paul for the interview.

GATE OF HORROR   (Nº 4 - Mayo 2001)