Ukrainian groove metallers Jinjer have just released their new album King Of Everything. We had a chat with bassist Eugene Kostyuk to hear all about the album, the bands history and some crazy things that have happened to the band on the road.
Could you give us a brief history of Jinjer?
Well, it all began in 2009/2008. The problem is that none of us was in that Jinjer at the very beginning of it. Tatiana joined the band in 2010, the same time Roman came. I joined in the summer of 2011. Since then we have released three albums, two of them were out on a small Greek label – the Leaders Rec in 2013 and 2014. All that time we spent on neverending tours around the EU and Eastern Europe. We just had to come back home, because in 2014 the war broke out in our homelands – Donbass, the East of Ukraine. After dozens of festivals, really cool performances, we started thinking of making our third album in the later summer of 2015. Thus we made a video for the Sit Stay Roll Over song, and after two weeks Tomas from Napalm contacted me and offered us a contract. And here we are!
Who are some of the bands influences?
Wow, there are dozens, hundreds. Starting from true oldschool metal stuff like Slayer, Pantera, early Metallica, later on through Death, Cannibal Corpse, Opeth, Cynic, Atheist, Meshuggah and Rage Against the Machine to more modern bands like Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage, Divine Heresy, Periphery, Mudvayne, P.O.D, Karnivool and Twelve Foot Ninja. Moreover we have always been open to other genres, being big fans of Rap and Hip-Hop, Jazz, Funk. Tatiana is a huge huge fan of Ella Fitzgerald and Amy Winehouse, Alecia Moore.
How would you describe the bands music to someone who had never heard you before?
The thing is that our music has been changing on all records. On King Of Everything it is mostly extreme progressive metal with strong groove metal influences, hardcore and death metal.
What is the heavy music scene like in your home country of Ukraine?
Our scene is still amateur, though we do have a few super cool bands, every time we give an interview, we try give them a bit of promo. So, once you have time check out Zlam, Megamass, Space of Variations and JonCofy, they won’t disappoint you. Apart from this there are a couple of massive festivals, worth coming here and playing. You might have up to several thousand people under the stage there.
You have a new drummer in Vladislav Ulasevich, how is the new lineup working out?
I am and we are all absolutely delighted. To be honest we haven’t had such a solid line-up, such a vibe since we lost Eugene Mantulin in that terrible tragedy, in the autumn of 2014 our then drummer, Eugene, fell out of the third floor and broke his spine. Dmitriy, who came to substitute Eugene, unfortunately didn’t manage to fill that spiritual void we had. He is an ok drummer, but to tell you the truth, he wasn’t able to become a real member of the band for two years with us. And I am sure he felt it too. We give Dimitriy a credit for all his efforts and professionalism, but when Vlad joined us two months ago – it was like a blast! I am not even saying that we sound now twice more powerful, it’s obvious! We are again a crew, strong as a hard-tempered chain. And the atmosphere in the band is just awesome
Your new album King Of Everything is out now, can you tell us a bit about it?
It’s a new level for us in all the meanings! A huge step forward in songwriting, the ideas and issues covered in the songs and intensively sincere, expressing all our inner side and especially Tatiana’s, technically it is way more complicated, but not over-complicated, well-balanced I would say, the sound is just awesome and for the first time we are so much satisfied with it, of course due to Napalm Records it has reached all around the world, it is our first real worldwide release and the promo goes very well.
What has the reaction to the album been like so far?
The media has almost gone crazy! I was just stunned with quotes like “A modern version of Pantera” “Jinjer f***ing slay ” and so on. It all comes from well respected magazines like Metal Hammer for example. Of course there are some haters, but after reading one or two only existing negative reviews, I realized that those pals just didn’t get the point.
Was there any reason why you chose the albums title?
The album is conceptual. All songs are devoted to dependencies we have in our life, so-called kings, thus everyone of us has their King Of Everything.
Is there any significance to the cover artwork for King Of Everything?
Yeah, the throne represents that king and the dead mouse means we are able to kill them and get rid of them, they are not stronger than a mouse
How did the recording of the album go?
During the winter of 2015-2016 we composed all the songs and did the pre-production in Lvow, our country house where we used to live in 2014 and 2015. Then we packed and moved to Kiev in order to devote ourselves to the recording process at Morton Studio. The recording itself took about two weeks, then a month on mixing and mastering. It was definitely the smoothest recording process I have ever had. Also I must admit that Max, our soundengineer from Morton studio, did an incredible job also as a sound producer of this album.
What are some of the songs on King Of Everything about?
There are different songs, some of them are very private, like Pisces which is a sort of self-confession, actually it speaks about struggling with kings and ghost of the past, accepting and struggling with your own nature. I Speak Astronomy is another piece of very intimate lyrics by Tatiana, it is a song about love, searching for it, but it is covered with a thick Sci-Fi plot. Also we have songs like Sit Stay Roll Over talking about social-political shit happing in our country and the whole of the world, ideology burning people’s minds. Under The Dome is 100% anti-religious song, very up-to-date considering the festival in Georgia with Jinjer which was canceled by priests and recent mess about Dark Funeral in Romania at the festival where we performed too.
There is a lot of melody on the album that balances out the heaviness on the album (a song like Pisces for example). Was this something you wanted to put across in the Jinjer sound?
Exactly! We wanted to do something different from our previous record. Moreover we wanted to broaden our limits, break them at all. We didn’t intend to make the album sound easy and lighter. But we wanted to make it way more diverse, musical and progressive, saving the extreme side, I think we succeeded.
Do you feel that this is the best Jinjer album yet?
Definitely! The evolution of our musicianship and its top point at the moment.
You have done a video for the song I Speak Astronomy, can you tell us a bit about it?
The video, it was fully directed and filmed by our old friend Ingwar Dovgoteles. And he did a really cool job. Everything you see in the video is his intention and creativity. And what is more important it just perfectly fits the song!
Will you be touring in support of the album?
Of course, in September/October we will set off on a tour around Germany (including our performance at EuroBlast festival), Poland, Spain, Italy, France, Austria and Switzerland, the dates are already announced. We are working hard on the promo for this tour now. Later on we will have a gig in Israel in early November, and then we are planning to make several shows in Romania and maybe some other Eastern European countries. And of course we gonna tour in 2017 non-stop
Will you be making it over to the UK?
It depends first of all on visas. And it’s rather complicated. But we will do our best, I think in 2017 we will come to the UK definitely
How would you describe the Jinjer live experience?
Oh, since February 2013 we have played more than 220 shows. All around Europe expect Spain and Scandinavia, but we would love to hit those areas in the nearest future. We haven’t played in the UK and the USA yet, but it is our priority now to break though to you! If you want to know what a Jinjer show is, it’s a blast of sincere emotions bursting our from the stage!
What song do you enjoy playing live the most?
Difficult to say, all new songs from King Of Everything, each in its own way
What is the craziest thing that has happened at a Jinjer show?
Over all those hundreds of shows we played it’s hard to remember something in particular, different things happened – like enormous moshpits at festivals, people doing stage diving from 4 metres height, fights in the crowd with them police and ambulances coming, children bringing flowers to Tatiana right on stage!
You recently supported Trivium in Hungary, If you could play with any other bands, who would you choose?
Yep, Trivium in Budapest, DevilDriver in Graz, last year Kreator in Ukraine, and Caliban supported us in Czech in July, hahaha. There are a few bands we would really really love to play with – Gojira, Lamb Of God and Opeth are top 3!
What has been the best gig that you have ever played?
The first which comes into my mind is our gig in Budapest, Durer Kert club last May , a sold out show which was like a hell on the Earth!
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