Evilforces used to be a one-man band that just added a new member, Dreggen, a former member of Taake, Sworn, Gravdal. Pazuzuh, the main man and force behind the project, enlightened Pest Webzine about the first full-length “Pest Plagues & Evil Storms”, which was released on Xmas day last year and granted the band awesome reviews. Read on…

Only recently did this one-man band add a new member. What’s the main difficulty of being a one-man band?
First of all, thank you and all the people of ‘Pest Webzine’.
Yes, this year, on February the Norwegian guitarist/bassist “Dreggen” (Ex- Taake, Sworn, Gravdal) joined the band as official member.
Well, everything has its benefits and its obstacles. It is difficult to find people who are on your own frequency and fight for the same as you. In music and for a complete band is a challenge nowadays to find members who match in their own interests. 

Why did you feel the need to create this band? What’s your message? Why the name Evilforces?
Music is my passion, old school extreme metal bands are one of my favourite kind of music and I decided to create my own, based in the bands I grew up with when I was a child and teenager. It wasn’t until I had written almost the entire album that I named the project this way and as I said before, due to the influences and mostly of horror movies, that I have had since childhood you know, a mixture of everything that covers the most Bitter feelings. All that stuff was what dragged me to give that name simple and straight.

Describe Evilforces’ sound to the ones that haven’t heard about you before.
Sure! The band shares the taste for horror, evil, dark, mysterious, and cold, speaking in their lyrics about demonic possessions, conjurings and other terrifying concepts.

Who were the bands/musicians that inspired you to create your own band?
I can say that my influence definitely came from the most extreme metal music of the 80’s – 90’s you know, Heavy, Hard Rock, Black, Thrash, Death, etc. There’s a lot of them.

The band released the first full-length “Pest Plagues & Evil Storms” last year. How did the metal community react to it?
Reactions have been very good, better than I thought actually. A lot of reviews all over the world listen to the album and love it, and all of them agree that the first time they hear it, they repeat once or twice and it makes me feel good. I mean, I didn´t expect that, it is hard to describe but it is a very good feeling to see the reactions of the metal community listening to the album over and over again.

Pazuzuh has been responsible for the vocals and all instruments in the album. How complicated was it?
Yes, well, it is not something that I wanted to do all by myself, you know? Being one man band has this situation that a single person has to do the work for 3 or 4 musicians, sometimes we use to be too self-critical and drop over and over ideas in the music and I suppose in every way that has to do with the art and creation. So, as you can see, it is not so simple or quick when you have other responsibilities in your daily life, but the satisfaction you get when an album is done, is priceless. I can say I learned a lot in this process and the next album will probably take a shorter time.

Where was the album recorded and mixed?
Drums were recorded in a Studio of my city (León, Guanajuato, México) called “Kunak Records”, and the other stuff, guitars, bass and vocals was recorded in my house, I also did the mix and the master.

Why are two labels Symbol of Domination and More Hate mentioned for “Pest Plagues & Evil Storms”?
I don’t really know why they use to work in that way, I mean, I receive the offer by the guy of the Satanath Records on November of last year and he told me he would release the album through a sub label called Symbol Of Domination on coproduction with More Hate, is the way they work often with a lot of bands but I don’t really know the reason.

With every listen one can detect more details in the music… how much work was it creating/ composing such intricate and powerful music?
It takes time of course, when you want to achieve a specific sound, a concept and especially your own essence. As you can hear in the album, it is full of details that, as you say, are gradually perceived with every listen. Everything has its moment and this is how I wrote the album, when I felt I had to sit down at that specific time to write a song and get the arrangements, and that's why it took about 3 years to finish the whole album.

Where did you find inspiration to write the lyrics for the tracks in the album?
Horror movies, real possession experiences, the paranormal world and stuff, you know. Also we talk about some Babylonian deities related to the demon Pazuzu which always attracted my attention. There is even a book called “The Maskim Hul” that speaks about all that stuff and I wanted to include those topics a little bit in this album.

The track “Forever in Possession State (Persecuted) lasts 19 minutes and 45 seconds… why make a track so long?
It just came up you know, as I told you before, when I write a song I just sit down, start playing guitar and write ideas that sounds good and powerful to me. Maybe because of the concept of that song which requires depth, intensity, strength you know, and at the end of the song I realized and said “Damn, really? Well, let’s do it” but nothing really in specific about why.

This is Black Metal in its purest and rawest form… what attracts you so much in Black Metal?
Well that is your point of view and also of the BM community and I respect that. I perceive the album not so “Black Metal” as raw and rough as it should be the Real Black Metal. The Old School Black Metal will be forever in the music of Evilforces as one of the influence to create our own sound, but not the only we like.

I’ve read a few reviews in which your vocals and looks were compared to Gaahl’s. What’s your opinion on this?
I usually do not talk about other bands or artists, comparisons are always unpleasant, even more when it came from people who don’t really know to appreciate each band or artist from similar genres but it’s their opinion and should be respected. That’s all.

The album was released on December 25th… Xmas Day… was the date carefully chosen or was it just a coincidence?
Pure Coincidence.

What have you learned from the experience of recording and doing all the work yourself with this debut album?
Everything has its benefits and its obstacles. When you write and record everything for yourself, you have the freedom to do what you want completely, you decide how the songs will be structured, the drums, guitars, voices, and you'll never have a problem because you know what you want and how you want it to sound. It is difficult to find people really, it takes too much time and at some point you are no longer willing to waste it anymore, so you have no choice than do it for yourself.

How do you promote your material live considering that the band only has 2 members?
We are not promoting the project as a live band yet because of that, we are only two members so far, so now Evilforces is only a studio band project.

Have Evilforces been active live lately?
No.

How’s the Mexican metal scene these days? Do bands get along and help each other or do they stab you in the back whenever they can?
I don’t really know too much about the Mexican metal scene these days, if they support each other or else because Evilforces is not active now. I have a lot of friends who have their bands and I like to go to their shows when I can and drink some beers with them.

Black Metal seems to be a quite appreciated genre in Latin America. Do you have any idea why this happens?
There’s a lot of great bands rising all over the world and also a big metal community which keeps black metal alive. Latin America is just one part of it, but we all (the world) appreciate and respect Black Metal. 

Do you have any last words to share with Pest Webzine’s readers?
Thank you and all the people of ‘Pest Webzine’. Stay tuned at the official channels for the news of the first videoclip of Evilforces.

Interview by Sónia Fonseca

November 2017