Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
It starts with two guys who decided it's not enough to go to bars together – we should do it with guitars! It was me and guitarist Max Saklakov. After that we found a drummer - Ruslan Konon. He didn't drink at all at the moment so we started play more seriously. Max left as soon after first demo was released in 2012 and it inflicted injury to the band. Since then lead guitar players were coming  and leaving so finally I took all the duties – vocal, rhythm and solo. To make long story short – the harder we tried to work on our music the more we faced with line-up changes. Our recent loss is bass player Alex Filatov who left in the end of recording seccion of new album “Necroshiva”. Eugene Hablack steped in. After album was finished we found new guitar player Dan Eternal. I believe we are comrades-in-arms and it will be a long and loud raid.  

How would you describe your style? Which bands influenced your music?
Thrash/death metal classics was sent to Sirius but thanks to Voivod somehow it was transported back to Earth distorted and played by ZaRRaZa.

Why should a metalhead buy your demos/albums?
I don't believe in  reasons,  causes and why's. I believe in passion and desire. So... Metalheads shouldn’t do anything at all. They can live with no music at all. But maybe in case you need some music which meaning is like middle finger shown to anyone who oppresses  you - hey, that’s what we are doing from stage and in the studio. Really, one of loudest moments of ZaRRaZa live gigs is the moment when I asked people to show middle fingers and scream “fuck you!”. It is addressed to people who are trying to bring you down telling you what have to do and what you don’t. People who tells you're listening to wrong kind of music, wearing wrong shirts etc. Yeah, that’s right, really that's right – we're wrong! But surprisingly we are alive. So... Fuck you! 

What have you released so far and how were your releases received by the public/media?
We have two demos and one single, respectively: “Bullets and Beliefs” 2012, “Cutting Meat. Fast & Loud” 2013, “Love” 2014. It took time for first demo to be heard among local people and at the same time it helped us to bring attenders to our gigs. Second demo helped to caught attention of metalheads from other cities here in Kazakhstan – it was the release which helped us to start touring. And not only in Kazakhstan – we played in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The latter became a country where we play regularly and found a lot of friends. We brought Kyrgyz bands to our gigs at Almaty and it became good tradition between us.
“Love” single was more a joke – short fast song about drunk criminal lovers. Lyrics was parody to famous pop hit: “If you stop to love me I will die” My thought was: “Why should I die because of it? It's gonna be you, my darling!” Situation of that kind happens in life regularly so this point of view is more realistic. I don't take the song seriously but sometimes people ask to play it live which surprises me.
After that we seemed to have passed through a labyrinth. We recorded demo album in 2015 and then almost disbanded... Then decided to work more harder. Songs from demo were redone - we  butchered few of them and composed new instead of fallen. That's what you hear on recent “Necroshiva” album.

Do you play live as well? How's your live activity so far?
Playing live is our priority and ZARRAZA toured across Central Asia as much as it was possible. Metal music is not popular here but if promoters do  professional job  gigs would become successful. 
It's not easy to find a venue for metal gig. Surprisingly economic crisis in Kazakhstan served us a favor – some clubs opened it's doors for us. Not only as a band but as promoters too. It's obvious - it's better to be filled by few hundreds of metalheads than stay empty waiting for casual passersby millionaire make your budget. Before devaluation striked the metal music was in a deep underground. Venues were full of disco shows etc. But now situation changed a little and it helped us to organize our own gigs by ourselves. We brought bands from different cities and even countries (Austria, Russia, Kyrgyzstan) to Almaty and ready to go further with this.

What should labels/zines/promoters know about your band? Why should they be interested in it?
We're more than a band – we're a wRRong kind of band! Take a moment to look at our activities as a band and you'll see – we don't need you, haha. We don't need you to play gigs and record albums – but we can create some special music infection together. We're band, we're promoters, we're managers and... we're bunch of guys who adore to play live.

What plans do you have for the near future as a band?
We offered to play big pop-rock festival here in Kazakhstan headlined by stars from Russia. Can you imagine hearing blast beats and screams from big stages like that?
Besides that we are planning gigs in different cities in support of “Necroshiva” And we hope to bring this monster beyond Kazakhstan borders and fill as many ears with our music infection as possible. To find ways to play in Europe, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam and China.

Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
https://zarraza.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ZARRAZAOfficial
https://www.facebook.com/ZaRRaZaOfficial/
https://www.instagram.com/Zarraza_Official/

May 2018