Can you give our readers a brief introduction to the band?
We are a hard electronic project formed in Bulgaria, by Bulgarians, but our influences and goals are far from here. The project begins and will probably end with Simon, as the programmer and vocal.
How is the electronic scene in Bulgaria, hardly any bands are known in western Europe?
We are a very few projects, but most of us do not have the financial and foreign support to leave Bulgaria or get good promotion. The scene is very small, but bands like Shemale ZERO and Fault are always there to keep us accompanied when we do shows. Shemale ZERO, I might add, is a bigger and older project than us.
Can you explain the name Animassacre, it seems to be a combination of two words, anime and massacre?
Animassacre is a wordplay meaning a few things in different languages, but in English it is mostly about Anime and Massacre, yes. If you read it in Latin (Anima Sacre) or Japanese (Ani Masaka) it means totally different things and that’s the fun about it – You can see it however you like.
Did you know about the latin and Japanese before you started using the name or did you find out later?
We came up with it with a few other friends who have studied a lot of languages. It wasn’t a big deal, we just came up with the combination of Anima and massacre as in “a slaughter of souls”, which is the main idea – Humanity and it’s self-destructing soul.
Anime and horror are two big inspiration sources for Animassacre, in what way?
Horror and anime are things we are mainly inspired of. Cyberpunk, or anime where technology and politics are the main issue, is a theme we love to sing about. However, we don’t stick to only one genre, this would be boring not only for the fans, but for us too. However, you might say Japan is a main source of inspiration for this project.
Evangelion. There is nothing more to say. This is the series and the final movie “End Of Evangelion” that actually shaped the person who I am.
What makes Evangelion so good and in what way did it have an influence on you as a person?
Neon Genesis Evangelion is the anime that forged me. I was 12 when I first saw it. It was too early for me to watch such a heavy thing, but I did anyway. When I was 16, I saw the movie End of Eva. That changed my perspective of the world. I do not literally believe in what the movie shows, but it is a perfect explanation of life and god. You might say it answers all the questions you can ever ask. It’s like a Bible, but more modern. J Plus, it’s brutal and full of chicks. The movie starts with a 16 year old boy masturbating over the bed of his dying love and then realizing how fucked up he is... If that doesn’t show human nature, I don’t know what does.
What is the current line up for Animassacre?
Simon as a vocal/programmer and Diana at the samplers and live keyboard.
Does Diana also play a role in composing tracks or does she just play live keyboards, how did you get in contact and how did you convince her to join you?
Diana helps with the sampling sometimes. I always take her opinion when programming. We got in contact through anime tastes, later on found out we both like industrial music and finally became a couple.
Dean left the band last august, why was this and was it hard for you to take over the vocals?
Dean is a very good man and he is still a good friend, but during August, he neglected his duties as a band member and missed a show and a few rehearsals. I am not a person that makes a lot of compromise – I forgive very hard, if someone fucks me up, he should leave me alone forever.
How would you describe the music?
Industrial Hardcore. This is the genre. However, I like to call Animassacre’s music Animecore. I feel this is a nice genre to put it in since there are a lot of electro artists that take samples from animes – Animecore sounds cool to me, haha!
In the beginning there were a lot more gabber influences, these days they are gone for a big part and be replaced by ebm/tbm, why is this?
At certain point in time, we wanted to concentrate on vocals, gabber doesn’t really allow the vocals to sound up when it’s kicking. However, gabber is what makes our music sound unique from the typical minimal dark-electro. I like diverse and rich of styles music. This is also something that is inspired from Japan – Their music always ends up a mixture between many bipolar genres.
Do you think your hybrid style makes things hard for you or does it give you a possibility to stand out compared to other bands (it can be to ebm for gabbers and to gabber for ebm crowd)
I don’t really care what the gothic elitists or the hardcore purists think. It’s not my problem they cannot accept a mixture of genres. After all, industrial starts to get rather dull anyway. There is no easy way around it – If you are not open-minded, you won’t like Animassacre.
You just released your debut album on Rupal Records, how did you get in contact with them and what are the first responses on the album?
I got in contact with Rupal after making a remix for my buddy Sonic Violence Experience. The remix was featured in “Violence Nation”and Kai (Wynardtage) liked it and so we got in contact. About the first responses to our debut – They were surprisingly positive. My personal opinion about it is that the music is old and when it actually got released (a month ago), Animassacre had already made 20 new songs!
Yes, I was really annoyed by those delays. I am not positive why they really happened, but it was definitely not my decision. Rupal told me that they wanted “powerful releases for 2008”. I don’t really have the last saying there... Next album will definitely be much faster to launch and it is already en route.
There will be a single release as well in 2008 called Mecha Tremors, what can we expect from this, has your sound evolved and in what way?
The sound is even more hybrid now. I think this is what I wanted, more industrial mixed up with hard drums and harsh sounds. No matter what we do, we try to surprise the audience, which is sometimes bad, because we noticed something – Gothic audience never dances to music that they never heard before.
Recently you won the Aesthetic Perfection remix contest and the track will be featured on the new Aesthetic Perfection album, what did you do with the track that makes it so good?
I added the magic flavour. It’s called Love. Bwahaha. Well, a friend showed me the AP blog and told me to do it. So I did, but I never thought we’d win... I programmed the track using only the original vocals, added a few main synths, one of them is even a VanGuard preset, just to make it sound more familiar and the rest is just idea after an idea... You will hear it out. ;)
Who would you love to see remixing Animassacre?
My lord and sovereign is Combichrist. This is the only industrial that I love listening to. Sometimes people forget that the main thing about his music is the music itself. The humorously aggro lyrics of his are so ANIME, I love Andy! I think it will be very nice if Johan Van Roy (Suicide Commando) notices us too one day.
What can we expect in the near future?
A remix album, a second album and probably some live shows in Germany.
Any last words for the readers?
Keep your music hard everyone. I find it the only way we can beat violence and brain-dead hate. Whenever I want to smash someone’s skull or break someone’s arms with a bat, I play some real hard music and take all the energy on the dance floor. It helps... sometimes... ^^