Band Interview: Hellfire

Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life are proud to bring you an interview with the Ukrainian band, Hellfire. You can read a review of their latest EP, Goat’s Revenge here.

1. How did you get started as a band?

Hello! I am Necrobaphomet, the bass guitarist of Hellfire. Hellfire was created in late 2014. Me and Karagh (Guitars/Vocals) knew each other for a long time, and previously played in the black metal band Paranomia, but by 2014 this group ceased its activity. For a while we did not do music, but then we decided to create a new band to play exactly what we wanted – a rough old-school black metal with a rock and roll spirit. Unfortunately in our city there are not enough drummers who would like to play such music, but we were lucky that Skullcrusher joined us. Some time in the band there was a second guitarist, but he left us right before the first performance and since then we have been working in trio format, and are quite happy with it.

2. How would you describe your sound?

This is metal! I think our music sounds like old school metal. In any case, I’m a big fan of the old German thrash metal and early black metal, so the trio format suits us best. The distorted sound of my bass is also inspired by the legendary sound of bands like Motorhead or Manowar. Of course, we are all big fans of metal in various genres, and this is reflected in the sound of our band.

3. What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?

I think these are the bands from which we started our acquaintance with the world of extreme metal, this is Death, Slayer, Darkthrone, Sodom, Destruction, Immortal, Behemoth and especially Carpathian Forest – we tried to incorporate their rock and roll spirit of black metal into our music. Of course all the music we listen to, from hard rock to brutal death and grindcore, somehow influenced us as musicians.

4. Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?

YouTube, music streaming and especially social networks have very much helped us in promoting the band. When we made our first record, we did not even dream to publish it on the label, all we wanted was to put our music on the Internet so that it was available to listeners and see the reaction to our creativity. But thanks to the social network (Facebook) Igor Ignatczyk noticed us, and helped us to publish our Goat Revenge (EP) on Witches Brew label and on Iron County Records on cassettes.. We are very grateful to Igor for this help. In general, I believe that the Internet offers great new opportunities for the musician. I hope in soon to make an online broadcast of the performances of our group on Facebook.

5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?

Unlike the nasty malicious scenic images, in normal life we are quite normal people. In his spare time from music, Karagh builds his private house and brings up two kids. Skullcrusher is a racing driver and takes part in sports races. As for me, in my spare time I like cycling, reading books and repairing my old Volkswagen in the garage.

6. What are your future plans musically? Tours?

Right now we are busy writing new songs for our upcoming album. I hope we will make it this year. Also, of course, there will be live performances. This summer in Ukraine there will be 3 or 4 metal fests and maybe we will perform on some of them. I have long wanted to make a video clip for one of our songs and I hope that soon we will be able to do this.

You can pick up the EP now over on Bandcamp. Make sure you pop over to Facebook where you can learn more about the band.