Hello! Please introduce MeinKraft to our readers.
Hello! We are a cardboard trio MeinKraft and we play grind, or more accurately meme grind, based on the focus of many of our songs. Musically, we try to find new and original ways by combining different styles, using samples in the background and most importantly by our "cardboard box" image and live performance.
Apart from memes, we find inspiration in catchphrases from TV shows or movies or in our own private inside jokes.
Can you tell us more about your debut album This Side Up?
Since it's our first big release, it's a cross-section of our work from the first 4 years of our existence.
So, you can see the musical evolution and development of this band.
Quite a lot of people from several countries in Europe worked on it, both in the recording itself and in the mixing and the artwork. We tried to fine-tune everything down to the last detail and we are very happy with the result! We hope that most listeners will share the same opinion. We've had great feedback so far.
How can one manage living and surviving in the Zlín Region today in a musician’s environment? Are there strong metal scenes, or are they mere efforts to start them?
There are certainly a lot of great bands and music projects in our area, but unfortunately only a few are more well known to the general public.
Zlín has always been a city where the metal community used to meet in large numbers, especially in the past. Nowadays, unfortunately, there is a big problem that makes it difficult for both the new and more established bands to present themselves. There is a complete lack of music clubs or other venues for bands to play. Almost a decade ago the legendary Golem club was closed and last year our very popular home club called Bamboo was demolished. That was a big blow and we were very unhappy.
However, we are now delighted to have found a new haven in our friend's bar Do Schodů, so we have our new home club!
POV: Why is grindcore such a common element in the Czech musical environment?
It's a genre that is all about having fun, wit and the necessary level of insanity. It is typical for our nation to make fun of everything, we like classic black humour, and we like to have fun.
Grindcore offers a variety of ways to embrace this style. It is less bound by certain rules and stereotypes, which has proved to be an advantage. In our case, we have hopefully found a new and original way.
When did you start writing music and who were your early passions and influences?
We started writing our own music together in our first band, where we were in the same line-up for a while, about ten years ago. That band later broke up and then MeinKraft was formed. In the meantime, each of us has also played in other bands of different genres.
We are all different in terms of our favourite bands or genres. In the beginning we were influenced by a lot of different bands, from classic heavy metal or nu-metal to black metal or death metal, djent and grind, so we could name dozens of bands for sure.
Of course, local legends Spasm and Gutalax have inspired us to start a grind band, too.
What are your main impulses for writing metal music?
There has to be an inspiration and desire strong enough to start creating, to put your idea into music.
What do you personally consider to be the most significant moments and pieces in your musical work?
Definitely our song (and the "very second" music video for it) “Telefonní kabel” (Telephone Cable) has pushed us a lot. It obviously caught the attention and started to spread successfully. Since then, our fan base has expanded beyond our friends and acquaintances.
The same thing has happened with our latest video “DxFxQ” from this summer, which already showcases the great sound of our debut album This Side Up.
When it comes to being a musician, what are your criteria for quality? What are your main challenges and ambitions as a musician?
Everyone may perceive this a little differently. Quality can be judged from many perspectives, and I don't think it's possible to objectively judge yourself. Musicians as individuals have to be able to cooperate and work well together as a band, both when it comes to musical abilities and personalities. You can tell if it's working after a while when you realise - yes, that's it! That's exactly what happened with MeinKraft.
Our biggest ambition and challenge is to take the band as far as possible and to keep it at the highest level. For example, we would like to make it to well known Czech festivals like Obscene Extreme or Brutal Assault.
What do you usually start with when working on a new song or lyrics?
My favourite way is composing together in the rehearsal room, when one of us comes up with a specific idea and we develop it together. Our bass player (Box #2 - Saša) likes to compose alone at home, where he records very good demos with all the instruments, which he then sends to us and then we finish a song together.
When it comes to lyrics, it is not that difficult to create them for of a grind band :D The debut album contains a whopping half a page of text in total! It is, of course, very enriched with typical animal sounds. You can read them all on our profile on Bandzone.cz!
Please tell us a bit about the selection process for deciding what to write about. What sources do you draw from for research purposes, and how much time do you generally spend on research and gathering material?
In our band, the main focus is the core idea or theme of the song, and we build on that. If we discover a movie catchphrase, a joke or if something happens in our lives that we have a lot of fun with, the impulse comes to make it to music. Then it usually goes very quickly, and a new song is born. Although our songs may not make any sense on first hearing, they are actually full of all sorts of allusions and easter eggs.
As more and more people produce and release music, there has been an exponential growth in promotion agencies. What's your perspective on the promotional system? To what extent do you feel it possibly undermines musical freedom?
I think it's difficult to break through these days without the help of a promotion agency, but it’s not impossible. Moreover, proper promotion usually costs a lot of money. Underground genres are of course more difficult to promote than the mainstream ones, so for the time being we promote ourselves – posting QR codes at bus stops and toilets proved to be effective and has gotten us a lot of views on YouTube!
I don't think grind as a genre can be tied down too much - the moment its musical freedom is undermined, it ceases to fulfil the essence of the genre, and therefore ceases to be grind.
The metal scene has changed considerably over the past century. What, in your opinion, could or should be new forms and formats for music? Should we preserve the old-school spirit or move forward together with musical "evolution" (or "degradation")?
I personally (Box #1 - Tom) am a big fan of classic physical music formats and old school music! I collect music on all available physical media, which also includes MC tapes. Unlike my bandmates, I'm not much of a fan of digital music platforms like Spotify and such, at most I occasionally listen to music on YouTube or Bandcamp.
I would be very happy if the return of vinyl, MC tapes and CDs continues and the option to purchase physical formats never goes away! In my opinion, releasing music has little meaning without physical copies. However, there are undeniable advantages of the current music distribution options, so I'm certainly not dismissing digital platforms entirely.
Music-sharing sites, blogs, and a flood of releases in general are said to be killing music. What's your view on this topic?
The number of websites, blogs and other platforms certainly simplified the possibilities of promotion for bands. As there are plenty of excellent ones that write about smaller or unknown bands, it's great news for us! The flood of releases is certainly many times greater than it was ever before thanks to very easy ways of sharing. Almost anyone can record an album at home. But it's certainly not a bad thing. Anyone can find an almost unlimited amount of songs and find whatever they like.
Please recommend two bands to our readers that you feel deserve their attention.
This is going to be tough. Therefore, we would like to recommend some of our friends' bands. For example, the up-and-coming thrash metal youngsters Affected or the very crazy Severed1! They are one of the Czech pioneers of Hawaiian metal. :D
We played together at many events and both bands always had a great response from the audience.
What are your plans for the near future? Thank you and see you next time!
We are definitely preparing a lot of new songs and we are also planning more music videos. We hope for more gigs, too. We would like to play at bigger festivals and we hope that we can arrange our very first tour abroad in neighbouring countries. So maybe in Germany, too!
Thanks for the great questions, we're honoured to give you our first big interview.