Good day! How are you guys doing these days?
Hi! Thank you very much for the interview! We feel great, just played a show last weekend here in Las Vegas opening for Belphegor, Arkona and Vale of Pnath/
First of all, please introduce Ancestor of Kaos and band members to our readers.
We are a 4 Cubans living in the U.S playing in a Black Metal band. Jorge is on vocals, Luis on bass, Alcides on drums and myself Joel on guitar.
I would like to know about the formation of the band. How did you guys meet and all? Also, is there any special story behind the band title?
The band was formed in Havana Cuba in 2005 under the name Ancestor, we recorded 2 albums there and moved to the U.S in 2013 playing a lot of shows around Florida until 2015 when we went on hiatus and in 2020 we came back under the name Ancestor of Kaos which we changed due to many other bands using our old moniker and we have released another 2 albums so 4 in total.
I expect a long reply for this one. Can you please tell us about the concept and lyrical themes of all your previous releases?
In the beginning I was in my 20s and wrote must of the lyrics just like any other BM band those were about religion and also about history and some of their most controversial characters like Vlad the Impaler or the Marquis of Sade then for our second album we went more rock n roll singing about our experiences with drugs, alcohol and destruction. Now I’m 41 years old and I’m sharing the writing with our vocalist Jorge. We write songs about liberty and death but also every album has a song about sex. We are a rock and roll band, not a political party but coming from Cuba and specifically on our new album you can read above and between the lines our hate for totalitarian regimes like the one we fled from.
Is there any special reason for choosing your music conception?
Black Metal is a feeling and is also the Metal genre that has developed the most in the last 20 years, we try putting something special on the mix sometimes is a rhythm pattern or the way our snare sounds but always with the intention of showing were we come from originally.
How do you guys manage to create music at all? What challenges do you face while writing and recording an album?
The writing process starts with me showing riffs to our drummer and then he coming with his parts and more riffs, then our vocalist contributes with lyrics plus the ones I do. We fight a lot at the rehearsal room and sometimes we gotta let things cool down and then come back the next day, it’s fun.
Animal Ritual will be released later this month. How was the experience working in the studio? Were there any funny or even sad happenings during the studio work?
Animal Ritual will be our 4th album and the one we are most proud of, since our 3rd album was made of re recordings of old songs this one now is the one that shows who we are in this moment, we tried to be very honest and that’s why we didn’t use any samplers or plugins, you can feel this is a REAL recording made at Exile studios, the same warehouse were we practice and then sent to Ghostalgy prods were our friend Alex Sedin mix it and mastered it, and we are very happy and satisfied with the result.
Can you shed some light on your past as musicians?
Alcides our drummer and myself we have been playing together in other bands since 2002, I was the bass player before until 2014 when I took the guitar position, our vocalist Jorge was our bass player from 2014 to 2023 and he also plays guitar on his other band Que Asko, Luis our bass player used to play guitar before with his band Maedusa.
Tell us about your favorite bands from whom you gain inspiration. Do you have any favorite artists/bands that have emerged from the metal/rock scene?
Some of our favorite bands are Slayer, Mayhem, Motörhead, Death, Dissection, Bathory, Napalm Death, our drummer and I we listen to a lot of other things like jazz and Afro Cuban music.
How is the metal scene going in Cuba?
The Metal scene in Cuba is very mixed with bands from different styles playing shows together. There are no record labels or music stores and the communist regime give bands the chance to play big venues with profesional audio and lights in exchange for control and submission. From the 60s to the mid 80s most bands would play covers at house parties then from 86 and all through the 90s there was a big explosion of original bands at the same time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, mid 90s is when I started going out to shows and the last 25 years have been good in terms of number of bands considering it’s a small island with 10 million people and around 60 metal bands from all genres combined. I would like to recommend some names like Narbeleth, Sectarium, Medium, Skjult, Helgrind, Venus, Agonizer, Teufel.
Tell us if you have played overseas.
We played 96 shows in Cuba from 2006 to 2013 and another 20 since we moved to the U.S so far in Texas, California, Florida and Nevada between 2013 - 2015 and between 2023 - 2025.
Are you working on any music videos, whether it be a video clip or a lyric video?
We have a video for the opening track of our new album is a song called “Death by Hanging” and the video was filmed by our friend Charlie Hawthorne on the same warehouse were we used to record and practice between 2020 and 2023.
Rapid-fire section. Just for fun. So just chill and type the first thought that comes to your mind when you hear:
Ritual - Party
Havoc - Life
Inferno - Earth
Exorcism - Liberation
Menace - Fight!
Thanks a lot for your time! It's really nice to know more about you. Would you like to say anything to your fans and our readers?
Please check our socials and bandcamp we are a real band not another generic one man bedroom project with type writer drums, support the underground! Salud!
https://www.facebook.com/Ancestorofkaos/
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