interview: Dawid Krosnia

photo: Insidius

The Goat Tavern: Hi, how are you guys? Congratulations on your debut release, Shadows of Humanity. What is the media response so far? Are you happy with all the feedback?

Insidius: Welcome and thank you for your kindness. It seems that Shadows of Humanity caught on quite well and that makes us happy. The evaluation we have received so far is surprisingly positive. Deep at heart, we felt that the job we did was good, the material was good but nobody could foresee if and how it would be appreciated by music fans and reviewers. You know, this is not always so, but we believe it’s ok.

Looking at your Metal-Archives profile, you’ve been active as a band over two decades ago. What made you come back and record now?

Long, that’s true, it’s a pity we hadn’t managed to record anything before, but better late than never. The decision to reactivate? We just felt like playing, our lives eventually got squared away, some kind of life stability and then from simple boredom we decided to try again. Now we are pretty sure it was the best decision ever. The real bull’s eye!

Were there any of the songs from this album written at the start of your career 1990-1992?

All in all, there are still a dozen or so old riffs, however, the arrangements were completely changed, simply the material had to be adjusted to the new times. After all, what is being played now is completely different from the 90’s, but we wanted to hold on to some of our old spirit, and it probably can be heard now.

For me musically, the Shadows of Humanity sounds very fresh, comparing with other recent releases from Poland. Old school riffs and vocals are perfectly arranged. Can you reflect on the recording process of this album and tell us more about your inspirations when recording this record?

It’s good you’ve got such an impression because we tried really hard to get that sound. Indeed, there’s a lot of old school music which is eventually juiced up with new, modern trends. It is probably an effect of our present line-up – we’ve got people from the old guard and the young ones brought up on a completely different music.

Recording? That’s a long story. In a nutshell, initially we wanted to record the first project at so called home studio in our rehearsal room which positively comply with acoustic requirements. Recording at home, as it usually happens in life, has both good and bad sides. Good because you do it at home, independently of everything and the bad ones because it’s a trap in a way – one can endlessly sit, record, correct and again record and then change everything. It went on at least for two years until we realized that something was wrong. It was Wojtek and Sławek Wiesławski from Hertz Studio in Białystok who brought us back down to earth. As a result we recorded vocals, guitars and bass at our home studio but drums were recorded in Bialystok and then Wiesławski brothers from Hertz definitely finished the job.

All the graphic designs were done by Tomasz Halicki. The cover artwork looks pretty sick. How did this collaboration come about?

Halik made the whole graphic design and the cover was painted by our relative from Chicago. She has a very distinctive artistic style which appealed to us. After she received our music and lyrics she made the initiatory project which we immediately liked.

The story with Halik was kind of by the way – though we have known each other for many years but we didn’t realize he is, inter alia, a graphic designer. We have had a real problem with finding a suitable person who would do the whole graphic job of what is out of the front cover. And here helped us Darek ‘Pietraszak’ who said ‘don’t you know Halik deals with graphics?’ And then we got in touch with Halik, showed him the cover and finally he introduced us with his vision of what he thought it should have looked like and then we finally got it.

Insidius – Shadows of Humanity (2016)

The lyrical concept of Shadows of Humanity was written by Harry Maat (who has previously written lyrics for Vader) and Mateusz Turowski. It’s quite surprising that Tasio, your frontman didn’t want to do that himself. Can you explain the idea behind this and what the lyrics are about?

We decided to an employ a lyrics writer from outside the band for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, we are not good at it and it’s reasonable to use much better and experienced professional. And again, ‘Pietraszak’ helped us – he contacted us with Harry Maat who agreed to provide us with some of his ready lyrics and we, of course, chose the ones we believed were most suitable for us, plus two more which Harry wrote especially for us according to what we wanted. We also got lyrics written in the similar manner by Mateusz Turowski. The lyrics? Well, it’s about the widely conceived aspects of life, death and humanity, that explains the title – Shadows of Humanity.

Insidius has been added to the monster tour package across Poland this fall – Imperium Poloniae, organized by Massive Music. What are your feelings about sharing the stage with legends like Vader and Infernal War?

That’s right. It’s going to be a wonderful experience for us and an amazing adventure. Although, it’s not the first time when we share the stage with Vader, as the first gig with them we played in 1991, next in 2013 and in 2014 at their XXX anniversary, but the the coming tour is a completely different story and we realize the bar is set very high. Vader and Infernal War are true professionals. However, we will do our best to keep up with them, so that Poland will not forget about us easily. You are all invited to the concerts. You won’t regret. That’s for sure.

Polish metal scene is growing very fast and it is one of the most respected scenes globally. Do you have any Polish favourites? Are there any bands we should be looking out for in the coming future?

We’ve had the same favourites for a dozen or so years. Even if there are more and more young, worthy bands which maybe one day will be in a spotlight and come into play. As the saying goes – there’s no accounting for the tastes, as the tastes are different, also everyone can feel differently about particular bands.

What are you plans for the coming years? Are planning to go back to the studio and record a second album? I hope we will not going to wait too long for that to happen!!!

Now we are busy with preparing new material which hopefully will be released in autumn 2017, maybe EP earlier, but we will see. Now, we are focusing on playing good concerts and promoting the Shadows of Humanity.

Thanks for chatting to us and we will have fingers crossed for you to get some live shows in the UK in the near future! Do you have any last words for your UK fans?

Who knows… Maybe we will manage to do something in the UK, however we realize it’s not so easy financially, unless we find a good music promoter, we are willing to do it. Follow Insidius on Facebook and let me invite you to our webshop with albums and merchandise. Hope to see you in the UK soon!

photo: Insidius

CHECK OUT OUR REVIEW OF SHADOWS OF HUMANITY
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