interview with ILLIDIANCE

What´s the name of your band? The name of our band is ILLIDIANCE, this word means nothing, its just a letters chained together to form the word with nice sound. On other hand in the old English the word Illidiant meant something like abnormal angry, ill.

How was the band formed? ILLIDIANCE was formed back in 2005. From the beginning ILLIDIANCE was acting as melodic death/black metal band but from 2009 moved to modern/cyber metal niche. 

Can you tell about your band? To be laconic and precise - ILLIDIANCE is the Russia's best-known Modern Metal / Cyber Metal band focused on catchy, original, and technical alternative metal of the new millennium. Our stuff is comparable with Fear Factory, Sybreed, Blood Stain Child, Soilwork, Dead By April.

Where are all band members from?/Who does what in the band?

Let me introduce the members first – Me , Dmitry “Xyrohn” Shkurin – I’m playing guitar, doing the general management,  the author of all lyrics.

Tommy “Syrex” Shkurin – (my brother) is a vocalist, also he is preparing the keys, samples.

Vyacheslav “Slay ” Klushev – bass, Tony “Cyclone” Brezhnev – drums and samples.

What was the ambitions of the band when you started? We still got the same ambitions – create our own cognate style of playing, perform the powerful  and impressive lifeshows and become big.

Could you explain your music to someone that haven't heard you? Yep, No problems,  our style is where Fear Factory meets Prodigy and Nickelback.  Something like that.

Where was your first gig? In Russia, in Rostov-on-don. There was the local big festival with bands from other regions of Russia. Our show was shitty, but we gained the necessary experience and 3 years after we became the strongest metal band on the Russian south.

Where was the latest gig? Moscow, Rock House club – we headlined the local fest.

Who writes your songs?/Who writes the music who writes lyrics? All lyrics are written by me (Dmitry “Xyrohn”) also me and my brother Tommy with assistance of Tony are creating all the music stuff.

Who has the best since of humor in the band? Tony and me, we are kidding all the time, we love jackass jokes but our humor is from one side quite intellectual on other hand sometimes its black humor and mostly about sex, shit and abominable stuff.

What's good/bad with the band?/What genre do you feel you are? Now we are growing , that’s good, the bad is that we need to go long and hard way to become big. In case of our genre – we are doing our own way of Modern Metal/Core style.

Why did you pick that particular style?/What are your songs about? Because this style is what we are performing best, and we love to listen to such music, we are loving to play the modern alternative metal. Our songs are sometimes futuristic, sometimes its about the deepest feelings inside your heart and soul, each song has its own story… For example song Critical Damage is about the gladiators of the new age, song Moments Of The fall is about the stories of fate , scars of your heart and the finitness of human life.

Do you write your own material or mainly covers? We are writing our own material, sometimes we cover songs, but not in the casual way – we are doing our remakes of the songs, we are changing and rearranging the songs – adding our own elements. For example to speak in numbers we have about 2 full albums and only 4 covers which we are sometimes playing live. The cover songs are – Guano Apes – Open Your Eyes, Linkin Park – Breaking The Habit, Limp Bizkit – My Generation and (not actual) Lady Gaga – Bad Romance.

Have you made any albums?/If yes what are they? In the niche of Modern Metal we have EP Synthetic breed 2009, Full length album Damage Theory 2011, single Neon rebels 2012, EP Deformity 2013 and signle Shockwave 2014, now we are finishing the work on material preparation for our new coming album.

Do you have any clips on YouTube?

Yep, we have 2 clips.  Here they are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_3x3PhyPQQ&list=UUx0ipCgFN4zmYTnjdjHto8Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3TpCc2zHrI

How old are you?/What got you started in music? I’m 30 years old, when I was 18 I first time entered the stage.

At what age did you start playing? I started to cruciate my father’s guitar in the age of eight, but really serious  I started to learn and practice when I was 16.

How old were you guys when you first stood on stage? As I told before first time I entered the stage I was 18. Tommy was 17, Tony (as I know) 15, and Vyacheslav – 16.

What year was the band started? The band started in 2005, good times)))

Best/worst gig you've played? The best from the last year was the Maloyaroslavets festival, we have been playing as one of headliner set bands on the main stage for 300.000 of people, that’s was awesome. The worst gig – during the last 3 years that’s was one of the gigs in Novocherkassk,  during our show some parts from the roof crushed down and killed my laptop and the show was stopped.

What places will you be playing in in the imidate future? The tour in CIS countries in the march 2015, Russian tour for the may 2015, and asian tour (including Japan) is planned for autumn 2015.

Where have you played from then till now? ILLIDIANCE wheeled all over CIS countries, Eastern EU, Finland with tours  (about 250 gigs at all). ILLIDIANCE toured with such well-known international bands as Rotting Christ, Grave Digger, Thy Disease, Fear Factory, Sonic Syndicate, Deathstars, Hate, Grave, Behemoth, and Crionics.

Is it always the same songs live? Mostly yes, but sometimes we are doing some improvisation parts.

What has been the best/most promising gig so far? I dunno, for us all the gigs are important.

Have you had any bigger tours from start to now? Yep we had played about 4 big tours and more yet to come!

How big crowds do you usually play for? In a club concert we are playting for 100-400 persons, on open airs and big club/arenas its from 1000 to 300.000 as I told you about Russian national fest Maloyaroslavets.

What are the plans for the rest of the year? End with office work for this year, play some New Year gigs, and start the party)))

Where do you usually play? Mostly its Russia and CIS countries, eastern EU.

How do you get psyched up for a gig? As other bands – some drinks and emotional warming up like a fighter before he enters the cage, some physical excercises.

What are your goals with your music? we have brutal and heavy but listenable elements along with melodies,  we have really preofessional electronic disseminations, sample parts, chained together with basis of grove and modern metal it’s a fresh stream on the present stage. Finally we are playing catchy music, with catchy refrains and riffs. Its definitely easy to remember our songs, and sing together with us.

When did you decide to go all in for the music? We know it from the first day of playing in the band, we are all fanatics of the music stage.

Is it easier to get your inspiration from older bands or from bands more modern? We are gaining inspiration from different objects like weather, tmovies, our own feelings, books, and bands from pop to grindcore/Black, no matter old or modern.

What's the first step when making a new song? We are starting from cool riff or melody or nice atmosphere of lyric idea.

How do you feel about the downloading of music instead of buying albums? Its reality – what can we do in this situation, for us its help to advertise the band, free downloading of our songs is spreading the world about our band.

What would be your dreams for the band?  I guess the dram is to play Dynamo fest or Rock Am Ring as one of headliners.

Besides your own music, what genres and bands do you listen to? We are listen to all genres from Djent to old Pop music, from Dark Funeral to ABBA))))

What do you hold most dear? My car and my guitars)))

What would be your greatest fears for the future? I dunno, something in pandemic way, like zombie apocalypse))) But we are Russians, not fearless but fatalist.

When you are on stage, what do you fear most then? To not be admired by the crowd, to play not worthy to be estimated best.

What songs and what years were they released? I told you previously about our releases.

Have you been in any other bands? I mentioned it my last answer)

What do you work with outside of the band and the music? I’m the chief of sales and marketing department, our niche is the installation of the testing solutions and systems for aircraft industry.

What would you do if there was no music? I have another hobby for myself, I started to learn kickboxing and Mixed Martial Arts (just for myself, as a small hobby),  so if there is no music and I was younger I guess I would be entering the cage as MMA fighter.

How important are your fans? Their banging heads and burning eyes are what we are living and standing on the stage, they are that our band and aims is all about.

What's the funniest/most memorable thing a fan has done for you? Blowjob from fan girl)))) (I’m kidding) , home made cookies with our logos, self made flags with our band name, tattoos with our logo and symbolic.

How often do you rehearse? 2-3 times per week.

Where do you rehearse? We have our own rehearsal room, in culture hall of our time – Taganrog.

Name 2 of your own songs you like at the moment? Moments of the fall, Neon Rebels.

What do you feel is the best live band you've seen? I felt like – what da fuck, we need to grow, to become like them, some competitive shit at all)))

What drives a band that isn't all that famous and renowned to try to make a living on their music and to keep playing? Fanatic faith and will to win.

Do  you have any webpages?

https://www.facebook.com/illidianceband

http://vk.com/illidiance_community

www.illidiance.ru 

http://www.reverbnation.com/illidianceband

http://www.youtube.com/user/ILLIDIANCE

http://soundcloud.com/illidiance

Any pearls of wisdom for all other bands out there? Always improve your stuff and show, modernize it , be honest with yourself and your fans and never give up.

Describe your show, visually and musically. I guess its easier to check on our videoclips or on our youtube channel, we have impressive and aggressive liveshow, so we do lots of headbanging and other motion, and its all synchronized with our music.

How do you view the musicindurty of today? The industry is drowning, because the amount of bands (no matter good or bad) is much more than the listeners. And listener is not able to find the jewel band under the tons of shit released by the ephemeral casual bands.

What advice would you like to give other bands? Be honest with yourself, not everything which is coming out of you are brilliants))))) Try to make the most catchy songs.

What are the biggest obstacles for a band? To find money for good promotion)))

What is best/worst with playing the clubs? I dunno, its reality, every band besides monsters of rock play club concerts, so its fine for us.

Tell us about upcomming gigs and why we should be at them? I told about the CIS and Asian tours planned for coming year.  And we arew preparing some cool surprises, but it’s a secret for now)))

How would you describe your sound in one sentence heavy as elephants tits))))

What is your favorite crappy instrument? The guitars produced in Soviet Union. USSR is the best when you need to produce weapons, but in case of music instruments they are all were like tank steel made.

What was one of the most quarrelsome times for you in the band? In the beginning of our career, I’m the leader and I prefer discipline in the band, so lots of time was spent to make the band work as the solid mechanism.

Whats your Pre-show ritual? Warming up, some physical excersizes, shaking the hands of other members of the band, we are coming to the stage as one, as a parts of one machine, like warriors before the combat.

Do you have anything to add? Thanks for such interesting intewrview, maybe one time we will reach your shores and show our stuff for you on a live gig!

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