Rockezine.com interview with Corruption on Sep 18, 2002

with Rufus on Sep 18, 2002


		What’s your opinion about Pussyworld in a few words? Pussyworld is the best heavy rock album ever created! I am joking of course! Certainly Pussyworld is the best album conceived by Corruption to date. It’s fresh, catchy but at the same time raw and heavy. There is no place for boredom for sure! I strongly recommend this album to everybody!
		How has the response from the audience and the media been so far? We have received very good feedback from both the media and the audience but it may be a bit illusive. It is still too early to say definitively that Pussyworld is a success! I think it will take another month or two to “measure” the real size of the response. So far the album got only very good reviews and we hope it will remain like this! Also, our fans write to us expressing their opinions about Pussyworld and all of them are very positive. We can feel their support during every single concert we play because their reception is always very warm. It is a great feeling to know that Corruption is so important for many people and needed by so many too.
		Is there a story behind the album title? When you read the lyrics you will notice that they do not speak about a happy world. Actually our world is a very bad place full of stupid aggression, conflicts, wars and dirty tricks played on people. Every day you can see that on TV or read about such things in newspapers. People are frustrated and depressed. Pussyworld is the alternative dimension. The place where everybody can take their chance, live the full life and be happy. Pussyworld may be created in your mind but also may be present in our real world, here and now. It is only up to us how we are going to live our lives and this is the only chance to do it – there will not be the second one. Generally I would like people to interpret both the title and lyrics in their own way. We do not want to tell people how to live and what to do. We just play the music that comes out of our hearts. Corruption is not about religion, politics or lifestyle. It is about entertainment: just good fun and positive vibrations. If people can find something positive and valuable for themselves in our music we are more than happy.
Finally this resulted in Pussyworld – the first Polish stoner rock album ever.		Can you give a brief history of the band’s existence? First of all I would like to stress that I am not the co-founder of the band. I joined the guys two and a half years ago so I give you a very short idea of what happened in the past. Corruption was created in April 1991 as a four-piece band. The first album The Ultra-Fluorescence was released in 1993 and defined the style of the band at that time and it was death-doom-metal. The boys followed this path also on the next material Ecstasy. Meanwhile they played a lot of gigs and enriched their sound by introducing keyboards. Also, it is important to say that they appeared on the 10th Metalmania festival beside Death, Grave and Samael. In 1996 Bacchus Songs was recorded and it was pure death ’n’ roll stuff that showed which direction the band was following. Finally this resulted in Pussyworld – the first Polish stoner rock album ever. It is needless to say that we are going to develop stoner ideas further in the future. So as you can see the fact that we play stoner at the moment is not a planned situation. We did not wake up one morning and decide to play this kind of stuff. It was caused by natural musical evolution of the band and we are very happy it happened this way.
		The former album Bacchus Songs is from 1996. What happened between then and now? In 1998 promo tape Junkie was recorded and after this some personal changes were made. The new guitarist Electric appeared and the new vocalist joined the band – namely me. We played a lot of rehearsals putting the new stuff together and we played a few concerts. It took us about a year to crystalise the new lineup. We worked hard but also we had a helluva lot of fun back then. Finally we entered “Kokszoman Studios” in Warsaw to record Pussyworld. The album was ready at the end of March 2001 and we started to look for a label. Unfortunately, it was not an easy thing. Everybody was very enthusiastic about our new stuff and liked it a lot but nobody wanted to invest in something that was new on the Polish market. Also, we looked for a label abroad but without any success. We thought about releasing Pussyworld on our own and we already started the preparations. Then last June we got a call from Metal Mind Production with a serious offer. And here we are – the band with a contract at last. It took us a year and a half to find the label – quite a long time!
		How is the writing process in Corruption? Who writes the songs, and does it take any jamming or re-arranging? As far as the writing process is concerned we are no different from many other bands. Each member of Corruption is involved in this process. We bring some ideas to the rehearsals and work on them. When the song is ready from the instrumental point of view I try to lay down some vocals and if it is necessary I am free to change the structure of a new song in order to organise it vocal-wise. Of course it does not take just one day to do this because sometimes we come back to all these new songs after a few weeks to re-arrange some stuff. When I have the vocals ready I write lyrics. And yes – jamming is quite an important thing in the process of “creation” – some good ideas are born then. I think it is very important to record every rehearsal or jamming session because when you listen to these tapes you may catch some very interesting motives you played even unconsciously and sometimes they sound much better than original versions.
		What was the first record you ever bought, and who are your current influences? My first record was The Number of the Beast. I am a big fan of Iron Maiden even today. Excellent band! I love all their records maybe except the two with Blaze on vocals. As for our current influences these are the stoner bands of course. If I was to name a few I would mention Kyuss, Black Sabbath, Orange Goblin, Goatsnake, Spiritual Beggars or even Entombed. These are the most famous ones but there is a great number of stoner bands that influence our scene a lot. Just visit www.stonerrock.com and you find there some really ass kicking music. Generally we listen to a lot of different stuff and it is not only stoner rock. We do not limit our musical interests to this kind of heavy music. It would be stupid and artificial. I know that Angel, our bassman, is a big death metal fan and other guys listen to such bands like Slayer, Dream Theatre, Tool or you name it. If you look into my CD player you would find Black Label Society, Halford, King Diamond or even Sisters of Mercy. We do not listen to what is popular at the moment or what is good for our image. We listen to what we like.
		In the biography Black Sabbath is called the godfather of stoner, and they are covered on the CD, why also a cover of Deep Purple? Why not? Both Black Sabbath and Deep Purple are cult bands. “Paranoid” and “Perfect Strangers” are the classics – the real rock hymns. The whole generations grew up on these bands and these songs. We felt we wanted to cover them and we did it. Our intention was not to copy them but to present our versions. There was no particular reason. We just wanted to play these songs as we felt them and we hope the audience will like our interpretations.
		You describe your music as stoner, but isn’t it covering a wider range? For example also some early Metallica influences can be heard in vocals and guitar riffs. It is not only us who describe our music as stoner – also, media, audience and our label do. I am not going to deny that not only stoner influences can be heard on Pussyworld. We make music but we are big music fans too. I have already mentioned this. We grew up listening to classic heavy, thrash or death metal. I think it is natural that you unconsciously adapt to music you create some of the patterns from the music you listen to. I have nothing against following the good examples in the music as long as it is not copying other bands. Influences are inevitable and we are OK with it.
Hard rock fans like it, heavy metal maniacs like it and also death metal headbangers give us their support.		Is it hard for you to reach your own audience? You have toured with bands like Death and Samael who are not quite stoner. Corruption was not really a stoner band at that time. But even nowadays it is not easy to reach the stoner audience in Poland simply because stoner rock is not a very popular kind of music here. People listen to some of the stoner bands but we cannot speak about any massive phenomenon. I hope it is going to change with the release of Pussyworld. What I can notice is that our music is pretty universal. Hard rock fans like it, heavy metal maniacs like it and also death metal headbangers give us their support. We played a lot of concerts with bands like Behemoth, Devilyn or Nomad and every time the fans banged their heads for satan to our music. Corruption is heavy but at the same time pretty melodic. We do not play “ trendy, commercial” stuff and maybe this is the reason why so many different people like Corruption. I think we already have our own audience and this group of pussymaniacs will grow systematically.
		Any touring plans for the near future or other announcements for our readers? We are going to play a lot of gigs and give a lot of interviews to support Pussyworld. At the moment we plan to play some single gigs and in November we’ll start touring Poland. We hit the road with the Swedes of Necrophobic and a few other Polish bands. Well, we are ready to present ourselves to the audience outside of our country and we hope it is going to happen sooner or later. If any serious offers appears we will set out to “conquer” Western Europe and bring you some heavy ass rock and fucking roll music. To learn about it check our website http://corruption.rockmetal.art.pl. So stay tuned, stay heavy and of course WORSHIP PUSSY!!!
(Cor Schilstra)