Angelus Apatrida
Spanish Thrash Unleashed

16.12.2014

Spain is not the country that comes to your mind first when someone speaks about thrash metal, but the genre’s second wave, kicked off in the early 2000s by the reunion of several high-profile old school bands, did not leave that region unaffected. It was exactly in the early 2000s (in March 2000, to be precise), when five kids residing in the Spanish town of Albacete put together their own band, giving it a sophisticated name of Angelus Apatrida. In its early days the band, just like most of other Spanish metal acts, was only famous in its home country, but by the end of the decade thrash metal regained so much of its impact that big international labels started paying attention. “The Angels” were eventually contracted by the mighty Century Media, and January 2015 will see Angelus Apatrida releasing their fifth (and third for this label) CD called “Hidden Evolution”. On this occasion, lead vocalist/guitarist Guillermo Izquerido made a phone call to the chilly Moscow to discuss the new album, his favorite bands and the general state of thrash metal.

It’s nice to hear you, Guiilermo! How’s the weather in Spain? It’s -5 in Moscow, a bit cold. It’s already winter.

It’s cold, but I hope it will be warmer.

I know you guys are releasing a new album; it’s titled “Hidden Evolution” and is going to hit the stores in January. I’ve heard the teaser on our Youtube channel, it sounds fantastic. Could you tell me first of all how you formed the band? How many years have you been around?

We formed the band almost 15 years ago, in 2000. We started out as a cover band, did lots of covers of our favourite bands, back then we were just teenagers. At the time there weren’t that many new bands, not only in Spain. So we just decided to form a real band, started playing heavy music, and it all went from there really. We got an opportunity to record an album, prior to that we had released a demo and an EP called “Unknown Human Being”, then we got signed and put out our first album “Evil Unleashed” in 2006 and from then on we started working non-stop. Almost 15 years into our career we are releasing our new LP “Hidden Evolution”.

Roughly speaking, it’s been 10 years since you released your first EP. I’ve heard all your albums; there’s definitely been a progression from album to album.  You first two albums were a good mixture of Metallica and Iron Maiden, whereas your latest album “The Call” sounds like Bay Area thrash, - the solos, the riffs, it sounds killer, man!  Tell me about the bands that influenced you when you were starting your own band.

Yeah, you are right. We are influenced by the bands from the Bay Area, and also Iron Maiden made a huge influence on us when we were starting to write our own music. Iron Maiden is my all-time favourite band. Apart from that, we were highly influenced by the classic heavy metal bands and the NWOBHM bands like Venom, Judas Priest Angel Witch, Saxon etc, just as those bands had made a huge influence on the bands from Bay Area. We are a heavy metal band and we listen to a lot of different music, not only thrash metal or heavy metal, so we try to have all our influences together, thus making our own music. I think that “Hidden Evolution” is the most personal album, the most aggressive and speedy. The new album will be out as of January 16th. We really want to know what people think about the new album, not only in Spain, but worldwide.

Are you planning to release a single before the album comes out?

Of course, we are. It’s going to be out probably next week or next 10 days, something like that. We are going to share more news on the Internet and pretty soon there will be a single.  It’s better to visit our website, because we are going to release it over there.

I’m excited about the new album. I think your last album “The Call” was a big step forward. I mean you have definitely matured as a band, developed your own kind of style, attitude and it sounds awesome; it reminds me of some of the bands from San Francisco. You did a great video for “You are Next”, the song itself is very old school and catchy, I liked that, the girl in a denim vest with white high tops and all that.

Yeah, and the gaming machines where you can play street fighter, some retro stuff. Yeah.

Tell us about the process of recording of the album, who did you work with? I mean the producer.

We try not to repeat ourselves on each album, we try to let our creativity go and always try different things and approach. On this album we tried to do our best, we know it’s going be special, it’s, like I said, the most personal album for us. We didn’t have that much time to think who we would like to work with, so we decided to work with the people we had made the last three albums. Our producer’s name is Daniel Cardoso. He also plays drums in Anathema. He is a very professional man, he loves the band, he helps us a lot, he takes care of the band, he’s like our fifth member, you know. We love him, we really really love working with him so we decided to work with him again. I think we did the right thing, and maybe we will be working with him in the future. Daniel lives in Portugal, and the album was recorded there. It’s close to Spain, so everything went smooth and calm. It was really easy. The recording session was not so hectic, because we were calmer and more comfortable. We didn’t have any problems.  While we were recording we already knew that the sound would be we are happy with the mastering and the final result.  We are very excited about the new album.

Which of the new thrash bands do you like? I mean, this so co-called New Wave Of Thrash Metal. There are a bunch of them out there - Bonded By Blood, Warbringer, Evile, Municipal Waste and so on.

Well, I would say that my favourite new wave thrash metal band is without any doubt Havok. We are really good friends with them. We keep in touch with them and they told us about Moscow, the gig in summer and we were so fucking jealous.

Yeah. Havok were in Moscow this summer.  It would be great if you visited Russia, there are lots of metalheads here and they all love thrash metal and heavy metal. We hope to see you guys very soon, maybe in 2015.

Yes, I hope it will happen sooner than later. We really want to. Any tour we have we always say that we want to visit Russia. Unfortunately for the next tour we won’t make it there, we are going have a tour with Suicidal Angels, but we’d really want to play in Moscow or in St Petersburg, Novosibirsk and plenty of other cities.

I’ve seen the cover of the new album. It looks amazing.  It’s an old school cover with a little modern touch to it.

The cover was made by a guy named Gyula (Havancsak), he had previously worked with Annihilator, Destruction, Kreator. I liked his works and wanted him to do a cover for us. And the cover makes sense with the title “Hidden Evolution”, because it talks about conspiracy over the world, the governments and the corporations that try to hide real evolution from the human race, because they always focusing on business. Lots of people die of serious diseases and cancer, and no one seems to care, the government does its own thing. That’s something that happened in the 80s when lots of metal bands sang about politics, corruption, cold war, nuclear war and all those disasters in the world.

Yeah, I guess it shows us that the world is a pretty fucked-up place now.

Exactly. Especially all the time we live in Spain and not only in Spain, the whole world is really fucked up; you know, war because of money, corruption, terrorism, 9/11, Fukushima. I like to sing about that, because it’s true, you can’t hide it even though the government is really trying to. I wrote a song about that and we decided to make this cover and I think it’s a pretty good cover for a thrash metal band.

Yeah totally. The next question would be - what’s your favorite thrash metal band? I think you definitely have one. Mine is Exodus, although I grew up listening to Metallica.

Well, of you talk about thrash metal bands, I would say Pantera. I know they are not exactly a thrash metal band but the first time I heard “Cowboys from Hell” it really blew my mind. If I were to choose a thrash metal band that would be Sepultura, I discovered Sepultura with “Beneath the Remains”. And I would say Megadeth as well.

So it’s Pantera, Sepultura and Megadeth, right?

Yeah. But I’m a big fan of Bay Area Thrash, I also like Kreator, Slayer, Metallica, Nuclear Assault, there are so many bands…

Tell me about being on the road, the positive and negative sides of being on tour.

Well, being on tour for me is the most important thing. I really love it. I like seeing new places, meeting new people, sharing my music with people, and it’s amazing. It makes you fulfilled as a person, because we do it professionally and we don’t have to work from 9 to 5, you know. It’s amazing that you can create your own music, release an album and then hit the road thus sharing your art with other people; let them decide whether it’s good or bad.  And of course, the negative thing is being away from home, from your family, you miss your friends and loved ones.  But it’s the way of life we chose and we are good with that. Hard work makes you feel special. You are not working in a factory; you are creating something and doing what you really love.

Who would you like to tour with if you could choose?

Iron Maiden, it’s my favourite band. Or with someone I was influenced by, say Testament, or why not Metallica. I would like to tour with Metallica. Or touring with someone like Machine Head would be very cool for us. I love their new CD, although I would listen to it a couple more times, it takes time to get it really. I saw them two weeks ago in Madrid, and that was one of the best shows of the year for me.  

You guys have done a few covers so far – “Master Of Puppets” by Metallica, “Be Quick or Be Dead” by Iron Maiden, “Hell Patrol” by Judas Priest. Are you planning to do a few more covers in the future?

Definitely, playing their music makes us feel younger. It’s our tribute to them that’s why we are doing this.  On “Hidden Evolution” we got a cover of Deep Purple. During our shows we sometimes play some covers, for example we did “Caught In A Mosh” by Anthrax a couple of times and “Alison Hell” by Annihilator. So this will always be with us.

What do you think about the current state of thrash metal and heavy music in general? Being a part of the younger generation of thrashers do you think that the “old guard” still kick arse as they did in the 80s, and how long are they going to last in your opinion?

Well, I just hope that they will last as long as they can. Heavy music nowadays feels really good and healthy. Of course there’s nothing to compare with the 80s, but some old bands tour with newer bands and they get along really well. And I think for people like you and me, who grew up in the 80s/90s, watching this is amazing. Being able to play along with Slayer and Iron Maiden on different festivals is truly amazing. Or “Hellfest” with Aerosmith and Deep Purple. it’s really a magical time for me. If someone had told me that I would be playing with those bands, I would have laughed, but it’s happening now. Heavy metal is alive and it’s here and it’s going to stay forever.  

Thank you so much for the interview, man! It’s been a great time talking to you. Is there anything you would like to say to your Russian fans?

Yeah.  We really want to visit your country and play some shows in Moscow, St Petersburg and other cities because we know that there a lot of crazy metalheads there.  We will try to make it as soon as possible.

Angelus Apatrida on the Internet: http://www.angelusapatrida.com

Special thanks to Narsin Vahdani (Century Media Records) for arranging this interview

Stanislav “ThRaSheR” Tkachuk
December 4, 2014
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