Decapitated – Waclaw ‘Vogg’ Kieltyka

Decapitated are a band that have redefined extreme music. With some brutal tech-death releases to their credit such as ‘Nihility’ and ‘Carnival is Forever’, the Polish four-piece have returned in 2014 with the crushing sounds of ‘Blood Mantra’, an album that boasts some awesome, classic death metal tracks. Apart from loving them to no end, I have so much respect for them and their music. With the band having gone through a pretty traumatic period, it was enlightening to say the least, when I had the chance to speak to guitarist and mastermind behind Decapitated, Waclaw ‘Vogg’ Kieltyka about the upcoming album, the band’s die-hard attitude and more!

Speaking to me from his hometown in Poland, Vogg was kicking back for the day, updating me on what Decapitated have been upto. “Hello! How’s it going? I’m doing well, I’m at home! We just finished summer festivals in Europe , so now we have a couple days off , we can chill a bit at home and pretty soon we’ll start touring with the new stuff, the new songs and prepare a new setlist for our upcoming tours.”

Vogg was thrilled to share his opinions and thoughts on the new album; where it all began for ‘Blood Mantra’, how the album started to take shape and what the general inspiration was behind it. “Well, the writing for the album started almost two years ago – I started collecting new riffs new ideas, started to think how this album should sound like, what we should do right now is it supposed to be heavy, faster, slower. I collected all of these ideas and I have to say it took me a long, long time; it was lots of work between tours, with some breaks of course. Then we spent almost three months in the studio, to make it as good as possible. We went back to Hertz studio where we recorded almost 8 years ago and it was great! Really gave us a feel into the past, was very sentimental for me too. But ‘Blood Mantra’ I think in a way is our most mature album because we took so much from our experiences of touring with bands like Meshuggah, Lamb Of God, Aborted and so many other cool bands. We’ve done lots of shows, toured all over the world and it gave us the experience we needed and ideas on how to approach the new album. I’m really, really happy about the new stuff, it’s heavy, lots of groove, lots of classic death metal songs. We came up with some new, fresh ideas, ideas we’ve never had before and I’m really excited about it!”

Going further into the new album, the Polish death metal guitarist spoke more about ‘Blood Mantra’, the kind of sound that the band were going for with this release; we even spoke about the lyrics and their writer, Rafal ‘Rasta’ Piotrowski and it was really interesting what he had to say! “Well, musically there was no basic idea about what we were going to do, we have this creative freedom in our band we want to play what we really like to play. Sometimes I’d wake up one morning , drink a cup of coffee and think ‘wow I have so much energy lets go lets do fast killer songs’. Then there are times where I was inspired to do something more sentimental, mantric and slower. ‘Blindness’- it takes almost seven minutes and its one riff that goes on again and has a really trancey sort of atmosphere, so this album is really kind of a surprising album because you don’t know what to expect! Lyrically, well, yes this time Rasta did all our lyrics. On Carnival is Forever, we got a writer to do it for us, hes got lots of experience in writing, not only lyrics for bands but he has also written books like the official biography of Slayer, and he also released the biography of Vader. He’s great, really good at what he does. It was 2011 when we created Carnival, and that was the second year we played together with Rasta. We didn’t know much about each other, I didn’t know that he could do this(write lyrics). And the Carnival album was our comeback album after 3 years of break. So for me this time it was really important to come back with 100% album in a musical and lyrical way. Now that he’s (Rasta) been longer in the band, he’s more mature , more conceptual thinking and his lyrics are very good you know? – he’s got something to say. For me, I think it’s always better a person in the band does the lyrics, because that way we don’t need to ask anyone from outside and it’s like everything is coming from the band.” And trust me, ‘Blood Mantra’ is pure authentic Decapitated material!

In 2007, tragedy struck when Vogg’s brother and the drummer , passed away after the band was involved in a bus accident. Initially, Vogg didn’t think of continuing on with Decapitated and the band went on hiatus for two years before retuning in 2009 and working hard on their next album, ‘Carnival is Forever’ which was released in 2011. I asked Vogg what it is that made him push through and move forward so bravely, despite what he had been through. Initially I wasn’t sure if I wanted to bring it up but I knew that I wanted to know the answer and that it would also teach me something in the long-run. I’m glad I did. “Well its about love to have love for what you’re doing, for music. I love playing guitar. I love how the guitar sounds, I love to pick up the guitar in my hands, plug it into the amp and just go! I also love to be on the stage and have this consious – that I believe in something for the people that they enjoy It’s also a really cool way of life. The opportunity to play your own music and go somewhere with it, see a lot of nice places and even meet all these people around the world, thats the motivation. Even though we’ve been through such a traumatic time when I lost my brother ‘Vitek’, I didn’t know if I could move on, it shouldn’t stop us you know? That is what we do in life, that is our passion and what we can do best. It’s been almost 20 years with this band and we have many stories and it’s good that today we’re still together and moving forward. I’m very happy!”

The band has seen a few line-up changes over the years, and the new album welcomes the talents of new drummer Michal Lysejko and bassist Pawel Pasek, this being the first ‘Decapitated’ album for both. It was so sweet the way he ‘introduced’ the new band members to me and from the way he spoke about them, the man is very, very happy. “ Ah yes! New drummer! So let me introduce the new man of the band! Michal, he’s the new drummer, total beast on the drums, crazy about how he wants to work. He’s a workaholic – he wants me to play all the time. If I have some other job to do he says, ‘no man we need to play practice right now we need to progress and blah blah blah. I’m like ‘okai man, let’s do it!’. He’s 24 years old comes from north of poland, the place where Behemoth used to live. He’s a really great guy! Our bass player is Pawel Pasek and he normally plays guitar but he plays bass for us. He’s very smart in the technical things – how to connect cables, equipment and also a very good guy. Those guys are my brothers, my friends and I hope we can play together for as long as possible because we really feel 100% like a real band right now. Four guys together like we can push through we can really do something together. There’s no bullshit, we understand each other, its not like I’m the boss, and there’s three other guys.I’m very very happy and it’s awesome having them!”

It’s pretty cool what you learn about bands and musicians when you get to talk to them. Vogg being the brutal human that he is, actually started out his musical career when he started learning the accordion in school. Today he also plays accordion and guitar in a band called Lux Occulta (avant-garde/synth rock). I asked him how he manages being in two completely different bands. “Lux Occulta is more of a studio project, I don’t need to spend too much time. I’m not composing the music; I don’t do promotioanl things I just spend a couple of days recording the accordion and guitar parts, takes e a couple of days only. New album is totally different style of music from what you hear on a Decapitated album. I was always open minded to different kinds of music even though I play mostly metal. I do listen to a lot of classical music and it’s nice to be able to play the guitar and accordion on this album especially because it connects many different styles of music like jazz, some electronic and even a bit of metal.

Decapitated have previously toured Australia twice before and I asked Vogg whether the band had any plans of hitting up the country sometime soon. Aussie Decapitated fans, this is exciting news for you! “Well, to be honest right now, we’re working on it, we have a couple of ideas for that. We’re in the process of working on the Australian tour, we’ve did two tours before and those shows were great apart from a few technical problems.At that point we were not a very experienced band but now we’ve got so much exposure, we’re more professional and I so much want to do a tour again and meet all our fans and see Australia again!”
Vogg was an absolute pleasure to speak with, a very soft, kind man with an undying passion for music and an attitude that left me inspired after the interview! Give ‘Blood Mantra’ a listen – it’s a beast of an album!

Blood Mantra

Grab your copy of ‘Blood Mantra’ from JB Hifi, Nerve Gas and Nuclear Blast Records Europe.

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