Date interview: 13-03-2010

Arkona is climbing up in the genre of pagan/folk metal. Their unique sound brings some diversity is this overcrowded scene. Their latest album Goi, Rode,Goi! came out in october last year and got a lot of positive feedback.
So when Metal-Exposure was offered the opportunity to interview this band at Paganfest in Amsterdam, we didn’t think about it twice. An interview with Masha and guitarist Sergei from Arkona!

The metalscene in Europe is simply huge, so we were wondering how big is the metalscene in Russia?
Masha & Sergei: “There are a lot of Russian bands in the pagan metalscene for example, you have: Radigost and Butterfly Temple. There is progress, these bands including Arkona are going up from the underground to the more mainstream metalscene. There are some problems though. It is hard for us to get visa’s to play shows in Europe.”

Recently we had some troubles here in the Netherlands with the band Temnozor. An organisation, the Antifa called them and also other bands, including Arkona nationalistic bands.
Masha: “Don’t give a shit about it. We don’t have anything with Antifa and don’t have anything with nazism We as a band do not actually want anything to do with any political view on pagan metal. ”

Masha, you sing about battles and things that mostly concern men.
Masha: “I sing what comes from my soul. And I don’t care if that is a man thing or a woman thing”

You grunt/scream like a man and do it better than most, how did you learn to do this?
Masha: “That is a question of a lot of practice and many concerts. I’ve practiced for about six years. ”

What bands do you listen to?
Masha & Sergei: we listen to metal, also bands in this pagan metal scene, for example we like Eluveitie a lot.

Who you are missing now because of us.
Masha & Sergei: Yes but we have seen them a lot on this tour so we know all the songs and things by heart now.

Na Moey Zemle (In my land) from the album Goi, Rode, Goi! Is a song with contributers from other pagan bands: Heidevolk, Menhir, Obtest, Månegarm and Skyforger. Why did you choose these bands and will you play it live someday? “It was great to have a song with them. We chose these bands because they are our friends from abroad and make good music themselves. We will probably never play it live because it is hard to get all those musicians in one place and the song is also to hard to play live.”

What about the future, will we see Arkona on the big festivals this summer?
“First there is the european tour from June to July. In that tour we will visit many countries again and we will also visit the Netherlands again. There will be some big gigs too. About the festivals: we are signing with a booking agency now, after that we can play big festivals. We expect to play some too”

What is your favorite dutch beer?
After saying that Masha doesn’t drink that much beer Sergei says : Probably Brand bier.

Interview by Roel & Laetitia