In Cinnamon Yard with DoppelgangeR

Greetings and who am I speaking to?

Dmitry Flo: Hi! My name is Dmitry,I am in charge of music and lyrics creation, bass playing and vocals.

Black Cat: Hi, my name is Katy

Maggoth: Maggoth’s here.

Could you introduce your band to our readers, the line-up and brief history.

Dimitry Flo: Our band consists of 3 HUMANS.
Black Cat plays guitar, manages the band and keeps our web site,
Maggoth is the drums’ chief, also was spotted writing lyrics and
making band’s video, and myself.
As you can see everyone is doing something else besides
playing the instruments.
The band’s history is pretty long one.
On our official web site you can read it in whole,
I will just brief you on this one.

DoppelgangeR was formed back in 1994 in Moscow,
we went through a lot of line-up changes,
released 5 albums, participated in several compilations,
and we are continuously touring over Russia,
we have performed at numerous music festivals in Europe.

Your latest CD is called "SATURNIAN RINGS", tell us more about it, about the song-writing process and recordings.

Dmitry Flo: All songs lyrics were based on the literature of
Austrian author Gustav Meirink, medieval philosophers’ works
and particularly on works of the most known and most mysterious author Fulkanelli.
Process of songs’ creation was like that:

I was making a main composition line and
bringing it to the rehearsal studio where
we all together would bring it up to the way
we want it to sound. We pay for the studio hourly
so we have to be very precise and quick,
which I am not satisfied with cause we always want to
work longer with each song. In general all recording sessions
did not take us too long to be over with,
‘cause we knew exactly what we wanted and
did not run into any obstacles.
And of course Saturn has helped us:)

Black Cat: We were getting ready for making record for
almost half a year – practicing, arranging pieces,
improving each part.
It was first recording I was a part of, so I was worrying a lot.
But it came up much better than I’ve expected.
Pavel Gromov, the lead singer of Antisisters participated
in the recording sessions. He sung on one of the songs.
Besides that there are bonus tracks on the album,
these are 4 remixes of our song Democracy's Undead done by Two Witches,
Secrecy, The Way Of All Flesh, Redemption. We thank them very much for that.

Maggoth: It was hot, it was summer.
It did not take us too long. That was fun.

DoppelgangeR is from Russia how is the scene there? Bands that you can recommend to our readers?

Dmitry Flo: Yes we got quite many pretty good bands,
but I am not sure they are known in Europe.
There were few post-punk bands in mid 80’s and in the beginning of 90’s;
they were releasing records in Europe.
I would like your readers to check out these bands:
Durnoe Vlianie (Bad Influence), Petlia Nesterova
(Nesterov’s Loop), Godzadva.
There are many labels getting born
these days, and they want to publish this
kind of music, so the actual progress is obvious.
I do not really want to talk about their flaws.

Black Cat: Russian contemporary scene is 10 years behind
comparing to European scene.
As Dima said already, gothic labels, magazines,
and booking agencies are just being born here.
5 years ago we could not even dream about
some European bands touring over Russia.
While ago most shows were set in Moscow,
but now it is possible to do it almost in every Russian town,
but still, in some towns militia is busting our concerts:)
A lot of young bands are in Moscow and St.Petersburg,
it the rest of the country this music still being perceived as a miracle.

Maggoth: Scene is as it is everywhere, some like us,
some do hate, some do envy. Many bands from 80’s
are worth checking them out, such as
NochnoiProspect (Night Prospect), Center, IvanovDown,
Kollezhskii Asessor and too many others to mention.

You held a record release party for your new CD in Tampere, Finland. Any special reasons behind this?

Dmitry Flo: Our friend Jyrki from Two Witches
kindly offered us to make this party and we delightfully agreed.
And as far as I know Tampere is some sort of a center of
gothic subculture in Finland, so that’s why our album release party took
place exactly there.

Black Cat: Besides that our release parties were held in London and Leeds (UK).
At the time of the album release it is important
to have some information support, so it was really great
to have such a party in Tampere.

You also performed at LUMOUS GOTHIC FESTIVAL in Tampere, did you enjoy our country and our audience?

Dmitry Flo: Yes we liked your country very much.
Everything is clean and well kept.
People are very sweet. And the most important part is that
no one was giving us dirty looks as it is common here in our country.
It’s not possible to get your working place without being paid
a lot of attention to your outlook.
What struck us the most is that people who work in the stores
spoke Russian to us.
We were very nervous right before our performance,
we were not sure how well we will be accepted,
but during the show we saw how people are reacting to our music
and they were having a lot of fun with us.

Black Cat: It’s really great and beautiful in Tampere.
We walked all over Tampere with the map, took plenty of pictures.
At the festival we saw a lot of nice people and great Finish bands.
I liked very much Nevernetles, Silene and Suruaika.
We even got CD’s of last two and I am enjoying listening to them.

Maggoth: Finland and Tampere are really great! People are beautiful.
Every time I think of Finland I say to myself,
it is sooo damn great that Finns kicked some soviet ass back in 40’s.
Your country is not touched by any of bolshevism and
I am happily realizing that it was possible by enormous and
heroic effort of your countryman.

More about live performances, your played at ROZZWISH(A tribute event for Rozz Williams work), could you tell us more about this?

Dmitry Flo: These parties are made by my friend Mikhail
and his company True-LaLa. He’s got tired of realizing that
this particular music style is absolutely unknown and
decided to organize thematic parties, where bands
who play Death-Rock, Gothic-Rock, Batcave.
It was our solo performance on this particular evening.
Besides our act there were video installations,
devoted to works of Rozz Williams, there was shown
a movie “Pig” and videos from live performances of
Christian Death and Shadow Project.

Black Cat: Rozzwish is annual party in the memory of Rozz Williams.
Usually it takes place in small club, in quiet and calm environment.
This year we played songs of our own and “Blue Hour”, Christian Death cover.

Maggoth: The good thing about this is that spectators,
who dropped by were the ones who badly wanted to come,
so the vibe in the audience was very friendly and enthusiastic.

Your thoughts about the whole Valor vs Williams thing and Eva Oґs Christian Death 1334?

Dmitry Flo: I do not know I was not present there at the time.
But from the outside I think that whole fuzz was blown out of proportions
by mass media. I personally think that the best albums
were made in this creative tandem Williams - Vallor.
But actually we are not very much interested in behind the scenes
intrigues between the band members, we love the music.

Maggoth: As it is said in one my favorite song
“We are ugly but we have the music.”

You are inspired by Christian Death but what other
bands have inspired you to write music?

Dmitry Flo: We were very much influenced by bands
that played post-punk in the end of 70’s and
first wave of Goth in the beginning of 80’s.
These are Joy Division, Chameleons, Echo and the Bunnymen,
Siouxsie and The Banshees, Bauhaus, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry,
Ausgang, Sex Gang Children, Spacemen, and The Cure.
David Bowie, Wire, The Fall, The Stooges, as well.

On your website you state "WE CAN IMAGINE GOTHIC ROCK WITHOUT US, BUT WE CAN’T IMAGINE OURSELVES WITHOUT GOTHIC ROCK" other than the way you dress, how does this show and effect your everyday life?

Dmitry Flo: Well, it effects some how all right.
I am sure that I will never work for any of political parties
nor for any corporation. I do not exist in their world))).

Black Cat: I would say the sense of humor helps me
along with all kinds of household smalls.

And finally, reveal the truth, what is next with DoppelgangeR?

Dmitry Flo: We are planning on recording a new album.
I even will disclose you a secret.
It will be named “12 STEPS TO INHUMANNITY”
In September we will perform at 20 years to Two Witches celebration,
along with very good Finnish band SILENE.

www.doppelganger.ru
www.myspace.com/doppelgangerband

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