Catalepsia: "Our goal is to try new things and reach the audience that haven’t heard about us before"

Photo: Adelīna Darviņa

Good morning! Let's start the day with an interview with one of the semifinalists from Supernova 2016, here are the answers from CATALEPSIA:
Name: Erwin
Birthday: July 23, 1990
Height: 1,96 m
Favorite color: It depends on my mood but I prefer black, bloody red and fir green
Favorite food: Different kinds of Indian dishes
What do you do in the band? I am the vocalist and the guitar player as well. Also, I do the songwriting.
Where are you right now? In my flat
3 things that make you happy: Listening to metal music, meeting friends and playing live gigs
What’s your strangest talent? Scaring people without a purpose to scare them
What is the strangest thing you have in your room? The chain on my wall
What are you really good at? Making hellish noise
What are you really bad at? Somersaulting
Childhood idol: James Hetfield
Childhood memory: Playing guitar with a tennis racquet
Celebrity crush: Angela Gossow
Tell me something no one knows about you: I am unable to see pink color
What would you do if you were invisible? I would scare the shit out of people who piss me off
Favorite movie: The Lord of the Rings
Favorite TV series: Vikings
If you were a girl/boy for a day, what would you do? I would try lesbian sex
What is your guilty pleasure? Making fun of death
Name a song that never fails to make you happy: Carnivore – Jesus Hitler
Can you teach me some interesting words in Latvian? One word in Latvian I have found silly lately has been the archaism “sapurgāt” which basically means “to spoil something”.

Photo: Adelīna Darviņa

Name: Krišjānis
Height: 1.84 m
Favorite color: Darkness
Favorite food: Guts of the innocent
What do you do in the band? Rhythm creation, useless philosophy
Where are you right now? In my comfy pants
3 things that make you happy: My family, my drumsticks, annihilation of false gods
What’s your strangest talent? Making all the food disappear
What is the strangest thing you have in your room? A book about some Hindu religious stuff, half destroyed by my child.
What are you really good at? Staring
What are you really bad at? Sleeping
Childhood idol: My dad
Childhood memory: Random memory? It was a beautiful sunny day. I was riding my first bicycle, wearing a bright yellow shirt with a picture of a butterfly on it, my golden locks dancing in the wind. Suddenly I got flushed with a bucket full of dirty water, recently used for cleaning a filthy floor.
Celebrity crush: Shakira, Anne Hathaway, Emma Watson.
Tell me something no one knows about you: There is no such thing
What would you do if you were invisible? Dance like nobody’s watching. Because they aren’t.
Favorite movie: ’’The Room’’
Favorite TV series: ’’Brickleberry’’
If you were a girl/boy for a day, what would you do? My day would be exactly the same.
What is your guilty pleasure? I do not feel guilt.
Name a song that never fails to make you happy: ’’Pīppauze’’ by Krāsainais kas
Can you teach me some interesting words in Latvian? Yes.

Photo: Adelīna Darviņa

Name: Juris
Birthday: 26th of January
Height: 1,82 m
Favorite color: Blue
Favorite food: Chicken breast
What do you do in the band? Play guitar, compose songs
Where are you right now? In my apartment, sitting on a sofa
3 things that make you happy: Music, loved ones, sports
What’s your strangest talent? Talking to cats
What is the strangest thing you have in your room? Holy Bible
What are you really good at? Living my life
What are you really bad at? Answering this kind of questions
Childhood idol: Ultraman
Childhood memory: Playing in the sandbox with my brother
Celebrity crush: None
Tell me something no one knows about you: If I will tell that, someone will know
What would you do if you were invisible? I would go around and watch people
Favorite movie: One of favorites – The Lord of the Rings
Favorite TV series: Vikings, Breaking Bad, Lost, Dexter
If you were a girl/boy for a day, what would you do? I guess I would explore the new possibilities
What is your guilty pleasure? Eating unhealthy food
Name a song that never fails to make you happy: Purple rain
Can you teach me some interesting words in Latvian? Šaursliežu dzelzceļš

Photo: Adelīna Darviņa

Hello guys! How are you?
E: Hello, I am sleepy and tired but alive and still happy about the things happening around the contest and us.
K: Almost moderately fine, thank you.
J: Really great and excited that we have qualified for the semi finals. Thanks to all of our supporters! It was a great surprise.

How would you describe the band?
E: We are a bunch of doom metal lovers who happened to get each other’s weird sense of humor.
K: A 5-pack of foolishness and doom.
J: I would say we play melodic metal with meaningful lyrics. Our music is atmospheric, slow, heavy, fast, all kind of types.

How did you meet each other?
E: Well… The current line-up is together only for a year so far. I found Krišjānis and Jānis (the bass player) with a help of my friends but Juris and Silvija (they keyboards player) were found through the internet. All in all, I am happy that we have each other and I hope it will work further as well.

Photo: Jānis Turks

Tell me about the name of the band:
E: I came up with this name in one of A. C. Doyle’s books. Although it’s medical definition is rigidity of a body we use name “Catalepsia” as a symbol of a soul being imprisoned in a body.

You are one of the participants of Supernova 2016. How did it all begin?
E: Our goal is to try new things and reach the audience that haven’t heard about us before as well as seeing its reaction.
K: It all began with a joke.
J: We had this idea for some time. As we had problems with band members leaving and joining, we couldn’t do it. When the band was stable, we did some final touches to Damnation, recorded it and sent to Supernova song contest.

“Damnation” is the title of your song, what’s the story behind it?
E: Lyricwise it’s a story about the fact that nothing lasts forever. Every feeling just as a physical body dies sooner or later.

Describe the song with 4 words:
E: Tragedy, sadness, drama, reality.
J: Melodic, interesting, catchy, heavy.

How do you feel about the reaction of the people with your song?
E: I am surprised because I expected that most of them will strongly criticize it. However, in general the reaction is positive and receiving support from listeners feels amazing.
K: There are a lot of opinions, many of them are really funny so I am having my share of fun reading them.
J: I feel good about it. People like our song. There are some who don’t but it will be always so.

Tell me about the performance, what can we expect for the next one?
E: Well… It depends on our mood. We will definitely work on it but we are not sure, if we want to change anything. We will definitely do our thing on the stage. We are not planning any staged stuff because it’s music not theater or circus.
J: Just wait and you will see.

What do you like about Eurovision?
E: I like the fact that it’s a possibility to show ourselves and try to change things.
K: I like all the new experience that this pre-selection contest gave us.
J: I like it as an opportunity to show our music to a bigger audience.

What do you dislike about Eurovision?
E: Cliché stuff, lack of contrasts, fake emotions, lack of live instruments and the songs are too short.
J: Lack of different music styles and genres.

Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word:
Solitude: Draconian / Saturnus / Winter
Hair: Headbanging / Juris / Long hair
Sleepwalking: Murder / Me / Moon
Cold shower: Freezing to death / Cold shower / Goosebumps
Aminata: Chocolate / Aminata / Eurovision
Friendship: Creating a list of new terminology / Erwin’s lost dog Sniedziņš, who got on a train and left him when he was just a kid / Friends
Stage: Energy / Heat / Lights
Dreams: Witches chasing me / Drums? Where? / Bed

Photo: Adelīna Darviņa

What are your plans for 2016?
E: Playing some gigs around Baltics and maybe even in farther places as well as making music videos and working on our second album.

Is there anything you want to say to close the interview?
E: Thank you for this interview. It was fun answering all these questions!
J: Thanks for this opportunity and interview!

Thanks to the band for the interview! I really like their song so I wish them all the best in Supernova!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catalepsia.official/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catalepsia_official/