I interviewed our winner band GRIMTOTEM

For our latest bands battle, I promised one interview for the winner band. Since GRIMTOTEM won that battle, I interviewed Carolina Rebolledo then. Here we go:

01. Hello Carolina! Back in 2011, You founded GRIMTOTEM. How came the idea ?

Hello Krissy! The idea came when I met José, Victor and another past member in 2011. It was hard to find people who had those kind of interests at that time, so we thought that it would be interesting to form a band mixing all those influences, then we started to cover a couple songs. About the name of this band,it was inspired just in our chilean totem called "rehue" in mapudungun language. We chose it in the end of that year.

02. Your lyrics are mainly about Chilean History. Do you have any particular favorite history from Chile ?

Of course! my favorite one so far is "La guerra de Arauco" (Arauco war). I've been living in that city for 13 years, but many other cities were involved into this 300 years war between spanish conquerors and chilean native habitants. There still exists so many mixed feelings, because this war hasn't finished yet for this native people and I have seen amounts of new conflicts these last years.

03. What are the other themes, else than History, in GRIMTOTEM songs ?

We haven't written about other themes yet, but it's something that we have in mind, because our purpose is to reach chilean paganism also. In our future material we will incluse those kind of aspects.

04. What are the bands that influenced GRIMTOTEM ?

Our main influences musically speaking, are bands like Amon Amarth, Moonsorrow, Thyrfing, Mithotyn, Falkenbach, Windir, Menhir and some chilean artists/bands who inspired us to compose our acoustic tracks. Bands like Uaral, Inti-Illimani, Patricio Manns and Chinoy for guitar skills for the main - not lyrics.  

05. You are currently working on your first demo. How things going ?

Things are going very well, but we don't want to stress so much with it, because we are still including details to our tracks in our rehearsals and I think that they will sound really good to your ears. 

That's what I feel when we get finished every new song.

06. Any special concept for the demo on its way ?

Yes, I would say those chilean epic wars are the main concept for this demo, in which we will retell some episodes ocurred in the past.

07. How will sound the upcoming demo, musically ?

About the sound, we will mix all our influences on this. You will probably find some black, death and progressive passages. I can't explain very well how it will sound in the end of this process. 

We are looking forward to get our own sound in a near future. The idea is just to compose whatever comes to our minds.  

08. Do you already know the number of tracks there ?

There will be about 5 tracks in this demo.

09. Will the demo be available in physical version? and digital for free download ?

It will be available in digital version for free download.

10. Do you think to release it soon ?

Yes, we will start recording this demo in May. I really expect to release it soon. Our goal is to get it completely ready in July (just to give an idea).

11. How was perceived your first single entitled "the battle of the centuries" from last year, by the Chileans and over the world ?

I would say that it was perceived in a good way, it helped to open doors a little bit in terms of taking part of gigs, which is really good.

There are some details that could still be done better, but it will take time to improve them and we recieved some pieces of advice from people with more experience. We are really getting started from the depths of the underground.

12. How's the Folk Metal situation in Chile? Some bands to advice ?

Folk Metal situation is growing year by year, but it still being not very popular. People in our metal world are finding it very interesting and that's very good. The only detail is that folk metal gigs don't happen very often because there aren't many organizers to plan events like this.

I would advice for now bands like Folkheim, Montuln (have a listen to their debut album), Runepath, Paghania, Eriador, Sagas and Traucoholik.Something older like Uaral will be also in our hearts.