Sakatat Interview Hello Semih, how�s the weather in Turkey? Do you know why geocities is blocked in Turkey? (Do I correct?) Hey Jose! Thanks a lot mate, I just woke up, took a huge glass of tea, so everything is pretty good here. I hope you are fine too! I have no idea why Geocities is blocked in Turkey. Turkish authorities had this stupid policy of banning sites that spread so-called �inconvenient� info and it sucks. This is just another proof that the governments cencor the things they can�t cope with. Ok let�s start now with the band. The first time I heard your music was your demo 2006 which is quite fucking brutal and grinding like Agathocles, Ulcerrhoea, etc. So, I�m wondering how did you start this kind of band and who motivate you to create this kind of music? Appearently that demo (or promo) wasn�t suitable for most people who were used to polished recordings however it is good to lotsa people liked it the way it was. Well, when we first started the band, we were not even aware of the fact we were starting a band, I mean it kinda happened spontaneously. When we recorded few tracks at our basement in January 2005, we never thought we would continue. I think it was the encouracing feedback we got from people who listened to the demo which made us keep on playing. What kind of word is �Sakatat�? Is this a local word and why did you choose this kind of name? It means �offal� in Turkish, a word you can run into everywhere in Turkey since people here consume lotsa different food made from offal. Unfortunately there is not a specific reason why we chosed this name (I wish there were a story, though). The thing is after we recorded the demo it was obvious we had to put a band name to the booklet and SAKATAT seemed to be the best option at that time. I think it sound cool, don�t you think so? Do you have lots of tour lineup this year and one of your upcoming tours is the Independent Voices Fest 5 at Romania. What happened with visa concerned issue? Is there no more light for this tour? Tell us more... Actually we had to cancel the Romania show only because Romania visa was really expensive. Still, ee will definetely play rest of the tour including Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. What about the other euro tour with ONANIZER and ANOTHER WAY. Tell us more how it was started this idea and any update for this tour? Well, in the first place only Obscene Extreme was booked however, later it seemed quite stupid to travel all the way from Turkey only for one show so we decided to make it more like a tour. I contacted some Czech pals and Karel from ONANIZER wrote me back saying he might help with the tour. Since I knew him and other guys from ONANIZER for a while it was obvious we were going to tour together. Later, they invited ANOTHER WAY from Hungary and finally our tour crew was complete. I�ve read that you are going to OEF2008 this coming July. What preparation you are working right now for the crowd of Czech? What do they expect for a Turkish grindcore maniac? Is this your first time to attend also OEF? Hopefully it is going to be the last show of our Euro tour in July 2008. Undoubtly Obscene Extreme is one of the greatest events of the year so we are glad that we are going to play there! I have been there last summer so I am already prepared to the great atmosphere. Obviously Czech people are used to watching grindcore bands so I am not really sure if they are looking forward to our show or not but we are definetely looking forward to unleashing our fury on stage! This year its looks like that SAKATAT quite busy touring Europe. Well do you have any plan for next year tour outside Europe like in America or Asia? Our first plan is to finish the tour honourably and then if everything goes well and we have the chance to tour other places, we will definetely do our best to do it! Besides of being busy in your upcoming tour, SAKATAT also have lots of projects come and one of this is your split 7� with German SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS. What is the update of this project? And how�s your relationship with Angernoise Records? Angernoise is a new Italian label born from the ashes of now dead Grindmind. When we got the offer from Michele we had just recorded for splits with CYT and ARCHx so we were not planning to release anything until the tour however it turned out that we had some great songs so we thought why not to record them. The result was way better than we thought it would be, in fact most people say it is the best stuff we ever recorded. Obviously SOTI is another excellent grindcore unit so we are looking forward to this 7� which should be out sometime in June/July. Another split project you have is your split with CUT YOUR THROAT. This band is one of my fave grind noise band from Greece. What can you about this band and this project? Any update? Yeah, CYT is one of my faves too! One of the most brutal grindcore bands in the scene if you ask me! Antonis from Greek distro Alcoholic Desaster was the one who came up with the idea, I had already listened to CYT demo and blown away by it so I didn�t wait a minute to say we are totally into it! That 7� should be out very soon, in summer 2008. What about your split 7"s with Canadian defenders of mincecore ARCHAGATHUS. What is the update and how did you involved on this project? ARCHAGATHUS is another great band! Everything they�ve released is a mincecore masterpiece so I am glad we had the chance to split a 7� with them! It will be released by co-operation of four labels and should be out in summer 2008. I�ve also noticed that most of your upcoming projects are into a split records. Do you have any plan to make a full length album right now or is there already a record label working on this? Actually we just talked about it however there is not a plan to record a full-lenght yet. Nevertheless, we will definetely think about it after the tour. That would be cool actually. What about topic for every lyric�s you compose. Mostly what issue did you tackled? Do you prefer into gory/pathological type or social/political issues? Why? Even though all of us are into goregrind and stuff like that we never dealed with gory lyrics. Our lyrics deal with the world/country we live in. In fact lyrics are as important as the music for us. We write about the shitty conditions we face in our lives. Some subject from the last 7� are mass media, capitalist invasion, elitist organizations etc... And why we are doing this is because we can not focus on anything else why everything around us fucked- up. Mostly how many times do you practice in a week, because if you could see you have lots of projects to come and if I�m not mistaken all tracks for every projects is new and fresh. Right? We hardly ever rehearse, haha! Only before we record or play live... Since Onur and Ugur live in Istanbul and I live in Ankara we never have the chance to rehearse as often as most bands usually do. However, considering we have aprox. 2 shows and recording sessions a year, it is not a real problem. Besides of SAKATAT I know that you are also quite busy doing your IMPACT DRILL zine. What other else keep the band busy right now? We are all busy with other underground activities besides SAKATAT. Ugur plays in few other bands (TRUTH WE DEFEND, YOU NAME IT I HATE IT plus few more), Onur just started a doom metal band and even recorded a demo, I edit 2 fanzines, run a small distro, play drums in Onur�s band. Other than that we all study. Boring, eh? By the way, any news and update for IMPACT DRILL zine? I am planning to work on the 4th issue in Autumn 2008, it is going to be in the same way as issue #3 however this time I am planning to interview wider variety of bands. Did you still have spare time to your family and other things in life? Onur and I study in different cities than our parents live so we hardly live the so-called family life. Rest of our lives are quite typical, though: Wake up, eat, shit, study, sleep. I hardly ever study, though, haha. Actually I�m not familiar with Turkish grindcore scene right now, and before most of my contact are into punk and hardcore freaks. Well, for now could you please update us the grindcore or underground scene in Turkey. And what other grindcore bands and fanzines could you recommend? It hasn�t surprised me at all since there is no grindcore scene here, haha. Actually Turkish underground scene isn�t that small however biggest part of it consists of death metal, black metal bands. Some band I would recommend are TRUTH WE DEFEND (hc), YOU NAME IT I HATE IT (pissed of punk), DECAYING PURITY (brutal dm), NETTLETHRONE (swe-death), KETUM (death metal/crust) and few more that I can�t recall at the moment. As for the fanzines, I would recommend SONIC SPLENDOUR yet Utku hasn�t unleashed a new issue since 2004 so... Is there anybody in band smoke? Coz I heard that smoking in a public place is Turkey is banned. What is you view about this? Ugur does. It was banned few days ago which was just another easy-to-digest news that would keep people busy and nevermind the real agenda. You see, this is how things work in Turkey. Too pity. In this coming OEF2008 show what band in the line up you wished to play with and spend more times and drink? Well, this year�s line-up seems to be really great so it is hard to pick one. Some bands I am looking forward to seeing like are AGATHOCLES, GRIDE, RGTE, JESUS CROST, BLOODY PHOENIX, DEATH TOLL 80K, FID, DISTURBANCE PROJECT and many many others! What is your first grind / noise record heard? What is your first reaction? I am not really sure about it CARCASS might be the first grind one so it is not hard to guess that I was totally blown away! Nevertheless, first band which made a grind fan is NAPALM DEATH! What about your first grind / noise gig attended? What experienced do you still remember? When I was first attended to shows they were not focused on specific genre but full of bands which play totally different styles which is totally fine for me. So, it wouldn�t be unfair to say I have never attended a real grind for ages. What do you know about the Philippines...? Curious question only. Actually I know quite a lot. I know you guys have a huge yet isolated scene there. I know you suffer from problems which we do as well, like unemployment, effects of capitalism, poverty etc... For me the worst fact about Philippines is people don�t seem to be happy about escaping from colonist regime since most people I know seem to be enjoying speaking English when they have the chance to speak their native tongue. Am I wrong? (Ha! You are correct! - J) I think almost all your upcoming projects and shows to come are tackled already on this interview, anyway is there anything I think I forgot to mention and you need to promote... more future projects to come... As an addition to what we�ve already talked about, I would like to mention we will have a limited tour CD featuring some exclusive songs and probably a new tshirt. Well I guess that�s for all now Semih, a big thanks for spending time to answer this interview. Cheers!!! Thanks a lot for your support, Joselito! I really enjoyed answering your questions! I wish you all the best with your activities! Also, I would like to mention that I am really glad that you are publishing the print version of your zine since I enjoy reading your inties a lot! I hope people in your area support your zine and encourage you to keep doing the paper version! All the best my friend! Semih & SAKATAT (May 2008, Ankara) cesettur [at] hotmail.com www.sakatat.cjb.net www.myspace.com/sakatat
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