1) Hail and welcome to our fifth edition of Blessing Moment. How are you guys doing after the releasing 'The Perfect Realm Of Jharkyannarkh Promo CD'?
- Hello to Sxull of Blessing Moment Zine and to all readers everywhere! This is Calvin, the guitarist of RASPATUL. Well, things are really going slow after this promo release, but I am sending out this promo release to labels and zines everywhere to get as much exposure as we can get. In fact, this is our first interview since the release of 'The Perfect Realm Of Jharkyannarkh Promo CD 2004' and it's a great honour for us!
2) Frankly speak I heard about RASPATUL after hearing your song in Storm Of Nebiula compilation a years ago. And might some of the readers still blurry with your band existence. Can you brief some of RASPATUL history?
- Well, in actual fact a lot of Malaysian Metalheads only heard of us when we were featured in 'Storm Of Nebiula' years ago. It was definitely a great start for RASPATUL as we were also doing the 'Menghitung Ajal' EP at that time as well, so having being featured in 'Storm Of Nebiula' compilation definitely paved way and expose our music to a lot more Metalheads. I even remembered there was a guy from Poland who bought the 'Storm Of Nebiula' compilation and he contacted us and gave us some really nice comments. Ok I am gonna give you RASPATUL's band bio and hope you guys don't mind the damn long band bio.....
The birth of RASPATUL was in the year 1996, with four young lads mainly Ayim, Hisham 'Black', Ermie and Fadzlly. Back then, the name RASPATUL hasn't been thought of yet, so they just jammed as a band without any name. These four young lads started out jamming cover songs from Green Day and Nirvana as in that point of time, they were not proficiently skilled as musicians and they were just jamming out their favourite covers. Jamming together as a band was nothing more than just a hobby. As time went by, everyone in RASPATUL started improving in their own instruments and so they decided to compose some originals. So things started to get a but more serious and they would jam on a regular basis.
It happened that Leonard Soosay, who at that time, was a recording engineer at MYX studios, saw the progress of the band and decided that they should have a band name. Hearing similarities in Sepultura as well as Pantera, Leonard gave them a band name called RASPATUL, and they have been using the band name ever since. Since then, the band's influences have widen a lot and RASPATUL's influences are mainly Death Thrash with the likes of old Sepultura, At The Gates, Kreator, Carcass, Arch Enemy, Dissection, Sil Khannaz, Morbid Angel, The Crown, Terror Squad, Dimension Zero, etc. Things started to go smoothly for RASPATUL and their first appearance was at a pub called Anywhere Pub and only friends who knew them went down and support them as well as a few guys from the underground Metal scene. RASPATUL's first public performance was at Youth Park and the gig was called '7 Freeman Gig' organised by a few bands together. The response from the crowd was great and it's still one of RASPATUL's most memorable and best gig to date.
RASPATUL began to catch the attention of the underground Metal scene very fast and they were being invited to play at several Metalfests. The most anticipated gig for RASPATUL was at another Metalfest held at Coastal Sands, and for this gig, RASPATUL got to play alongisde Malaysian Thrash band Sil Khannaz, which was one of RASPATUL's biggest influences. But due to Sil Khannaz's problems with their passports, they pulled out from the gig during the last minute. Disappointing as it was for RASPATUL, they still played a tight and heavy set for the gig. In the year 2001, RASPATUL decided that it was about time they started to record some of the songs they have been jamming and performing live. So they decided to try out one song for recording. RASPATUL decided to record at TNT Studio, and they recorded their first song 'Breaking', which would later be featured in a local compilation called 'Children Of The Damn', which also feature bands like Dethmute, Steel Glory, Bunuh, Deviant, Vrykolakas, Zeotz, etc. The band's first recording also featured their good friend Calvin, ex-guitarist of Deviant, as an additional guitar player for RASPATUL. The response for 'Breaking' was great and they decided to record yet another song. But due to some technical problems during recording, RASPATUL decided to record everything again. It was at that time the guitarist Ermie decided to leave the band due to family commitments. It turned out to be devastating for the band as they were in the process of recording their first EP. So naturally Calvin took over the guitar duties and they still continued with their recording.
During the process of recording, RASPATUL played at another Metalfest, which was called Neo-Diabolica II and RASPATUL played alongside Pyron from Ipoh, Damokis from Johor, Sihir, etc. It also happened that Dark-E from Sil-Khannaz was present at the gig and he was impressed with RASPATUL and therefore he asked RASPATUL if the band was interested to be featured in their compilation called 'Storm Of Nebiula 2002'. Of course, the band could not refuse such a good offer and it was just the right timing as RASPATUL was also in the process of recording.