Here is the long awaited interview with the legendary Explosion Cerebral zine from Peru. Big thanks to Martin Lazarte Castro for doing this interview with Raspatul!
Check out the interview below:
Interview with Calvin of Raspatul
1) Why Raspatul, still you play covers of Green day or Nirvana, how do you discover the metal extreme?
First of all, Raspatul does not play covers of Green Day or Nirvana anymore to be exact. The band started out playing covers but without a name. It was just the usual jamming sessions of four friends in 1996 and slowly the band turned on to Metal when we became a little more technically efficient. The band name Raspatul was given by a recording engineer here who thought we sounded like a cross between Sepultura and Pantera. He sort of combined the two band names and gave us the monicker Raspatul. I joined the band in 2002 when their original guitar player left the band due to family commitments and I think we have gone to an even more extreme direction since then.
2) How affect the death of Ayim to Raspatul, are you thinking to record a tribute to him?
Ayim's accidental death was indeed a very harsh blow to Raspatul. In fact, we are only two weeks away from stepping into the recording studio to record our full length album. Our minds were a total blank right after he passed on, and believe it or not, we resumed jamming as usual the week after Ayim's death. Even though there were several occasions that we rehearsed without Ayim in the studio, but it was totally different this time. We knew in our hearts that Ayim is gone forever. Well I don't think there is going to be any record to tribute Ayim for the time being, I wouldn't know in the near future. I had seen Ayim's lyrics a while back, and he really has got very intellectual stuff going on, and also he was a very good contributor in terms of the songwriting process as well. Unfortunately, Ayim's lyrics died together with him. We have not been able to find his lyrics at all.
3) In what are based your lyrics, which are your main influences to write your lyrics and compose your music?
Well if Ayim was still alive, I am very sure he will be able to answer your questions on the lyrics department. As for composing the music, all I can say is that it starts off pretty random and most of the time, I would bring in a riff or two, and we will work things out from there. We are not a super technical band, and we based solely on songwriting to make it as sick and as interesting as possible. I try not to write in a typical way like for example verse, chorus, verse, etc. Everything aspect of the songwriting has to be well thought out and make sure the riffs flow nicely.
4) How was the your participation on Children of The Damned, you think that this compilation help you to promote Rapatul?
'Children Of The Damned' compilation was done by a good friend of mine Ron Warrion. He is the main guy from Steel Glory, an 80's Heavy Metal band. He started with this idea of doing a compilation with Metal bands from Singapore, and he naturally approached Raspatul as I was also playing bass with Steel Glory as well. The song that we submitted for this compilation was actually the very first recording that we did, and the song is called 'Breaking'. Hearing the song back now, I think we really sounded like a garage band, but it was really fun and to hear back what you did for the very first time is certainly nostalgic for me. This compilation wasn't promoted to any overseas market, so we really don't know how the response was as a whole. You can say that this compilation was only known probably in regions like Singapore and Malaysia and that's about it.