Krepuskulum had the great honour to interview one of the best doom darkwave bands of the metal history - the legendary Croatian act ASHES YOU LEAVE - in the moment of Dunja's exit (female vocals) and Marina entrance (new female singer).. We took with NEVEN MENDRILA (rhythm & acoustic guitars).

Krepuskulum: We would like that you talked to us about the beginning of the band. How did everything begin?

Mendrila: A handful of doom enthusiasts gathered to make a band that would express their current state of mind and thus started AYL. In the beginning the general idea how things should sound was quite raw, so the Passage album turned out to be a bit too influenced by MDB and Cathedral, but nowadays things are crystallizing into how AYL should really sound.

ASHES YOU LEAVE is a strong and tragic name. What does it symbolize for you?

It's the great mistery of life. Is there anything beyond death? We feel there must be, a spiritual life or maybe a return to earth, who knows. It is a doomy name, since doom is a rather death-influenced genre and Ashes You Leave comes in perfectly as a name that would describe the state of things when death comes.

ASHES YOU LEAVE is from Croatia. Talk us a little about the metallic scene in your country.

Not much to say. Lots of bands scattered around Croatia, no one has really heard of. There is little advertising to promote all of these bands so I can only say that the situation is rather appalling. It's hard being a ROCK band in Croatia let alone being a METAL band.

The atmosphere created in the compositions of the band mix the melancholy and sweetness of the goddess DUNJA RADETIC voice and her flutes, to the depth and weight of heavy and slow guitars and to the vocal ones
brutal. Why did you opt for mix sweetness and brutality? Talk about your creative process.

Things come in as we feel they should be played. So if the need arises for a brutal exaltation of power, we'll harden our rhythms and bring in the male death vocal just to express a certain kind of force. Basically one or more of us comes in with an idea and then we work around it in the rehearsing room. We make the rhythm arrangements, the vocal ones and finally the violins, flutes and keyboards. That order can change if the violin, for example, carries the whole song so we work around the instrument that is going to have the leading role in the song.

Your second album DESPERATE EXISTENCE was a great mark of Atmospheric in our opinion, he already showed a mature band and with a lot of personality, creating fabulous music like wonderful SHADOW OF SOMEBODY'S ELSE. We would like that you talked a little about that album and on as was the reception
of the fans.

The album does bring out a new dimension, different from the one we created on "the passage back to life". It's more gothic, more sad rather than depressing thus being more open to the listeners. Yes, I also like "Shadow...". All of these songs bring out a certain feeling in me, not that hard thumping depression "The Passage..." songs often do burst out, but a feeling of well being, a feeling of home. The reception was great, luckily the critics noticed we moved out from the MDB influences and sat upon our self created throne.


The new album THE INHERITANCE OF SIN AND SHAME is an evolution of the previous, in him the band still sounds sweeter and sad. Where does that sadness and melancholy that it moves its music come from?

I believe melancholy is a product of many years of sadness piling up so we just come in and express our emotional side through music and lyrics. Where does it come from? Who can tell. Maybe the general feel of living in Croatia, maybe from life itself. It just comes out, no questions asked.


The covers of the CDs of the band always bring symbolic and intriguing images. What does that mean symbol that appears in the layer of the second CD and also in the new? It is a logotype of the band with initial AYL?

Yes, it is something Dunja drew when the need for a logotype arose. And yes, it's AYL, all scrambled up to make one letter.

The cover art of THE INHERITANCE OF SIN... is it very beautiful, what is its meaning?

Maybe all of us are the inheritors of sin and shame since religion has nowadays really become an inheritance, the children being fed with God forced to believe in him, forced to go to the church, while on the other side many of the people of God end up being hypocrites. So "The Inheritance Of Sin And Shame" can be implemented onto all of us, really.... The two irregular semicircles represent greed (lower element) and lust (upper element) sprung at each other. There is a kind of a tension between
them when you look at it carefully. All of the artwork can be explained in many ways. You could, for example, take it for a manifestation of love, where greed and lust are not uncommon. You could implement it onto the story above, the one about the people of God. Really, there are many meanings to the front cover picture, each one unique to the person that describes it.

The depth of your lyrics and music transforms the new CD in a classic of the heavy music. Where comes from the inspiration to write lyrics like TIN HORNS and AMBER STAR. Do you like poetry and literature?
What are your favorite books and movies?

Well inspiration is a strange thing. I know I wrote Tin Horns after hearing the title in this rather stupid movie starring Robin Williams. Once I heard the title I immediately wrote down the first few lines of the text. The rest came with time. The thing is I can write a poem after I meet someone and imagine what it would be like if we were together. Or the lyrics can come from me actual BEING with someone. Or everyday life. I remember writing some lyrics while driving in my car home (it's quite a long drive so all you're left with is yourself and your thoughts....music provides little help). I love reading poetry and prose. My favorite poets are Pablo Neruda and W.B. Yeats. Robert Frost also gets a honorable mention, especially his "The Road
Not Taken". When it comes to books I'd say my favorite books would be "The Tropic Of Cancer" by Henry Miller, "Green Love" by Aleksander Minkowski (which I read when I was a bit younger, but it's such a strange book that it still lingered on), "Ruke" by Ranko Marinkovic and "Narcissus and Goldmouth" by Herman Hesse (sadly, I haven't found the time to finish it but from what I read the book makes for a strange mood).
Favorite movies....I liked The Shawshank Redemption and What Dreams May Come a lot. Leaving Las Vegas is also great. I love David Lynch movies especially Lost Highway, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks (as well as the whole TP series.....my all time favorite definitely). the artistic touch in a movie is something that always glues me to the screen, since the scenes are not that straightforward, but you can derive your own meaning. That's what makes  a movie a classic, the ability to reach out to the audience and make them wonder about everything.

Marta Batinic is really an important member of the band. Your violin is responsible for many climates and atmospheres. Did she study classic & medieval music? What are her influences?

She did study classic music and finished high school for violin and piano.  I can't really say what are her influences, I guess we never talked about itthat much.

How has been to work with the label MORBID RECORDS?

They neglected us a bit since we were the only doom band on a grind metal label. I know it should have been the other way around but things never turned out as we planned they would. We met with the heads of the label at Morbid Fest and they promised us better treatment in the future so we will see how everything turns out.

Do you have some influence of the traditional music of your country?

Well a bit, yes. The third song from the album, Shepherd's Song has influences from various folk elements of Croatia's traditional music as well as those classical standards a flute player should possess. It is great to hear a bit of your own country in your own music since we are very proud of who we are and what we play. Things would have been different if we were
from Norway, maybe would get a bit more attention but we wouldn't have that special touch most of these western Balkan countries have.

Do you reproduce all the instruments in your shows? Talk us about yourGigs.

We do try to be reproduce everything we recorded but it is hard sometimes since we did record a lot of instruments on the CD. So we take the second violin we recorded and translate it to the guitar or something. But we changed a lot of our songs after we recorded them just because we realized they sounded a bit thin and needed a bit of a change. But the reactions of fans were okay on the tour. they were a bit dazzled at first but overall i think they realized the altered songs sounded much better this way.

We would like to know your opinion on some subjects:

- GOD - I believe in a different godd, not the bearded old man sat upon a heavenly throne, but a force behind us. I think Bible is way off with their representation of God. Why should everything have a start and an ending?

- LOVE - Strange how love still puzzzles millions and millions people around the world, still no one has found the explanation why one day you will feel attracted to a person and the next day the same person will repel you.

- HUMAN RACE - We are strange creatuures, aren't we? The "race" in the phrase often turns from it's basic meaning(mankind) to it's uglier one (competition). The latter can be quite deadly since some people know not of a barrier and go by the "the goal justifies the means" philosophy. I guess most people don't realize money does not necessarily mean happiness.

- SADNESS - A source of inspiration for a lot of people. I know it has been mine many times. Overall sadness turns to melancholy on a lot of occasions.

- DOES EXIST A REASON FOR THE EXISTENCE?? Maybe it does. And maybe there is no reason why we are here just because there doesn't always have to be a reason for everything.

We would like to know your opinion about some bands:

- AMORPHIS - Quite a great band. Esppecially the "Tales..." album. The new stuff is bit of key for my perception of the band but still they haven't lost their Finnish Epic sort of Metal touch.

- PARADISE LOST - I like their old aalbums, Icon in particular was a monster. But I feel the new stuff is a bit too commercial for them. The selling out process started on "One Second" and hasn't stopped since.

- MOONSPELL - This is a band that haas quite a unique production. Wolfheart and Irreligious are albums worth mentioning. Sadly the lyrics don't live up to the standards the music sets.

- DIMMU BORGIR - I liked them in theeir Stormblast era. Nowadays they are only a show for the
masses.

- NIGHTWISH - Therion.

- CRADLE OF FILTH - Another of thosee "we turned into a show for the kiddies" bands. The band does carry certain weight around them but I stopped listening to COF after I heard the Cruelty album. And then I saw Dani dancing around like a teenage heartthrob in that video of theirs, can't remember the name though.I heard skaters listen to them and they call it "evil core".

- BAUHAUS - Legends of their time. TThere is something about those songs that evokes a certain grim feeling in the listener. Well not that dark of a feeling but a gothic ambience certainly arises.

- THE CURE - I don't know how the heell Robert got away with that much makeup on, but he
did. Loved their Disintegration album.

Leave your final message for the fans.

Thanks to everyone who stood behind us. You know who you are.
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Contacts:

MORBID RECORDS : www.morbidrecords.de   /  info@morbidrecords.de

ASHES YOU LEAVE : metalsoundmag@yahoo.com / ashesyouleave@mail.com