Melechesh

June 19 2009 (Hellfest - Clisson)

It's shortly after their very well-received set that the four members of MELECHESH (to be pronounced MELEKESH) came to the interview area. Having apparently started to celebrate their nice performance very early, the meeting was very colourful, with the leader of the band Ashmedi also leading in spreading chaos, always finding a way to disturb the interview, but in a very funny way. The quote "only fluids the doctor said" will very well define this meeting. Nevertheless, in spite of booze abuse, some subject can be very sensitive for Ashmedi: In spite of the fact that the band only started in Israel, and a long time ago (as the musicians live in Europe for a long time now), it seems that into people's mind, this is still an Israeli band, which is a false statement. A contemporary need to categorize people that deeply irritates the lead singer and guitarist.

Fab :So are you happy to be here at the HELLFEST 2009 ? What are your feelings about your recent show?
Ashmedi (Vocal/Guitar) : Well, it's the earlier show we've ever done, ever. So it was a new experience, and I like new experiences. Playing at twelve o'clock is pretty…cool (burst of nervous laughter, needless to describe the "party mode" of Ashmedi…). Fuckin' surprise, I mean, we come here to go on stage at twelve o'clock, just after breakfast, and you got to play at twelve o'clock. We didn't know what to expect, but somewhat the whole place is fuckin' packed and they're screaming. At that hour, the people there were screaming their lungs out. Respect to them!
Morloch (Guitar): It compensated everything.
Ashmedi: It was so early. In my life, I've never sung this early. Even when we're recording albums, at two, three o'clock we start singing…Interesting experience, but people were amazing at that hour.

Fab: It wasn't too difficult for you to be in the good state of mind for your music?
Ashmedi: Yeah, it was difficult. For me personally, it was difficult.
Morloch: But it's your job. You wake up in the morning, seven o'clock and didn't know how it was gonna be at twelve, but I think we did ok.
Ashmedi: For our first twelve o'clock gig it was not that bad. We put our alarm at seven o'clock, and went out jogging, ate breakfast or lunch...

Fab: Jogging?
Ashmedi: Yes, just to get awake! (laughter). I mean, we never wake up that early. We never wake up before fuckin'…(thinking).
Morloch: Do not display personal life (laughter).
Ashmedi: (taking my voice recorder and speaking loudly in it) It gets pretty personal here (general laughter). But the people were great. We were surprised, people were still sleeping, we got there and the Rock Hard tent is fuckin' packed, to the end, and they were like "roaarrr" (making crowd noise). We should have played there later but it was great. No fuckin' problem. We cannot complain.

Fab : Could we define your music as "Mesopotamian metal"?
Ashmedi: (playing with his Jack Daniel's bottle) I'll let Morloch do that.
Morloch: The very idea of MELECHESH, when we started, was to take the Black metal to Jerusalem. And the themes were inspired by Mesopotamian mythology and other mystical and coming from there. So the idea in 1993 …
Ashmedi: (cutting) just looking at the JUDAS PRIEST logo cos' I was so fuckin' mad !!!!!!!(literally screaming hysterically, definitely drunk).

Morloch: There, and that's the rest of the story, staying calm and professional in spite of his buddy) That was it. We started with this idea and we went on and on. From the demo album to "Emissaries" where I think we come to perfect this art, the combination of things.

Fab: It adds another dimension.
Morloch: Yes, of course, I mean, everything, it's music, but not in the sense where you take samples for granted in the music. Because that's not us. So the lyrics, the music, everything is an endless source of inspiration, and for now, they'd proven to be very resourceful.
Ashmedi: (completely unstable) I'm getting him drunk, I'm getting my drummer drunk (laughter).
Xul (drums): It's not the first time.

Fab: That's the good side of playing this early. Now, you have plenty of time to get drunk.
Ashmedi: Yeah! Look at the bright side. You play your show, put your fuckin' instruments away, and party. I mean, that can't be that bad.

Fab: How was the Sandstorm Festival in Dubai last may?
Ashmedi: There was a sandstorm. During the soundcheck, there was a hot wind coming at us, putting sand grains in our guitars. But it was a good show, it was good to be there, and for us it was really important to play in untouched areas. Great people. But the sandstorm was crazy, when we were doing our soundcheck, there was hot wind and sand… it was so fuckin' hot. But it was interesting.

Fab: And the response of the audience was ok?
Ashmedi: Oh yeah, yeah! They were great!

Fab : News from the new album?
Ashmedi: New album? What is that? (laughter).
Morloch: Something we are working on seriously, the new album (smiling). We are working very hard. We have half of it written, there's a lot of material. But we take our time, hopefully, it will be out for the beginning of next year.

Fab : What are your current sources of inspiration?
Morloch: We're listening more of Indian music for example. We're experimenting with, you know, 12 strings guitars. We still trying new things. So, hopefully, we'll do the job.

Fab : Even if you no longer live in Israel, a lot of people still consider Melechesh as a band from Israel. How do you feel about that?
Morloch: We hear that all the time, we're tired of it. But we can't change it. We're just not Israelis.
Ashmedi: (he suddenly gets really serious) With all respect to our Israelis fans, what can we say? When they call you an Israeli band and if you say you're not, they react strange like "what's wrong with that?". But nothing's wrong with that! I mean, with all due respect to all our fans, who recognize and respect us, as people. We are not Israelis! With all respect to the Israelis. But we can't control that, we've been to the point where we're lying. We can't do anything about it. With all respect to anybody. We're Syrians, we're Armenians, it doesn't matter. We're musicians! First, and foremost.
Morloch: We just forget about it. We just come to play.

Ashmedi: There's fact, and there's the medias. People like to just speak for us. The band started in Jerusalem, but none of us is Israelis. One guy is Armenian, one guy's a Syrian, from Jerusalem. That's very normal for Jerusalem! They're not (all) Israelis. It's not by choice, it's the Government that said "you're not Israelis". They actually took my residency right permanently, I can't stand there.
We're just fuckin' lousy people. (starting to get angry) One guy goes "you're Russian" or "you're Israeli", fuck everybody! People are too concerned of this racial shit, it means people are very simple creatures. Why? Why? It's like when you go for apples, there's different kind of apples, but they're just fuckin' apples! People are just idiots, they're very simple creatures. And then they go "ouh, I'm ready to meet aliens". You're not ready to meet aliens, you're already judging your neighbour! The French judge the Belgium, the Belgium judge the French, etc… (almost yellin') It's just one big fuckin' space of people fuckin' judging each other. Fuck you all! Everybody gets cancer, everybody dies! We're all the same.
Morloch: (addressing to me about Ashmedi) You stuck a sensitive nerve.

Fab : (trying to be courageous, for you dear readers) Ashmedi, as an Armenian, do you feel close to System Of A Down, in their political involvement?
Ashmedi: No, we don't like politics. Politic is made by fuckin' assholes. People die because of politics. I hate politics.
SYSTEM OF A DOWN? They do their thing, we do our thing. They released their debut album after we released our debut album. Totally different stories, but I like their music. We actually played in Armenia. We headlined a festival in November. Great experience.
Morloch - Nice people there
Ashmedi - I like what they're (S.O.A.D.) doing, but we're not like that.

Fab: What's in the close future of MELECHESH?
Ashmedi: Writing fine music and just challenge ourselves. We're always willing to do stuff, and we'll see what happens from that. We cannot do anything out of commercial (goal) with MELECHESH, we can't.. If people wanna join in our journey we are giving them welcome! I think that's the basic of what we do. We go for a journey. You wanna join us? Good! You don't? It's fine as well. But we won't do anything for you? And I feel that the next journey's gonna be very interesting for us. We're not gonna repeat what we did in the past. It's to boring.
Morloch: We don't like to replicate.

Fab: A last word for your fans?
Morloch: (In French, as he fluently speaks our language) Alors moi j'ai vécu en France, donc j'ai une attache particulière à ce pays. Merci pour tout, on sera toujours là. Merci !
Ashmedi : i don't understand french …