An Interview with Evert from Chikatilo by PVDW
Introduce your band. How did you get together?
Chikatilo started in 2011 with me (Evert) who came up with the idea of having a band but in the music style that I’ve always wanted to play. I’m a big death metal/slam fan so I wanted to do a band in that style. I talked to Kjell, our bass player, and Ilja and they were down with it.
Drummers are hard to come by… but now we almost all have our driver’s license so we can get together without a problem. I’ve known Yannick for years and he asked me way back to just come and jam at his place in Kontich but yeah… no driver’s license, no go. We had a drummer before him but had only 1 rehearsal with him and then he just quit without saying anything. We also had a 2nd guitar player join us for a short while but his style was more metal core and that didn’t really fit the band.
The band really started when Yannick said yes to taking the position on the drums. Progress was just painfully slow without him. Can’t thank him enough for saying yes. We also have a 2nd vocalist which brings the “hardcore” voice or whatever you want to call it. Why? Just cause we feel like blending it in, not all slam has to be guttural overkill. (I find it cool though, but in this way it’s a little bit more diverse than just pure guttural brutality) first we had Sid doing those parts. But due to some problems within the band, we’ve decided to part ways with him. After that Yannick’s brother: Mathias came in to just help us out. But he never left so he’s a part of Chikatilo now.
Chikatilo is a strange name. Why this name? Does it have a meaning?
The Name comes from the Russian serial Killer Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo notorious for over 50 murders and probably more that aren’t really linked to him. Why this name. well I like watching a lot of documentaries about serial killers and chikatilo is a name that always been stuck in my head. And he is one of the craziest. A true mistake of nature.
I always liked the sound of it. It was my idea and everyone rolled with it.
On your EP Mistake of nature you have two guest singers? Why these? What do you think they add to the band?
Well Jason is a friend of mine. And I’ve always loved his band Putrified J and his voice is just immense. Pretty sure he can start earthquakes with that voice, haha. He chose the track cause he liked it and record vocals over it.
Davy is also a friend of us and he is well known in the Belgian hardcore scene. And he just wanted to something with us too.
What are the lyrics about? Are there any themes, ideas or messages you want to explore with this band?
It depends, we write about what we want, it varies we don’t really limit ourselves to just one theme. It can be over some possessed man or the hate towards one single person, conflicts in the world, sometimes we just write about Chikatilo himself it just really depends on how Ilja and Mathias want to write…
I’ve never seen you guys live. What can we expect from your live shows?
not a thin sound as on the EP, Hard sound. And a lot of violent dancing all over the place.
I also mentioned the thin sound in my review of the EP. Where did you record? How did the recording go? What would you do different on a next release?
We recorded it in the garage of Kenneth keysers (Serial Butcher) he also did the mixing and mastering but we had a terrible low budget (only 250 euro’s for recording and 400 for the pressing) but now we can do it differently. At the time we weren’t signed to clenched fist records, but now they are going to pay for the pressing costs so that leaves us more budget for quality recording. Well for a lot of us it was our first real recording experience. Most of us went super fast through their part. I redid some small parts and played in one part on one song on bass. What are we going to do different, a proper studio. And taking our time and not whipping something up in 4 hours.
Also don’t you fear that the violent dancing scares off people from the more death metal side of things, because they are not that used to this.
I think if it’s not taken too far I think they wouldn’t mind, if someone would just start bashing some guys face in over and over then I’m pretty sure it could go wrong. At our release show it was kinda like that. There were quite a lot of metal heads and hardcore/beat down kids.
I witnessed the return of crowd killing and fighting on hardcore shows. What is your take on that? Aren’t you afraid that people will not come to those shows anymore because they don’t want to get kicked in the face during a show?
It has always been around, nowadays it happens more that’s true. It’s getting hyped no idea why. Trends I guess… it will fly by. Will it stop people from going to shows I don’t think so. It’s all a part of it and you just embrace it in some way. I’ve got hit in the face numerous times and I’m still here. Just always go for the music not for all the crap around it.
Based on the flyers on your Facebook, most of your shows are within the beat down scene. Do you feel Chikatilo is more a beat down band then a metal band?
It’s true that we play more beat down shows then metal shows. Why is this? Well it’s probably because most of us go to hardcore shows since our 12/13 years… our first show we’ve played was a hardcore show and I guess people liked us so they kept booking us on those shows. We’re happy with every show we get offered. Maybe it’s because of the hardcore vocal style mixed in our music , not really sure about it. We don’t really care every show Is a good show for us!
What are your main influences? What bands would you like to play with. Are there any bands you admire that we won’t hear at all in your sound.
Main influences: Epicardiectomy / Kraanium / Mortuus / Waking the Cadaver / Despised Icon / Ingested / Putrified J / Murder Intentions.
I’d love to play with Devourment, Epicardiectomy and waking the cadaver!
That would be Pantera that I admire.
What other Belgian bands should we check out?
Whatever It Takes/ Moker/ Serial Butcher/ xviciousx/ Deconsecrate/ Seventh Circle / The Curse Of Millhaven /EBDB/ BMF/ Arkham Disease / The Last Shot Of War/ Headshot / Pushed Too Far / Antrophagus / Lost And Seen/ Murder Intentions
https://www.facebook.com/ChikatiloSlam?fref=ts
Chikatilo started in 2011 with me (Evert) who came up with the idea of having a band but in the music style that I’ve always wanted to play. I’m a big death metal/slam fan so I wanted to do a band in that style. I talked to Kjell, our bass player, and Ilja and they were down with it.
Drummers are hard to come by… but now we almost all have our driver’s license so we can get together without a problem. I’ve known Yannick for years and he asked me way back to just come and jam at his place in Kontich but yeah… no driver’s license, no go. We had a drummer before him but had only 1 rehearsal with him and then he just quit without saying anything. We also had a 2nd guitar player join us for a short while but his style was more metal core and that didn’t really fit the band.
The band really started when Yannick said yes to taking the position on the drums. Progress was just painfully slow without him. Can’t thank him enough for saying yes. We also have a 2nd vocalist which brings the “hardcore” voice or whatever you want to call it. Why? Just cause we feel like blending it in, not all slam has to be guttural overkill. (I find it cool though, but in this way it’s a little bit more diverse than just pure guttural brutality) first we had Sid doing those parts. But due to some problems within the band, we’ve decided to part ways with him. After that Yannick’s brother: Mathias came in to just help us out. But he never left so he’s a part of Chikatilo now.
Chikatilo is a strange name. Why this name? Does it have a meaning?
The Name comes from the Russian serial Killer Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo notorious for over 50 murders and probably more that aren’t really linked to him. Why this name. well I like watching a lot of documentaries about serial killers and chikatilo is a name that always been stuck in my head. And he is one of the craziest. A true mistake of nature.
I always liked the sound of it. It was my idea and everyone rolled with it.
On your EP Mistake of nature you have two guest singers? Why these? What do you think they add to the band?
Well Jason is a friend of mine. And I’ve always loved his band Putrified J and his voice is just immense. Pretty sure he can start earthquakes with that voice, haha. He chose the track cause he liked it and record vocals over it.
Davy is also a friend of us and he is well known in the Belgian hardcore scene. And he just wanted to something with us too.
What are the lyrics about? Are there any themes, ideas or messages you want to explore with this band?
It depends, we write about what we want, it varies we don’t really limit ourselves to just one theme. It can be over some possessed man or the hate towards one single person, conflicts in the world, sometimes we just write about Chikatilo himself it just really depends on how Ilja and Mathias want to write…
I’ve never seen you guys live. What can we expect from your live shows?
not a thin sound as on the EP, Hard sound. And a lot of violent dancing all over the place.
I also mentioned the thin sound in my review of the EP. Where did you record? How did the recording go? What would you do different on a next release?
We recorded it in the garage of Kenneth keysers (Serial Butcher) he also did the mixing and mastering but we had a terrible low budget (only 250 euro’s for recording and 400 for the pressing) but now we can do it differently. At the time we weren’t signed to clenched fist records, but now they are going to pay for the pressing costs so that leaves us more budget for quality recording. Well for a lot of us it was our first real recording experience. Most of us went super fast through their part. I redid some small parts and played in one part on one song on bass. What are we going to do different, a proper studio. And taking our time and not whipping something up in 4 hours.
Also don’t you fear that the violent dancing scares off people from the more death metal side of things, because they are not that used to this.
I think if it’s not taken too far I think they wouldn’t mind, if someone would just start bashing some guys face in over and over then I’m pretty sure it could go wrong. At our release show it was kinda like that. There were quite a lot of metal heads and hardcore/beat down kids.
I witnessed the return of crowd killing and fighting on hardcore shows. What is your take on that? Aren’t you afraid that people will not come to those shows anymore because they don’t want to get kicked in the face during a show?
It has always been around, nowadays it happens more that’s true. It’s getting hyped no idea why. Trends I guess… it will fly by. Will it stop people from going to shows I don’t think so. It’s all a part of it and you just embrace it in some way. I’ve got hit in the face numerous times and I’m still here. Just always go for the music not for all the crap around it.
Based on the flyers on your Facebook, most of your shows are within the beat down scene. Do you feel Chikatilo is more a beat down band then a metal band?
It’s true that we play more beat down shows then metal shows. Why is this? Well it’s probably because most of us go to hardcore shows since our 12/13 years… our first show we’ve played was a hardcore show and I guess people liked us so they kept booking us on those shows. We’re happy with every show we get offered. Maybe it’s because of the hardcore vocal style mixed in our music , not really sure about it. We don’t really care every show Is a good show for us!
What are your main influences? What bands would you like to play with. Are there any bands you admire that we won’t hear at all in your sound.
Main influences: Epicardiectomy / Kraanium / Mortuus / Waking the Cadaver / Despised Icon / Ingested / Putrified J / Murder Intentions.
I’d love to play with Devourment, Epicardiectomy and waking the cadaver!
That would be Pantera that I admire.
What other Belgian bands should we check out?
Whatever It Takes/ Moker/ Serial Butcher/ xviciousx/ Deconsecrate/ Seventh Circle / The Curse Of Millhaven /EBDB/ BMF/ Arkham Disease / The Last Shot Of War/ Headshot / Pushed Too Far / Antrophagus / Lost And Seen/ Murder Intentions
https://www.facebook.com/ChikatiloSlam?fref=ts