Yes. We’re planning to go to the studio in the near future. For us, this near future is 6 month. We’ve managed to record background music for a "pre-demo" and Roby is working on lyrics. This time we’d like to have the songs completely ready before going to the studio. Well, what’s the new stuff like? Ok, in our case you can’t admit for sure that it’s like this or that – we’re a "band without face". We’re still a mixture of everything possible. A couple of people have said that one of our new songs (Sun) reminds them of My Dying Bride…kind of strange, isn’t it? For me personally, it’s a mixture of Paradise Lost and Rammstein. But… we’re trying to continue more or less in the same mood as we started on "Without Face".

Quite well. Can’t complain. It has been 10:1 or 10 positive reviews and then 1 completely negative piece of writing. Opinions differ, that’s how it is! But on the whole, we’ve done pretty well. As it’s likely with all metal bands, there’s a lot of interest in our group in Japan, which is a pleasant positive sign, ‘cause it hasn’t been our intention to get to Japan, but rather to the USA or Germany. But yes…

When the Estonian label Guano records came up with the idea of releasing a Judas Priest tribute album, we thought, "Why not join in?" And the song itself… We argued pretty long before coming up with that particular piece. Probably the choice was influenced by the fact that we didn’t want to do one of the so-called Priest hits. "Saints in Hell" is quite an unknown piece, only really serious Priest fans know of it. It’s unlikely that we’d have started with a Priest cover if we hadn’t had the idea for the record. But we’ve received quite a few blows. It really depends on the audience- whether you have to do with real Priest fans or not. Some have even said that it’s better than the original but others haven’t managed to figure out which piece it is until the first half of the chorus.

There’s not much to tell… We must have recorded it in 20 hours… And it’s… I can’t even tell… They say expectations sometimes exceed reality. But at the same time, I won’t consider it a complete failure. It’s somehow weird to listen to the same material – can’t believe it’s the same band.

Sure, "Without Face" is a lot heavier. When our album "3.47 GB" was said to be a mixture of Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Metallica and Helmet - so, more grunge-like… "Without Face" on the other hand is just a mixture of good old trash metal and modern nu trend.

Basically, Roby or I suggest the starting point and if it’s good enough we start off by putting the song together. Almost 75 per cent of our pieces have come to life that way. But there are a couple of them that Roby has done from the very beginning. And the lyrics… These are Roby’s cup of tea and so far it’s only been at the studio that we get to know what he’s going to sing. During the rehearsals he keeps humming all the time.

Actually, we don’t have our own label. The thing is that those negotiations we had before the release of our album haven’t had any remarkable results. But isn’t it so that you learn from your mistakes.

When Mel made up his mind to quit, I was really disappointed. I’ve performed together with Mel for more than 10 years. He was trying to justify his decision by saying he was busy but we all realized very clearly that it wasn’t the case. What it really was, we can only guess, and we do think that the path we had taken wasn’t acceptable to him. We stayed as a trio from August 2000 till May 2001 - quite a long period, really. Can’t deny that we didn’t look for a new guitarist - obviously, we had very high standards then. But yes, as we didn’t find anybody who could be a square peg in a round hole, we decided to recruit someone younger and less experienced, so that we could train him to meet with our ways of understanding and making music. At present, we think we’ve been successful. Sure, at first there were problems, ‘cause his (Ants’) right hand was used to making the same movements over and over again (he was a member of a local black metal band before joining us) but now things are improving and we can look at the brighter side. Of course, he hasn’t managed to offer anything, as far as writing music is concerned. He’s just trying to get adjusted to our style. I do hope that one day he’ll offer cool guitar riffs. There are some signs of it already, I can tell.

That’s a nasty question. We came up with [o3] only recently, which was in connection with the release of our album "Without Face". Before that we used O3 (as the chemical formula for ozone). You know that, don’t you? But as the media could never get the name right (they started writing about a band called "zero- three"), we thought, we’d make things a little bit easier for them. And I really can’t tell you why such a name. It was long - long ago when we chose the name.

More-or- less. It’s the critics’ job to tell us what we’re doing. That’s what they are for! We’ve never said to ourselves "let’s do this or that", struggling really hard while striving for that goal. At the same time, I really like that description of us given by Panzer Magasine.com "they perform a trashy modern nu metal, with a lot of distortion and sing/up along chorus"

I enjoy working at the Orbital Vox studios. The sound engineer (his name is Tanel Roovik) working for that studio has been extremely co-operative from the very beginning. For me personally, it means a lot if I can sometimes simply have a chat with the sound engineer and he cares for what we’re doing, gives advice etc. I wouldn’t use any other studio in Estonia. We’ll record our next albums there. That’s for s-u-r-e.

My Goodness! You know, that’s too bad that black metal is in in Estonia (depends, for whom, of course). People are still keen on that kind of stuff although it seems the boom will be dying out pretty soon. As I’m not a big fan of black metal, I can’t say anything for or against it. At the same time, naturally, there are other styles represented here but somehow, they’ve remained in the shadow. Not for long, hopefully. But if I have to name somebody, then the completely new industrial band Zorg is definitely worth mentioning. That’s something I appreciate myself.

Interviewed by Federico Marongiu

Unes Ilmus - CD (1997)

3.47 Gb - CD (1999)

Without Face - CD (2001)

Gun - bass

Roby - guitars, vocals

Madox - drums, backing vocals

Ants - guitars