POKERFACE

💿 Hi, it's a pleasure for us to have on Hardrockheavymetal POKERFACE, well-known name in thrash metal scene from Russia! Let's start talking about the early times of the band..When is this all begun? Which bands have influenced you? Doctor (Drums): Hi, folks! Well, the band was founded in 2013, like proto-metal project, you know, fast, raw metal. Like Venom, Motorhead, Slayer. So the first things were covers on "Ace of Spades", "Black Metal", "Die by the Sword". I love that time! Now we play more commercial staff. LadyOwl (Vox): I joined the band last year. But before Pokerface I used clean vocal technique mostly, and also inspired by more melodic bands and bands from other genres. And yeah, I guess I have added something more melodical to vocal lines, cleans vocals also hehe. Ritter (Guitar): Hello there! Actually I'm in the band not from the beginning. But I took part in making latest LP "Game On" and tried to bring something like new Kreator and Sodom into the sound as well as riffs. German school. And some good old death metal bands maybe (Cannibal Corpse, Death). 💿 This year, after ep TERROR IS THE LAW and cd DIVIDE AND RULE, was published your second full-length called GAME ON. Can you tell us somethin'about its composition process? Are you satisfied about fans reaction? mrGeneSimmons (Bass): On this album we used the following process. Guitarists compose riffs or something like melody or chords sequense and give me to listen. Then I build construction of the song, add drums and bass, and we are trying to play it on rehearsal. Make some changes again and again before the music become cool for us. After that we make the lyrics and our Lady Owl make vocal line. That's it - the song is ready! Yes, the new album was warmly met by fans on shows. LadyOwl: Yeah, something like that. BTW we had a lyricist for the album "Game On". That was an interesting experience. Her name is Nana Traum Mond. She just offered us to try to match her lyrics and our music and I guess it works nice. So she made 9 texted from 10. One was writen by Xen. 💿 Can you present the current line-up of the band? After some changes of musicians, now a right mix of boys&girls.. mrGeneSimmons: Actually, soon we will announce new lineup changes...Pokerface always was 5 members band, as you can see on pictures from show. So, now we have 2 girls - Lady Owl on vocal as our frontwoman. She is not just singer, but a great perfomer on stage. And Ritter, shredding on her axe like a fury. Second guitarist, his nick is Blade, is also a professional musician, he helps us a lot during our Game On tour. Our drummer Doctor, one of the founders of Pokerface and the heart of the band. He knows his job very well and make a lot of important things without words. And me, the bassman, but also I take care about all organization processes in the band i.e. shows, tours, promotion and techical support. 💿 The real "news" in music industry is the return of vinyl; What's your feeling about this classic format and the current music business? Doctor: It is really understandable. Our histrory is a circle, a spiral: nowadays new things are coming back from past like fashion, rare staff. Why not? But for me it's not convinient, I prefer digital services: streaming, Clouds, online collections. I belong totally to a computer era. Ritter: Yes, I've heard that. I have a collection of old-printed vinyl records (almost full Slayer for example), so it's a good news for me. Although my collection can fall in price ;) But still labels and musicians must do a hard work to promote this format if they want to start make money from this. I think it is possible to do a new fashion. It would be great - I just love all these big-sized arts and booklets!

💿 Can you tell us somethin'about the current heavy metal scene in your country? Ritter: We have some metal bands with big names - Arkona, Katalepsy, Korrozia Metalla, Pokerface ;) Almost all of them are trying to make business outside - mostly in EU and USA, because russian fans are not used to see good and professional band from Russia and they are sure that any russian band is a piece of sh*t in advance. It's not their fault - our scene was formed after Slayer and Metallica have come here. So now there are also many perfect local bands with no chance to be famous due to different reasons and tons of metal fans that will never come to a local band show. LadyOwl: Yeah, we have also few huge names here, like Slot, Luna, Aria, but all of them are older than 15-20 y.o. And no fresh names out there unfortunately, I think, a lot of bands need help, and maybe, a cool local label. Metal music in Russia needs to be reborn. 💿 Can you tell us somethin'about your next projects, both live and studio? mrGeneSimmons: Later this year we will go on tour with brazilian thrash metal band Nervosa. We will support them in their Russian tour leg. After that we will take a break to prepare new tours in 2018. Also we will start to compose a new album, I think. LadyOwl: I've opened my Youtube channel, where I'm gonna upload some tour vlogs, covers, maybe my own songs and other stuff for metal chicks hehe. It is called "Мetal Beauty", check it out :) 💿 Thank you so much for your time! See you soon on #hardrockheavymetal! mrGeneSimmons: Thanks a lot for the interview!