Review & Interview

2002
SALEM - Collective Demise


INTERVIRW

Israel is, today more than ever before, a place where's hard to live. Despite that Salem have succeeded to surface expressing their rage and their frustrations through music. Let's try to know from closer such a faraway (but at the same so near) reality, speaking with Ze'ev Tananboim, singer in the group.

Well, Salem comes from an anomalous background like Israel, a place with a truly difficult social situation. How were you able to emerge despite of that fact?

First of all, Israel don't have a difficult social situation, we have a difficult security situation, we have a problem with the suicide terrorists and it's hard to cope with the fear of being somewhere crowded (like busses, restaurants, or even live shows) without knowing how it will end. The fact that innocent civilians are dying gives you a helplessness feeling. This situation is a part of Salem, and it influences us with our lyrics and music, we want to show our side to the world with our music.

Because of your context, Salem is some way at the edge of the death metal scene, in spite of the fact of being a better band than a lot of similar acts in europe and USA. Do you think your geographical provenance damaged you?

Thank you for the compliment. The major obstacle is the geographic distance. It was very hard to get a deal. We worked very hard for 4-5 years until we got a deal from a German label "Morbid Records", but after our first album was released, things became easier. I think even today - new bands have a hard time to get deals because they are from the Middle East.

Concerning the last album, "Collective Demise", it's quite clear that the band does not want to exit from its "main way", though it seems that some elements are now more focused than the previous "A Moment Of Silence", is it right?

"Collective demise" is very aggressive and intensive, although it has a lot of melodies and harmonies. I think that "Collective demise" reflects a certain adolescence of Salem, the fact that it's more aggressive and much faster distinguishes it from our previous releases. "Collective Demise" is more focused than "A Moment Of Silence" because Salem members alone produced it. We think this album reflects the time we are living in.

Another thing that leaves the listener quite disoriented is the incredibile use of ethnical instruments and female vocals. How was born the idea to insert those elements in your music?

On Salem last album "A moment of silence", we had a combination of male clean vocals, so it wasn't that new for us. We think the combination of clean vocals and aggressive vocals is very unique. When Salem finished writing for "Collective Demise", we thought what we could add to the songs to make them sound as good as possible, and that is how the ideas of female vocals, darbuka and percussions were born.

What about the lyrical side of your music? Is there any change in the lyrical attitude of the band?

Our lyrics influence is life itself. In Israel it's impossible to ignore the news since it has a direct effect on your daily life and as a result you have songs. In general and conceptually, all the songs in the album are referring to collective demise.

What are the main influences of Salem's music?

As I said before, our main influence is life itself. Another thing that inspires us is the Israeli music roots. In any case, all 5 of us writing the material, and we all like different bands, so when we eventually build a song, it sounds like us.

Your music is sincere, honest and does not want to seem too artificious. What do you think about the experimentations that nowdays populate the metal scene?

Nowdays there are bands with unique styles and bands that try to sound like other acts, I think it is very important for a band to bring something from yourself and not to sound like other musicians, to have your own style, to be unified with the music and to do a lot of rehearsals.

Do you think that it could be a new rebirth for extreme music in its simplicity and purity?

Everything different you do, extreme or not, can give a sensation of rebirth - as long as you create it from your heart.

Salem, I think, is probably a band that gives its best when play on stage. Are you going on tour in order to promote the album?

Salem shows have great energies. The audience knows and sings all the lyrics with me, almost every show is sold out (800-1000 people)...The show is 80 minutes, and it includes songs from all of our releases. Every show is different because we have 4 CD's, and we try to give the audience something new every time they are coming to see Salem show. In some shows we put video screen with Salem's video clips, or projecting the show. KMG/ System Shock is planning a European tour for Salem on 2003. We don't have the exact details right now, but we will be happy to inform you when we will.

Well, this final space is for you...fill it anyway you wish.

I would like to add that Salem has released 3 new video clips from "Collective demise", the first one "Al Taster" deals with the pain of the people who lost their loved ones, the second "Act of war" shows the absurd of suicide terrorists on busses in Israel, and the third "Broken Yet United" is dedicated to the Israeli Metal scene, to the audience and it shows the relationship between Salem and the fans. Also, This is a good stage to say thank you to all of you for the support and for the good responses of the audience and the media.

Mirko Quaglio
Silent Scream
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