Černá is a one man Instrumental/Post-Black Metal/Experimental/Alternative Band from Michigan.
When I first was introduced to his music I knew during the first 30 seconds of the song that I was going to like it.
Of course I had questions....this is what he had to say.
LS:
Hey, Thanks for your time and interest in this interview and Lilith Scare
Webzine.
C:
Of course. Thank you for the opportunity.
LS:
Let me start with a question based on the beginning. You started Černá for
therapeutic reasons. What is that all about?
C:
Therapeutic reasons so to speak, haha. I am not crazy or anything. It's just
that I had been playing extreme metal music for so long that everything started
to blend together. I had always listened to music outside of metal and I was
becoming frustrated with the fact that I never had a chance to express myself
musically. I wanted to create something that suited me and what I wanted to hear
for once. So one day in 2011, I picked up a guitar and wrote "Isa". Shortly
after that, Černá was born.
LS:
When we were talking on chat you said at 8 in the morning that you were "Going
to bed" You were up all night working on music? Is this something that you do a
lot, work on music at all hours of the night? I hear you live in a very old
house there in Michigan and like to write songs in your basement.
C:
Well that specific morning I was up answering emails, prepping the release from
about 10pm-8am. It was rigorous. No music that morning,
haha. But yes, I have a very irregular sleep pattern all thanks to this project.
I usually find myself most creative at the oddest times. Usually around
3am - 5 am. I honestly do not bring this on myself. It is an
absolutely organic rush of creativity.
As for Kalamazoo. I had a lived in a very, very old mansion in
Kalamazoo, MI. ( I hate calling it a mansion but it really was.) The story of
the house is that, There was this gorgeous house I would pass very regularly
down town and I would always ponder how great it would be to live there but
always this thought was foreshadowed by the thought of the house being too good
for me anyway, so I left it at that. Well one day me and my roommates heard
through the grapevine that the house was up for rent. Not 2 weeks later, me and
6 of my closest friends moved in. The inside of it was more beautiful than I
could have anticipated. I couldn't believe it. The basement was my sanctuary and
was indeed where most of my music was written. The basement of this house was
other-worldly. Especially at 5 am. It was perfect. Unfortunately, I recently
moved out. I miss it so much and will never forget the experiences we all shared
there. The house was very inspiring and was the birth place of what is now
Černá.
LS:
Was it today (May 28,2013) that your debut album was released? "Restoring Life"
(if so) Congrats on that. Tell me a bit about the concept of this album and the
work that went into it.
C:
Yes! It was released on 5/28/13. Finally, haha. Thanks so much. This album and
its concept had been sitting in my head for such a long time. Months and months
of writing and preparing went into this album but what I think is an awesome
trait of the album is that it sounds completely different than what I had
written and gathered prior to entering the studio. Before I recorded this album,
I thought I had everything set in stone but once you get into the studio, a lot
of those initial ideas get a chance to flourish and become something more! I
only had about 8 days to record this album but since I was doing a lot of
re-writing and brainstorming in the studio, I found my self doing 12 hour
sessions on the regular. I'm not exaggerating but I endured a full 24 hour
session with out eating or sleeping. I felt I couldn't stop due to the rush of
creativity. I became delusional and began re-writing a lot, adding and taking
and adding and taking but these things happen when you're strapped for time. It
was very, very intense.
Conceptually, the album is based around a day in a place I had heard so much about growing up.
Prague, Czech Republic. It may seem strange how this concept was fathomed but
personally, as I write my music, visions and story lines are created in my head.
I seriously drift off but anyway, the album deals with an extreme form of love
and loss. Not a long lasting love or anything but a "love at first sight and
loss on the first night" type situation. What is so strange about this is that I
am not familiar with the male role nor the female role in this idea. The male is
not me and I do not know this girl in anyway. Basically imagine waking in Prague
with someone you've met and created a connection with the night before, spending
a rainy day in Prague together, developing a deeper connection and then
realizing as night approaches that this may be the end of what you thought was a
new beginning. It is very hard to convey this through instrumental music but
this is only the vision I had. When people listen to my music, I want them to
imagine their own story and visuals. Paint your own picture. I somewhat created
a setting using the album art but drift off into the music and let whatever
you're imagining take over.
LS:
This new album was released on "Domestic Genocide Records" How did you get set
up with them and are they a label you would like to work with in the
future?
C:
First off I would like to say that Domestic Genocide is an incredible label.
They absolutely know how to make a new musician feel welcome.
But basically, I got an email from Trevor of DG telling me he was a fan on my music.
From then on it was magic. We clicked and have an amazing and unusual artist,
label relationship. And yes! I will be working with them for a long time.
LS:
You no longer release one album and you are already in the process of working on
new material and have been since winter. What is it about the winter months that
inspire you?
C:
Now that Restoring Life has been released, a weight has been lifted. Though I
should be taking a breather, I feel more inspired than ever. I have been getting
a ton of writing done for the sophomore album.
But actually, I was suffering from a case of severe writers block throughout the
winter months and actually just recently was able to escape it. This rush of
creativity was in perfect sync with the transition to spring so I blame this.
Winter was very tough to say the least.
LS:
At first, I thought the project was just you, but I was wrong? You have some new
members? What made you decide to turn it into a full band and will there be live
performances now that there are others involved?
C:
Well yeah, Černá is only my solo project but I recently had a discussion with
Domestic Genocide about possibly turning Černá into a live experience. I thought
it was a great idea so I took it upon my self to gather some musicians for this.
This is very excited and very surreal. It is so weird hearing my music played
back to me by other people but I am in love with it. It is literally a wall of
sound and atmosphere. I was a little scared to try the live idea out at first
but it is everything I had imagined it to be if not more. It just sounds so
massive. We have been rehearsing a lot and will be ready to begin booking some Midwest dates
within weeks.
LS:
You have been compared to bands such as Alcest, and Isis. Are these a couple of
your influences and do YOU think you sound like them at all? (I am sure it was
not your intention to mimic them at all)
C:
Well honestly, Černá was a project I started because I wanted to play what I
wanted to hear. I listen to a lot of different kinds of music but I am most
drawn to sad, melancholic and epic music. I always have been. I remember being a
little kid, begging my parents to play November Rain by GnR or Silent Lucidity
by Queensrÿche. I vividly remember being obsessed with the ending of With
Or Without You by U2 when I was 5 or 6 years old just because I was in love with
the way it made me feel. Shit, I still am. To this day, Everlong by Foo Fighters
is my favorite song of all time. Sometimes I take flack about my influences but
I couldn't care less about what anyone thinks about my influences because they
are mine. Something about those melodies always made me feel a certain way. I
call it "the feeling" so when I say that, my friends and fans known what I mean.
With Černá, as I am writing, I am searching for that feeling. I have said this
many times and I'll say it again, Černá is a musical expression of what is
missing in a lot of music today. Of course this is from a completely personal
stand point. I'm writing what I want to hear in music.
But
listening to Alcest, I feel like I am pretty far off from that sound but being
placed in a category with them is an honor. I really am unsure which genre Černá
is or was intended to be but a lot of people consider it "post-black metal" or
"shoegaze" which I am happy with. For the longest time I never knew where Černá
belonged so I feel very grateful that the Post-Black Metal community took me in
with such open arms. Something funny about Isis. I kept hearing from multiple
people that my music resembled Isis and I had never heard them. So I took it
upon myself to check them out recently and was kind of shocked at how similar we
are, haha. Very strange I think.
LS:
Earlier we spoke about the beginning. Lets go back even further. At what age did
you know that music was something you wanted to do and what instrument did you
start out on?
C:
Well I have been playing the drums at a serious level for about 15 years. I
started when I was 4ish. So ever since I was little, little I knew I wanted to
be a drummer. Honestly, I have only been playing guitar since I started this
project so not too long. About a year and 8 months. I actually learned basic
piano while recording Restoring Life. I knew I wanted piano on the album and I
wasn't about to program it, haha.
LS:
You are actually just the next state over from me. I know all about the
Cleveland scene (Mainly a death metal crowd) but what about Michigan. How is the
scene there and do you have a nice following with the local metal heads?
C:
I love Cleveland. I have been in a lot of death and black metal bands and
Cleveland was always awesome to play! But, yeah. Michigan's scene is pretty
cool. I feel very lucky to have the following that I have here in Michigan since
a majority of people in the underground scene are extreme metal heads. I have
played live or recorded with a lot of the Michigan black and death metal bands
so luckily I already have the support of those guys! I have made some really
amazing friends through the Michigan death and black metal scene.
LS:
What is your music based off of? I always hear nature, religions, history...but
yours seem more personal....
C:
Yeah, like I said earlier. It's just music I want to hear. I am always searching
for "the feeling". It is very personal and hard to explain and it doesn't
really have a theme though I am influenced by things such as love and loss,
melancholy, nostalgic reflections. Things like that. Ideas that bring out " the
feeling".
LS:
Looking, you seem to like music that is nowhere near what you play.
What made you decide that this Instrumental/Post-Black Metal/Experimental/Alternative
sound would be best suited for you as a person.
C:
That's about right. I hear that all the time but it's because I listen to and
play so many different styles. Everything from pop to black metal, to neo-soul
to funk to brutal death to post-rock to alternative rock to mellow death to
power metal to slow jams to folk metal to shoegaze and ambient music. Most
people do not know this but I am a huge R&B buff. I can't help it. There's
just something about it.
But with this project I am just trying to write music that I want to hear. I don't
know how to word it differently. I pretty much answered this question in full in
a previous answer. I didn't pick the post-black genre. The genre picked
me. Once I was taken in by the Post-black community I added "Experimental
and Alternative" because that's what it is for the most part. I am experimenting
with an alternative form of music. I completely understand why I am thrown into
the Post-black genre through. My music is very reminiscent of certain styles of
black metal. The music seems to carry heavy overtones of black metal, post rock
and shoegaze.
LS:
Have you ever or are you now involved in any other bands?
C:
Oh yeah. I drum in a handful of different types of metal bands.
I play drums in a progressive metal band called The Omega Experiment, a technical
death metal band called Boreworm, a sorrowful mellow death/black metal band
called Mourning Wolf, a hardcore punk/black metal band called Traitor and for
the live Černá arrangement, I play guitar.
LS:
I don't know you very well or really much about your music as a whole but the
impression I get is that Černá is your life....What are some of your long term
goals for this band? And do you use your music at all as an outlet for dealing
with life in general?
C:
It really is my life. This project is me. I started this as something to do in
my spare time and now it has become something that takes up a majority of my
time in general. It's incredible though. I feel very fortunate about where this
project has gotten me. I'm hoping it keeps growing and growing. This past year
has been totally incredible for Černá. Some of my long term goals for
Černá is to share this music with as many people as possible. I am going to keep
putting out albums. I just want people to hear this. I feel like it is the
easiest and most efficient way to connect with people.
LS:
Well as we stated above, you are working on new music and have released or just
released a new full length album. Do you have any other immediate plans that
fans or potential fans should look out for?
C:
Playing live is the next step. I am looking at hopping on some summer festivals
and to play for as many people as possible. Also I am diligently working on the
sophomore album. I have a title and a beautiful concept. I plan on going back
into record this around late August/early September if all goes as planned. Also
I am working on material for a couple of split I am participating on this
summer. Keep a look out on the Černá page for more info.
LS:
Well I guess that is it. I look forward to hearing more from you and would now
like to give you the opportunity to say anything you want...
C:
I just want to give a big thank you to everyone that listens to and supports my
music. I have done more with this project in a year than I have done with
anything of my own ever and I owe it all to you. Also a huge thank you to
Domestic Genocide Records, Ashton and James Parsons for making this record
possible.
Also thank you Lilith Scare Webzine for this opportunity. It was a great
interview!
You can find Černá on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialCernaMusic
Listen to some of his music here
http://cernamusic.bandcamp.com/
Hey, Thanks for your time and interest in this interview and Lilith Scare
Webzine.
C:
Of course. Thank you for the opportunity.
LS:
Let me start with a question based on the beginning. You started Černá for
therapeutic reasons. What is that all about?
C:
Therapeutic reasons so to speak, haha. I am not crazy or anything. It's just
that I had been playing extreme metal music for so long that everything started
to blend together. I had always listened to music outside of metal and I was
becoming frustrated with the fact that I never had a chance to express myself
musically. I wanted to create something that suited me and what I wanted to hear
for once. So one day in 2011, I picked up a guitar and wrote "Isa". Shortly
after that, Černá was born.
LS:
When we were talking on chat you said at 8 in the morning that you were "Going
to bed" You were up all night working on music? Is this something that you do a
lot, work on music at all hours of the night? I hear you live in a very old
house there in Michigan and like to write songs in your basement.
C:
Well that specific morning I was up answering emails, prepping the release from
about 10pm-8am. It was rigorous. No music that morning,
haha. But yes, I have a very irregular sleep pattern all thanks to this project.
I usually find myself most creative at the oddest times. Usually around
3am - 5 am. I honestly do not bring this on myself. It is an
absolutely organic rush of creativity.
As for Kalamazoo. I had a lived in a very, very old mansion in
Kalamazoo, MI. ( I hate calling it a mansion but it really was.) The story of
the house is that, There was this gorgeous house I would pass very regularly
down town and I would always ponder how great it would be to live there but
always this thought was foreshadowed by the thought of the house being too good
for me anyway, so I left it at that. Well one day me and my roommates heard
through the grapevine that the house was up for rent. Not 2 weeks later, me and
6 of my closest friends moved in. The inside of it was more beautiful than I
could have anticipated. I couldn't believe it. The basement was my sanctuary and
was indeed where most of my music was written. The basement of this house was
other-worldly. Especially at 5 am. It was perfect. Unfortunately, I recently
moved out. I miss it so much and will never forget the experiences we all shared
there. The house was very inspiring and was the birth place of what is now
Černá.
LS:
Was it today (May 28,2013) that your debut album was released? "Restoring Life"
(if so) Congrats on that. Tell me a bit about the concept of this album and the
work that went into it.
C:
Yes! It was released on 5/28/13. Finally, haha. Thanks so much. This album and
its concept had been sitting in my head for such a long time. Months and months
of writing and preparing went into this album but what I think is an awesome
trait of the album is that it sounds completely different than what I had
written and gathered prior to entering the studio. Before I recorded this album,
I thought I had everything set in stone but once you get into the studio, a lot
of those initial ideas get a chance to flourish and become something more! I
only had about 8 days to record this album but since I was doing a lot of
re-writing and brainstorming in the studio, I found my self doing 12 hour
sessions on the regular. I'm not exaggerating but I endured a full 24 hour
session with out eating or sleeping. I felt I couldn't stop due to the rush of
creativity. I became delusional and began re-writing a lot, adding and taking
and adding and taking but these things happen when you're strapped for time. It
was very, very intense.
Conceptually, the album is based around a day in a place I had heard so much about growing up.
Prague, Czech Republic. It may seem strange how this concept was fathomed but
personally, as I write my music, visions and story lines are created in my head.
I seriously drift off but anyway, the album deals with an extreme form of love
and loss. Not a long lasting love or anything but a "love at first sight and
loss on the first night" type situation. What is so strange about this is that I
am not familiar with the male role nor the female role in this idea. The male is
not me and I do not know this girl in anyway. Basically imagine waking in Prague
with someone you've met and created a connection with the night before, spending
a rainy day in Prague together, developing a deeper connection and then
realizing as night approaches that this may be the end of what you thought was a
new beginning. It is very hard to convey this through instrumental music but
this is only the vision I had. When people listen to my music, I want them to
imagine their own story and visuals. Paint your own picture. I somewhat created
a setting using the album art but drift off into the music and let whatever
you're imagining take over.
LS:
This new album was released on "Domestic Genocide Records" How did you get set
up with them and are they a label you would like to work with in the
future?
C:
First off I would like to say that Domestic Genocide is an incredible label.
They absolutely know how to make a new musician feel welcome.
But basically, I got an email from Trevor of DG telling me he was a fan on my music.
From then on it was magic. We clicked and have an amazing and unusual artist,
label relationship. And yes! I will be working with them for a long time.
LS:
You no longer release one album and you are already in the process of working on
new material and have been since winter. What is it about the winter months that
inspire you?
C:
Now that Restoring Life has been released, a weight has been lifted. Though I
should be taking a breather, I feel more inspired than ever. I have been getting
a ton of writing done for the sophomore album.
But actually, I was suffering from a case of severe writers block throughout the
winter months and actually just recently was able to escape it. This rush of
creativity was in perfect sync with the transition to spring so I blame this.
Winter was very tough to say the least.
LS:
At first, I thought the project was just you, but I was wrong? You have some new
members? What made you decide to turn it into a full band and will there be live
performances now that there are others involved?
C:
Well yeah, Černá is only my solo project but I recently had a discussion with
Domestic Genocide about possibly turning Černá into a live experience. I thought
it was a great idea so I took it upon my self to gather some musicians for this.
This is very excited and very surreal. It is so weird hearing my music played
back to me by other people but I am in love with it. It is literally a wall of
sound and atmosphere. I was a little scared to try the live idea out at first
but it is everything I had imagined it to be if not more. It just sounds so
massive. We have been rehearsing a lot and will be ready to begin booking some Midwest dates
within weeks.
LS:
You have been compared to bands such as Alcest, and Isis. Are these a couple of
your influences and do YOU think you sound like them at all? (I am sure it was
not your intention to mimic them at all)
C:
Well honestly, Černá was a project I started because I wanted to play what I
wanted to hear. I listen to a lot of different kinds of music but I am most
drawn to sad, melancholic and epic music. I always have been. I remember being a
little kid, begging my parents to play November Rain by GnR or Silent Lucidity
by Queensrÿche. I vividly remember being obsessed with the ending of With
Or Without You by U2 when I was 5 or 6 years old just because I was in love with
the way it made me feel. Shit, I still am. To this day, Everlong by Foo Fighters
is my favorite song of all time. Sometimes I take flack about my influences but
I couldn't care less about what anyone thinks about my influences because they
are mine. Something about those melodies always made me feel a certain way. I
call it "the feeling" so when I say that, my friends and fans known what I mean.
With Černá, as I am writing, I am searching for that feeling. I have said this
many times and I'll say it again, Černá is a musical expression of what is
missing in a lot of music today. Of course this is from a completely personal
stand point. I'm writing what I want to hear in music.
But
listening to Alcest, I feel like I am pretty far off from that sound but being
placed in a category with them is an honor. I really am unsure which genre Černá
is or was intended to be but a lot of people consider it "post-black metal" or
"shoegaze" which I am happy with. For the longest time I never knew where Černá
belonged so I feel very grateful that the Post-Black Metal community took me in
with such open arms. Something funny about Isis. I kept hearing from multiple
people that my music resembled Isis and I had never heard them. So I took it
upon myself to check them out recently and was kind of shocked at how similar we
are, haha. Very strange I think.
LS:
Earlier we spoke about the beginning. Lets go back even further. At what age did
you know that music was something you wanted to do and what instrument did you
start out on?
C:
Well I have been playing the drums at a serious level for about 15 years. I
started when I was 4ish. So ever since I was little, little I knew I wanted to
be a drummer. Honestly, I have only been playing guitar since I started this
project so not too long. About a year and 8 months. I actually learned basic
piano while recording Restoring Life. I knew I wanted piano on the album and I
wasn't about to program it, haha.
LS:
You are actually just the next state over from me. I know all about the
Cleveland scene (Mainly a death metal crowd) but what about Michigan. How is the
scene there and do you have a nice following with the local metal heads?
C:
I love Cleveland. I have been in a lot of death and black metal bands and
Cleveland was always awesome to play! But, yeah. Michigan's scene is pretty
cool. I feel very lucky to have the following that I have here in Michigan since
a majority of people in the underground scene are extreme metal heads. I have
played live or recorded with a lot of the Michigan black and death metal bands
so luckily I already have the support of those guys! I have made some really
amazing friends through the Michigan death and black metal scene.
LS:
What is your music based off of? I always hear nature, religions, history...but
yours seem more personal....
C:
Yeah, like I said earlier. It's just music I want to hear. I am always searching
for "the feeling". It is very personal and hard to explain and it doesn't
really have a theme though I am influenced by things such as love and loss,
melancholy, nostalgic reflections. Things like that. Ideas that bring out " the
feeling".
LS:
Looking, you seem to like music that is nowhere near what you play.
What made you decide that this Instrumental/Post-Black Metal/Experimental/Alternative
sound would be best suited for you as a person.
C:
That's about right. I hear that all the time but it's because I listen to and
play so many different styles. Everything from pop to black metal, to neo-soul
to funk to brutal death to post-rock to alternative rock to mellow death to
power metal to slow jams to folk metal to shoegaze and ambient music. Most
people do not know this but I am a huge R&B buff. I can't help it. There's
just something about it.
But with this project I am just trying to write music that I want to hear. I don't
know how to word it differently. I pretty much answered this question in full in
a previous answer. I didn't pick the post-black genre. The genre picked
me. Once I was taken in by the Post-black community I added "Experimental
and Alternative" because that's what it is for the most part. I am experimenting
with an alternative form of music. I completely understand why I am thrown into
the Post-black genre through. My music is very reminiscent of certain styles of
black metal. The music seems to carry heavy overtones of black metal, post rock
and shoegaze.
LS:
Have you ever or are you now involved in any other bands?
C:
Oh yeah. I drum in a handful of different types of metal bands.
I play drums in a progressive metal band called The Omega Experiment, a technical
death metal band called Boreworm, a sorrowful mellow death/black metal band
called Mourning Wolf, a hardcore punk/black metal band called Traitor and for
the live Černá arrangement, I play guitar.
LS:
I don't know you very well or really much about your music as a whole but the
impression I get is that Černá is your life....What are some of your long term
goals for this band? And do you use your music at all as an outlet for dealing
with life in general?
C:
It really is my life. This project is me. I started this as something to do in
my spare time and now it has become something that takes up a majority of my
time in general. It's incredible though. I feel very fortunate about where this
project has gotten me. I'm hoping it keeps growing and growing. This past year
has been totally incredible for Černá. Some of my long term goals for
Černá is to share this music with as many people as possible. I am going to keep
putting out albums. I just want people to hear this. I feel like it is the
easiest and most efficient way to connect with people.
LS:
Well as we stated above, you are working on new music and have released or just
released a new full length album. Do you have any other immediate plans that
fans or potential fans should look out for?
C:
Playing live is the next step. I am looking at hopping on some summer festivals
and to play for as many people as possible. Also I am diligently working on the
sophomore album. I have a title and a beautiful concept. I plan on going back
into record this around late August/early September if all goes as planned. Also
I am working on material for a couple of split I am participating on this
summer. Keep a look out on the Černá page for more info.
LS:
Well I guess that is it. I look forward to hearing more from you and would now
like to give you the opportunity to say anything you want...
C:
I just want to give a big thank you to everyone that listens to and supports my
music. I have done more with this project in a year than I have done with
anything of my own ever and I owe it all to you. Also a huge thank you to
Domestic Genocide Records, Ashton and James Parsons for making this record
possible.
Also thank you Lilith Scare Webzine for this opportunity. It was a great
interview!
You can find Černá on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialCernaMusic
Listen to some of his music here
http://cernamusic.bandcamp.com/