Sheolgeenna (Chile) has become these days one of the leaders of the death metal scene. Their full length debut impacted pretty much the scene on an international level and that's why we've promptly asked Warrior (guit) a few questions to reveal some of the mystery dwelling within the "The Dark Chambers...":

1. Hi there! First of all I'd like to congratulate You a great album. Would You tell us something about the recording session?
     Warrior: Thanks... well, the session took place in the Sade Studio (Santiago / Chile), with Juan Pablo Donoso (Sadism) behind the steering wheel through all the recording sessions and the mixing. We've had a great time working with this person and there was a great communication and understanding though the entire process. After that the mastering was done at the Konstantinopla studio by Roberto Marti.

2. How much did Pablo Clares (Execrator, Totten /korps, Atomic Aggressor, Regnat...) bring into the band and what happened with the anterior drummer?
     The coming of Pablo Clares had a great importance for the band. Our anterior drummer (Miguel Avendańo) suffered a bad injury to his right leg, which made it impossible for him to keep playing the drums. All this caused this delay which urged us to collaborate with Hug-o-toth (who played back then with Teofobia, Gneneshen, Ammit) who performed live with Sheolgeenna until April 2001. There came Pablo Clares into the band's official line-up. That's where started the real work on the material which became to be "The Dark Chambers..."

3. There ain't no doubt that the cover art. Work done for your debut album is one of the best works done for a southamerican band. How did You guys convince Jaromir "Deather" Bezruc to work on "The Dark Chambers...".?
     Yeah, well the cover art work is great indeed and very professional. Our producer, Claudio Cruces had this contact for some time and he trusted Jaromir enough to let him give it a shot at the cover art. based on some general concepts we had for the design.

4. You've plaved various shows all through Chile promoting "The Dark Chambers..." How close is the day, we'll see Sheolgeenna going out to conquer other countries?
     The truth is that there are possibilities of going on tours through other countries. Even before the debut came out. Unfortunately, just as it is for the major part of our national and other South American bands, there are always these labor and economic problems. We all know that it's so damn hard to make a living out this kind of music, and all this really makes it hard to go out on tours to places that are far away.

5. How's been Rawforce doing with their projection, promotion and distribution on an international level?
     Well, the work Rawforce has been doing to this day has been excellent, as they've fulfilled with all they asured us of.

6. Would You tell us why You decided to use pseudonyms?
     Right from the start we wanted to project the band as an entity on its own, independent from the people the compose the music as such. Sort of letting it live its own life as a result of our work put into it, So we decided to use mystic nicks as we are the vital organs of this autonomous being that Sheolgeenna is.

7. Music wise "The Dark Chambers..." is just excellent. Apart form that, as I mentioned it in the review of the album, even though it has if own feeling and original touches, it does remind of Trey and Morbid Angel...
     Well, that will always be a subjective point of view, as even though Morbid Angel and other bands have been a great influence to us, we've tried right from the start to manage a sound and style of our own. It's really hard today, not to remind the listener of other bands.

8. What bands out of our lands here would you recommend to the fans abroad?
     In general it would be those that contribute to the underground. There are quite a few of those on a South American level, yet I always recommend Chilean bands, especially those that perform good brutal death metal - Melektaus, Trimegisto, Dethroner, Norphelia, Diabolica Messiah, etc...

9. Draconis and You, both recorded the bass lines... What do You guys do for the live performances?
     Exactly, we recorded the bass although the both of us are guitarists. We've played our shows together with Juan Vitagliano and Anekkiannye, the last of them keeps playing with us at the moment.

10. There were speculations of David Vincent returning to Morbid Angel. What effect do You think would such a move have on the death metal scene?
     In my opinion, I think that it would have a great impact and would mean a lot as much for Morbid Angel as for the death metal as a whole. They've had their time to work their separate ways and it could be that they might have passed through some kind of renewal as much as people as musicians and it just could be a great time to create a new era of Morbid Angel's kingdom, the way it was years back.

11. What do you think as a lawyer of all the corruption shit around?
     First of all I want to make it clear I'm not in favor of corruption in anyway. What I can tell you, generally speaking of that matter and making a long story short is that unfortunately it is a kind of an illness that affects our society no matter what area or level we'd speak about. The only thing left really is to learn how to live with it and control it to minimize its effects.

12. Tell us then, how has been going the selling of "The Dark Chambers..."?
     It's been going pretty well, that has been distribution over a great part of Chile and is starting to be distributed offshore in a progressive way.

13. What was the reason to include on Your album two tracks of the demo "Emerged From Outside Skies"?
     When we recorded our demo, we did not get satisfied enough with the outcome of it, so once we began to arrange our new material, we evaluated those tracks that were closest to the new songs. That's how "Apocrifos" y "Artmagika-Shoget" got onto the LP.

14. Would You tell us anything about Your website..?
     Yeah well, the main idea of our website is to project the band to a wider audience, to those who know us and even more for those who do not know the band yet. That being the main idea of all this, you will find on our site the band's bio, news, two mp3 track to download and two live tracks from our release show.

15. What would be the song You enjoy most playing live? Do You play any cover songs on Your shows?
     To be honest with you, yet not cliché I do enjoy very much playing all of our tracks because each one of them has been work on hard by the band and we've never done tracks to pick the best ones afterwards. Regarding cover songs, we normaly don't do that, although there are exceptions and so we took part in a tribute to Morbid Angel show.

16. What would you like to ask the Pope?
     Nothing.

17. What are the main inspiration Dracon takes from while working on the lyrics?
     Generally speaking Darkon's inspirations are mostly based on all that dark and mystic vision of existence, looking through different ideological sources (most important cultures), that's why you can find on our LP topics about the transcendence of death on it's different stages.

18. Apart from death metal, what other stuff grabs your attention?
     To tell the truth, I am not into much of other stuff apart from death metal and thrash metal (classic), but there are still bands from other breed of metal that grab my attention would it be black or doom.

19. How did You get in contact with Krisiun and what do think of them and Rebaelliun?
     All this happened through Carlos Aguilar (Black Shadows) and (Claudio Cruces (Rawforce), who as sponsors and producers managed to get in touch with the band and their label. Krisiun and Rebaelliun are bands of exception, but of what I've heard the second band mentioned does not exist anymore.

Finally, it's been a pleasure and cool You had the time to erspond these questions. What else could You tell us about Sheolgeenna's plans for this year ?
     Thanks for the interview and what I can tell you is that there is going to many live performances of the band and on the other hand much work elaborating new material for a future production, which might hopefully get it's shape this year.

Sheolgeenna
http://www.sheolgeenna.cjb.net