Manapart band: interviews and interesting facts

Recently we told you about an interesting and amazing Russian-Armenian rock band MANAPARTwhich is already capturing the hearts of heavy music fans and attracting more and more attention to their work. Identity, originality, originality - all this is about the guys from MANAPART, making music for the sophisticated listener.

Today the musicians agreed to give an interview to our editorial staff, in which we asked them about the formation of the band, their creativity and plans for the future. In general - have a nice read!

Who was the first person from the collective to start making music?

- All of them, to one degree or another, started making music early enough to dream of starting their own band. Ivan even toured and earned music for a long time. But Zakhar and Artem take the lead in this matter, because they went to and graduated from music school from the first grade.

How did you get together to form a music group? Was it a mutual acquaintance?

- It was an absolute accident, if it wasn't for the stars, the band Manapart wouldn't even exist. Back in 2014, Arman advertised in the System of a Down fan-group that he wanted to play covers. This message was seen by Zakhar, Artem and Petr - the former bassist of our cover band. That's how we started to get to know each other, on the basis of love for the same band and desire to spend time together. And it was really fun, it was a very high quality hobby at that time.

What bands are you inspired by when making music? Do you have any musical reference points on the world stage?

- Yes, and there are a lot of reference points. We all listen to very different music: from Balkan folk music to underground grindcore. Somewhere in this musical range there are even genres such as jazz and classical music. As for inspiration, we try to experiment, but at the same time stay within the genre of alternative and nu metal. If we talk about specific bands, we see SOAD as an inspiration less and less often. When creating music we are inspired by Rammstein, Ihsahn, Satyricon, Bloodbath, Dimmu Borgir, Brutus, Immortal, as well as soundtracks from games and films, Peter Tchaikovsky, works of Komitas, Aram Khachaturian and Arno Babajanyan.

You present yourself as an authentic project with reference to Armenian culture. What specifically Armenian do you represent
to the listeners?

- We portion folklore through harmonies, national instruments, language, images and try not to overdo it. We don't want to turn into a folk metal band.

You've noticed that track/album covers often feature animals: bull, deer, mouse, etc. Is this some kind of reference?

- We like to think of patterns, rules and traditions that have symbolism only for us. Animal images have always had deep meanings in different cultures of the world. As it seems to us, they quite clearly convey the moods and messages of the albums. For example, in the carpet pattern on the cover of the single "Misery", little silent walkers are drawn in honour of the collab with the Tardigrade band Inferno. In the EP "2084" besides the rat, the attentive will recognise the eye of a cat, and this is a reference to the song "Indoctrination". There are a lot of such subtle, connecting threads in our creative work and they are not obvious.

Will nu-metal remain the dominant genre in the band's work, or are other experiments planned?

- Do you consider our new album as Nu Metal? A conservative, avid fan of the genre will say no. Globally - this word Nu Metal only refers to the 2000s, to the idea of sound. The perception of a band is easier when there is a reference point. Fundamentally, we believe that the love for our music is more important than the concept of genre. If we suddenly start to write Jazz or Heavy Metal in the style of Judas Priest and we genuinely like it, we'll put out a release and we won't look at what genre it's in.

What are the nearest plans in creativity and development of the band as a whole? What vector do you plan to take?

- We have a concert on the 29th of June in St. Petersburg, in the club "Aurora" and on the 5th of July in Moscow, in the club "Urban". The band has a lot of material that needs to be finalised, we have already listened to everything, selected 4 songs that we will record right after the concerts. So there will be releases this year. Foreseeing the question about the third album, we will take a small pause and study how the second full-length album will show itself, make conclusions and start working on the concept.