Mexico has become a constant assistant to the battle of the bands of Wacken, the most important metal festival on the planet. We even had a world champion last year in the Jet Jaguar figure, which gave them a great boost in their career and a fairly large projection.
The turn is now for the Duranguenses Steel night, who after a heated competition and full of accusations of arrangements, tell us what is your opinion on this and what are your plans during your stay at the German festival.
You are Jahaziel Rangel vocalist of Steel Night, as many know (and for those who don't), they have been the winners of the Wacken Metal Battle 2018 Edition. You tell me they only have a 3 song EP, is this correct?
Indeed, when we went to Mexico City for the contest we had to stop the production of our long-lasting material.
You as a band are not even 2 years old yet, and you already have this opportunity to represent Mexico in Germany, nothing more and nothing less than in the Metal Battle. How do you receive this, this panorama internally in the band? It is certainly a great burden.
Talking about it among all of us, we welcome it, yes it is very hard, we have the vision of someday living from this, without a doubt it has helped us a lot to win the battle in Mexico; obviously we redouble the work. we are rehearsing three to four times a week, missing many commitments to the family, it is very brutal because of the time and effort, in addition to being economical, we move around to try to get money, we are middle class people (I think ), we don't have that much, but we want to live the dream of going to represent our friends, you, the bands that are supporting us, the people who believe in us.
You know that the country does not help much to music, betting on metal, so the effort and the spirit must be even greater, at the beginning we did not expect it, one is going to compete and you say "let's see what happens" and then we won, contrary case We would keep fucking him.
Jet Jaguar won last year, we feel a very fucking obligation to go to the best of ourselves and more.
Definitely participating, being part of the 30 gangs in battle is already an achievement, in many cases that already adds to the gang, it is a win-win to compete if you know how to capitalize on it. You went one step further, you won, you have your place. Do you already have shows prepared for Europe?
We are struggling a lot with that, we have a lot of support from the band Anima Tempo, Jet Jaguar, we speak with the manager of Cemican, we are struggling with the bookings, several contacts have happened to us, things that do not interest us have responded, the more time that passes We have fewer opportunities, we told some of them "what's up, we need dates after the Wacken" one of them says that he works with Nightwish, says that our page is going to grow, but he wants to charge us 22 thousand pesos per month, it's a lot of money for people like us that we are hardly going there, and who knows if what he tells us is true
So there is nothing specific?
There is nothing, we hope to close something soon, we intend to last a month there.
Apply Rodrigo and Gabriela's and go to the street to play.
Yes, of course, we have contemplated that, our bass player is very optimistic and tells us that something will come out when someone sees us. It is legal for someone to see us, hopefully this is the case, that they take advantage of the opportunity of the Wacken and the tour there, that helps us to further promote our career as a group and enter more festivals, have a tour of South America with which we are supporting.
Well that is already on the way to Germany, shortly before there is a show on July 27 at Gato Gato, you will be Nuclear Chaos, The Moniac Soud-Maker, Human Spiral and Velvet Darkness, this show is intended in support of you. Apart from this show, what other dates do you have before the trip to Germany?
In July there are many dates, some of the south of the republic are not yet confirmed, but firm they are 2 here in Durango, another one the 14 in ****** (not all the funds are for us but it is already something), then on the 18th in Culiacán, it is Wednesday and they say it is a very strong day in Culiacán for rock, then again in Durango before leaving, we have another one in Puebla on Saturday the 28th, and the ones that are about to be confirmed are from 22 to 26 probably in Querétaro, and another one in Puebla, the latter to raise funds, all the money is good and you have to be willing and if you do not move and do not work for this type of event, no one else will help you, there are very cool people who It is helping us and it is cool that there is such a band, we must make it reciprocal.
Mexico has already given an international winner in Germany, that motivated the band a lot, in this contest there were more people than in past editions, bands of trajectory were added, or bands that many would say do not need that, that they on their own initiative said "It has already been proven that, if you can, out there and we will try.
Different versions and parts of the final where they won were heard and read, many disagreed with the verdict. What do you think those people who did not agree that they won?
Note that we could not go to all the qualifying rounds, due to the distance and budget, remember we are from Durango, many here in Durango told me "how cool they got into the contest, but one compa told me that such a band will win, because that band He is a companion of one of the judges and that is it, cool that they attend and make themselves known, but that band has already won "we take the position of agüitarnos, whether you like it or not when they tell you that it beats you, stupidly you believe them, since it comes from having "experience".
For the battle, we rehearsed twice a week, we left for Mexico City for the foreign qualifying round, we were the third party, I saw the bands and said "this band is cool", and the public as if they were "bland", as people criticized the bands, sitting and crossing their arms, in our turn the people caught fire, they reacted very well, I think we still had not finished playing from our participation, and we were on edge, some judges spoke. I did not know who they were with us, they greet us and tell us "they play very cool, keep making you want".
We stayed to see the other bands, as after us the bands made him want more. At the end of the tie, I am not sure if there were 6 or 10 judges, Luis Jasso (Organizer of the WOA Metal Battle) goes up and says "this is the band that is going to happen, we already have the others that are from the State of Mexico, for 6 points and above all Steel Night ”and we were like this“ what the hell are the other bands are cool ”if the judges are saying it is because we have something.
It's over, we appreciated, we had the mentality that someone else was going to win and that band didn't even make it to the final. We rented 2 days of room, we thought that we would only participate on Saturday and the plan was to tour on Sunday, now we had to be in the final on Sunday, we had to take good advantage of our money to stay at the hotel.
That night they tell us that we had to be at 3 in the afternoon, that we were the first, and we had to make a soundcheck at 4:00 pm, and on Sunday of the hotel we spent 1 hour hanging around in the uber, we passed through the Zocalo, the monument to the mother, we did not know the city and we got lost, we ran to the subway and arrived at Gato Calavera all sweaty, exhausted, to our surprise there was NO ONE, we arrived about 5 minutes before 4, there were only the judges, there was Jet Jaguar and they say "Disqualify them they were late", I apologized to Luis and I told him what happened to us ... he said "5 minutes to go, make soundcheck now, there are no people, we are going to start this event half an hour later to that people get together and if we don't start with the judges ”, we accept and go up to connect.
We started making the soundcheck and they told us "get off, drink water and in 5 minutes we started", Jasso approached and told us "there are only the public judges, the CDMX people are really shit, they don't come to see them because they don't know them It swells and they only like to talk when this is over. ”The net we have played with up to 2 people in the audience, that time there were more then there was no problem, it does not compare, we have also played more audiences, like the time we played with Hammerfall and White rat.
I made teambag with my band, I told them that we had to throw all the kilos in the world, we did our best before the pure judges, then every band we saw, I am not lying to you, all those bands that participated do not ask anything of anyone, nothing, we were shit that we saw a band and said "dick, those are bastards" then another passed "those are even more bastards", so nervous we opted to leave the venue to take a breath in the rain, we saw Brutal Squirt, They did not bring people to Beastlight and more than handsome, those from CDMX brought all their people and one of the things that the judges said was that they would not be carried away by the public, that they would rate the band as such, the points that were pointed out to us in an email, which was clothing, attitude, originality, all those things.
The event is over and while the judges are deliberating we were with our ass in hand, I am smoking, that day I was given to smoke my nerves, next to us were Brutal Squirt and they told us “How are you feeling? ”, With that talk we lowered our nerves, we began to chat, they told us that they were told that a different band would win than the one we had been told. We met them and we are already compas, if they are offered to go to Durango then arre, you know, those ties that arise in events, when you feel the good vibes of the band.
We see the judges come down, and we said "well if we went out so as not to see these weyes", they took about half an hour yet, we went upstairs chatting with Jet Jaguar, with Brutal, with Beast Light, we took photos of the memory, then it was announced that the winning band is foreign and we say to beastlight, “they know it's you or it's us but one of the two is leaving and the one who's gone is hell because we are compas”, they announce us and we thunder, Luis approaches us and he is done a breakdown "do not get into the page of the battle, it is raining you bastard".
When giving the verdict, he said that the difference between first and second place was 2 points, and I am not going to lie to you or if I lie to you because they corrected me, there were 6 points of difference, a very marked one, “do not interfere with the page, it is raining a lot, the people who are pulling them are people who did not come to see them yesterday and who did not come today, they are people who have nothing to do ”, and it is true, it does not affect us that we pull or say that we do not put it together, there will always be people who do not like you, perhaps at the end of the day they do nothing for the scene or for their band, if they have a band, or for other bands, they say that we are like crabs and we started trying to screw us Mexicans.
That the band where his cousin is, did not win, his brother did not win, that does not matter to us, I think that all those people should not be listened to, just as there are people who supported us in CDMX, I am taking the time to send them, even if it is an inbox and thank you, because you have to be grateful apart from everything.
There are comments that said "why heavy, that genre has already died, why they send heavy again", there were brutal bands, there were very cool, maybe they lacked something or saw something in us that they did not have, I don't know, really I can't explain why they chose us, but if I can tell you that if you listen to our EP and say "oh well they play cool", it doesn't compare to what we do live, it's another fart.
They also said that we had bought from the judges, no mames, if we went in a pollero truck, we paid $600 for going super uncomfortable from Durango to CDMX, and they tell us that we bought from the judges, how much does a judge charge you? To be honest, if a judge sold himself and charged you a thousand, low his hand, on the day of the final there were 20 judges, there are 20 thousand, hopefully right now we would have that varus and not be suffering to go to the Wacken, we would not be "begging" , we would do tours outside and la chingada, we are even part of a collective to support us in broadcasting and plays, because we are limited by resources in many areas.
There is a comment from the vocal from Strike Master that says that the worst enemy of a Mexican is another Mexican, so much shit is thrown that you say “hey no mames, they are seeing that we want to lift the scene, if we have not won the same We would be helping, we must support the band he is in.
Jasso told us "I answer all those farts, you do not get involved, think about what you just did" we went to dinner that night with Jet Jaguar, we began to ask them a lot of things that they can already answer us, the recommendation It was not uploading the photos of that dinner so as not to make the fart worse. That controversy I think will always exist, but there is no other option but to take risks, we did not expect to win, we were fucking a stream, and we shit, we know that the Wacken is not sold.
It is not to make anyone less but more than one bet on Lethal Creation, based on their career, their experience, they are a bandota, they sound impressive, it is in Spanish and they have a lot of presence, suddenly a band arrives that not even two years old has , that no one gambled, that no one knew and takes it ... everything they supposed, from this and other bands, because everyone has their rooster, some more placed than others, with more time on stage or more production and resources, the Alleged fixes, "the favorites", implies that the Wacken is not fixed and there are no accurate forecasts, even saw last year with Jet Jaguar.
Indeed, it is not fixed, and I reiterate, no band that has been in a final asks anything of anyone, none.
According to the "protocol", a metalhead has to be rebellious, he has to fart and say "let's see mine go there". What do you say to all those people who do not like your band? Who did not agree with this decision, although it is not an egg that they like, but they have to understand that not everything is how they think.
To begin with, they are not so closed, that their band did not win, ok, maybe it did not win because it is a different genre, everything is metal and it is an event where there are many genres, maybe you do not like bands or all genres you have to see what is remarkable in the groups, if you do not dare to challenge us, check what we bring and if you do not like it because at least you would already have more solid plot, I do not think we are bad, we have already opened Hammerfall, Nargaroth , Jet Jaguar, White Rat, it is not easy to get to those scenarios and less for a band that is starting, they are pulling us because something cool they see, and if they do not want to support us then support the other bands that are starting, they can bring the surprise.
This is crazy, I think that all the bands have something good as long as they take it very seriously, it is stone chipping or not going anywhere. If this bastard himself, now throwing roe and missing rehearsals, because he is more bastard, add the poop that rains you, there is no other choice but to screw him.
Winning the Metal Battle, even in Germany, does not guarantee anything, ok, it is an achievement for your career, and that few can capitalize and maintain it. You, winner of the Metal Battle 2018 of the Mexico edition, can you tell me 3 winners of the international?
Not very well, I'm bad for names. I think that in 2016 a band from Spain won where a girl sings, and the band is a bitch, and before that, I don't remember, I don't remember further back.
Yes and I understand it, nor I who asked the question know what bands they are. I say this in the position of capitalizing the public, winning the Metal Batlle does not guarantee anything, even if you win it in Germany and it does not give you a guarantee that your life will change. Because if you and I are struggling to mention 3 winners of the international, what are you going to expect from someone who listens to Rammstein, System of a Down, Metallica, the popular and media and that their references are only top international bands. How can they be reached, how are you preparing for this return from Germany? Whatever the result.
We were talking about it, about capitalization, about money, it's a bastard expense, if we knew that the contest would win at least 6 months before, we would have had more time to raise money and not get into debt, now you have to go into debt, now you have to go to Wacken, whatever the result, many of the bands that arrive thunder because they stay poor and have to work again for godinez or whatever to get the money they borrowed, which puts the very existence of the company at risk. band.
If things happen, by divine work of God, Jehovah or Goku, whoever you want, is to do a tour here in Mexico, where people know you, help you in advertising and having won the Metal Battle of Mexico, it is an advertising Very big, winning there is even more bastard publicity, but you have to be smart and seek medium-term goals, play in places where we have not played and who know us. We want to make a living from this, this father is and he's screwed, we're screwed with varus, but you have to try to do something, to get that varus and know how to invest it.
If we are not going to be international, at least we will be national. I bet you that many of us still follow Jet Jaguar, "ah, it's going to play in Hell, it's going to play there and here" and that is the point to follow them so that they continue their career, going a little beyond the borders maybe gives more punch, in the end everything is growth, maybe after the Jet Jaguars go back to a festival outside the country, imagine the winners of Metal Battle Wacken come here to Mexico, you have to be patient because it is uncertain, get psyched up very well, want to win, don't believe yourself a little star to win here, because there it can be worth mother.
What do you think led you to win this opportunity? Three points.
Personally, I think that those 3 points would be, one very strong if it is discipline, is being screwed and it is being missing parties, losing birthdays, dating the girlfriend, dating the other, not going out to chat, it is fucking you, your instrument and your band.
Point two, friendship if it has a lot to do, what we have very cool is that if we do not drop something, one says it and we try to fix it, a very stupid example, we always move by car in a neon of the bassist , and they say "I don't want to go in the middle, ah well I go in the middle because I like to go in the middle" Raúl who is the guitarist does not like to go out the windows because he is scared, he goes in the middle, we in the windows and they are so small subjects that perhaps over time they grow and if they are not spoken in time they explode and, the unity of all have the same dream.
And three, chopping stone, all possible stones, throwing high, it gives you experience, you learn, cool things come, others maybe not, but you have to chop and chop until something comes out, do not let yourself fall, have your goals as a band and not leave them until they drop.
Discipline, friendship and a common goal ...
That's right, when you do not have a goal with your band, you can have a very cool drummer, and the band sounds cool, but the drummer says "it is very cool and everything but I like being licensed more", it already thundered something, is A slump because you have to look for and rehearse with another guy, you have to get on the boat and on that way many things are lost, maybe you had the chance to do something and the slump is fucking you, it's not the same band anymore. These three things have brought us here, we still do not believe it and we are fighting for it to turn out well.
Another, extra point, also humility, being humble and grateful to the people who are helping you, because this fart is to know and to win. So if someone is offering it to you in a good way to help you play in a forum that you cannot go, you have to be humble and grateful and enjoy what you are going to do.
To close, to your perspective in the position you are currently in, with this one of opportunity and exposure. Is there a so-called “metal brotherhood”?
I think so, little one, you have to make it bigger, but if there is a brotherhood, I have seen it, there are people who maybe you only know from the Whats app of long ago, you get to see them once in a gig, band from another state or another country comes to Durango, we live with them and that brotherhood is made in which one as a civilian offers help to outsiders, many are helping us and there is a brotherhood that is being made.
Over there in an interview I commented "if you are going to help a band and it is going to fall apart, there is no point, they must be committed, because that band that you helped is going to help another by making the chain to go up with a different mentality , as well as more European, that the brotherhood obviously grows because in the end we are all part of the scene, it is small and right now we are fortunate that we are known a little more by bands, but those bands that know us are not as relieved as The Moniac, Nuclear Chaos, those from Querétaro or Matamoros who were going to do an event and wanted us to go but we couldn't go because of time, so they tell us "you know what, help us with your name and we will do an event, the varro will send them to you, there is no fart, we want to help them, they make us cool, they are relieved ", and we have never seen them, so there is that and there are still many people who shoot unemployed, if there are 90 comments pulling here and 10 are comments to help you, then there are than keep those 10 , that brotherhood must grow.
I thank you very much for the talk, we touched on very good points, you know that you wish the best. And there we will be on the lookout, a very long road arrives and what do you think if we make another talk when you return.
To hell, if you already know what we are for and I have already told you that the support you are giving me is cool, as the bands, the media and people who organize events, and what you like here we are and not just for we or those of us who already run into it, help is open for the other bands, we can help a little with what is our name to generate a little bit of reflector for others, because go ahead, we are willing to play wherever and with whom be, without farts.
