‘Click Interview’ with Freaky Mind: ‘We Demonstrate Who We Are Today And How We Sound’
Ilya Remaerd and Roman Ericson are now active for more than ten years as Freaky Mind. The Russian duo defines their sound as ‘Killer Body Music from Moscow!’ A right description for their powerful sound mixing EBM, Dark-Electro and Techno music which they exposed at different albums. The self-titled new album released by darkTunes Music Group probably stands for their most accomplished and powerful work to date; Industrial-Techno music for zombies or just dark, danceable Electro-underground stuff! I talked about this masterpiece with Ilya.
(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)
Q: Freaky Mind is already active for more than 10 years now. How do you look back at this career and the different productions that were released?
Ilya: We had some highs and lows, it’s true. There were moments I wish we could act differently, more boldly and persistently, with more self-confidence. Despite all this, I am convinced that we have been moving forward all this time, albeit sometimes not very fast. I see, how we change sonically into something more powerful and qualitative. Since it’s all about music after all, it’s the most important thing to me.
Q: You by the end of last year released the album “Freaky Mind”. What did you try to express by this self-titled work and how do you perceive the work in the band’s evolution?
Ilya: The title of this album means, that this time we didn’t put a lot of meaning into the album itself. I mean, all the previous times our albums were thematic, one way or another. This one is not. Rather, it is self-presentation. We demonstrate, who we are today and how we sound.
Q: How did “Freaky Mind” took shape? What have been the different stages you’d to go through to achieve this work and what’s the input of each member?
Ilya: Making this album was surprisingly easy. Everything was just flowing. We didn’t use much of the early stuff, and pretty quickly wrote brand new songs. In almost all tracks, we achieved the intended result pretty quickly. It happens quite rarely, when you know in advance, how exactly the song should sound. On this album we had this situation quite often. So, I can say, that Roman and I, we both definitely had fun making this record.
Q: Tell us a bit more about both guest artists -Freddie K. Croona and Her Own World who each contributed to one song of the album. How did you get in touch and how did the collaboration happened? What’s the bonus working with other artists?
Ilya: We contacted Her Own World for the first time remixing their song “Stalker Girl” for their debut-EP. I like their music very much, so we stayed in touch. Then, when we were making our “The Reason”-EP, we asked them to make a remix for us. What they did to “The Reason” was more than just an ordinary remix –Paula recorded her vocals in it and it was beautiful. I was fascinated by this approach. So, when we started working on our new album, I already knew, that I was going to ask Paula to sing in one of our tracks “One Night”, which I wrote specially for her voice. Glad she agreed.
Speaking of Fredrik, he’s been a friend of ours for a long time. We first met in Moscow in 2012 and had a great time. Then when he visited Moscow a couple of times with Cynical Existence, we played with him on stage. I really consider him a good friend. We often talk, ask each other how things are going. His appearance on one of our songs was a matter of time.
Q: The music clearly sounds to have been mainly composed for dancefloors. Where do your influences come from -and especially for the new album, and why is this ‘club-sound’ that important to you?
Ilya: You’re right, we really wanted to make a good album for playing on parties and DJ-sets. The list of our influences is so long. We were inspired a lot by 90s dance music, different branches of Trance, Techno and House. We love the club sound, although sometimes we allow ourselves to deviate from it, as we did on our album “Doom” (2018).
Q: I can imagine the war your country is involved in must have an impact on your music activities like live performances in other European countries, physical sales, further plans etc. What’s the real impact you can feel and how do you try to manage all these things?
Ilya: I think, our musical activities are not something we should complain about right now. The only thing I want to say is that we’re grateful to darkTunes Music Group and Raphael Beck personally for taking care of everything we worked on so hard for these years and for his responsiveness. It means a lot, really. And, of course, we hope that someday we get a chance to meet our fans, wherever they are, and have a good time together.
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
