Zardonic is one of the heaviest non-underground DJ-s out there right now, which is also why I was so interested in chatting him up. One of the main things that I look for in music is adrenaline, and Zardonic’s music has a lot of that. It’s not hard to see why either: Federico Agreda, the man behind the mask, is one passionate guy. Whether we were talking about the state of things in Venezuela, or just what wines are good, there was an aura of exuberance emitting from him. 2015 was the most fruitful year in Zardonic’s career, so what better time to see on which wavelength Federico is, than right now. Not one to shy away from sharing what he really feels, or dropping names who have inspired him, this metalhead-at-heart gave some real detailed answers about how one gets big in the US, what he thinks of trends, drugs, the Zardonic character, and everything in between. Check it out.

Because I too am into metal, let’s start from there. You have quite the metal background. Not necessarily as an artist, but as a fan. What can you tell about that?

Metal is my thing. It is the genre that contains every element I look for in music. It’s not about being heavy actually, it’s about intensity. It’s a very passionate music genre. You of course also have metal bands that sound like shit, but in general, at least the European school of metal, it’s very complex. It’s not just about noise, and it’s not just “rape your mother and kill your dog” music that a lot of people believe it to be. Metal in Europe is very rich, musically speaking, and it has some ties to classical music, although a lot of people would not believe that. Alas, I also see metal as something that is growing old. In the hearts of us, metalheads, we will never admit that, we will say that metal will never die and that metal will always be there, but it pains me to see how it seems to be losing the attention which it used to have. It worries me. I think that’s also one of the reasons why I use so much metal in my compositions – so that I could bring back that (metal) sound to the fans of electronic music, which seems to be the universal musical trend for the new generation. At least right now, everybody seems to be about electronic music. That was not my intention at first (bringing metal to a new audience), I just used it because I loved it, and I love electronic music as much as I love metal. But then the EDM trend happened and dubstep happened, and it turned out that metal was missing in the whole dance music trend, because nobody cared about it. I want to be the guy who brings it back. Especially because a lot of (metal) bands shape the sound that I have.

Any black metal band that you can think of, you name it, I know it, and I like it. Emperor, old Cradle of Filth, old Dimmu Borgir, but also more underground acts like Infernal War. I also love Burzum and Mayhem, the classics, although I don’t agree with the supremacy way of thinking that Varg Vikernes has. Then again, I don’t really care about what somebody thinks, I care about their music. It’s something that I have seen on social media a lot: people seem to like an artist more because of what he/she thinks or what he/she says, but not for the music he/she makes. I couldn’t give two shits if, for example, Lady Gaga is founding an anti-bullying program or donating a lot of money to charity. Props to you, you are a great person, but I still think your music is shit. You know what I’m saying?

 

Yeah absolutely, it should be about the music when we are discussing music. For example, I thought it was a great thing when Bring Me The Horizon donated 10 000 dollars to The Ghost Inside, who were in a horrible car crash. It was a very valiant thing to do, but it doesn’t make me like their music any more because of that.

Exactly, I agree. Whoever has enough money to help a good cause, and they do, they will always have my respect as human beings, but music is music. And you actually gave me good food for thought, because this new trend of metalcore, I don’t even see it as metal. Technically you can consider it metal, but to me it’s metal as much as nu metal was metal. Technically speaking, yes, but culture wise, no.

 

Yeah, from a historical standpoint, nu metal didn’t really further any of the things that made metal what it is. Although, to be fair, I didn’t/don’t have a problem with nu metal. I still like some nu metal bands and P.O.D. was one of the main bands I grew up with.

 

I love Disturbed, I think they are amazing, but nu metal…it’s a different thing (from “real” metal). It’s not about being true, it’s not about being cult, but the problem is, like you said, with the historical background and compositions, patterns, structures.

 

I know, nu metal didn’t really have much that made metal metal. I’m not even talking about guitar solos, which everyone seems to highlight with nu metal, it’s the general aesthetic of it. You could say that it had the bounce of hip hop and the song structures of pop song, just with heavy guitars added.

Pretty much, pretty much, but also, I guess it was their way of making something that they like, while also being able to reach enough people so that they could dedicate themselves fully to music. As much as it might seem to be desirable to be underground and cult, you can go ahead and ask Fenriz of Darkthrone if he lives off Darkthrone, and he’ll say he doesn’t. I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing – it’s a personal choice. I personally, I don’t want to do anything else besides music for my entire life. I don’t want to have a shitty day job and then have music as a hobby. I want music to be my job, while I also need to be able to make music for myself, out of desire to experiment. It’s an art – keeping a balance between what you want to do, what you should do, and what people want you to do. It’s hard to reach and keep that balance, but I think I’m doing pretty good.

Yeah, and since we were talking about nu metal, then in a way, I think it affected metal as a genre positively. The more diehard fans grew against nu metal, the more they gravitated to the old-fashioned metal bands. When nu metal died out, American New Wave of Heavy Metal was the next trend, which embodied a lot of the elements which bands like Iron Maiden had, for example. Bands like God Forbid and Shadows Fall. I think that today, metal lacks a subgenre which makes metalheads pissed. These new metalcore bands, like you said, aren’t even that metal, and probably draw more ire from the hardcore crowd, if I had to guess.

There are no more Cannibal Corpses, no more Morbid Angels, no more Emperors – there’s no more originality. Everything sounds the same, and that’s the problem I see with these modern metalcore bands and deathcore bands. For example, when I talk about deathcore, I talk about bands who I think are carbon copies of bands like Whitechapel and Suicide Silence, out of whom I don’t even really like the latter. But if Suicide Silence had their sound and only they sounded like that, cool, but everybody is trying to have that same sound. That breakdown-centered stuff, where I don’t see the music anymore. It’s just noise, there’s no dynamics and the old-school dynamics that made metal such a musically rich genre. Just think of Emperor, those guys were like a metal orchestra. I know that they also used a lot of orchestral arrangements in their music, but it’s because they fit. Listening to Emperor is like listening to a piece of academic music, only you have a guitar replacing the string section, for example.

I think that kind of originality is lacking nowadays, and it’s happening in every genre, including electronic music. If you think about it, then fifteen years ago, late ’90s and early ’00s, the faces of electronic music were Underworld, The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy – all very original – and we still have those guys around today, but they are not as relevant as they used to be. Today – well we have deadmau5, and as much as some people will give me shit for this, I think he’s one of the few truly original electronic music artists left. I also love Huoratron, from Finland, who I think is just amazing. But there are very few people (who are still original). Everybody else are just trying to follow the same trends; everybody is trying to sound like Martin Garrix or Hardwell, and I’m like why. So it’s happening in every genre, not only in metal, and that worries me. We need more people with originality; we need more artists like Aphex Twin or The Chemical Brothers. You could even say we need more people like Skrillex. We don’t need more people who sound like him, but he created his own sound. Like it or not, that dude created a sound of his own, and that is something we need more of – artists bringing something new, something different to the table. Nero also springs to mind. Nero is a very popular band right now, and those guys have a sound that I don’t really see anybody else copying (at the moment). They have something that nobody else seems to have. When you hear them, sure, they are clearly influenced by the electronic music of the ’80s, but still, in this day and age, you don’t have another band like Nero on stage. So all I’m really saying, is that we need more of that (people doing things other people aren’t doing), and less samey-sounding big room house or metalcore, or whatever you want to call it, because it happens in every genre.

 

Ok, well you’ve talked about how we need more original artists, but do you have any suggestions on how to get people to compose in an original way, or how to get people to think outside the box? At the end of the day, the problem of repetition comes down to people just following what is popular. Do you have any idea, why it seems to be more popular to follow trends now than, for example, 20 years ago? I mean, it’s something that has always happened, people have always copied others, but it seems to be more prevalent nowadays than ever before.

At the end of the day, the truth is, that we are nothing but a copy of a copy of a copy, and that is ok. Everything is a remix, and that’s not a “why”. But I believe that one of the reasons, why this is becoming more and more noticeable, is because there is an obsession with instant gratification. Everybody wants to be a big producer right now, this very second. They want that overnight sensation. The music is not important anymore, these people want the money, the fame, and I get it to a degree. I want more of that myself. The more money you make, the more possibilities you’ll have. But the problem is that people are more into the experience of being a rockstar, than into the music itself. I want music to give me enough money to buy a decent house. I’m not talking about a two million euro house, by the beach, in the Canary Islands – I don’t need that. I would be happy with a house that cost me 100-150 euros, so that I wouldn’t have to pay rent anymore. That’s what I want, and that’s not so hard to do, but people want the millions, the yachts, the Tomorrowland (to play at Tomorrowland). It’s like Disneyland (in a way): less about the music and more about the experience. It’s more about having fun, being happy, peace, unity, love, respect, only hippy bullshit. There’s no darkness and passion in it anymore; there’s no reason to make music, it seems. Why are you writing a track, because you want to make a lot of people dance or bang their heads? Fucking no dude, say something, about something fucked up that happened to you, put that into your music.

That’s another thing that I have noticed: everyone is obsessed with being positive. Everything has to be positive, everything has to be ok. Let’s find the positive in everything. That’s bullshit. There’s no authenticity in that, because it’s unnatural. There are two sides to everything: there is black and there is white; there is night and there is day; there are men and there are women; there is light and there is darkness. Nothing is absolute. You need both things to be authentic. There is god, if you will, and there is satan, if you will, and I believe there is a bit of all of that in each of us. We need to embrace that, because that makes us human. You can’t be positive all the time, because that kills your inspiration the same way only being negative kills your inspiration. You need that balance, you need to go into the light and into the night the same way, because that is how nature works. The more you relate to nature, and how nature works, the better composer you will be, because you will have more inspiration. You will be able to sit down, and you will not be trying to make a song that sounds cheesy, because you are following the same pentatonic scale that this other guy used, and everybody liked it, because everybody relates to it, and now it’s popular, and no. Just make something interesting.

And also, if you get inspired by another artist, for sure, go ahead and do that. I am very inspired by people like Trent Reznor, for example. I don’t necessarily copy what he does, but I try to do what he does in thinking outside the box. That is a guy who will take a guitar, and run it through a guitar pre-amp, and then through some effect processors; or take a keyboard, and run it through a guitar amp; or take a vocal, and run it through a guitar amp; or take a synthesizer and run it through a fucking box of noisemaking or whatever. That’s the only way how you can get something new – thinking outside the box. Grab a portable recorder, go outside on the street, get the sound of a car, come back home, cut it, slice it, reverse it, add some reverb, reverse it again, add some delay, then add a chorus and some distortion – something like that. Stop going to youtube and finding how to make this base and how to get that guitar sound. People seem to want that, they go “I want the same guitar tone that Metallica has.” No, Metallica already has their own guitar tone, find your own guitar tone. I believe you can be inspired by people, but if you’re trying to get the exact same sound as another artist, it will not make you that artist. It will make you a copycat and no one will take you seriously. That’s the way it is for me.

I talked to the guys from the Australian band The Amenta a few years ago, and what they said has stuck with me ever since. They said that it is an awful thing to be influenced by somebody, that they had no idea why somebody would like to be influenced by somebody else and that it’s a sign of weakness, but to be inspired by somebody, that’s a whole other thing. That’s about looking at things that other people do, and trying to go your own way about them.

The Amenta is an amazing band and I believe they are very underrated. They have a nice career, but I would put them up there with Behemoth, I think they deserve more.

 

Sure, they are a decent-sized name in Australia, but from that interview they also recalled a time when they came to the USA, and had some issues with a promoter, that ended with them playing some shows for about 15-20 people or so.

Dude, let me tell you something, that’s the same story for everybody in this country. I’m gonna give this country until next year, and if nothing happens here, I’ll be gone. I know a lot of people here, a lot of people who are very well connected. A lot of well connected people are also helping me, I’m not going to say that they are not, but there are other people who I expected to get more from, and they didn’t do shit for me. I’m not going to name and shame yet, because I’m giving this country a chance. But if nothing happens by the end of next year, I’m going to move out to Europe, and I’ll call those people out, because they are people who I have done a lot for in the last ten years, and I don’t have shit from them.

It’s all a monopoly. The competition is really hard, because everything is taken over by these agencies, who are trying to take care of their present and their future. They want their artists to always be big. It seems that they control all these promoters, because promoters are trying to get artists who are popular, and these agencies are who make artists popular. So if somebody wants to bring a new guy to the table… I’ll give you a fictional example with metal and The Amenta, because you named them, but this is exactly how it works with electronic music. Let’s say there is an agency in the US that books Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse, Metallica, Suicide Silence, and then The Amenta want to come. Now, these guys have been around for a long time, and they want to be the top tier band on festivals or club shows. So when a promoter wants to bring them in, the agency will say “no, you can not do that, you need to take our artists instead.” If the promoter refuses, he’ll be screwed. If he decides to go through with bringing this agency-free band, he will not be able to put Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse etc. on their tours for the rest of his career. No promoter wants that, because they know these agency-related bands are also the ones who bring people. So that’s how the monopoly is being run. It’s a dirty game, and there’s no space for anybody. That’s the way it works, and that’s why I prefer Europe. As much as there are people who try to do the same thing in Europe, it seems to be impossible to accomplish there. There always seems to be a place for everything, no matter what, because you can always reach the people. There’s always one guy, some promoter, who is willing to do something different, and people actually listen to good music over there. It’s not like that over here in the US.

I remember seeing Carcass playing for 2000 people in Venezuela. I saw them in Atlanta playing to 200 people. How does that make any sense? Those guys shaped modern metal, they are a legendary band, and get 2000 people in a third world, no-money country like Venezuela, but get 200 people in the US. So go ahead and tell The Amenta that they are good, they had the same shady experience that everybody else has in this country. It’s just the way it is.

 

The comparison that you made with Carcass: since I’m not informed about that, maybe you can shed some light on how the ticket prices are in the US? I imagine that you could put a much higher price on the tickets in the US, compared to Venezuela, because people wouldn’t be able to attend a show in the latter country if the prices were sky-high. So how are the ticket prices in the US, reasonable, unreasonable, or does the whole thing boil down to just people not being that into shows down there?

You would think that you have to put up a really cheap ticket price in Venezuela and a really expensive one in America, but it doesn’t actually work that way – it’s the complete opposite, and I don’t know why. Even there is quote-unquote no money in Venezuela, people are willing to pay that much for that band. It’s also about the way they are marketed. We don’t have a lot of that (in Venezuela). Even guys that are not legends, if you sell them as one, people believe that. And I think you can do the same thing everywhere. Dieselboy springs to mind, who is a great d’n’b DJ and one of my role models in the DJ-ing world. His slogan is “America’s nr. 1 drum and bass DJ.” Is he really America’s nr. 1 DJ? I don’t know, and nobody really cares enough to find out. He has that slogan, and thus he is America’s nr. 1 drum and bass DJ, even if there are a thousand DJ-s out there who could be better than him. A bit of marketing is all it takes. So if you bring any band to Venezuela and market them highly, people will believe that. People who don’t know who or what Carcass is will still go to the show, because they are being marketed as the legends of British metal, and people probably don’t care to find out if they really are legends or not (before the show). That’s just the way you sell things. People who are having trouble selling things in some place, maybe it’s because they aren’t marketing their shit enough. Maybe they have too much underground mentality, or they are too honest, or they expect people to come to the show because the band is great, not because they (the promoters) tell it to the world that the band coming to town is great. But that’s not how the (promotion) world works. If you are too honest, you’ve lost in the game. That’s something that I’ve had to learn the hard way, that you can’t be too honest.

Just think about why there’s so much shit music on the radio. The only difference between the artists that make it to the radio, and the artists who don’t, is marketing. It’s not about musical quality. For example, you have Marilyn Manson, who is an amazing musician in my eyes and one of the heaviest commercial acts to ever happen. Why was he famous? It wasn’t because he was making metal, or industrial rock, or however you want to call that, as some people argue that’s not really metal, whatever. Marilyn Manson was famous, because he was a satanist, or so he said; he was famous because he could suck his own dick, or so they said; he was famous because he gouged out his eye on stage, or so they said. It’s all make-believe, journalism bullshit, and that is how you market something. All these underground bands need to think outside of the box and create something that shocks the world. That’s what I believe. Something different at least. That’s why I wear a mask onstage. Everybody who is a DJ these days, they just push buttons and wear a cap onstage. I hate those caps! Everybody is wearing those with a hoodie, and these people actually expect the audience to buy that? There’s nothing interesting in that.

I was actually going to ask you about your mask, you know. I was going to draw a parallel with the Swedish metal band Ghost, because Ghost want to keep their singer anonymous. But with you, the whole world knows who you are behind the Zardonic mask. So the mask is there for what, promotional purposes?

The mask is a message, but I want people to know that I am the one who created the message. It’s kind of like with Iron Man. Tony Stark is a guy who is pompously proud over being Iron Man, and I’m kind of like that. I love Zardonic, I think it is the best thing I have ever created, and I want people to know it was me. If they like it or not, that’s up to them, whichever way is cool by me, but I am proud of it. I want people to see my face and go “hey, that’s the guy behind Zardonic, holy shit!” Plus, it’s also a pain in the ass when you go to an airport, where somebody has to pick you up, and they’ll be all “oh, sorry, I didn’t know your face,” which is something that happens. That’s how powerful that mask is. It doesn’t matter how much I show my face to the people, because they still believe I am trying to hide it. So when they see my face, they’ll say they’ve never seen anything besides the mask. People pay more attention to the mask. I like to quote Bane in The Dark Knight Rises: “No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.”

 

You also said that the mask is a message. What is the main message?

I’m yet to figure that out. Let me explain what’s up. At first I wanted it to be a marketing thing, but when I first put on the mask and looked at myself in the mirror, it struck me. I realized straight away that this character will (have to) have a life of its own. I need to put more behind it. There are a lot of things that can be developed for it: comic books, short films, that sort of stuff. There’s actually a guy from Romania, who created a manga comic based on Zardonic. Or more precisely, he put Zardonic as a character into this story he had. And Zardonic has been included as a character in some games as well, so people are starting to put a story into the character themselves. It’s a phenomenon that has happened by itself and isn’t something I intended to happen. I actually wanted to wait until I had enough money to invest in people, who could create a good storyline. When you’re working on your own with a project like this, there’s only so much you can do. I am my own composer, my own mixer, my own engineer, my own DJ. A lot of people say that there are a lot of people out there who do that – not really. A lot of people are out there, who say that, but have ghost producers. I don’t have any ghost producers, I do everything myself. And then you have groups like Noisia, where there’s one guy focusing on engineering, one guy focusing on DJ-ing, one guy focusing on composing and promotion, or whatever. Three heads think better than one, so that’s good (for them). But when you’re just one guy, who on top of music should also take care of a comic book story line, it’s hard.

But I am a megalomaniac. I don’t want just a comic. I want a comic that can be put up there next to Deadpool, or Wolverine, or the X-men, or Spawn. I want that level of quality, that level of storyline, and that either costs a lot of money, or takes someone who believes in this character the same way I do. So I’m putting the character out there, and it’s starting to happen slowly, but it will be a while until I reach the goals that I have in my head, because they are too many and too big to happen right now. I am happy where I am (at this moment), but also nowhere near where I want to be (with the character eventually). Honestly, I feel like I am just a few steps up the ladder, because I want this to be something timeless. I want Zardonic to become something immortal. When I pass away, I want to give somebody else the mask, because I want people to continue the legacy of Zardonic. (When that time comes) I don’t want it to be me anymore – I want it to become a true symbol for society. For either a revolution, or something that people can identify with, like people identify with superheroes or villains, because there is a bit of themselves in these characters.

 

Since you mentioned that you’d like the Zardonic character to outlive you, and you used words like “revolution,” then what kind of a movement do you see the Zardonic character spearheading?

If I said that, it would not happen. I have some ideas in my head, but I can not say them out loud yet. What I am going to say next is a bit of Venezuelan history, and maybe a lot of people don’t relate to that, but it’s something to think about. Before Venezuela was liberated from the Spanish crown, many people plotted to do that. Simon Bolivar was not the first guy to plot it, he was the one who finally made it. But before him, there were many conspiracies to overthrown the Spanish crown. But they were always discovered, the plotters killed, and nothing happened. So if you’re really asking me to reveal the purposes of a world scale revolution in an interview, I can not do that.

 

Ok, then let’s talk a bit about your music and what you’ve done lately. You have done 9 remixes this year. Which of them was the most challenging, and which of those songs did you know instantly you needed to make a remix for?

Every remix is challenging in their own way, because you need to take something original and create something different (out of it), but keep the same vibe, while also adding your own flair. You need to make it cool, but you also need to make whoever payed for the remix happy, so it’s a tricky thing. Sometimes I get away with doing whatever I want, because some people let me do that, they trust my artistic decisions. But not everybody does that, and I don’t believe in imposing your vision (in that case). You have your vision, but you should also compromise it a little when you are remixing someone else’s work. If they are happy with what you do, cool, but if not, you need to adapt. So I would say that the Richy Nix remix was the most challenging. He liked it, but wanted me to compromise, which is not something I do all the time. At first I got all like “hey, I can not compromise my vision that much,” but then I said to scratch that, and that I am happy to accommodate my vision, so that we could find a happy medium. I like to respect people like that. I also say this, because there are a couple of people out there, who did not give me the same respect. Just so you guys know, and you know who you are, I am not working with you anymore. You need to respect an original creation, it doesn’t matter if it’s your remix. You need to be able to adapt to the original artist.

So yeah, the Richy Nix remix was the most challenging, but the result was beautiful. I am so happy with how that happened. It’s a beautiful remix, that I actually had to take down. I was just teasing people, but then Richard hit me up and said that “hey, we are not really releasing this until late December, can you not have that on soundcloud.” So I said sorry and took it down, but the few people who managed to hear it, they were going insane about it. I’ll put it up again soon. I am really proud of that, because it was the result of team work, and what a beautiful result it was. It’s not even a drum and bass track, it’s more electro-metal, which is something that I have been feeling a lot recently, and I’m happy with that, I believe there is a future in that style for me. Somebody called it industrial house, which I though was an ingenious name. I might start using it from now on, just for a joke, but maybe it sticks, because industrial house makes a lot of sense.

 

And the other part of the question: out of the remixes that you’ve done this year, was there one song, which you instantly knew you needed to make a remix for?

I would say the Richy Nix remix again. It was very inspiring and it had a lot of really cool sounds that I could chop and recreate. When I do a remix, I’m not trying to find a song where my remix would sound very similar to the original, because that doesn’t make a lot of sense for me. You want to keep some of the original vibe, but you want to make something different as well.

I do mash-ups too, but that’s just stuff that I play during my own sets. Metal mash-ups, for example. I don’t consider them to be actual remixes, because I’m just literally mashing my drums with the original tracks, so that I could play those original tracks in a drum and bass or electro set. I’ve done that a lot with Rammstein, for example. But when it comes to actual remixes, when you’re creating something new out of an existing song, it’s about hearing a lot of interesting things in the original song, but that doesn’t mean I would make a drum and bass version of the original song. (In the case of Richy Nix) I came up with something that sounded completely different, but it had all of the sounds that you could find in the original track, which was very inspiring.

What is the most unique reaction you’ve ever gotten to your music? Be it live, or on social media, or whatever. Something that has stood out to you, something that somebody has either said or done.

There are people who have told me that my music literally saved their lives, which I think is awesome. That’s what this music is meant to be. It’s heavy music, and a lot of people think that it’s too dark, too heavy; no, it’s healthy. It brings back the power that you need, to be alive. When people are trying to be positive all the time, they are just shutting down the negativity completely, and then they are not able to get out of whatever shit they are going through. We all feel like shit for different reasons: because a girlfriend dumped you, because somebody killed your parents, because you were born poor. To the simplest things to the most extreme things, we all suffer. It’s a human thing to suffer, for some reason. I believe heavy music helps with bringing you back to life and putting you back on your feet.

I remember reading a book by Osho, on emotions. It would say that sadness and anger were the same thing. Sadness was passive anger and anger was active sadness. It actually makes a lot of sense, and he explains in the book why you can’t hold that (anger) back. You cannot put that in a box and store it there, no, that shit’s toxic. It’s like with heavy intoxication: you need to vomit, so that your body would become healthy again. It’s a heavy process to vomit, but you need to do it. Now, obviously, you are not going to vomit onto somebody else’s face, you vomit in the toilet. Heavy music, to me, works as a way to vomit the negativity out of you in a safe place, in a metaphorical toilet. It could be your room, you could bang your head in your room, or you could go to a concert, and you get catharsis. The more you vent out all the negativity, the happier you are. It’s funny, and I don’t know if you realize this, but metalheads in general are actually really happy people.

 

I would know, I am a metalhead at heart, and I don’t carry much negativity with me. Like you say, I live it out from time to time, but I don’t let things stick for too long.

Precisely, you cannot let them stick. That’s how heavy music works – if you’re listening to heavy music, you are always venting out, and there won’t be any negativity left. Some of the most adorable people that I have met are metalheads, for real. I’ve seen a lot of people, met a lot of people, and some of the happiest, most positive people that I have met in my life are metalheads.It’s an interesting fact I think.

 

Something to pass along to your friends, that hey, give metal a chance, see what happens.

Well, it’s not the ’90s anymore, society has already accepted it. But there are some people who never really got it, and if you interpret it like this, it would be helpful. I believe heavy music is the future, if you ask me, especially with all this fucked up stuff that’s happening.

 

But I guess you mean a different kind of heavy music (compared to today’s)? Because at the start of the interview, you said that metal as we know it regressing to the backlines, that it’s slowly but surely dying out.

We just need to bring back real metal! I did not say that we should forget about metal. I said we should bring it back to what it was, or make new form(s) of metal, that will be as interesting as how metal used to be. You also have bands like Animals as Leaders – those guys are amazing, and there you go. It’s not really pure metal, it’s metal mixed with jazz and progressive and whatnot, but AAL are an amazing band with their own sound. And I’m glad that they are a very prominent band these days.

 

You have said that you have lived a relatively drug free life. Do you have any close artist acquaintances, who have turned to drugs for artistic purposes, and have you noticed the negative side-effects first hand, which have, in turn, made you defer away from drugs?

I don’t judge anybody, ff you know what you are doing, I don’t mind. I just don’t want to be the guy who says that drugs are great, and then some kid dies of an overdose, because he heard me saying it, and he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. That’s why I’ll rather be “hey, stay drug free, but if you are going to do it, you’ll have to know what you are doing.” The problem with drugs is that, if you don’t really know what you are doing, the drug can really control you. I’ve had LSD a couple times in my life, and I thought it was awesome, and very inspiring, but if you are going to take LSD every weekend, it won’t work. It’s something that you should take once a year tops. Similarly, if you are going to eat mushrooms, you can’t eat seven mushrooms in a go. And that’s the thing: there’s no education for the use of recreational drugs, because it’s such a satanized topic. Everybody says that drugs are bad, but I don’t think drugs are bad per se, I just think that people misuse them a lot, because they are bored and because they don’t measure it (their intake).

I’ve been guilty of that as well. In 2012, I went through a really rough phase with cocaine. Being born and raised in Venezuela, I was next to Colombia, where all that good shit comes from. And it’s extremely cheap (down there), you get a gram for 2-4 euros on the streets. I remember the first time I did it as well. It was in this rock ‘n’ roll pub. I went to the restroom, heard heavy snorting, see this guy, and go “hey I know you, busted motherfucker!” And he was like “hey, you want some?” When I said that I hadn’t really tried it, he couldn’t believe it and told me to check it out and decide for myself. After I had done my first little line, I was like “holyyyyy shiiiiiiiiieeeeeet,” and in fifteen minutes I wanted more, and more, and more, and that’s the thing: I couldn’t control myself. It really took over, and it took me months to get off it.

These days, I’m not going to say I’m a saint, I’ve done it, but I can still count with my right hand fingers the amount of times I’ve done it this year, and I literally use it like I would a cup of coffee. When I am extremely tired for a show, and there’s no other way to wake up and do my job, I would rather take a little amount, do my job, and then I’m off. I’ll go to sleep, I can eat the next day, I can drink water and alcohol. If you take too much of it, you will get to a point where you cannot sleep and can’t eat or drink anything. It can be tough, and it’s this way with coke, ecstasy, THC even. A lot of people will say that marijuana will never do anything, wrong. Marijuana can fuck you over if you don’t measure yourself, it doesn’t matter how well accepted socially it is. I believe that’s where the problem lies: there’s a huge lack of education, when it comes to using recreational drugs. So I believe that until there is more education about it, people should really stay off drugs, or make sure they are well educated, because they might get the stuff from somebody who’s trying to screw them over, and street drugs are not the same as the actual drugs, they are covered with a lot of other shit, so you don’t know what you’ll be putting in your body. In my opinion, the solution would be to make all drugs legal, and all drugs regulated, so that when people want to get high on shrooms or mescaline, for example, they’ll know they’ll be getting the pure substance and told how to do it, and everything further is their responsibility. But the powers that be have no interest in legalizing drugs, because that means great loss of money, and that’s what it comes down to.

Before we got to the real interview part, we started chatting on the messenger, and you revealed there that Portugal would be your ideal destination to live in. Why Portugal, and do you see that playing out there in the future as well, do you see yourself going and living there?

Actually I do. But like I said, I’m still giving this country (USA) a chance, so I might as well end up living in South Florida as well, which I think is am amazing place. I relate to the people who live there a lot. It’s a different vibe there, it’s more lively. That’s what I like about Portugal too – people are very lively, but not as aggressive as in Spain. I love Spain, but as a place to live in it would be too much for me, I think. I get along with the Portuguese people very well. Everyone’s really well-mannered, but they also like to joke around, while not making any of those heavy pranks. They actually do that a lot in Venezuela, and I don’t like it, I never liked it.

 

What constitutes as a heavy joke/prank?

Venezuelans can be very dark when it comes to humor. People will make jokes about other people being kidnapped or killed on the streets every day. That’s a joke subject for us, that’s our way to laugh it off. I don’t think that’s a healthy thing. It’s healthy for a moment, but it doesn’t solve the bigger problem. And people won’t hold back in calling you names, diminishing you, breaking you down to the lowest level. You’ll have to adapt to take it with a grain of salt, because they are only jokes, but still. I learned how to do it, took me a long time, longer than for a lot of other people, so I can adapt, but I don’t like it and at the end of the day I don’t relate to it. I’ve actually had a lot of problems because of it, because since I adapted to it, I came accustomed to it a little bit, and then you go out there (into the world) and you realize that you are offending people, which I don’t do intentionally. The thing is, in Venezuela, when you offend somebody, the normal thing to do is to offend him more, and more, and more, until he goes crazy. Everybody does it, and then they will tell you that you are crazy. It’s a very dark type of humor, and fuck that, I think that’s a horrible way to live.

 

So is that the eventual point of it, to drive people crazy with your jokes? In close circles, is it a pride thing or something, that you are so good at that type of joking that you can really affect other people?

Maybe, I’m not sure, I am unable to answer that question. I don’t mind it with a really close circle of people, because when you’re hanging out with your close friends, that’s fine, but if that (kind of speak) comes from somebody I don’t know and who doesn’t know me, I don’t like that. So yeah, I don’t know why it is the way it is, really.

In any case, I went off topic with that, but the reason why I like Portugal is because there I find people who have enough humor, but are also very polite and very laid-back. Also not uptight at all. For example, I’ve run into a couple of problems with Swedish people, because they are the other extreme – they are very uptight. With some people that I’ve met, who have been from Sweden, you can not even use swearing words, because they feel offended by it. You can’t be that uptight either, there has to be a balance. You cannot say “fuck” nine times in a ten word sentence, but you shouldn’t forbid yourself from using the word either, because it’s a part of being human. There has to be a balance, and I think Portugal has that perfect balance: weather is good, food is insanely good, wine is the best on the planet. I don’t even like wine, and I like Portuguese wine. I’m a rum guy.

 

I haven’t gone to Portugal yet, and wine is one of my big loves, which I have discovered in the last, let’s say five years, so if you say that Portugal’s wines are amazing, and you’re not even a wine guy, then i definitely need to go there myself.

I love Portugal wine so much. I’ve heard great things about French and Spanish wines as well, but I know a lot of French people who go to Portugal’s winecafes (or whatever they are) to taste wines. I would safely say that you would love Portuguese wine, by all means. Try that!

Coming to the end of the interview, you’re coming here (Tallinn) with an interesting time schedule. Most touring artists pass by Estonia as part of tours, but you’ll actually have five days between your show in Tallinn and the one in Minsk. What do you plan to do with the free time? Are you going to try and see a lot of different countries, or just chill out?

I’m going to stay in Estonia. I love the old town in Tallinn, it’s beautiful. I could stay there for five days and never have enough of it. The food is insane, the fashion is amazing, the women are extremely beautiful. I’m not sure how it’s going to be at this time of the year, maybe it will be a bit cold, but even if it’s too cold and I’ll have to stay home, I wouldn’t mind. I need a bit of rest between shows as well, since it can be a little overwhelming, This has been my most successful year so far, both music making-wise and touring-wise. I’ve done two European tours this year, and you know, this was supposed to be a US tour, but this is how things work in the US. This was supposed to be a US tour, and you know what happened when I put up posters saying that I am available for dates in November and December, book now? I got bookings from Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Russia…where are the fucking gringos? Two really good shows in the US though. A show that is not listed on the tour flyer actually, because it was a last minute thing, is on New Year’s Eve, which I got through Baltimore promoters, who I love. That’s going to be amazing. And these promoters, they are one of the few who actually pay the full fee and give me everything I ask for, which isn’t even a lot. I’m not the guy who asks for a barrel of M&M-s minus the brown M&M-s. I’m the kind of guy who says “hey, if you can give me some Caribbean rum, cool, I’ll share the bottle with you. If not, just give me a beer and tickets.” I’m not a fancy guy, I just want to make sure I get payed right, and that everything for the show is ready, so that I could put on a good show.

I did two tours this year, which had never happened to me before – I would do one big tour every two years (usually) – and honestly, it’s exhausting. My lower back is killing me, because I’m always jumping around on stage and banging my head. Everything looks good on stage, but when I get off I’m like this old guy who cannot move his neck and makes grunting sounds. So I don’t mind if I spend five days doing nothing in the beautiful Tallinn. Maybe I’ll go to Helsinki as well, I’ve never been to Finland and I have a friend living there, or I might go to Latvia. It all depends, we’ll see what happens.

 

You said that when you come off stage, you feel pretty banged up. Do you feel that on the stage as well, or is that after the show. Does adrenaline take over on stage, or do you still sometimes play through the pain?

Adrenaline (always) takes over (on stage), unless I’m just not feeling the vibe. Sometimes I go to shows which aren’t that good, where I don’t feel the energy enough, and then I may not be putting all of my own energy to work. I try, but you need the feedback from the people to get that rush again. When that happens, it’s great, they give to you, you give yourself back, and it’s like a huge climax. Sometimes that doesn’t happen, and then it (the show) doesn’t work. Thankfully, the last few weekends, it has worked really well. Two days ago I played Rhode Island, before that I was playing in Guatemala and Nicaragua, and before that in Russia. Guatemala, Nicaragua and Russia were amazing shows, no complaints. Rhode Island was good as well. It could have been better, but that was because some promoter fucked up. Actually the club owner ended up paying me, which he didn’t have to do. The promoter let him down, but the club owner was such a stand-up guy that he payed me, and I gave him the best show I could (in the circumstances). See, it’s a similar story to the one you told me about The Amenta, who had to play smaller shows (crowd-wise), because a promoter fucked up. That happens here. People don’t want to work for their shit. They just want everything right here, right now – instant gratification.

That’s how American culture is: if you want something, you go on your amazon app, you click order, and you have it in two days. As much as that is beneficial, you can’t be controlled by that, and there can’t be too much of that. Just look at the news about how many people have died today, which is Black Friday in the US. I am not going out, I’m not going to buy anything. If I’d buy, it would be something online, but today, not even that, because all of the stuff I want online is not on discount. You won’t find a 25000 dollar synthesizer 70% off. Those are maybe 10% off, if that. What they are giving away is stuff like 80-inch TV-s and other such ridiculous things for your house, and people fight over those, and I’m just gonna say fuck that. That’s just so not me. I’m about walking around, in places like the Tallinn old town – fascinating old places that feel very lively, which seem to be a bit stuck in the past, in a good sense. Just go out there! I can bet you that if I go out there on my own, I will make at least one or two friends by the end of the evening, even if it’s just a bar friend. People are out there to have fun, who live for good experiences. And sightseeing, sightseeing is beautiful and fascinating. You know, I think I cannot say enough how much I love Europe.

 

Thanks a lot, it’s been a pleasure interviewing you. For the last thing, do you have a message prior to your mini Euro-tour to people who are still debating whether to go or not? Would you like to persuade them, in some way, to come to the shows?

All I can say is that it’s going to be a Zardonic set – that in itself is awesome! Nah, I’m just joking, I’m just being an asshole. I don’t think I should convince people to come to my shows. The way I see it is, I’m there for the experience, and I just hope people will give me a good experience. I will do the best I can to bring people the best music I can. I think my music is awesome, although I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who make better music than I do. Selling yourself is a very delicate thing.

Let’s pretend that I am not Zardonic, let’s pretend that I am Zardonic’s manager, and I am selling Zardonic, whose music I think is awesome. “Why do you want to go to that concert? Because that’s the best set you’re ever going to see in your entire life; this guy is pushing boundaries, he is creating a new genre, he is bringing something different to the table, he’s heavy, he’s energetic, and it’s going to be an amazing, metal-as-fuck show in the winter that you won’t want to miss. So come shake off the cold with some heavy music from the Caribbean Islands.” I could say stuff like this, if I wasn’t Zardonic. But if I go, walk up to somebody, and tell them how amazing I am, of course they will say that I’m just a pretentious douchebag. I cannot convince people to come and see my show because I think I am so amazing; I’m just going there and hoping that all the promotion, including this interview that you’re doing, will show people my music, and then they will decide if they like it or not.