1. Greetings to FORGOTTEN TOMB! I don't know if you realise that we did already have an interview together in 2007. I remember it very clearly because in that time I was truly attached to your "Negative Megalomania". Today's situation is a bit different so I'd like this interview to be as an introduction to your new "Under Saturn Retrograde" which I've already listened couple times. First let me ask you how are you doing? Could you tell me about some interesting stories that happened between 2007 and 2011? :)

Hi, yes I vaguely remember we did an interview some years ago. I'm doing fine, more or less. Our latest studio-album "Negative Megalomania" was released in January 2007. We spent most of the year playing live around Europe and doing promotion. I also re-released the demo/MCD "Obscura Arcana Mortis" on CD through Eerie Art Records. In 2008 we took a few months of rest from FT to concentrate on some side-projects, then I started to write some new material and in the end of the year we started doing live gigs again. In 2009 I continued writing material for the new album and rehearsing it with the band. We also played some shows and recorded the "Vol 5" double-album, which was time consuming of course, like every new album release. I spent most of the first half of 2010 taking care of some burocratic issues and other things that had to be done since years, then I completed the songwriting for "Under Saturn Retrograde" and rehearsed the new songs with the band. In the meantime the "Vol 5" album was finally released through Avantgarde Music so I had to take care of its release. We played 13 or 14 gigs around Europe to support the album and in the meantime we started recording "Under Saturn Retrograde". In the beginning of 2011 the album was finally ready and now I'm currently doing promotion for it. We'll start playing new live gigs very soon and there are also some re-releases and vinyl releases coming out in the next months. As you can see we've been pretty busy. We also had regular jobs, families and life-related issues to be taken care of in between, so time flies you know.

2. Before we start talking about your new album, I'd like to know, what was the purpose of releasing "Vol. 5: 1999-2009"? I had been very much looking forward to your new studio work and this was just a small patch for me. I am not trying to degrade the quality of your record, I am just interested what's its main purpose (besides celebrating of ten years of band's existence) and what it means to you?

"Vol 5" was a project we had in mind since quite a long time. As you should know already, the first 2 albums of FT were played by me exclusively, so I thought it would have been cool to re-record some of our best old songs with the full line-up, since we now play together since 2003. Also, we originally wanted to record a live-album but for organization-related issues we decided to switch to a live in studio. This allowed us to have also a better sound quality. "Vol 5" included medleys, cover-versions, 1 then-unreleased track, all played live in studio with no overdubs. Some people thought it was a "best of" but it actually wasn't. The songs on there are the best versions we ever played, they're better than on the old albums.

3. Let's talk about "Under Saturn Retrograde". How long did you work on the music? Did you use new ideas only or are there also any older that didn't get into "Negative Megalomania"? I am asking because your new album is in some way very similiar to "Negative Megalomania" but then it's also quite different...

Music has been written in different moments over 3 years but there's some stuff that was written even years before and then rearranged and reworked later. FT has always been a band in constant evolution. I always listened to a lot of different things since I was a kid, so it's natural for me to melt together all the influences I got over the years and create my own thing. But at the same time I take a lot of inspiration from myself and from the things I've done on the older albums. I mean, I basically forged a new subgenre in Black Metal so I don't really need to go looking elsewhere. I actually see a lot of bands who tried to copycat FT over the years, not viceversa. I think "Under Saturn Retrograde" took some elements from "Negative Megalomania" but at the same time it reminds me of some older stuff of ours. And of course there are some new elements, like in each of our albums. All in all I think it's an extremely solid effort and it marks an important moment in our career. Production-wise it's our most professionally sounding album and our musical skills are also very improved. I also think the new songs I wrote are some of the best I've ever written. I rewrote and rearranged some songs several times until I was totally satisfied with them and it shows, the final result is impressive in my opinion. There are no Black Metal bands around with such a solid, Rock-oriented songwriting. My aim was to keep the band's quality-standard one step above the other bands, and I think I totally succeeded in the process.


4. There have been some rumors after "Negative Megalomania" whether you should abandon your black metal basis. That has not happened. However, it seems your attitude to composing changed a bit as it was in the past – I mean rather compositionally. Am I right or are you working still like you used to?

I think we didn't completely leave our Black Metal roots. We never did actually. Of course if one wants a pure Black Metal album he should go for another band, but if one loves FT he should not be disappointed by this new album. I mean, FT has never been a "pure" Black Metal band, if not on the first demo/MCD "Obscura Arcana Mortis". In our debut "Songs To Leave" there were a lot of Rock and Dark Wave influences already, so it's strange that some people can't really notice that. In my opinion, the big difference from the past is the better production, the better musicianship and the better vocals. But you know, for some people improving those aspects mean "not being Black Metal anymore", hahah. We didn't really "changed style", we evolved our style towards a perfectioned version of it. I think it's the same with all of our albums, melody is always there but also aggression and heaviness. This time we just wanted to keep everything more "in-your-face" and work with a classic Rock-structure. So the song-structure is a bit more regular and mid-tempo oriented than in the past, but at the same time arrangements (also vocally-wise) are a lot more solid and rich than in the past albums.

5. I am a bit sad there is no such calm song like "The Scapegoat" of "Negative Megalomania". Have you ever thought of creating a song like that again or would it be just a waste of time and you have never thought of it?

I think you are among the few ones who liked that song, hahah. I appreciate it though, thanx. I didn't really think about doing another song like that on this new album, but it might happen in the future. I'd like to record an acoustic EP or something like that, we'll see what happens. By the way there's always someone complaining for something on every new album we release... We can't make everyone happy. We need to be happy ourselves with what we have accomplished with a new album, in the first place. If the others like it, that's great, otherwise it means they are not ready to understand our evolution. We are getting used to be misunderstood and ahead of trends. Most of people start to like our albums 3 years after their release-date. It happened the same with "Negative Megalomania"... That's why I seem to disrespect our fan-base and I often criticize our followers. Most of them cannot keep the pace with our evolution, but we can't stop just because someone is too slow to follow us. I don't respect people who disrespect our recent albums.

6. However I must say all of the tracks are a bit different but interesting. Instrumentally they got much more forward. Above that some of the moments are just outstanding thank to polished sound. Was it your intention create an album which is dark, in some way progressive and modern, but still with your face and tone?

This new album is fresh and very up to date, though it clearly sounds 100% Forgotten Tomb. It is basically a sum of our experience over these 12 years, we took all the best of our previous albums and forged it into a prefectioned, 2011 version of the band' style. Now we are also better and more experienced musicians and it shows. The result fully satisfies me then, because it strongly retains the extreme Metal roots but it also includes old-fashioned Dark Wave influences and more Rock-oriented stuff. I think it all blends together really well.

7. I have been expecting much more clear vocals but surprisingly there are not many (though it's relative). Was it your main intention or did you compose it into themes just like it suit you?

I think that when you can mix heaviness and catchy melodies without selling-out, you won the bet. When we announced a new album some people thought we were going to sell-out or go new-Katatonia, but I think many will be actually surprised, 'cause this album sounds quite aggressive and varied. Clean vocals are something that can be added when it fits the song well, otherwise I'll stick to the scream-vocals. Acid Bath for instance was a band very good at finding the good compromise between the two kind of vocals (and they were misunderstood, like we are). I think our new album has clean vocals just where they're needed, I didn't force them into the music. Also, this time I worked a bit more on the clean vocals and I offered a more varied approach. I think I also improved my style so they sound way better than on "Negative Megalomania".

8. In the past FORGOTTEN TOMB were said to be a black/doom metal band, depressive black metal band, etc. That is true like for the five per cent only by now! It seems to me "Under Saturn Retrograde" is quite influenced by depressive rock and that black metal is only a small atmospheric piece (though there are not many of that speedy sounds but on the other hand there are no truly said slow moments either)..

What is "Depressive Rock"?? If you tell me we have Post-Punk, New-Wave, Dark or even Grunge influences I'll say "yes", but I don't know what "Depressive Rock" is... Maybe we're forging it ourselves with this new album!? People should stop labeling everything. I recently read a discussion over the Internet with people debating about FT being Doom or not. And they were all terribly pissed-off between each others! Now what I say is: if the creator of the band doesn't give a shit about labeling its own music, why the hell other people should lose their time arguing about that? Some people should really get a life. It seems like everyone is stressing himself to find comparisons for FT with other bands/genres, but that's a waste of time 'cause we don't belong to any genre. FT plays FT-style, nothing else. We don't have any influences from post-1995 music either.


9. I'd like to ask on its content once more. I do believe that you are partial to the lyrical side as you are to the musical one. Tell me then something about the main idea of your album, its message, etc..

The glorification of negativity, death, hatred, pessimism, cynicism, homicide, suicide, abuse and in general of everything that is helpful to destroy human happiness and life is a recurring theme of our albums and imagery, now more than ever. Besides that, there's some meaning behind the album title-track and lyrics. As you might know, according to astrology the influence of Saturn retrograde has basically a very negative effect on life and personal achievements, and it's partly responsible for failures, pessimism and other negative sides of everyday' life. It is especially negative when it is in your natal chart. I'm also a Capricorn and Saturn is my ruling planet. Basically I used "Saturn retrograde" as a metaphor. It is meant as something like "being born under a bad star". I don't really believe in astrology but I thought the meaning was fitting to represent the sense of oppression and constant bad luck that followed me over my lifetime. The rest of the songs deal with different topics but each one has negativity and hostility as the main themes.

10. I am not quite sure there is only one CD cover to "Under Saturn Retrograde"..? I think I saw one with your logo and another one without which was a lot prettier. Are you planning any special edition of the album?

The official cover is the one without the logo and with darker colour-tones. The other one was the first cover but it was changed before the album-release. For some reason a lot of websites are still using the old cover. There are no special editions of the album, except for the 3 limited coloured vinyls (orange, gold and black).

11. What about tour? Will there be any? What about to come to the Czech Republic? Do you know anything about the country?

I know there's good beer there and very beautiful, gothic architecture. Also, quite a lot of Death Metal bands. Of course I'd like to visit the country and play there. We'll see what happens this year with the tours and single-gigs, we're still working on it. Let's hope we get good offers so we can tour as much as possible.

12. Well, that's it! Thank you for the oppurtunity to talk to you again! Thank you.

Thanks for this new interview and see you on tour, hopefully. Keep it negative!