Interview with Serbian death metal band Nemesis

Nemesis is a five-piece death metal band from Serbia. I recently had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with the group. 

Andy-First off I would just like to thank you for taking the time to talk to us. How are things going for you today?

Anja-We thank you for reaching out and noticing our work! Everything is going great! Winter is harsh this year so we were hibernating a little, but we are back on the metal horse! We will try to make this year prosperous and successful.

Andy-Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers?

Anja-Nemesis is an all-girl death metal band from Serbia. The band has five members: Sanja on vocals, Aleksandra on lead guitar, Tijana on rhythm guitar, Anja on bass and Selena on drums. We all come from different cities, of various education and taste, and we do think that this makes us different than a usual band.

Andy-How did the band first come about?

Anja-Nemesis is a band founded in 2013 with idea to gather female musicians and do something totally unexpected – to form a death metal band. Serbia is a country where folk music (not in a good way folk) and EX-YU rock are mainstream and are cherished dearly by the audience. Death metal music seems appropriate music to fight stereotypical concerts with tribute bands that play songs that we heard so many times. We wanted to make something different.

Andy-I think you succeeded in that! Now, I believe that I read somewhere that you were named after an Arch Enemy song. Is that correct?

Selena-That is partly correct. We love Nemesis song by Arch Enemy, but our main idea was to name the band after the Greek goddess Nemesis. She represents everything we fight for: Justice, order, truth and punishment for those who are arrogant and think they are above gods, or in our case, laws.

Andy-Very cool. Besides Arch Enemy, who are some of the band's main influences?

Anja-There is a lot, each band-mate has a different taste, making us unique but also strange. There are few bands that we would point out: Kreator, Death, Pantera, In Flames, Amon Amarth, Gojira, Trivium, Nevermore… The list is very long and we could say there are a lot of genres that are influencing us, we are pretty sure that it will be noticeable in our upcoming recordings.

Andy-Word has it that you have a new EP in the works. How is that going and when came fans expect to see it?

Sanja-Yes, that is correct. This week we will be recording final parts of vocals and songs. It should be sent for production-mixing very soon. Hopefully it will be out by the end of April. We are very excited and we cannot wait to see reactions and comments from our fans, we really did put a lot of effort in making these songs!

Andy-Are there any song titles that you can share?

Selena-Sure. Our audience already had the opportunity to hear our first single "Vengeance", which will be on EP, and other three are: "Living Dead People", my personal favorite, "Savages" and "Divine Retribution".

Andy-I just love the video for your song "Vengeance"!* How did that come about?

Sanja-The video at the first, didn’t have any story, we wanted to present ourselves as a band, hence the classical band on a stage video. Thankfully to our great friends and supporters Branislav Radovanović and Relja Ilić we were able to make this video look brutal, full of colors and present us in the best possible way. First thing that was filmed was us playing in Cultural Center in Pančevo (town near Belgrade), but we felt like we wanted to spice it up. The parts were I am the only actor was a little bit spontaneous representation of me as an "avenger". It was a great experience, a lot of fun and I cannot wait to start filming our upcoming video!

Andy-If there is such a thing, what is a typical show like for your group? 

Sanja-Typical for our show is – energy! Each show would be fueled with energy, sweat and people jumping and moshing around. I think that we communicate and share our energy with audience each time, even people who would see us for the first time would feel good and end up moshing and headbanging. At the end of show we would get lots of hugs and compliments. We love our shows! 

Andy-Who are some of the group's that you've played with so far? 

Sanja-There was a lot of awesome bands with who we shared the stage, but we would like to highlight few local bands who are also our friends – Jenner, Void Inn, Demist… Of course we would point out and very popular Pero Defformero, with who we will be playing on March the 3rd in Belgrade. When it comes to foreign bands with who we played I would highlight Brazilian band Nervosa. We hope to play with them again soon, the girls are so awesome and sweet! Maybe we should mention a upcoming gig that will definitely be great? We are going to Ljubljana on March the 11th and we will be playing with famous band Hell Cats! Our colleagues from band Jenner will be playing also! We are very excited and we will do our best to travel outside Serbia as much as possible because we would like to spread the word that Serbian metal bands exist! 

Andy-It sounds like your band is very active. Do you have a favorite show that sticks out?

Anja-Favorite show would be definitely a concert with a very popular Serbian band Pero Defformero, that we mentioned question ago. Guys from the band were fabulous and were the best hosts. Also there is another show that sticks out. Our dear friends organized a road trip with 7 bands to their hometown, Golubac (near a border with Romania). There we played a gig with other metal bands including Jenner from Belgrade and we can say some friendships were made that night. 

Andy-You brought up Jenner (who I just love and have covered before) o that brings up a important question. With their signing, Serbian metal is a hot topic these days. Has Jenner's success helped the scene out any?

Selena-The girls from the band Jenner are our friends, and we are really happy for them. We don’t think it helped us in direct way, but they did help when it comes to girl bands in general. Maybe there is someone who read the name of our band for the first time in their interviews, but more important is that they are showing the world that girls can play some badass metal. 

Andy-Damn right they can! Has there been any label interest in your band?

Selena-There were some foreign labels offering to sign us, but we want to wait till we enter the studio with album material. We think that even our most loyal audience will be pleasantly surprised when they hear all of the songs. There are many labels out there and we will try our best to find the best offer there is. We want to go big or go home. 

Andy-I hope you go big! You all deserve the success and metal fans deserve more (high-quality!) death metal bands. Where can our readers find out more about you and hear your original compositions? 

Sanja-For now, this can be done by following our Facebook  page and our YouTube channel. We can proudly say that our webpage is under construction, it should look great and be easy to use. For now, you can be up-to-date by following our mentioned pages. It would mean a lot if our fans would like our page and give us a follow. Also we are inviting the readers to hit a like button! 

Andy-Yes! Heavy Metal Time Machine readers be sure to head over to the band's Facepage page and hit that like button!! It's always important to support great metal bands, whether here in the U.S. or overseas. I always let artists have the last word. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you would like to address? Words of wisdom for other death metal bands? Want to say something to your fans or would you like to slam the hammer down on your detractors? Whatever it is the mic is all yours and yours alone!

Anja-We appreciate it! There are things to address, it could be a whole topic with few pages. Metal is really an underdog at this point, but we will make some changes, I am sure! Words of wisdom are simple – do it, make it happen! There is a lot of metal bands struggling and maybe would think that they should quit, don’t! Make a drastic change if you feel that you are sinking, or going nowhere. And when it comes to our fans, we would like to thank them, we are here because of them, because they believe in us. Their support is endless and it is pushing as forward. We would also like to thank you for making these questions for us, hopefully you will be able to enjoy new music videos and our EP.

Andy-I sure hope so and again, thank you all so much for chatting with us. Don't be a stranger and please be sure to let us know when you release your new EP.



*Here is the official video for "Vengeance":