Exclusive interview: Masha Arhipova and ARKONA bring Russian metal to America!

‘Tis the season for some great pagan metal! Well, any season is a great time for it. And thanks to the good folks at Napalm Records, the world of 21st century Russian metal has been opened to us. Prior to this development, the closest Americans came to experiencing Russian metal were glam-pop bands like Autograph and Gorky Park in the 1980s.

However, we are in a new era, and Arkona is spearheading the movement towards educating the states on what Russia currently has to offer. Having released two discs in 2011 (the STENKA NA STENKU EP in June and SLOVO in August), the band recently wrapped its first-ever tour of North America, in support of Korpiklaani. And Arkona had such a good time, that it is already planning a return trip in Spring 2012 as part of the Paganfest America III tour!

During the recent visit, we managed to score some time with front-woman Masha “Scream” Arhipova to discuss this new world of metal music (via translator, as her English is severely limited). Read on, and enjoy!

So how has the American reaction been to the Arkona sound?

We are very happy to see how things went on this tour. The tour was great, and we were really surprised to see the big support from American fans. We were very happy to be here and get known here. And we are definitely planning to come back soon!

Before you teamed up with Napalm Records, you were very isolated out there in Eastern Europe. And I know that there is a pretty big scene of Russian, Ukrainian and Northern metal out there, with bands like Kalevala, Pagan Reign, Alkonost, Tenochtitlan, and Tremor. Why do you think it is so difficult for Russian bands to break into America?

Yeah, there are a lot of bands, but in our case, we never even considered leaving Russia. It honestly never occurred to us to travel to America or even into Europe. When we create our music, we never even think about where it will be played. We were very surprised to find an audience in America. But as for other Russian bands, I have no idea why it is so difficult; I guess it is just not in the mindset.

What determines how the next Arkona album is going to sound? Following your career, you have progressed and developed with each release.

Yes, each album is different from one another, and you can definitely be sure that the next one will be different, but within the Arkona style. We’re not really thinking about the next one right now, though.

Was it a lot of work to put out two releases in one year?

It was quite a difficult process, because we had to do the EP [STENKA NA STENKU] and the album [SLOVO] in the same span of time that it took just to do the last album, GOI, RODE GOI! That was a lot of material. From last September until June of this year, we were spread out in different studios with different instruments.

The EP was just cover songs and national songs that we recorded at the same time as SLOVO, but we wanted to release those songs separately so as not to break up the atmosphere of the album. Those songs on the EP probably would never have been on any album, so we thought it was a good idea to record it for the fans.

I was wondering if Napalm had pressured you at all to go this route.

Napalm had nothing to do with this; it was all our idea. Napalm actually never pushes us to do anything. They just support us a lot, and we offer them our ideas! We love working like this.

As progressive and involved as the songs are on SLOVO, did you have any difficulty translating them into the live setting?

There are some songs that we never play live because they are so difficult, and they really weren’t designed to be played live. For example, the song “Nikogda;” never! Some people don’t understand that, but we have other songs from SLOVO that are able to be played well.

Of course, there are also songs that are difficult to play live, but we make the attempt anyway. The arrangements don’t really matter much to us as far as difficulty, we simply choose the songs to play based on how much people like them.

So, what is the big holiday that Russians celebrate this time of year?

New Year’s is very big for us. We don’t celebrate Christmas at all. New Year’s is a big celebration for us. We look forward to being home for it. It’s actually interesting, because the whole nation of Russia celebrates New Year’s, but only the small groups of “believers” celebrate Christmas.

Catch Arkona on the road across North America this spring with Turisas, Alestorm, Ex Deo, and Huntress: