Gabriel Ravera - Mephistofeles
When and where were you born? Are you originally from Argentina? What was growing up like for you? Do you have any siblings? When did you first begin to fall in love? What initially fascinated you about music and what led to the decision to start playing guitar and singing?
I was born in May 1995 in Paraná ER, Argentina. I’ve been living in the same town since then… I’m a one and only child from a pretty normal mid-class hard worker family. My education was OK and very conservative, I disregard my childhood because I don’t have anything cool to talk about it. But since I was a little kid I liked guitar, I don’t know why. I guess that the vinyl cover of my dad’s “If you want blood you got it” shocked me a little at the time. I started playing tennis rackets till my dad could afford an electric guitar for me when I was 11, or so.
What would you do for fun back in the day? Did you go to many local shows in your area? If so, who were some of the groups and where would you go to see them perform? What bands left a huge impression on you early on? When did you realize you wanted to be an artist?
I was a lonely guy, I used to draw a lot (and I keep doing it but not as much as before) and spent a lot of time in computers till I developed some real friends. I didn’t like to socialize because I considered myself an awkward guy. When I started to join my first bands I got in touch with the underground scene in my city, and therefore I met my actual friends… We used to go to a lot of shows but we never really liked most of the bands that played at the time. I don’t think that I ever wanted to become an artist, it was something that just happened to me as I was meeting people, playing and working as a freelance graphic designer.
Did you participate in any groups prior to Mephistofeles? If so, can you tell me about those experiences and a little background into what those early days were like for you?
I did have other projects but they are not worth mentioning to be honest. What I can tell you is that my first band experiences were as shitty as they could get. They were all the possible things that could make quit anybody that it is not too interested on the matter. Bad band members, bullies, irresponsible people, opportunists… You name it. They did not take seriously their roles with the projects. Of course later on after some bad experiences I ended up meeting good and committed musicians who keep helping me even today to make my ideas possible…
How did you initially meet your band mates Ismael Dimenza and Iván Sacharczuk? What were your first impressions of them? What common interests did you guys share outside of music?
I met them while playing in other bands, we just had some musical taste in common and we started to jam. Mephistofeles (as the actual formation is known) started as a duo with Ivan and me back in late 2014, then Ismael joined the crew in mid-2015 and since then we have been playing together. They are unique people to me, we still have a bizarre friendship after all these years but we have known each other for a while as to tell that we are good hearted friends in the end. Outside music, our common interests are to smoke weed and do coke at my grandmother’s house, which is where we rehearse. We don’t do it anymore (there) as we were grounded perpetually from that place.
What initially led to the decision to start the band and when did that actually happen? When and where did you guys first rehearse and what was that initial jam session like between everyone?
It wasn’t a “decision”. It just happened after keep rehearsing regularly during months. We used to rehearse at my parent’s house in my bedroom. As we did not have that much of equipment we fit perfectly there for a trio format. The jam sessions were OK, but I had already written some tunes, so we just started to work on them as we already knew what we wanted to play. I think that the actual formation started officially after we recorded 08XI15 on November 2015. It’s a demo with songs that were the newest stuff from the band at that moment.
When and where did you guys make your live performance debut? What was that experience like for you?
Our debut performance was in a Jewish club that looked like Aladdin’s palace. It was the birthday from a Jewish friend of ours. It was OK, we played for some old-farts and cousins from him. They did not understand anything, but we had a great time together with his family. It was pretty bizarre, nowadays I still wonder why we did that.
What was the band’s process and approach to music in terms of writing your own material?
At first I just brought songs to the rehearsal and my friends would play them without a question, it was pretty mechanical overall… That happened during the period of the first 2 albums. Later on time we developed the taste again for jamming and making songs on-the-go with worthwhile riffs that came across. Every album has its own and unique approach. I don’t like the first records because I think that they lack of maturity and nowadays I see some things different… But then for some reason people still find them attractive because they’re “bangers” or people feel identified while going through something in their lives. I guess I captured that part of me really well and locked it into those records.
Can you walk me through the process of writing and recording the songs that are featured on the band’s first record “Whore” that was released in 2016? When and where did recording take place and about how long was that particular process from start to finish? How did the deal with Black Farm Records come about?
The writing process is to cringe man, I was very young… But I can walk you through the recording of it. A friend of ours called Loco Pombetti gave us a big hand recording the entire album in his local studio at our city. Another friend helped us mixing it because we did not have any idea on how to do it, but at the end we did not like it. We kept on going forward with the album anyways because we were too tired and getting sick of rejecting different mixes for the record. The recording and mixing process lasted like 6 months and we could not reach any type of agreement on the sound… We just put it out like it was at that moment.
We never thought of a “remaster” because we find quite funny that our “best” album is the worst so far in matter of writing, composition and sound nowadays. Good lord I fucking hate that record. About Black Farm, those guys reached over to the band and kindly offer a vinyl press. It was very strange because we had never even thought of a vinyl press of our music in the year 2016. It was very cool, later on we hooked up into this entire “vinyl” trend that it does not make any sense to me because what you burn on the vinyl are actual digital files so I don’t see what is the point of lying about the sound quality... sounds the same as in the CD… I do love to have my records in the bigger format thou, remembers me of my childhood when looking at my dad’s vinyl collection.
What was the first order of business once you guys finished the record? Did you play many shows after that? What was the most memorable gig you guys played and why during that time? What was the band’s set up gear wise?
Nothing happened after we released the record till a couple of months later, when we were contacted by many people triggered because we stole from E.W… Later on came Black Farm with the vinyl offer and then different opportunities of making tapes and CDs. For the most part people loved the album besides some salty comments on it, and that was great because it never happened before to us that a bunch of strangers from all over the world are excited about your band and want to buy stuff from you. Or that they even hand-paint patches of your logo and put it in their battle vests… Cool stuff.
We once almost opened for BELZEBONG here in Argentina in 2016. We never made it because the producers of the shows didn’t want to pay for our bus-tickets… So they preferred to book some other shitty band from their city that was willing to play for free instead. So yeah, that was memorable if you ask me. We did not have that much at the time; I used to play an Epi SG special through an Orange Tiny Terror and a 2x12 cab that was not even mine. My bass player had a shitty bass combo 1x12 that did the job for rehearsing and recording. My drummer did not even have a drum-set, he used mine. With that equipment we recorded “Whore” too.
That following year in 2017, you guys released your second LP “I’m Heroin”. Can you tell me about working on that album? What did you guys want to achieve, or express on this release that differs from the previous? What led to the decision to work with Cursed Tongue Records on this album instead of Black Farm Records?
I’m Heroin feels like a reprise from Whore but with better tunes and another vision of life. It started with a couple of songs that were left out from the “Whore” album because they already had “another” vibe that did not fit with that debut. From my side, what I wanted to achieve was to leave behind that cheesy “aroma” that the debut has in its lyrics and composition…I saw things completely different by this time and I felt that the band should misfit at all cost. My vision of life changed too when I started to use drugs and I was in a sort of permanent decay too.
It helped in some way to the vibe that the record developed but it was sad for me because I kept being dissatisfied with the results. Plus this record did not accomplish the sound we were looking for… Same problem as before, it was very frustrating for me. We switch of record label, not for problems with Black Farm, but we just wanted another guy to release our second album as Black Farm had already our debut in production. Niels from Cursed Tongue was also very polite and even toyed with some Nazi Paraphernalia that the band used at that moment to flip people off. We, as band and label, could have gotten in serious problems so we respect him for that.
You guys released a few singles, “Mayhem Sessions” and “Music Is Poison” between the first two records. Can you tell me about those tunes and how you guys got to work with OHUB records and Spectral Recording? At this point you guys have quite a few releases under your belt. What had changed about the band around this time before releasing the group’s third record, and a live one at that, “Live At Detroit Club” on Spectral Sounds? What was the vision for the band as you guys moved forward and continue to release records?
Mayhem Sessions and Music is Poison are live albums that we considered worth of releasing… there’s not that much to talk about them besides that Mayhem Sessions was recorded at OHUB’s Manor A.K.A. Mayhem Hotel and Music Is Poison was recorded live in Chile, our first and only gig so far out from our home country Argentina. Spectral Recording doesn’t exist anymore as label or recording studio. After the Live at Detroit album, we thought that it was time to focus on the third studio album, which was almost written. We were very excited because that record was going to be produced entirely by the band without any strangers around.
How has this pandemic affected you both as an individual as well as an artist? Are you guys able to tour and play shows during this time? Can you walk me through the process of writing and record “Satan Sex Ceremonies”? What was it like to record and release an album last year during the true peak of the pandemic?
The pandemic didn’t do much for me, but neither did affect me that hard because I’ve always been an introvert person that works a lot from his home. Whether is with music or artworks. I suffered from not rehearsing or seeing my band mates because I thought that our plans for the record were coming to an unexpected end… But fortunately it didn’t go like that. We did not play live for a year or so, it ruined what was going to be Psycho Las Vegas 2020! A big festival in Las Vegas, it was just frustrating. We missed an opportunity to tour over the USA. By August 2019 we had already written Satan Sex Ceremonies. To sum up the record: It represents a different kind of maturity and approach where the band finally peaks on a perfect blend between performance and mediocrity.
I thought to myself that we needed some cool place to record the album so I checked some booking agencies around my city and I convinced my friends to take the best decision. We rented Bran’s Castle in Romania to record the album; sure it was “fun”. We spent our whole budget renting that place; we did not have money left to hire equipment so we recorded with loaned cabs and our own amplifiers. The process was really fast as we didn’t have money to rent it for more than 2 days. Then we came back to Argentina and mixed it at my grandmother’s house (called The Chapel). It was very refreshing to finally accomplish what we were looking for in terms of sound, we wanted it to sound miserable, but I think that we even exceeded that expectation.
Are you guys currently working on any new material? What can we expect of the band as we go further into the new year?
By April 2022 we should be releasing our 4th album “Mephistofeles’ Violent Theatre” which we are already recording right now as I’m speaking to you. As you have been pretty fond of our discography and the band, as many others, you’ll be able to tell that we have a more “metal-er” approach to our music nowadays… We will dabble into what it’s called White Metal and we’ll preach about our OWN good…
Is there anything else you would like to share with the readers?
Yeah, we are sick of the actual situation with the band, after releasing our fourth album we’ll see what to do. So be prepared because it will be the best album out of our catalogue, and possibly from 2022.
https://www.facebook.com/mephistofelesmetal
Dakota Brown
