written by Marko Jakob
Pix666: Hello Nicol. Are you healthy and are you well? How are the other guys?
Nicol: Hello! I’m healthy and doing well. Thanks for asking! Guys are also healthy and doing well.
Pix666: Please tell the readers a little bit about your band. When was STELL/\RIS founded, where did the band members meet and what kind of music do you make?
Nicol: Guys first met each other couple years ago. I joined STELL/\RIS about two years ago and since then our group was forming to the current formation you all know. We first hit the stage last year and we released one single Find Your Course so far.
This year we’re planning to release more stuff so fingers crossed lets all hope we can make it! As for kind of music – with the new members we have we’re doing modern metal with melodic metalcore elements. We want to get as much as we can from the fact, that guys are really good musicians and that I have nice clean vocals and brutal growls and screams 😀
Pix666: In August 2020 your single ‚Find Your Course’ was released. Shortly after that you played a live concert, but a few weeks later you were supposed to play a tour in your home country – but everything had to be cancelled, the reasons are unfortunately known. How annoying is it when you have new songs, want to play them in front of an audience and then there is an almost worldwide concert ban?
Nicol: It’s absolutely screwed up. The whole hysteria around covid doesn’t make any sense. We are exhausted and frustrated and so are the people I guess. We are working on new stuff, we are happy about the new songs, but not allowed to play it on stage. Streaming would be way how to perform at least somehow, but it’s not like the live concerts.
Pix666: You also shot a nice video for your single. Where was the video shot and was it complicated to shoot a video clip under ‘Corona conditions’?
Nicol: We planned to release it sooner, but the first covid thing came so we had to postpone it. And at that time we were at studio and shot the video the world was kind of ok so we could make it.
Pix666: How have the fans reacted to the video so far? How do you generally keep in touch with the fans in these difficult times?
Nicol: To be honest, the video has more views than we expected 😀 The reactions were and still are very nice and heartwarming and we really appreciate it!! We keep in touch with our fans on our social medias – we are adding new pictures, videos, Klubovna (Czech music medium) made a competition were our fans can win our T-shirt and so on.
Pix666: Do you know in which countries your songs are listened most often? The common music platforms always have very good statistical evaluations – do you look at something like that – I think it could be helpful for future tour planning?
Nicol: It’s Czech Republic, UK, Germany and USA.
Pix666: I like the way you write your band name, with the special style/spelling of the A (/\) – that looks pretty cool, especially on the shirts and caps. – who had the idea for that? Do you have a link where people can buy your merchandise?
Nicol: Thank you very much!! I’m very happy you like it! The logo was an idea of the graphic designer who created it. And as for the way we write it on our social media – we were thinking very long time how to distinguish our name from the game with the same name and also from one band who started to use our name couple months later after we came up with our social media, YouTube channel etc. And then it was suddenly clear. Why we shouldn’t write it as it’s on our logo? And so it is.
Right now our fans can write us on Messenger or on our IG and we can arrange dispatch of chosen merchandise. With new merchandise we would also like to put it on Bandcamp so our fans can reach our merchandise easily.
Pix666: You are booked for a festival in May 2021. Are there any further plans for the new year? Will there be an album, will the cancelled concerts be made up for?
Nicol: Yes. Fajtfest Help Party vol. II. We really look forward to this festival! We would like to record and release an EP. First single of this EP should be out till this summer, so I hope everything is going to be ok. As for the concerts, we are in touch with other bands and promoters and just waiting how the whole situation will be here in Czech Republic and other countries.
Pix666: Is there a festival or club where you‘d like to perform in the future?
Nicol: As for the festivals here in Czech Republic, we would like to perform on Brutal Assault or Rock for People. From the Europeans festivals I’d pick Wacken Open Air or Resurrection Fest.
Pix666: How is the situation in your home country Czech Republic in general with fans and the metal scene? How big is the scene in your country?
Nicol: I think the metal scene here in Czech Republic is quite big, but it always could be better you know 😀 However, I’ve heard that for example in your country the metal scene is bigger and people are attending metal concerts way more often than here in Czech Republic. Also bands which performed in Eastern Europe or in Russia told us that people in there are amazing and really appreciated their performance, so we really look forward to go around the Europe (or the world) and see it all by ourselves.
Pix666: What else did you do besides the music during the contact restrictions? Do you have any interesting hobbies? Or is music simply everything in your life?
Nicol: We all have our jobs and music. Filip, our guitarist, and I also like to go to gym, but it’s closed so we are exercising at home do music only.
Pix666: Thank you very much for the interesting answers – Stay healthy!!!
https://www.facebook.com/Stellaris.official/
STELLARIS official band – YouTube Channel
photos © by STELL/\RIS
