Moscow, Russia. Home of so much interesting and original things. Among them the power metal band Retriem. Their star starts shining back in 2004, when their first album, Иди к судъбе, is published – this is the band begins gaining fans: from the very begining. Five years later Белый город comes out and 2012 saw the creation of Зверь.

I wanted to take a look inside the boys’ world for many reasons, but my main wish was to popularize their music аs much as I can. In Russia Retriem gathers good audience, especially by the time they played with Dragonforce.

In this sunday night I’m virtually accompanied by Ruslan Mermovich, guitarist and mastermind, who is more than just nice and frank. Unfortunately time has pressed me down and I couldn’t ask him half the questions I had planned to – such as how is it possible to sell your music in the coutry (in)famous for its hackers, or my favourite – from where does the author in him draw inspiration. But everything I undetstood, I am sharing with you:

At first, represent yourself/yourselves to the audience.
Hi! We are the Retriem band form Moscow, Russia!

Who are you and what’s the story behind the band?
My name is Ruslan Mermovich and I’m the guitarist of the band. As for the story, the Retriem was founded long time ago, in 2003 Now we have 2 albums and 1 single in Russian. Last year the video clip was released and at the moment we are working on the new album which will both be in English and in Russian.

Tell us more about the albums – how did you decide to record something at all, how did you chose what themes to include.
The first album is called „Go to the Destiny“, was released in 2005. At that time the power metal was very popular and we had some inspiring examples among world bands such as Stratovarius, Labyrinth ect. There is no main conception in the album, all songs are quite different from each other, which made the album various, the sound of the album in general is matched to that time.
In the second album „White city „(2009) we focused on the arrangement of the songs to make them more interesting from the musical point of view. In music you can feel the influence of the progressive metal. This can be explained by the fact that during we composed the album our musical preferences became different and at that time we were inspired by Dream Theater and Symphony X.
Our single „Beast“ is more aggressive than the songs from the previous albums. This is the great achievement of our new front man Ilya Korovkin. There is more ‘groove’ in the songs and the quality of record is much higher on this single. The main song Beast is a complex of malice, despair and hatred. Lyrics was written by our frontman.

You told me that you’re working on a new album. Is it going to be more agressive, like the single, or is it more of a throwback to the roots that ‘Go to destiny’ represents?
Never look back! our new work is going to be something new! But of course we will use our precious experience and the new album will be the combination of all the best we had in past and we will bring new popular music trends. So there will be catchy melodies, aggressive riff and modern arrangements.

Do these ‘modern arrangements’ mean that you’ll use more electronics than actual music instruments?
We wouldn’t go so far from the frames of our style; Anyway we had previous experiments with electronics on „White city“ and „Beast“ , but as the search of new sound and more colorful arrangements. In the new album electronics will be as an addition to songs but not as the main instrument.

Since we’re on the roll with the next effort – do you plan on revealing soon its name and tracklist? We all like good news, you know 🙂
Well, at the moment we have 70% of our album and we worked out one main conception, which will be traced in each song. The name of the album is also created, but we will introduce it later together with the album cover.

Oh, so it will be a conceptual piece. What’s this main story you’re mooting?
To say shortly and without pronouncing the album name : our album is about quite important thing which each human has inside, some kind of main feeling which gives you support, don’t let you fall down, brings you joy of existence.

I’m not going to guess it’s hope 🙂 is this the main thing that keeps the band going? Or, to be more precise, is it the only thing that keeps the band going?
No, you didn’t guess, sorry! This is the thing that helps the group create something valuable and exclusive and to be interesting to the listener in each song. As for the important thing that really keeps the band together is a great relationship in the band! We are very good friends and the band for us is really like family!

How do you accept the fans then – like children? 🙂
Haha, we didn’t think about it in this way! But for sure we love our fans a lot!

How does a country so intolerant in times such as Russia accept your music? My point here is – have you got a lot of problems with sharing your opinion through music?
Actually we would’t want to touch on political themes, but to be honest we had never ever any problems in our musical self-expression.

I didn’t want to ask you that either, but I just had to since the world becomes more and more complicated day by day.
You mentioned Stratovarius as an inspiration. Timo Kotipelto was recently invited as a musical coach in a reality show from the ‘Music idol’ type. So I was wondering what is your opinion on these formats – do you think they help young talanted people to find their place on the stage, or are they somehow missing the main idea about musical experience?
We also have similar show in Russia and actually its very interesting to see and realize that we have lots of talented people in our country, and of course it’s a chance for them to be noted by millions of people and to get valuable experience. We didn’t heard that Timo Kotipelto is going to be one of the coach, that’s cool and should interesting indeed!

Speaking of shining stars and grand stages – I cannot miss this one. If Retriem were to play on only one festival this year, which one would it be?
Wacken open air in Germany of course! Two years ago we took part in Wacken battle Russia and wanted to have possibility to present Russia on this festival, but the jury chose other band in death core style.

Aaah, Wacken is a dream for me to see too I’d like to hear you play there, try again next year!
Where else has the band been on tours? Which is the place you’ll return most gladly as a person, and then, as a musician?
The greatest fest we took part was in Cremea, called Rock Wave. There we played with top Russian and Ukrainian rock bands. We would be happy to return there once again, because there were great conditions for relaxing and for concert activities. The other but local concert in Moscow which gave us lots emotions was the concert with Dragonforce band.

Oh, I very much like Dragonforce and am waiting for their new album. Are you planing some live shows soon and if so – when?
Next show we plan here in Russia, in Penza city, where we invited by our friends musicians who are going to present their new album. As for summer we will play in open fest in Tver, not far from Moscow and after that the concert in Saint Petersburg. That’s all our concert plans for that moment.

About russian stage – which is your favourite metal band?
As for me i prefer to listen to European bands such as Circus Maximus, DGM and Myrath. Among the Russian bands i can pick out „Ekstrovert“ (the band form Irkutsk city) and „Sad Grez“ (the band from Penza city).

Okay, one last thing – say something to the fans here and there (:
Listen to the good music, have your own preferences and enjoy your life!

Thank you for the time!
Thank you too!