As the war rages on in Ukraine, Ukrainian headbangers Entrosphere are spreading the word about their cause and struggle with their weapon of choice HEAVY METAL. Making their loud and clear, these metalheads released their debut single “The World’s Union” with a heart-hitting music video as they prepare for their debut album’s release. We were lucky enough to review their single and even luckier to sit down and get to know them better, let’s see how it went.
WATCH “The World’s Union” HERE!
- An Egyptian and three Ukrainian guys all bonded with the love of metal, can you tell me how you all met? And what’s the story behind the band’s name Entrosphere?
Pure luck to be honest, Initially the band was with another name “Sweet Weekend”, since that time there is only one member of the band until today – Arthur Space. Then there were members – Igor Kolyada (vocals), Enger Pol (bass), Artur Space (guitar), Yaroslav Bezkrovniy (guitar). It is interesting that at that time the band already had a single ready which was made together with Victor Guillet from Betraying the Martyrs who was not very famous at that time.
Unfortunately, the song was not a success, most likely because of the low-quality processing and rather naive music video, which seems to be already removed from YouTube. Maybe next year an album “Old Vibes” will be released which will include this song and a few more.
A little while later the guys found a new drummer George Creator, who in addition was an aspiring sound producer, sound engineer and composer. When George Creator, the drummer, came to the band, he said at once – “If you want me to play with you, I will change a lot of things for myself”. And after a little while the name of the band was changed to Entrosphere, which was invented by Arthur Space. He combined two words “entropy” and “sphere” into one, and the result was a very interesting ideology, which all members started to like.
About a year passed and Enger Pol (bass) had some differences with Igor Koliada (vocals) and Enger Pol (bass) unfortunately left the band. We searched for a long time for a replacement and at some point Yaroslav Bezkrovniy invited his friend Kareem Kazco to George’s birthday party and from that moment we can consider that Kareem Kazco became a full member of the band as a bass player.
Later Yaroslav left, for personal reasons, and Nikita Susarsky came to replace him. A talented guitarist and composer. But he also left the band after two years due to his critical irresponsibility. In spite of that he left behind a good song, which will probably be on our new album soon.
A little bit earlier there was a disagreement between George Creator and Igor Kolyada because of different ideological views and plans for the future of the band. (Nevertheless, Igor had a good song which will also be included on one of the albums, which will most likely be called “Old Vibes”.) During the time of controversy, the possibility to invite to the band a very talented vocalist Ruslan Opanasenko, with the help of Nikita, a participant of “Golos Krainy – The Voice Ukraine”, appeared. After that the Entrosphere song of the same name was recorded, which will soon be released as a single.
And around this time the ideology of the group took root.
Entrosphere – Entropy sphere is first an ideology and then the name of the band. Our mission is to show the world the other side of the perception of reality, the reality as it really is, terrible and unsurpassed by its wonders.
Entropy is the desire to balance anything in a closed system. We strive to show how it is possible to balance everything in our sphere, that is, on our planet. We will always open your eyes to simple and difficult to perceive things, directly through pleasant music to your ears and brain.
- I’d like to know about your early influences. And how have they affected your instrument of choice?
George (Drummer): I’ve been a pianist since I was a kid. But when I was a teenager I went to one small concert, heard live drums and immediately fell in love. Since then I practiced hard and never left the drums.
Kareem (Bassist): In my young years my dad used to play cassettes in car for a lot of great influences that I believed curved my musical taste subconsciously like Pink Floyd, Camel, Frank Zappa, Deep Purple and more. By my early teens I discovered Iron Maiden and oh man I was obsessed with Steve Harris, everything about my life was Iron Maiden.
First concert I attended was Metal Night 3 I believe, On Thronez (a band a joined later on in life) performed Fear of the Dark and in the clean part after the intro where the whole chants, I decided I have to start learning bass to get up there and do what these guys are doing and no doubt that day I knew I want to do this for the rest of my life.
Arthur (Guitarist): Two of my group mates at university are very talented guitarists. They introduced me to the work of bands such as Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, Whitesnake, and Pantera. Personally, I also enjoyed listening to Rammstein, Bullet For My Valentine, Slipknot, and Three Days Grace. Later I preferred more sophisticated music, something between jazz and rock like Snarky Puppy, Marcus Miller, and Victor Wooten. This road led me to progressive music such as Tesseract,
Periphery, Gojira, Hacktivist, and I really respect and adore the one from older bands which is Tool.
Ruslan (Vocalist): I was a professional folk dancer all my life, but after the injury I had to look for something else, so I started performing on the street, I loved singing and playing the guitar for a long time, I had a talent for it, so I gathered my will and dared to show my talent to everyone who passed by.
- How did you manage to move forward with the release of “The World’s Union” through this tough last year? How did your writing and recording process go?
Unfortunately, all the band members left their hometown of Kharkov, only George left and he came up with the idea of a song about the war using the sounds of explosions and sirens live recorded. So, it was just George and Ruslan who had to record it in Kharkiv.
The instruments were recorded remotely each member wherever he was Kareem in Egypt, Artur in a different city.
Ruslan was in his home region Sumy when the war started, and could not leave there, all bridges were blown up. When the bridges were rebuilt, he had the opportunity to go to Kharkiv to record the final version of the vocals. Despite the shelling and air raids, we did our job!
In fact, the song was already ready in the middle of March. But unfortunately, the opportunity to record the voice came in July.
All in all, it was good, because during that time I had the idea to get in touch with the amazing video production company “Panoramika Production”, who made us an incredible clip that completely conveys the mood of the song.
- Can you tell us more in-depth details about how your daily life is going? And how does it affect your musical and writing direction?
Kareem: Mine personally here in Egypt is basically just working every project or gig I can get to afford living here especially I had to start all my working career from scratch, so still didn’t get hired as a Project Manager, but I am working kick starting my startup Computer Graphics Company, I am working side gigs atm like copywriting and guitar lessons but overall just you know getting this bread to feed my wife and I as everything I have built in the last 6 years has been taken away from me by this unjustified attack by the Russians, many of us were killed. And millions of Ukrainians and foreigners’ lives were ruined during last year, and unfortunately there isn’t any aid or help from the UN in Egypt like most of the other countries who gave shelter to the refugees and in the time of bombings and death all surrounding us my first thought was to protect my wife and my neck and came back here without thinking on the consequences even though I could’ve stayed in Europe like many of my friends, I just wish there was any sort of aid from the authorities for cases like ours we left with the clothes on our backs, with 0$ In our pockets. But even though it’s pretty intense here in Egypt, I am very thankful that the guys are safe and that I was able to take my wife and cross the borders to come back home, even though it’s louder in Sidi Gaber than next to my house in Kharkiv.
George: I work as a sound engineer, I do mixing and mastering.
One way or another I have to listen to more and more songs every day and I think it directly influences my own thinking. I hear interesting ideas and interpret them in my own way.
I can also say that listening to any music I cannot turn off my “analyzer” in my head, this is the specificity of my work. Only some famous bands make me really relax and enjoy the music, bands like Pink Floyd.
The thing is that I fell asleep to a tape of “The dark side of the Moon” from a very early childhood and since then Pink Floyd is a never-ending music for me.
Arthur: I am a remote IT specialist that’s why most of my working time I spend on my laptop with a lot of notebooks… Back in the peaceful times I used to practice at home more often and we had jams at our studio, but now I live in a new place in Ukraine, and bought a new guitar (had a little dream about buying a classic guitar, so now I’ve got one 😉 ) and practicing at odd times playing some stuff that I found interesting, jamming with backing tracks. But I also started to master new instruments such as handpan (hang). It is nice not only for rhythm skills development but also for mental health treatment.
Now I’m planning to build my new mini-studio to be able to play the electric guitar and exchange with guys in the band.
Ruslan: Every day I try to grow above myself, despite the situation in the country and the terrible news you read every day. I go to the gym, try to write new lyrics or guitar melodies, because we still live on, and we need to develop.
WATCH “The World’s Union” HERE!
- Did you use any personally shot footage/videos in the “The World’s Union” music video?
We didn’t use anything personally filmed, but many of the footages were filmed by members of the video production company.
- How would you describe the sound of your upcoming debut record? Did you set up a release date yet?
Most likely, the next single of the same name will be Entrosphere.
The song draws the listener into our atmosphere, into our vibe a kind of hypnosis which is aimed at clearing the brain of information garbage. We have been preparing the upcoming album for the last 4 years and we put enough energy and work in it to have our own unique sound, which I can best describe as a mix between Alternative, Djent and Progressive with sprinkle of pure Entrosphere.
- What are your future plans for Entrosphere?
When the war is over, I hope that we will get back together in our studio and finish our first album.In general, Entrosphere may become the first famous metal band in Ukraine to change the perception of this genre.
We plan to get at least 100k views in the coming months for our single’s music video.
Next, release the already completed single “Entrosphere”
And we have at least 6 more songs 3 of which are 100% ready. So maybe after “Entrosphere” there will be an EP of 3 songs similar in mood to “Entrosphere”.
- Since you have an Egyptian bassist, do you think you’d play a gig there one day?
Of course, we really want to play in Egypt and show our music there, because our musical harmonies bear a great resemblance to the Ancient Egyptian harmonies.
As soon as the war is over, maybe this will be our first tour abroad.
We we might need some help with the organization or so, if there is any opportunity for a night to remember in Egypt we will sure be there.
- Last but not least, is there any message you’d like to deliver to the youth of the world in general and the metal community in particular?
Kareem: Don’t let any letdowns break you, because we’re rooting for you, we want to see you succeed. Yeah and don’t trust and believe everything blindly, especially the news on the TV, we saw people being bombed and slaughtered when many channels were saying everything is cool, no, awesome and sunny. So, question everything. And finally practice your hobby to its maximum and never wanna hear a single artist say these words out of his mouth. “Nah man I quit music” no man you didn’t. So even if you can’t give it you absolute 100% now, you can pick the guitar every now and then to play a pentatonic run or better a harmonic minor one and then leave the guitar right away, I bet you’ll be back before you know it.
George: I want to tell young people not to waste their time. Although sometimes it seems like a lot, in fact 70-100 years is a ridiculous figure on a universal scale. That’s why you need to leave behind a trace, a memory. And to the metal community I would like to say that I would like metal music to become more popular and understandable for everyone. And in fact I already notice a very strong shift in this direction.
Arthur: Keep creating new things from your soul. It has an impact on our world!
Ruslan: Despite all the horrors happening in the country, you can do what you were born to do, because life goes on. The main thing is to do what you love, to write music that you like, not the music that is popular. We write metal because we love this genre, and one day it will become famous in our country! The main thing is to love what you do and do what you love!
Thanks for your time guys, wish you and all your loved ones to always stay safe and sound. Keep on rocking
