by Alexandra Mrozowska
— Senior Columnist —
Does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? Since time immemorial, artists have been the voice of society – expressing its hopes, woes and sentiments as well as commenting upon reality. Sometimes these universal themes circulating within the realms of art suddenly turn out to be more accurate than the artist would have predicted in their wildest dreams… Hardrock Haven caught up with Sebastian Stodolak, the lead singer of the Polish band Scream Maker, in late January. We discussed the group’s past and current shenanigans, recent line-up changes and new approach to music promotion, but little did we know then that the theme behind the group’s new album BloodKing is more of an ominous prediction of the near future than anything…
Hardrock Haven: Why did it take you so long to record BloodKing and what was the band up to during that time?
Sebastian Stodolak: So, first of all, we’re lazy [laughs]. But to be honest, we were quite consumed with other things, like having tours all around the world – especially in China, where we had four tours since we’ve released the previous album. Also, we were consumed with our Ronnie James Dio tribute concert. And actually, when we were bound to record the album, the pandemic happened and it just slowed things down. So basically, that’s one set of reasons. But other than that, we decided to record the new material ourselves… I mean, to record the instruments ourselves. It was, of course, less expensive – actually, it was for free – but it took us longer. Once you decided to record the album on your own, you don’t have to rent a studio, so basically you’re not forced to compress the recording time into the studio’s time span. When we were recording the previous albums, we were renting a studio for one week or two weeks and working everyday – and now it looks like, “Okay, Johnny [Jasiek Radosz], when do you have time for recording the vocals?” And he says, “Oh, but this week I’m pretty busy. Maybe next week…?,” and so on. So also the work ethic was different this time.
Hardrock Haven: And as you’ve mentioned the COVID pandemic, obviously, what kind of impact does the ongoing pandemic have on the band’s activity, the new album release and promotion?
Sebastian Stodolak: The pandemic actually didn’t hurt us in terms of our material well-being as much as it did it for the other bands, because we all live out of different sources of income than music and music is just passion and professionalized hobby for us rather than a source of income. That’s the first thing. Obviously, we couldn’t have as many concerts as we would like to. During lockdowns, it was impossible and during the pauses between lockdowns, it was quite limited. Also, the approach of the clubs changed when it comes to booking the shows… Fewer clubs are willing to book a show; they prefer rather to focus on, say, having a disco party than a music band playing – even more so with rock band, a heavy metal band especially. So that’s the other thing that changed during the pandemic. The business model of the clubs is less friendly towards younger or smaller bands which don’t have much recognition. And in terms of recording [the new album], well… maybe it gave us a bit more time and there was no hurry because nobody was waiting for shows [laughs]. So we could work a bit longer on lyrics and the arrangements, and eventually we’ve put fifteen tracks on the new album, including the intro – so that’s over an hour of music and that’s a lot. That somehow shows that maybe the pandemic was kind of a moment of relax for the band that allowed us to work harder and in greater detail on new music.
Hardrock Haven: Right. And speaking about these pauses between lockdowns, when you could play limited gigs in Poland under several restrictions, how much of a nuisance it actually was?
Sebastian Stodolak: So, the first set of shows that we played during the pandemic was in August and September 2020. It was the end of the summer and it was right before the second lockdown [in Poland]. We’ve managed to play an outdoor Dio tribute concert during that time – we did it, but it was funny when it comes to these obligations to wear masks that clubs required the audience to obey. People were really wearing those masks for the first two or maybe three songs, but after they drank a little beer and after they just relaxed a bit, all masks usually went down and nobody cared about that anymore. There was no control, nobody checked it and nobody cared. But it would be really strange if people were able to keep the masks throughout the whole heavy metal show, I’d say. I mean, it’s emotionally incoherent attitude. It’s impossible psychologically. So naturally, they all got their masks down and this image is a memory of those times. And like I said, we had no problem with sanitary officials and no police control during the shows. I consider it to be a good thing, because – you know, art and music, and playing live, are also important for health. Not only physical health is important, but also having contact with each other and having a lifestyle you’re into is probably even more important than just staying alive for one more day.
Hardrock Haven: True. And obviously, Scream Maker used to be an all male band, since 2019 female guitarist Ada Kaczanowska joined the band. With her leaving just recently and the new guitarist joining in, how do you think such changes influences the dynamic within the band?
Sebastian Stodolak: Well, to be honest, the position of a second guitar player in our band is always a revolving-door kind of thing… in constant rotation since ever. But the rest of the line-up is stable, so the drums, the bass, Michal [Wrona] as the guitarist, me as the singer… that doesn’t change. We’re still searching for the right second guitarist and I hope that Bartek [Ziolkowski] who joined our band is this right one. And according to all indications, it is really so… but given our previous experience, I will just wait with expressing my final judgment. When it comes to Ada, we played with her for two years and actually had invited her into the band. Before Scream Maker, she’s never been in a band situation, so it was a new experience for her and as you said, we’ve never had a girl in our band, so that was also a new experience for us. And it was quite cool. We got along quite well together, even though we didn’t play that many shows together and we didn’t spend that much time together due to the pandemic. We didn’t have a lot of rehearsals and so on and so forth and maybe it contributed to not creating too much of a bond between us… Now she decided to go back to her, say, own music as she’s never composed a lot of her own material and she wanted to do it now, so she wanted to have more time for her to focus on that task. And you know, we wish her all the best and I can’t wait to hear her songs. Let’s see what the girl could do. I mean, she’s a cool girl and a great guitarist, so I’m sure it will be something worth listening to.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely. And what should we know about Ada’s replacement in Scream Maker, Bartek Ziolkowski?
Sebastian Stodolak: I have, like, thousands of musicians among my Facebook friends and I really can’t tell where I got to know every single one of them. He was one of those guys I’ve just had among my friends and he was one of those guys that were constantly posting some videos of them playing the guitar on their Facebook profiles, so I knew that he plays very well and that he didn’t have a band. So, when Ada decided to leave Scream Maker, Bartek was my first choice. I just dropped him a line asking whether he wanted to try [it], to check out the material and see if he likes it – and he liked it, especially the material for the new album. So that’s how he joined the band. And he’s a music teacher, he teaches guitar playing, so could we ask for anyone better? The first show that we played, a DIO tribute show in Cracow, he performed two or three songs with us, looked good onstage and was having fun. He’s not one of those guys who just hold their guitar and keep on standing and not moving and looking at their fingers… He’s not one of them – he’s just having fun as if he had thousand years of experience with live shows. That’s all we know about him so far and time will tell – as always with people.
Hardrock Haven: Exactly, but at least for now, the future looks pretty bright. And what was the songwriting and recording process like when it comes to the new album?
Sebastian Stodolak: Of course, all the riffs are written by Michal [Wrona], all the lyrics are written by me and the process… ha! Some of these songs were quite old – we had them in our vault of unpublished songs for a long time. Some of them were new, and some are recycled from what we did in the past and were not very pleased with, so we worked on them. So, basically this is not like we spent one month composing songs and then five years recording them [laughs]. This process was much longer and much more dispersed over time. But when it came to recording – and that’s an interesting thing – we had a short break ‘cause our drummer had some other things to do and we hired Jakub Mikulski to play the drums on the recording. He used to play with us for half a year… it was 2012, I guess, or maybe 2013…? I don’t remember exactly, as it was quite a long time ago. Anyway, he used to play with us back in the day. He’s a professional drummer and a session musician, living out of his drums, so he did it perfectly, but then Tomek [Sobieszek] came back and things stabilized. Also, Przemek Nalazek, who played with us for some time, did two tracks on the new album… So, a lot of musicians that are not in the band anymore contributed to the recording and that’s an interesting thing about that.
Hardrock Haven: Do you think it had any impact on the music itself?
Sebastian Stodolak: Well, you can tell the difference between the drumming of Przemek and the drumming of Jakub, so for sure. They did the arrangement for the drums – of course, with our guidance, ‘cause Jasiek and Michal had their own vision of how drum lines should be composed for each specific song… but it was their playing, their skills and their technique. So, that’s the difference. And actually, people are noticing that we have this different approach to drumming on the new album, especially on the songs recorded by Jakub. It’s more complex drumming… like, you know, there are those shredders among guitarists, so Jakub is a kind of a shredder among drummers [laughs]. He’s very, very technical. His favorite drummer is Mike Mangini from Dream Theater, so that tells a lot.
Hardrock Haven: Yeah, absolutely. And when listening to the album, it’s obvious that the band’s core style haven’t changed that much, but on the other hand, there’s been much development between Back Against the World [2016] and BloodKing…
Sebastian Stodolak: I think so. Of course, we’re still a heavy metal band – we’re not a death metal band, or thrash metal [band]. But I think the variety of music on the new album is much greater than on Back Against the World or our first album. For sure, half of the songs on the new record are much heavier and darker than any of the songs on the previous albums. And I’m not talking only about the fast tracks like “Bloodking” or “End of the World”, but also slower ones – for example, “Tears of Rage” or “Candle in the Wind”, which is one of the saddest songs I’ve ever written.
Hardrock Haven: So could you say more not only about this particular song, but the whole album, taking us through it track by track?
Sebastian Stodolak: Sure.
The first track, “Invitation,” is an instrumental intro – just introducing a listener to the album, with no lyrics and a very short length.
“Mirror, Mirror” is a single and you can watch a music video to it on our YouTube channel [see below]. The song lyric-wise speaks about digital dictatorship… You know, these science-fiction writers used the theme where the Artificial Intelligence takes over the world and people are slaves, like in “Matrix,” or it’s aliens taking over the world… But in my vision, it’s not the AI or aliens or computers that are the threat to humanity, it’s other people that could use technologies against others. Especially I’m talking about people in power – the political power – who are able to use various inventions and innovations against the citizens. So, when you take China as an example – it’s a perfect one. You have a total control of the information flow there, and that’s a very dangerous thing. In China, they can make you disappear in an instant – physically, but also in terms of public appearance, which is basically in the Internet right now. So, that’s it when it comes to the lyrics of “Mirror, Mirror.”
The next one is “Bloodking”, a title track. The thing is, the whole album has a general theme of power and of abuse of power and while maybe not all songs are focused on that, the majority of them are. And “Bloodking” is exactly about that. It actually refers to that Lord Acton quote, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” So, this titular Bloodking is a universal figure who symbolizes the inner self of every ruler, whether it’s a dictator of an authoritarian regime or even a democratic government. They all have this Bloodking inside that tends to reveal himself under favorable circumstances. Of course, it’s easier for Bloodking to rule, when you have no rule of law, so there are more Bloodkings in Africa than in Europe right now, but it takes a fitting occasion only for Bloodking to come out and rule in Europe, and every politician and every government could reveal the Bloodking that resides in them. The pandemic is a perfect study of it – in an instant, the liberties and freedom were taken away from people and the explanation was that it was all for their good. Well, maybe it was, but still it was very scary when you could be banned from leaving your home because some politician says so. That’s pretty scary for me. So that’s the track’s main theme.
“When Our Fight is Over” starts with a quotation from Macbeth, a character’s comment upon the futility of human life. Everybody knows Macbeth, so I won’t dwell on that, but it’s basically this – you strive for getting into power and ruling other people throughout your entire life so as to fulfill your ambition as a politician. And then, in the end, maybe when you’re dying and you see the futility of this endeavor, you ask yourself, “What was it for? What was the point?” So this is this moment when the truth just reveals itself to you and you see how stupid, poor and nonsensical your struggle for power was.
“End of the World” is one of those songs that are not directly related to the main theme of the album. It’s just about those inner demons that tend to torture everyone of us from time to time… Some people just don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, so they decide to do very stupid or radical things, like – for example – end their lives. So, it’s a song about the inner struggle that everybody has lived through – hopefully, live through. From time to time, it’s an inevitable part of our life.
The next one is “Scream Maker,” a total opposite of the previous track. The song was written to cheer us up, to make us believe in ourselves and that the better day could come. The power is in us and if we just get together, we could have really bright future ahead of us. And that’s Michal’s favorite track – his absolute favorite. He wanted to have this track with a title which is the same as the band name, ‘cause every respected heavy metal band has one song like that and he kept saying we need to have it. “Okay,” I’d say. “Why not.”
“Hitting the Wall”… I guess it’s also about inner struggles and breaking something to build something new. I’m hoping that breaking something would lead us to develop a new approach to life or a new kind of life… Maybe this belief’s deceptive, maybe it’s not like that and maybe people cannot build on the destruction. But the song is exactly about that – destroying something that wasn’t you and you’ve been building this throughout the years, whether it was a relationship or personal life, or professional life, or something else and trying to build something new and [wondering] if it’s maybe better to stick to what you’ve got and try to fix it instead.
“Join the Mob”… While we’re showing the bad sides of the political power [on the album] and this inner feature of corruption that’s ingrained in the very concept of political power, on the other hand we try to show we’re not puppets – not helpless puppets. We can rebel against the abuse of power and we should do it. We’re slaves as long as we agree to be them. Once we unite, once we say loudly “No,” there’s a chance that the dictator, the ruler… the abuser will be defeated.
“Die In Me”… [laughs] That’s one of those songs that true heavy metal bands should not sing and I remember [Ronnie James] Dio saying that he didn’t like to sing about love. So [“Die In Me”] is probably about love, but in a Dio-esque way. You know, maybe in Rainbow it was different, but in the DIO band he never sang about love as something positive. It was always presented as something very disappointing. So I guess that this is it. This is a sad song about love, a really dark one, I guess.
Hardrock Haven: Well, Dio would be proud then! So onto the next one, “Powerlust”…
Sebastian Stodolak: With this one, we’re coming back to the main theme of the album, and while I was talking about “Join the Mob” being about rebellion, “Powerlust” depicts the moment when the rebellion begins and when you have this coward in power trying to escape the mob that is going after him and trying to hunt him down… and actually, his time will come and he will be punished. So this song is about all those guys that wanted to rule the others, but others just came after them eventually.
“Tears of Rage”… ha! [laughs] You can interpret this song in many ways, but my interpretation and something I had in mind when I was writing the lyrics – which I don’t know if I still feel in the exact same way – was the series of choices that we’re making in our lives, ‘cause life consists of choices obviously. And those choices are defining us. So every choice that you make, it kind of limits the other possible choices. So if you make a mistake, that probably limits you even more. And this song is about a series of choices that are mistakes and it’s about building your own hell – your own prison – that you can’t escape. It’s about a series of self-enforced bad decisions.
“Petrifier”… Since I guess 2017 or 2018, during our shows we play a cover of “No Surrender” by Judas Priest off their last album Firepower. And this “Petrifier” song is composed in the same manner – it’s short, energetic expression of feelings of people subdued by the power of this [titular] bad guy. They’re just telling him, “You’ve just petrified us. You’ve just made us your slaves. What can we do? Your power is stronger than us. We can’t do anything. We are doomed” And that nicely contrasts with the happy melody of the song.
“Candle in the Wind” is the one that I’ve told you about before… one of the saddest songs I’ve ever written. Some time ago, I’ve met a friend that I knew for a very short time. When I met her – this girl named Magda – she was just recovering from cancer and she was on her way to full recovery. Then she was about 28 or 27, something like that. She was about to finish her PhD in Polish Philology and she was very happy about that. I was actually one of the first people that she met after she started to recover. I drank a beer with her or so once, and then we weren’t in touch anymore. I didn’t know what happened because I just had her number and her e-mail address – nothing else. She didn’t have a Facebook [profile] like many other people suffering from cancer… they just erase all their social media, so she didn’t have social media at all. I didn’t have a contact with her for a long time – for months – but was thinking about her from time to time, thinking how she is doing. And I remember once going back home from somewhere – I don’t remember from where… I only remember I was preparing to record a cover version of Deep Purple’s “Love Conquers All” for a friend, which you can find in the Internet by the way. It was December 2019, I guess. I remember I was listening to this song and a thought just popped up about Magda. I started to search her name in Google engine and I’ve just limited the search results to the last month – and I found out that she’s dead and she died of cancer. And this was the day before her funeral, so I went to her funeral and when I saw an urn with her ashes there… that was really striking for me. I knew her as a young woman, who was very cheerful and happy and very intelligent – and who was just coming back to life after a very bad disease, and the second or the third time I met her, I ‘met’ her in this urn… So it was really difficult for one to digest. And the song is about her – that she was just taken too early from this Earth. A lot of people deserve to be taken earlier, not people like that.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely. So do you think writing songs like this one can actually be a cathartic experience – can be therapeutic in a way?
Sebastian Stodolak: I don’t believe that [laughs]. I don’t believe that. Maybe for a while, but that doesn’t work in a long term.
Hardrock Haven: Yeah… So that was a very sad story indeed. The title of the next song on the album is “Brand New Start,” which somehow sounds a bit more optimistic…
Sebastian Stodolak: Right. That’s the optimistic song. And well, there’s something philosophical about that – that you have to eradicate all of the evil from your life – or at least you have to try. Whether you succeed or not, that’s the other story, but you have to try. And now we’re just trying to have this brand new start, a little bit every day. That’s the idea.
Hardrock Haven: Right. And the very last track is “Too Late”…
Sebastian Stodolak: It is, unless it’s too late for it [laughs]. When it’s too late, it’s too late and there’s nothing to say about that then – so we’d better start early [laughs].
Hardrock Haven: Recently you posted on social media that in spite of poor financial gain, artists should see potential in streaming when it comes to promotion. Is your attitide and the band’s attitude really that positive when it comes to Spotify and other similar platforms all the bands are complaining about?
Sebastian Stodolak: Yeah, and I’m going to defend it. Every artist complaining about streaming is an artist that’s already earned his position and a lot of money out of music. I’ve never met a young musician saying, “Well, this fucking Spotify just ruins me financially…” Never. I follow a lot of musicians on Facebook or Instagram and I see all that complaining coming from the stars… my idols, people that I admire. That’s just self-serving – they want to preserve the position. And well, I’m not saying that streaming is all perfect, because, you know, there are no perfect things in life… but compared to the ‘90s or the early 2000s, when you had this huge problem with piracy, this problem is no more thanks to streaming service. Of course, you have all these intermediaries between the artists and the streaming services that are taking the revenue, but I guess they’ll vanish with time ‘cause they’re totally useless. You know, with technology that allows an artist to place their work directly on streaming services, they won’t need the service of the intermediaries. And intermediaries are really shitty thing… You know how long it takes just to break a deal with a company that places your music on streaming services…? One year! Twelve months… You have to tell them twelve months in advance before it expires and that’s an unusual thing for business to have a twelve-month expiry date. So that’s the symbol of how dysfunctional it is. But it will change with technology, I guess.
Hardrock Haven: Definitely. And speaking about social media, recently it was revealed you’re going to utilize TikTok as yet another promotional tool for the band. What’s your experience with TikTok so far and do you think it works for a heavy metal band Scream Maker?
Sebastian Stodolak: I guess we’ll have to put a lot more effort into this TikTok thing, ‘cause we managed to upload only one video [laughs], so I cannot really tell whether it works or not. But observing the evolution of the Internet, social media is the only way… Maybe it’s not like TikTok is the only way, but the only way is to follow the new trends and use them as tools for promotion. And just try to get as much as you can out of them, ‘cause Facebook is losing its utility for the band in [terms of] promotion, for example. Back in the day, it was very easy to invite a lot of people to your concert via Facebook. These days, you have a limit of 500 for each event and you can’t even choose people from the respective city, so you have to spam people in order to invite them and that makes them annoyed and irresponsive. So Facebook is not good for bands anymore, I guess – you have to pay to be visible. I really dream of a day when somebody offers us, musicians, a really viable platform for sharing our music with fans. Again, like MySpace back in the day.
Hardrock Haven: Oh yeah, it was probably the best social media out there back in the day… So, yet about TikTok – as it’s mostly a teenagers’ thing, and some young adults perhaps, do you think it can contribute to more kids listening to rock and metal if used properly by the rock and metal bands?
Sebastian Stodolak: Well, I think there’s something more to that. The music tastes of the current young generation are defined by something else than this bottom-up marketing of metal bands. That’s general culture that defines what people are listening to. And these days, metal or rock music is kind of marginalized. Well, I’m sitting in a bar right now, talking to you, and looking at something called the Music Box on some TV music channel. And there’s no rock song during the whole hour of our interview, even though there was a lot of different styles rotating in this program. Rock was not there and metal was not there. That’s not our culture anymore. So we’re the elite – people who are listening to rock and metal are the elite.
Hardrock Haven: There’s something very true about that! [laughs] And yet another thing that simply wasn’t around the last time we talked are YouTube reactions to songs and albums. Do you think they will replace traditional music reviews altogether?
Sebastian Stodolak: That might be the case, actually. And they could replace it, because traditional reviews are not scalable, I guess. People are not sharing [them]. Actually, I’ve never seen any of my Facebook friends sharing a music review. Never [laughs]. Like, I cannot really remember any case like that. But I remember a lot of people sharing YouTube reactions. So that’s the sign of the times. And actually, what’s wrong about that…? You can see whether the reaction is sincere or not. That’s painted in people’s faces. You can see if it’s just a fake smile or not. And when you read the review written by some guy you don’t know, then you cannot trust it. Because you know, all the music magazines… they publish the reviews of albums sent by record labels they’re co-operating with, or the promoters they’re co-operating with. So it’s not something you can trust. Do you think that, for example, if you have a Metal Hammer issue and you read the reviews there… are these reviews all honest?
Hardrock Haven: Well, everyone knows the truth…
Sebastian Stodolak: Influencers are the way now, not the traditional reviewers. People are not reading.
Hardrock Haven: Exactly, so what do you – especially as you’re a journalist yourself – think is the future of music journalism and do you think bands like Scream Maker still need us scribes, especially that you can promote yourself independently from any media now?
Sebastian Stodolak: Well… [longer pause] I can tell you that when we published a video right now, there were like twenty five music outlets from all around the world, posting the news about this release. And there were three Twitter influencers who are not connected to music at all but I know them personally, so they just shared the video on their Twitter feed. And when I looked at the statistics on YouTube, those three people had in total much higher reach than those twenty five music outlets. That says a lot. And it’s not that the music journalism will vanish… it will transform. Like, for example, into these reaction guys or influencers using these various new inventions on social platforms and new channels. But traditional music journalism, I guess, it will vanish.
Hardrock Haven: Probably yes, so this makes us the last of a dying breed…
Sebastian Stodolak: Yeah.
Hardrock Haven: But now onto something else – as you’ve mentioned, alongside the regular band activity, you continue on organizing annual Ronnie James Dio tribute gigs. As it’s been already more than seven years since we met on the very first Dio tribute back in 2014, what would you say were the highlights and lowlights of the whole venture so far?
Sebastian Stodolak: I can tell only about the highlights. I don’t see any lowlights and any downsides of hosting and organizing this kind of tribute. Meeting a lot of new people and making a lot of new friends is just really uplifting… Especially when we do the final concert every year on the Sopot beach and it’s for free and acoustic, after we finish all these electric club tributes. So many people from all around the country are coming there, so it’s all about friendship. I guess to manage to build a Dio community here in Poland is a big task, but it’s really loyal [community]. And these are real people listening to real music and putting real emotion into it. Knowing the songs, knowing the lyrics… In Cracow [in January 2022], I saw a young girl standing in a front row, dancing and singing the lyrics… After a show I asked her, “How come such a young girl knows the lyrics to all the songs, also the Rainbow songs and so on…?” And she was like, “Well, it’s just that I found this music years ago and I loved it, and I’m now the doctor – the surgeon – treating people. So this music gives me some space just to rest and to have some escape from my very difficult profession.” So people like that are building this community and that’s very good and that fills me with hope.
Hardrock Haven: Right, and what do you plan for 2022 when it comes to the Dio tribute? Anything you can reveal so far, or maybe we have to wait…?
Sebastian Stodolak: The Dio schedule is disrupted by the pandemic. We used to play in May, but then the pandemic made us switch to September… now we played a Dio show in January… [laughs] So I hope we’ll be able to organize a Dio tribute this year, but I can’t tell what time of the year [laughs]. It also depends a lot on the Omicron thing and the development of the pandemic, which you can’t really predict.
Hardrock Haven: Unfortunately. So if everything goes well – this year, but also thinking about the future, is there anyone you dreamt to invite for the Dio tribute but haven’t shared the stage with yet? Just a reminder for the readers that the past guests included Alessandro Del Vecchio, David Reece or Dino Jelusick…
Sebastian Stodolak: There’s a lot of people I’d like to see performing at my Dio gig. What about David Readman singing Dio…? What about Jorn Lande singing Dio…? I guess it’s possible. Everything is possible. And maybe Dino again, ‘cause now he’s Dino from Whitesnake [laughs], so there’s quite an another thing than Dino from Animal Drive… [laughs]
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely! [laughs] There’s much more prestige after all.
Sebastian Stodolak: And he’s really one of the best guys I’ve met in business. I mean, Alessandro, Dino and David are a perfect match for us – they’re friends with us still and they’re co-operative and friendly towards us and the initiative of the Dio tribute. I’m still in contact with all of them. And one of the best thing about music is the real friendship coming out of it… You know, musicians tend to use the word ‘friendship’ a lot and there were times when I doubted whether it’s sincere, but I guess it is. Much more than in any other profession.
Hardrock Haven: From my perspective, I’d probably agree with you on that. And in general, what are Scream Maker’s plans for 2022 and is there anything else any of you is up to artistically beyond the band schedule?
Sebastian Stodolak: As usual, our main plan and goal is to conquer the world. Probably we will fail again [laughs], but we don’t really care [laughs]. It’s all about trying, right…? We want to play as many shows as we can and maybe start working on the new album… although now we’re focused on the promoting the newly released one. And when it comes to that and touring, we’re open to any show opportunity, any festival opportunity… we could go anywhere where there’s a welcoming heavy metal audience… even at the other end of the world.
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Watch the video to “Mirror, Mirror”, the first single off Scream Maker’s new album Bloodking:
