Interview to Mike Hrubovcak of Azure Emote

Interview by Luis Landeo 
Hails Mike, is a good pleasure back to interview you after of one year, we have many things to talk in this interview for example the release of the second full length of your project: Azure Emote, how was back to the studios to record a new full length of your Industrial Death Metal project after 6 years? how was this days in studio?

It felt great to get back to the studio again especially going down to Nightsky Studios in maryland with Ron Vento of Aurora Borealis. (www.nightskystudios.org) I do primarily most of my recording there, and have since the early days. We became friends and his skills and studio have grown extensively over the years, and it's a comfortable environment to be around. He can usually read my mind too about what I want or am going for with different things, so the recording process goes smoothly and I can also be confident that it will come out killer. It also felt great to be producing my own music again, instead of just doing the lyrics or vocals, actually having full directional freedom always feels great.

For this metal project the band have a new drummer: Mike Heller (Fear Factory, ex System Divide) how do you invite him to be a new member of your band? and how was work with him?
Well I knew him from hanging with Malignancy all the time, but he actually approached me about doing the next Azure Emote which i thought was great. Apparently he had the first album "Chronicles of an Aging Mammal" and was telling me how he was listening to it with James Murphy while recording with him or something along those lines. Anyways, he liked the music and wanted to do the next one. I was lucky enough to get his tracks recorded and finished right around the same time he joined Fear Factory too, so it was perfect timing, cause right after that he disappeared on tour for like a year haha. Had that happened a week or so earlier we probably wouldn't have gotten the drum tracks done in time.

Is Azure Emote a studio metal project, or do you have in mind to play live shows with Azure Emote?
Well I'm open to the idea of playing out with it, or at least play some festivals, but it all depends on peoples interest. I have Monstrosity and Vile that I tour with all the time, and all the other members are in other touring bands as well, so trying to get everyone together for a live tour might be hard. Most likely i'd have to pull together session members for a different live lineup. We'll see how things go, i've already been offered a few festivals, but flying everyone out from norway, moscow, america, etc, and organizing it will be tough and take a lot of money. If i was to do it though I have to do it right. Meaning having everything in place, and lots of theatrics. If you want to see us live, then request us to your festivals and organizers and get the word out and it may just happen before you know it.

Many readers from South America and probably readers around the world who don't know about this project will want to know: how did azure emote start? and what means the name? 
Azure Emote was formed in 2003 after the breakup of my other band Divine Rapture at the time. It was a traumatic breakup for me, and I felt the need to keep going. Most importantly I just needed a personal outlet for my all my negative emotions, so I got together with my good friends Ryan and Pat from Rumpelstiltskin Grinder and made something crazy happen. “Chronicles of an Aging Mammal” was then recorded and put out on Czech based Epidemie Records. I then put Azure Emote into hiatus though as I joined Vile and Monstrosity and Ryan and Pat continued on with Rumpelstiltskin Grinder and other projects. It wasn’t until 2011 that I got the itch to write my own music again and get creative with all the crazy things that I don’t really have the freedom to do with the other bands I’m in. "Azure" is the particular color of blue that seems to be a recurring theme throughout myself subconsciously over the years, in my artwork and everyday life. I picked up on that one day and remembered seeing my aura as that color too, so I guess I thought it might be cool to use that in the name. It represents something that stands for me. Seeing as this primarily started as a one man project for myself musically, I thought that fitting. "Emote" means to express emotion, in an excessive or theatrical manner. So Azure Emote is pretty much summing up what i'm doing here with this project – expressing my personal emotions and passions, emanating the colors within. I thought it seemed cool and different from the standard or generic band names out there, so i rolled with it. My eyes are also blue, (windows to the soul) and the only color tattoo i have is blue on my chest surrounded by a portal sun of black thorns (the Azure Emote tribal sun symbol).

Mike, you are a member of 2 famous death metal bands: Vile and the legendary band: Monstrosity, how can you remember all the lyrics of your bands and play them live without problems? for me
 this is amazing bro, many singers cant remember all their lyrics like you do. 
This is a good question bro! It's freaking hard! (laughs). Seriously, especially when i get done one tour with one band, and then have to go fly to sing with the other band right away. In between the time off when i'm home i have to cram and listen to the songs again all the time. So people might hear me listening to my own bands all the time and think i'm full of myself or something (laughs), but i'm not i just HAVE to do that, so i can remember all the lyrics! (laughs). I mean some songs i've been singing for years, so i have them engraved in my brain already, but then others are really complicated and i always trip over them if i've been drinking too much or something, you have a brain fart every once in a while (laughs).

The last year your band Monstrosity had the chance to play in a crusier, how was that experience? and how born the idea of play in a crusier? 
You mean playing on the cruise ship like Barge To Hell/7000 tons of metal? Yeah it was definitely a great experience. It was weird getting used to playing on the top deck stage with the boat moving from side to side. It was subtle, but you could feel the movement of it once we got on stage. I started head banging and jumping around but it was hard at times to keep your balance. I remember talking with Barney from Napalm Death backstage, and you know how he runs around so much, he said he almost fell over once because of it (laughs).

By the way Mike, in the first interview I did with you, I forgot ask you, how is your relationship with the ex member of Vile like: James Lee, jack Gibson, and with Monstrosity ex members: Jason Avery and George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher what is your opinion of this guys? 
I'm still friends with a lot of them and see them a lot at shows or at fests. i mean jack was on the Barge to Hell with Exodus, so I got to hang with him there, and i saw James at the last CIM festival so that was cool. To be honest though i've never met Jason though and every time i've seen George around he's always super busy. I had a brief conversation with him a few times, but never bothered mentioning that I sang for Monstrosity now, so I don't think he even realized the connection (laughs) and it never came up in conversation.

Returning to talk about Azure Emote, well the band is a combination of Death Metal with Industrial Metal, but in South America for example the fans hate this kind of combinations, some latin metal fans don't see with good eyes industrial Metal, but how industrial metal influence you? 
True! I am well aware of this haha. I guess it's more of a european thing. Even in america it's not that popular. Goregrind is more popular here. I've always loved european metal though and bands like Arcturus, Tristania, Therion, Covenant / The Kovenant, Morgul, Lux Occulta, Samael, Red Harvest etc. so coming from a pure straight forward american Death Metal background, i guess that european kinda stuff influenced me a bit. I got introduced to The Thrill Kill Kult, The Electric Hellfire Club, Dead Can Dance and Laibach when i was younger too, and always loved how every Laibach album was completely different. I thought how awesome that they can do that, and still make each style totally dark and killer. Also in the early 90's hearing bands like Napalm and Obituary make "MeatHook Seed - Embedded" and bands like that, I thought was super creative. Everyone had an "experimental" album at that time, like Malevolent Creation's "Joe Black" and countless others. I listen to Death Metal 90% of the time, but i also like other stuff (as long as it's dark), so why not pull influences from everything that i like. I mean i've been there, done that, with straight forward Death and Black metal (I.C.E.), so I thought, fuck it, i'm gonna do my own crazy project too. Everyone needs a break when you've been doing the same thing for years and years...I mean look at Lee from Monstrosity, he's doing his Lavoizen band, and if you look around usually every band member has personal or different style projects going on then what they're normally used to. It comes with the territory of being an artist and feeling the need to constantly be creative.

In this album you had the participation of: Pete Johansen playing Violin and Bruce Lamont playing the saxophone, but how was the reaction of metal fans in USA to listen a band use not conventional metal instruments? 
What I'm doing is really nothing new i guess, it's been around forever, it's just not what the masses or general public within the metal scene listen to i guess. Avant-garde Metal has always been an underground within an underground. kult. I love it. I can name countless other death metal and black metal bands that use the same elements and get really crazy with it, but so far the reaction to the new album though has been amazing! 9 outta 10 reviews and things like that which has me surprised.

You did the fontcover for your new album, how many hours took you work it? and what is the concept behind of this art for the album? 
I did it over time in peices, so i'm not sure really how long... "The Gravity of Impermanence" summed up though generally means the weight of dealing with how "nothing lasts forever." Impermanence or "Annica" is the Buddhist understanding of this reality and how attachments to conditions we might perceive as permanent, later cause us suffering. The cover art shows a lot of symbolism throughout it. The dead or dying tree on the cover is made up of the human phases of life, from the young child playing in the water, to the working man, the enlightened mid-life strength, to the slow and tiring decay of old age and then eventually death. The tree of life is also being uprooted and swept over a waterfall from a violent azure river or ocean, showing that all things eventually erode and disappear. The city that once was thriving is burning and engulfed in war, (brown and chemical ridden with chemtrails lining the sky) showing how humanity will eventually destroy its own civilizations. There are also UFO’s and other elements hidden throughout the art that symbolize a lot of the other topics brought up in the album. The in-sleeve artwork expands on this even more. The concepts and art are very personal to me, and at the time of writing this album I was also struggling with impermanence myself, dealing with the breakup of a 5 year relationship, the end of a 10 year day job and the start of a new one, moving/relocating yet again, facing impending family deaths, and a lot of other changes that always seem to happen all at the same time.

It's interesting you know programming electronic sounds but how was it Jason Ian-Vaughn Eckert did the additional electronic programming? and what softwares do you use for electronic sample sounds? 
I have to confess you I know of electronic programming and the best software for me is: Fruity Loops, maybe you know other better softwares? 
Well it depends on which album we're talking about it. the first album i did a lot more physical things like circuit bending, and experimenting with noise elements and homemade things like Merzbow. I also used random physical drum machines and foot pedals for parts and keyboards that i ran through effects channels. This new album was a bit more digital, using a lot of keyboards, samples, and different effects on the files. I worked within protools primarily with different plug-ins. I was recommended "Reason", and "audacity" that i messed around with a bit but didn't really end up using at all. I'm not sure what Jason Eckert used, he had sent me 3 experimental session files he was working on that he didn't know what to do with, so i opened them and took out what i wanted to use, and tweaked and manipulated the parts to fit the songs i was working on.

Well Mike any last words to end this interview? 
Thanks so much man for the interest and the feature! You have some great questions too, and i support the magazine your making! keep it up and keep spreading the metal underground! Salud!

To know more about Azure Emote:
http://www.facebook.com/azureemote