Darkestrah is a band that has honed their craft in the metal music business under the shadows, figuratively speaking. This shadow that the band has been under was their original record label No Colours Records. Despite the label’s notorious reputation, Darkestrah has never claimed to have any kind of political agenda. In fact, many of their concepts are based more on the Eastern culture of the original members Asbath and Kriegtalith, as well as nature. Now free from that shadow, the band signed to Paragon Records with a chance to tour and to no longer have to answer any questions about their political affiliations. Their first release on Paragon Records, The Great Silk Road, hit the shelves last August and Living for Metal had a chance to talk to Asbath about the opportunities that lie ahead for the band, as well as say a few things about the past.

Peter Santellan: Since most people are just getting to know about Darkestrah, would you give a brief history of the band and what are some of Darkestrah's influences?

Asbath: We started the band in 1999. From our initial line-up, in which we recorded the first demo, it's only me and Kriegtalith in the band now. I never tried to hide that I am not an easy person to get along with and have issues communicating with certain type of people. However, first of all, I am trying to work with professionals, and that was the primary reason why we frequently changed our members. We went all the way as musicians and composers from the first demo record until the 4th full length album, which will be released this August on the American record label Paragon Records. DARKESTRAH's music has no propaganda or politics in it. Our lyrics are based on the beauty of nature, which all of us are a part of. Basically, nature and Eastern culture is the source of our inspiration. Each of our albums is like a movie or a book to me. We always have a story, which we want to present to the listener. Initially, DARKESTRAH's music was heavily influenced by Pagan motives; however we don't want to follow any particular style. If our debut album Sary Oy was referred as Pagan, the 2nd album Embrace of Memory was called black metal, and our third album Epos was epic metal, then I have no idea how we are going to be referred to as with our new record The Great Silk Road. I can definitely say that we love to experiment and DARKESTRAH is the band that has no limits. Our fire only burns higher and we move forward.

PS: The band originated in the country of Kyrgyzstan, but eventually moved to Germany. First, for those who don't know about your original homeland, what can you say about it and what are some of the reasons for moving to Germany?

Asbath: It is only me and Kriegtalith who are from Kyrgyzstan. It is also true that DARKESTRAH was started in the “mystic” country of Kyrgyzstan, the land of the mountains and rivers. But these days, we live and breathe on German soil, the land of forests. It wouldn't be fair to say “DARKESTRAH is from Kyrgyzstan,” because the rest of our band members were born and live in Germany and they have even never traveled to Asia. I think it is not very important who is who and where we are from, it is only important what we do now! I don't think I need to tell you how Kriegtalith and I appeared in Germany because If I had to, I would have to explain the whole pre-story of immigrants since the times of Catherine II. However, in Germany, there surely are many advantages and the most important thing for me is that now, I live in a country where the metal music culture is abundant. There are always various metal festivals here; this doesn't happen in Kyrgyzstan, although it's been a while since I was there.

PS: The band was previously signed to No Colours Records before signing to Paragon Records. How would you characterize the relationship with your former record label and what are some of the benefits of being with the new record label?

Asbath: Definitely, the No Colours made Darkestrah a name on underground metal scene. We released three albums with them; however, NCR is often referred to as a political label because they had released a few NSBM bands as well, and this had an impact on us as well and caused cancellations of some of our gigs in Germany despite the fact that DARKESTRAH was never sympathizing with the politics. “No politics in Metal!” But this was not the only reason for us to change the label. To tell you the secret, we didn't even get a penny from any of our album sales. Didn't have any album-supporting tour! We had to choose a different path.

We got a good offer from the US label, Paragon Records to release our new album and re - release our debut Sary Oy. At the end of August 2008, Paragon Records released our new The Great Silk Road album, and we could see that they work much harder than NCR. You could notice it when they were promoting the first album, the guys have good connections with magazines and distributors, and what is more important, DARKESTRAH is not referred to as a political band anymore. I hope there won't be any right-wing bands on Paragon Records because we don't want to get back to what we were trying to get away from (I mean the No Colours story).

PS: Darkestrah's first album with Paragon Records is titled The Great Silk Road. What are some of the concepts being played out on the album and what does the cover art reveal about it?

Asbath: Apparently, with such history behind the Great Silk Road, we simply couldn't leave it without our attention. The greatness of this path is inspiring. This leads to the fact of naming the new album The Great Silk Road. Despite the fact that Kriegtalith and I were born in central Asia and the Great Silk Road is one of the major historical events of our heritage, we still had to carefully study the true stories of the road. To us, it wasn't enough to know the basic facts from the history books.

We were impressed to know that the Great Silk Road existed for 16 centuries in a row, had secret caves and rock paths to hide traders from continuous attacks. A number of castles and watch towers were built at that time. The ruins can still be presently seen at Caucasus, south of Kyrgyzstan and other neighboring countries. In short, the Great Silk Road to us is a living legend, which we can partly see even these days. The trade continues all across central Asia, the bazaars are still part of the culture. Just the camels are replaced with trucks nowadays. The basic idea of the album is to show the full harmony between the beauty and the brutality of the East. By means of lyrics, Kriegtalith wanted to show the East with its mystics, great Gods, wars, blood, pain, and endless deserts where the human life is just a drop in ocean. Hopefully the listener would be able to feel this together with us. The cover art expresses the time of the Silk Road, “The Viper”, a poisonous snake is frequently seen all over central Asia. It took many lives of those who traveled along the Silk Road. You can also see the caravan that is going through the desert to Mongolia. I love what Kriegtalith designs. I think it is important that she does all the graphics because she is the person who writes the lyrics, so she sees the image of what she talks about the best. We don't use art from anyone else, we create our music and do cover art by ourselves.

PS: Would you say a few things about the details of the album's production?

Asbath: The sounds of The Great Silk Road are much heavier, sharper with heavy bass accents and a violent mix.

PS: What are some differences between The Great Silk Road and your previous album Epos?

Asbath: I think that none of our albums can be comp rated with the others. The same thing I can say about our previous two albums. Epos was devoted to the beauty of Issuk Kul Lake, which is located in Central Asia. There are many legends about this lake. One of these legends is Epos. However, The Great Silk Road is the history that brings a long chain with it. There are differences between these two albums, both musically and lyrically. All our albums were recorded and played differently, but in DARKESTRAH style.

Asbath: Our future plans include finding a booking agency. Darkestrah is 100% live band and we hope to visit as many places as possible with our shows. I am sure we'll do it!

Asbath: Thanks for all your support! Never trust those people who are full of shit. They are simply trying to earn the image of being an outstanding person by throwing empty words. They are not worth your attention! Choose your own way that leads to your goals.