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Bendida (which has a very funny name for Portuguese speakers) comes to Bulgaria, a place that I personally know more about bands like Voyvoda and AntiSapiens (which doesn’t even exist anymore). I think it’s really cool to know that there is a very interesting metal scene there and we had a chat with Kremena Nikolova, vocalist and also designer of this band, which could also be called a mini-orchestra.
[Photo por Mihail Tsveov]I must confess that Bulgaria is the last country I think when remember metal scene. But Bendida surprised me in a very good way. So, starting our conversation, could you tell us the band’s story? What does it mean Bendida?
Hi, I’m glad that our new album became a reason for you to learn something more about the Bulgarian metal stage.
Bendida is the name of the ancient Goddess of the Moon – the mighty Goddess of Thrace, described as “the fair, the beautiful and caring, the keeper of Nature and animals”.
The band was founded by Vinnie Atanasov in 2008. Vinnie is the song-writer, guitar player, he also plays tambura (traditional Bulgarian string instrument), he is responsible for the male vocals, /lead, back and some choral parts/, all the lyrics, arrangements, vocal melodies and orchestrations. Sounds like one-man-show but actually we are a big band of eight official members often combined with a whole academic choir. In our musical family we are:
Kremena Nikolova – lead vocals, back vocals and choral parts, stylist of the band and graphic designer as well. Vinnie Atanasov – guitars, vocals, compositions, lyrics and arrangements, Velislav Kazakov – our “drum machine”, Viara Grancharova – viola da gamba, Alexander Panayotov – bass, Bisera Dimitrova – violin, Ralitsa Georgieva – piano, keyboards and vocals, Plamen Dimitrov – French horn, and Academic Choir “Sveta Paraskeva” with leader Galina Lukanova. We count these beautiful people as a special part of Bendida family.
Together we create our Fantasy metal world full of legends, mystical creatures and stories about forgotten Gods, kings and princesses. Some of the songs are inspired by Fantasy and fiction literature and history.
Bendida has so far two official albums and two singles. We managed to release our new album – “First of the Heroes” in the beginning of 2020 and we already have several new compositions for third future new album.
We have quite active presence on the Bulgarian metal stage especially during the last seven years since I appeared in the band as a front-lady.
I like symphonic metal, but some bands are not my cup of tea. But yours sounds me so interesting, because you mix the classical music with metal, instead use the classical element as a “background” and, for sure, it is not just a power metal with violins. How do you find out this musicality?
Well,” power metal with violins” I do respect this beautiful combination and wouldn’t like to underestimate it.
Of course we try to create something new, something never heard before and stay away from any kind of cliché.
Yes, our music is a mixture of several elements. We have powerful drums and complicated rhythmic, often influenced by our traditional Bulgarian folklore, which gives one strong point. The symphonic parts came from the rich orchestrations performed by our talented classical musicians. They are all professional classical musicians, graduated in the National Academy of Music with huge experience, some of them acting in the National Opera, Sofia brass Orchestra and so on… Working with such lovely people and musicians is a real pleasure; they are always seeking for perfection.
How do you classify Bendida’s genre? Sometimes sounds like a symphonic power metal, but there are a lot of neoclassical metal parts, as melodic black metal in others…
We describe our music like Fantasy Metal and some people don’t know what it exactly should be…that’s why we added “Symphonic fantasy metal”. If it depended on us, we wouldn’t put “frames and stamps” on our music with such strict descriptions because as you’ve mentioned we love to put elements from different genres and match them in our own way.
How important is classical music and local folklore in your music?
They are both very important for us and we use them as a kind of Bendida ”trade mark” in our own interpretation.
I notice you have more women in the band, not only as singer, but playing other instruments. For me it is important because it opens space for a major women participation. How important is for you having half of the band with women?
Yes we have 50% of female team in the band right now. Bendida has been planned from Vinnie as a Female-fronted band from the very beginning. The rest of the ladies come as a non-predicted bonus of flowers in our magical metal garden. We are more colorful with such a mixed team and we definitely like it!
What are your influences to compose your songs and lyrics?
Or songwriter Vinnie has a big passion for mythology, science fiction and historical literature. Together we share the idea that beautiful things like traditions, legends and ancient mythology, spiritual and magical treasures are more and more fading away in this modern world of material people, machines and high-technologies. Somebody has to keep the legends and traditions alive. What will happen when there is no food left for the soul? When music, art, literature and fairy-tales disappear? Imagination will starve, humans will turn into robots. Nobody will remember his roots; the robots have no roots they were made in the factories. Our band has a fantasy “Time machine” who knows maybe in some of our upcoming albums we may plan a trip to the Future world. I still hope we’ll find humans there, not robotsJ.
How was working with Janika Groß? I love Haggard and, for me, she is one of the strongest and beautiful voices in metal scene.
Working with beautiful Janika Groß was an amazing experience. She is very professional musician we are happy to have her voice in our Vampires’ Ball.
We all love her very much. The curious people can hear the final result of our collaboration in Bendida Official YouTube channel. I made a lovely lyric video and in this song you can also hear the amazing choir “Sveta Paraskeva”. Janika recorded her vocal parts in Germany and the record of the instrumental, my vocal parts and choirs, mix and master were made here in Bulgaria by Vladimir Bochev – talented multi-musician and sound engineer – the head of “Zero Project Studio”.
A very uncomfortable question: how does COVID-19 affect you and your life? Do you think the world will change after this pandemic?
Yes, it’s very sad and important question at the same time. A lot of people decided to change their professions. The whole sector of music, arts, theater…everything in the sphere of live performances in front of audience, just reached the bottom. A lot of rock clubs and actually all kind of clubs just disappeared. Life and people won’t be the same and we still don’t know when there will be a solution of this difficult task. We made our album promotion in a foreign country just one day before they closed the borders. All of the planned gigs for the album promo just failed. People from abroad started to order our album, but all the post offices were closed for several months, so even online sales were “mission impossible”. It’s good that we managed to released our new video and promote it with a small acoustic live performance in a local rock-garden.
Continuing about the last topic, and lives? What is your opinion about musician who present live concerts in Instagram, Facebook, YouTube? Here in Brazil it is a quite common for mainstream artists.
Everybody searches alternative ways of keeping the contact with their audience. Online was the only possible way and yes, home-made videos became very popular, we even made two of them showing respect for our fans.
As a Brazilian webzine, we always ask about Brazilian bands. Do you know some? What do you like?
The first favorite names from the Brazilian metal stage are of course Sepultura, Soulfly and Angra, other bands I’ve heard about recently were the symphonic metal band Lyria and the Thrash ladies Nervosa, they became very popular recently after few concerts in Bulgaria, they were partly from Brazil as far as I remember.
I would like to thank you for your time and patience. So, let’s a message to our readers. This space is yours!
I also want to say thank you, it was my pleasure. I wish great health to you and all the readers of Groundcast zine. I would like to invite all of the fans of melodic metal to enter our Fantasy world. You can find the key, use your imagination!
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