Have you ever heard about brutal death metal bands Necrovile or Engorging The Autopsy? Well, I didn’t until I bought their t-shirts at Brutal Assault festival. Each summer, I am determined to expand my wardrobe, but I simply couldn’t pick anything until I reached a small stand of Lacerated Enemy Records. First time in 2013, I picked Necrovile t-shirt because I was fascinated with the design and a color choice. It was exactly what I was looking for. When I was buying it, even the sales person asked me: “Do you even know the band?” “No! But I will check them out. I just love the design!” In 2015, it was Engorging The Autopsy t-shirt, which fascinated me with the band’s logo, on the front and in red on the back. I also appreciate it was white, because that summer was extremely hot. I really wanted to speak to both bands, and as a marketing guy, I have to grant them, they deserved my attention in every way!
Who is creating designs for you?
Necrovile: In the past we worked with Costin Chioreanu, a Romanian designer well-known for his collaboration with many important bands like At the Gates, Paradise Lost. Now, we work with Rudi Yanto from Indonesia. He’s done the designs for our last three t-shirt models. He also created the artwork for our upcoming album which we plan on releasing in 2017.
Do you provide designers any ideas for your design or you give him/her absolute artistic freedom?
N: We give the designers some guidelines regarding the general theme, but from there they are free to come up with anything they want.
Engorging The Autopsy: We do actually provide the designers/artists we work with ideas, usually we describe briefly what it is we would be looking for with a basic concept or idea and then leave them to go wild, the artists we have worked with we trust and they’ve always provided us with high quality finished products!
Where do you gather inspirations? In the case of Engorging The Autopsy, I can see a mixture of Alien, Avengers and Edge of Tomorrow.
N: The designs are usually related to the latest album. Inspiration is all around us, in the real life, books or movies. The subjects depicted are a reflection of the dark side of humanity.
ETA: Our inspiration for our different art pieces and merch designs is space and aliens. The whole alien invasion concept that’s been used widely with movies, books, comics, games is our inspiration!
Give us also an idea, how did you design your logo, which is also a reason, why I loved the overall design…
N: We wanted to give the logo a little bit of flowing, you know, the death metal style, but we also had in mind when designing it that people should be able to understand the meaning without difficulty. In the end, I think the result came up pretty satisfying judging from people’s reactions on how it looks on albums and t-shirts.
ETA: Our logo was designed by a friend of mine, his name is Michael and he owns an art page by the name of “Numen Artitex” I’m not sure if his page is very active anymore however his specialty is logo’s and any time I’ve contacted him for logo work he’s been more than happy to help us out. Basically when the band first started we contacted him, gave him the bands themes and asked for a logo that kinda relates and he came back with the logo we still use to this day!
What are your color preferences? I’m glad to see some red and yellow with Necrovile and white and red with Engorging The Autopsy.
N: Even though we might prefer some let’s say, unusual colors on merchandise, like dark brown or green for logos, we take in consideration the fans preferences. The design with the logo on red was pretty much successful.
ETA: As for colour preferences I wouldn’t really say we have any specifics but the usual white/ black tees always sell well with the metalhead fans however we do love to mix it up a bit using red, purples, green and pretty much as many colours as we feel suit the design.
I’m glad I discovered you based on the designs, but it is no surprise, it will rarely convince somebody to turn from rock into death metal. ;D On the other hand, we can agree on the fact – more your logo is seen, the better…
- My Girlfriend (Slash, Alter Bridge fan) – Loves both t-shirts and takes them from me all the time. ;D
- My roommate (Meshuggah, Metallica fan) – “I need to buy sth like that as well. It looks great!”
N: Yes, the readability of the logo is really important since we’re talking about a band name that represents, in fact, a brand. People should recognize it and associate it with your band’s name, otherwise the promotional side of printing merchandise is no longer valid.
What are some of the coolest people you saw wearing your T-shirt? I remember seeing Vlad from Fleshless wearing Engorging The Autopsy hoodie.
N: All the people wearing Necrovile t-shirts are the coolest, haha. We were happy to see some members from bands that we love wearing Necrovile t-shirts as well, guys that come in mind are Dave from Lividity, Aad from Sinister, Vladimir from Fleshless among others.
ETA: Indeed it was pretty damn cool to see Vlad from Fleshless wearing our hoodie, it came as a nice surprise to us seeing him wear it in their most recent photo shoot, it’s always great to support other upcoming bands in this music scene. I’m sure anyone wearing one of our shirts is pretty cool though to have such a good choice in clothing!
Fleshless
What is your opinion on musicians wearing publicly a T-shirt of their own band?
N: I don’t do that, but I have nothing against musicians that wear their band’s t-shirts. Everybody is free to do whatever he or she considers it’s the best for the band. I would probably wear a t-shirt from a band which I joined later as a band member, on the other hand.
ETA: Personally I do not see a problem with any musician wearing their own bands merchandise. Merchandise is a form of promotion, it’s there to get your band out there or to show love for that music, if you can’t show any love for the music that you create then what’s the point?
Do you care where your designs are sold?
N: We are sending t-shirts all over the world and of course, we’re selling the merchandise at every show and festival we’re performing. We didn’t have any problems regarding the designs so far.
ETA: In my opinion the more places the better. We want to spread our band as far and as widely as we can therefore having a variety of places that sell our merchandise is a great way to do that.
For how long do you cooperate with Lacerated Enemy Records?
N: We’ve been cooperating with Lacerated Enemy Records since 2013, when the label released our second full-length, Engorging the Devourmental Void.
ETA: We currently have a two year contract with Lacerated Enemy Records. Zdenek ever so kindly signed us to his roster pretty soon after we released our very first song and we were very happy to be working with him.
You have very unique country of origin. Tell us a bit about your home country underground scene and difficulties, you are facing, including traveling? Necrovile, can you relate to some of the cultural issues, I faced and discussed with Bolesno Grinje?
N: The metal scene in Romania has been pretty much developing in the past decade. A lot of good bands include Romania on their tours, we have some really strong festivals, overall I would say it’s a healthy scene. Of course, living in the Eastern part of Europe means that you have to travel more to get to some countries from the west, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for us, we played wherever we were invited, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Macedonia, Moldova and so on. Speaking about Bolesno Grinje, we’re going to play for the first time in Croatia in 2017.
ETA: As you know I’m from Central Scotland and Luke stays in South Africa, we both absolutely love where we stay, as some people may say “there’s no place like home.” When both me and Luke met up recently we both discussed the differences in the music scene in the UK compared to over in SA, it’s difficult in general being in an underground band, getting your music and merchandise out there is hard but with the help from promoters worldwide it’s made it that extra bit easier, there’s so many nice people in this music and we have both made some lifelong friends from the music we have created.
What is you experience with Czech bands at festivals?
N: We played with a lot of bands from the Czech Republic and of course we have many friends from Czech bands. We’re more than happy to have some beers with the Guys from Anime Torment, Gutalax, Serge from Epicardiectomy, Vladimir from Fleshless, the guys from Mincing Fury and many more.
ETA: Neither of us have actually had any experience as it stands with Czech bands at festivals but that’s something that will hopefully come in time as we progress further into our very musical careers.
