Be welcomed on the pages of Tales of the Morbid Butchers fanzine, Jag! I’m really happy to accepted my interview request! How often do you get interview requests? From which places of the word the guys find you?
Thanks! We get some interview requests, it’s relative the time in between. We have received interviews from almost all countries in europe and north &south america, also a few from asia and oceania.
Do you know something about Hungary? Do you know any Hungarian bands or labels?
You have some of the finest bands from my taste: Fantom, Ossian, Rotor, Tormentor, Pokolgép. Very cute women beautifying your streets. I also like the way your language sounds when people speak it, there’s something special about the pronunciation of the words that I like a lot; specially when it comes to music and lyrics, really love the way the lyrics sound in hungarian.
Please tell us about the creation of ACERO LETAL! It was an one-man-project in the beginning. Right?
Yeah, it was that way. And there’s a lot of that still, for the moment. We do play live concerts, and I’d love to do tours everywhere we can, but it’s still very hard to keep a stable line-up in my country. It’s hard to be a musician here, lots of people get into music and get bored at the difficulties implied in a musician way of life here. Because of that, I’m finishing the recording of guitars, bass and voice by my own for the next release. I’m into music cause there’s no other way to me; people who like the band show us the support we need, so there’s Acero Letal for a longtime.
Your first release was a promo demo, which was contains only one song, called „Por la gloria del metal”. How many places could you sent this material? What kind of reviews did you get about this from the labels? Or did you rather distribute it to your friends?
Oh, the first promo,yeah we just distributed it to local zines and friends. Those where only 66 copies. Sometime after that, we used the same track and added ”Pacto Eternal”, this two tracks together made the Demotape. I never knew how the tape started to get duplicated spontaneously. It was by surprise that some reviews begun to appear, and only then we knew that our material had travelled someway out of our country. It was so cool to know that, we have always taken it with honor and much respect for the music.
The next release was a single, called „Por la gloria del metal” as well. On this material H-Bomber indicated as full member yet. Why did you decide that you don’t continue the band as one-man-band any longer?
H-Bomber did the drums for the first promo also. But he himself took it as a season recording. He was (and still is) one of my best friends. Did a good work on the recording.
This single was released on tape twice, what is more on vinyl too! What kind of feeling to you that Destruktion Records considered that single enought good to release on this royal format?
The tape was re-duplicated so many times, and it started to be so hard to know if a copy was official or not, that Destruktion Records asked us to do the vinyl version, to leave a trace of an ultimate official release. Johannes from Destruktion records always showed respectfor the band. So when the moment came, neither of us hesitated it was gonna be perfect to work together. Great feelings on this.
There is a song on the net, which is called „Lucharemos a muerte”. What would we konw about this track?
At the same time while we were releasing the first demotape, I surely sent to a couple of friends some demos from other songs. But those where incomplete demos. One of those was the track you mention. It’s just a sketch, a sample. The song is gonna appear on our debut album, it has a different name.
Anyway, where did the name, ACERO LETAL come from? If I know it right it means „Lethal Steel”. Right? Did you know that there is an Italian band from the 90’s with the same name and there is a Sweden heavy metal band currently as well?
We didn’t knew until now the italian band. And the other swedish band, yeah, well, they came after this Acero Letal. Not a real problem for us.
The name comes from some cool lyrics made by a ton of spanish singing Heavy Metal old bands. In latinamerican 80s Heavy Metal those words were used a lot, and together sounds like raw and pure Heavy Metal, so that had to be the name.
The lyrics are written in Spanish. I really like when the band written their thoughts on own native language, but why don’t you use English to your lyrics?
I would love to do a Heavy Metal band with English lyrics. I don’t think that it would fit for Acero Letal. Think in Pokolgép for example, they sing in their native language, I know they have experimented with English, but it’s mostly in hungarian and I think it adds an exotic and unique sound. Some producer wanted to give us an advice and told us to sing in english to get more listeners. I just don’t think that way, I prefer the possibility of having this band, do it in the native language and have loyal listeners that support and get the record because it feels real; that is the way for Acero Letal.
We do include anyways the english translation in the records, for those who are interested in getting the lyrical message.
I think your logo is very awesome!! In my opinion it gives back the feeling of the 80’s heavy/speed bands logos in a very authentic way. Who made yours?
Thank you very much! I did the first one on paint, haha. It has passed through the good hands of a designer a couple times from then.
There was roughly 5 years hiatus in the life of the band from 2009. What happened then? Had you got any other bands in the midst of hiatus?
When I made the first demotape I just wanted to record a Heavy Metal record, play like one time to present the work, and that was all. Didn’t wanted to start a band or something. Then people started to ask me to go and find members and play live. But it really took a while for me to do it. Yeah, I’ve been always playing, composing, I had some Thrash Metal and Punk acts through those years.
What came alive the band again in 2014? Who were the members of the reborn ACERO LETAL?
Playing again with Acero Letal wasn’t in my plans until a friend of mine told me that they were inviting us to play with SATAN and BULLDOZER, that was like magic for me. The members who joined me at that era where two of the ones that had joined previously for the live presentation of ”Por la gloria del Metal”back in 2009: Christopher Falk on bass; Pablo Pizarro on the drums. Bastián Velásquez, singer from the other band that had together with C. Falk, came to complete that 2014 line up. Awesome line up.
You released a single again in 2014 which contains the songs „Veloz Invincible” and „Duro Metal”. I have to say, I have never heard as badass speed metal material recently like this 7”! Could you tell us about the creation of this single? What is the method of the songs writingat yours?
Thanks a lot! I’ve been playing and creating music since I was a child, I remember at 5 years old doing my first tunes on a piano. Never took clases, my parents didn’t want music for me. I could sit in the piano and create tunes for the entire afternoon. With little time I would start to think about an image, then I would try to give music for all the images I was thinking about. I kept doing things like that until I got in my teenager era and changed the piano for the electric guitar. With the guitar I just started to practice and discover more things.
It has never stopped, and I still have a lot to learn. My main method to write songs until now has been the intuition. Play a note and try to ”feel” the one that comes next. I like intuition, I want to definetely add more methods, but intuition for me always goes first. It adds spirit to the creation.
That material released by Witches Brew on 7”, and after that Traditionnel Recods released on tape. How was the collaboration came with these labels? Were they sent your music many places? What kind of reviews did you get about the single?
We first recorded the 7’’ wanted to get the best sound we ever reached before. We did that without thinking about any label or things like that. When we had the material done we started to look for labels. Witches Brew was the best one for us. They really liked the band and wanted the best for it, they offered a fair agreement also; so Witches Brew released it on vinyl. Tradittionel recs just released a bunch of 100 cool professional chrome cassettes and was great. It was nice to work with both labels, good people, Witches Brew and Traditionnel.
Did you know that RAIJIN and BROTÓS from Chile covered each songs from you? Do you like these songs? What do you think about that there are a few ACERO LETAL cover songs, although you are relatively a young band?
I knew the Raijin one, not the Brotós one. I also know that a band from Spain called Siberia did a cover from us.
It’s awesome to know that people from other parts of the world also want to play our songs. Maybe sometime has passed since our first demo, but then there was that hiatus, so we are still a band that’s fighting to start releasing full lengths. So it’s even more special the fact that some guys have showed interest on doing covers.
BROTÓS covered the song, „Acero Letal” which had never released on physical format previously. Accordingly have you got more unreleased songs? How many own songs have you got?
Acero Letal has like 20 or more written songs at the moment. Not all of them have been played live, but a good amount of them should be recorded at a certain stage of the band’s activity.
How often do you perform your music on the stage? Have you ever played another country besides Chile? Do you play cover songs on concerts?
We perform whenever it’s necessary to do it, I personally keep an eye in not playing at the same place or city too often. Time is wise. A nice moment to perform is after releasing a material, it’s fresh and you feel full of energy to show the new material..
Chile mostly famous of its extreme bands, but I guess there are so many awesome heavy and speed bands in your country as well. How do you see it? How much are the interest about the traditional metal music in Chile? Could you recommend us some remarkable bands?
Of course, the good Heavy Metal acts that I remember at this moment here in Chile: Axe Battler, Hemisferio, Mortal Whisper, Raijin, Armored Knight, Metal Grave.
After „Veloz Invincible/Duro Metal” 7” came out the line-up were changed again. What is the reason of that?
After that, Christopher Falk went to an student interchange outside the country for months, so I needed someone to take charge of the bass line for that period of time. Javier Reyes entered the band as bassist, he recorded the 7’’. After the releasing of the 7’’ we played a couple times, the drummer Pablo was not very interested in music, at list it wasn’t his priority, so we have to look for someone else. Bastián had his own main band also, so we had to re-organize the line up once again. It has been tough, ass you can see.
When will the first full-length album come out and what are the future plans of ACERO LETAL?
The first full-length is coming early 2019, it’s entitled CULTO AL TRUENO (cult to thunder), Mario Lopez is doing the artwork. The plans for late 2018 is to look for members and go out and play whenever we can to present the new album!
Thank you to answering my questions, Jag! Please send a message to the Hungarian metalmaniax!
Stay true, keep your own flame alive.
Interview by Sz.
