Let's start with a couple of "FAQ"s, ok? Firstly, what does your
moniker stand for (undoubtedly having NOTHING in common with clichesque approach!); secondly, what do the lyrics of yours deal with (being no less grim than the musical canvas "Gloom Rock Asylum" comes with, I assume); and lastly, where have you taken that photo, the one serving as a coverart? It fits the ambiences you deliver, just perfectly.

- Our bandname is taken from a song of the mighty "V" - album of doom gods ST. VITUS. Firstly we thought it would perfectly describe the mood of the songs we intended to write then. Additionally we liked the idea of worshipping our heroes by choosing a name that would hint at them. As for our lyrics: our intention is to transport a certain kind of feeling rather than lyrical contents. So you have to understand our lyrics as supporting the feeling of our music. Writing the lyrics is the final step for us when writing a song, we try to make them perfectly fit into the structure and atmosphere of the whole song. There’s not much to say about the contents: it’s just kind of short-stories of our personal existence such as coping with our weakness and mediocrity and stuff like that. Our coverphoto has been taken in the livingroom of the girl who shot it and who also co-designed the artwork. Not much exciting to tell about it.....

"California Dreamin'" definitely is one of the "Gloom Rock Asylum's" highlights. Whose cover is that, and how did you contrive to interpret it THAT somber???

- We initially covered the Mamas' and the Papas' "California Dreamin'" for a compilation which contained only "summerhit-covers". I don't know why but when we were contemplating about which song to cover I soon heard a terribly slow version of the "California Dreamin'" - chorus in my head. The others also loved the idea to choose the song although it turned out to be hard work to manage the whole thing. It's the same five fuckin' chords almost the whole song, which really sounds shitty when you're playing the song in 60 bpm! So we decided to leave some of the chords in the strophe and better fool around with feedbacks. Finally we consider the way we play the songs the only possibility to play it in a metal vein....

It seems like you've suddenly decided to take aliases instead of keeping on using the real names of yours, consequently here comes an obvious question: why?

- We have been kidding around with aliases in our rehearsal room for years now. This time we chose to use them on the cd just to do something new. The intention of it was to give a hint at our not taking ourselves so seriously. I mean we do have the ability to have fun with our insanity and this is much of what JACK FROST stands for. Of course there's much tragedy within our existences but we do not spend our lives hanging around mournfully. We enjoy life every heartbeat, that's what we call Rock'n'Roll....

Has Manfred ever had any kind of vocal training or whatever? His voice definitely is a unique one, therefore let me doubt that it all comes just naturally...

- The only training Phred has had is singing in JACK FROST for more than seven years now. He has indeed developped a lot during the last years. When you listen to the vocals on our first record it's hard to recognize him...

You have no less than four albums behind you; what about telling us a few words in regards to each one, as well as comparing them to each other? How do you perceive the former works of yours now, when four years have passed since you've made your debut with "Eden"?

- On our first record "Eden" you can hear a lot of ST. VITUS, it was the time when we really wanted to be a band sounding like them. "Eden" was a clear statement for doom metal, unfortunately we just had five days to record it so the sound is not really mighty. Between "Eden" and "Elsewhere" I was listening to a lot of my old gothic and darkwave records in order to kind of reactivate my initial Gloom influences. Therefore the second one is much darker, more atmospheric but yet heavier and more experimental than the first one. "Elsewhere" is also produced in a strange but somehow unique way, it sounds like straight from the crypt. I still love this album! And then there were the three years in which we thought of gaining distance to doom metal clichees, not knowing that we would record our possibly most depressing album. "Glow Dying Sun" really reproduces the atmosphere
within the band in the year 99 when JACK FROST was lying in agony. We were very frustrated of the fact that our label had shown no ambitions to draw advantage out of the enthustiastic press reviews for "Elsewhere" so we had to start at zero with our third record. The time management with the studio got completely fucked up so we hardly met each other in the studio. Each of us was recording his parts quite isolated from the others. That's what people can hear on "G D S" - a cold, unpersonal, sterile and depressing work. Other than that you can really feel the lifeblood on "Gloom Rock Asylum" when JACK FROST was awakened by the offer of Serenades Records. We had become a quartett then and were very enthusiastic about the whole thing of changing labels and recording a new CD. We wrote the songs within a month and recorded them knowing that we had created our best work up to know.

Did you really obtain what you've been craving to, with JACK FROST?

- Not really. What we really were longing for when we started with JACK FROST was to find a way to make ourselves cope with life. However, we realise that things have become even worse since then, we're pissed in our faces and fucked in our asses every goddamn day. The more we grow as musicians and the more we succeed as artist the worse we're treated as human beings. The whole thing really pisses us off sometimes, we're more and more thinking of just letting the whole thing be.

CCP vs. Serenades Records. Which one do you consider most suitable for the band you take part in?

- CCP is not even worth leaving a word about it. The people at Serenades are o.k., really engaged and busy about their bands although I think they lack of financial potential most of the time....

The kind of music you came up with, isn't really the one occupying Metal Hammer's charts, that's for sure. Why did you choose exactly this path to embark on?

- We came up with goth, wave and stuff like that. Later we got more and more in touch with metal, mainly through bands like ST. VITUS, OBSESSED and also the beginning death metal scene that attracted us in our early twenties. So we started to combine the depressing gloominess of JOY DIVISION, SISTERS OF MERCY, CHRISTIAN DEATH, a.s.o. with an instrumentation in the Metal vein. We need it heavy and dark at the same time.

What about describing JACK FROST stylistically by using colors AND human sensations?

- JACK FROST is like slashing your wrists, watching the thick black flood spilling out of your veins and finally drowning in it without ever having kissed the one you love.

I'm itching to find out what's your attitude to the so-called "organized religions", hence your turn to speak.

- We don't give a shit about things like that. Sorry!

What kind of a universe you're living in? The one based on reveries, or the one closer to this severely torture reality?

- Unfortunately we're too close to this severely torture reality to forget about it. However, we try to escape into this parallel universe of "how it all could be" as often as it may be. Our lyrics deal a lot with the being torn from one to the other....

Men are often being divided into three different categories: the ones living in a present day, the ones who consider the past days of their lives more preferable, and finally the ones who essentially belong to the future. Where would you reckon yourself to?

- The latter ones. If I did not believe in my kingdom to come during my lifetime I would have opened my veins yet. I shit on my past, my whole childhood and adolesence. I'm unable to cope with the present so what's left than to wait for the good times in future?

How do you view your life in the next ten years? Any drastic metamorphosis expected?

- I'm afraid not, but I would sell my soul to the devil to get things changed.

Do you know anything regarding Russia? Any metal bands coming from the country of mine you've heard lately?
 
- No, sorry.
 
Thanks for your time. How would you prefer to wrap up our conversation?

- I thank you for your interest in the band - a step further towards our kingdom to come! Just kidding...
 
     In undying gloom,
 
     Mournful Morales / JACK FROST

JACK FROST contact -
Email: robert@jackfrost.at