The interview with Vicky and Bambi of Gwendydd about their last album „Human Nature“ and their future plans

The metal scene in Sofia and the band's live ambitions

Artist: Gwendydd

Origin: Sofia, Bulgaria

Genre: Melodic Death Metal, Metalcore, Gothic Metal

Label: Fat Bamb Records

Link: https://www.facebook.com/gwendyddband/

Band members:

Vocals – Vicky Stoichkova
Guitars – Radostina Zhelyazova
Guitars – Irena Angelova
Bass – Sonya Radeva
Drums – Bambi Nikiforov

Time For Metal / René W.:
Hello Vicky and Bambi,
I’m glad you found the time to talk about your band Gwendydd, your debut Human Nature which came out in 2020, and some new material. Bambi, you should certainly feel good in this group. How was the line-up formed, and what is your role as the „cock of the roost“?

Gwendydd / Bambi:
Hello René!
Thanks a lot for having us. First of all, yes! I feel very good in this band! 🙂 Gwendydd was actually supposed to be the first all-female-metal band in Bulgaria. With me as the main songwriter and their producer. This idea came up in 2017 when I had already started to pile up some ideas for songs and I wanted to see them come to life more interestingly and unusually. When I saw Vicky in The Voice Of Bulgaria I immediately knew that this is the voice I needed for this project. I contacted her and told her about my idea, and after she embraced it with a lot of excitement, my enthusiasm grew. I started looking for other girls for the band and after many try-outs, conversations and meetings we concluded that it would be best if I took the place behind the drums. A little while before that, my previous band stopped playing, so this was the best alternative for me. We all agreed on Gwendydd being with a male drummer and that was the last change in our line-up. This happened in the summer of 2019 and since then our relationship is becoming stronger and stronger and I can’t put in words how happy I am because of this. We, as a team, all are having the same humble goal – play the music we want and conquer the world. 😉 So, to sum it up, my role as a producer turned into the producer and drummer for Gwendydd. This makes me extremely happy, but the best thing is that I stumbled upon some very understanding, intelligent and active musicians!

Time For Metal / René W.:
Your music stands for Melodic Death Metal and Metalcore, the song Addiction even goes into Gothic Metal. How did you write Human Nature? Did you simply approach different options to see where your journey could go?

Gwendydd / Bambi:
I like many styles of metal and a lot of different influences seem to merge inside my head somehow … but yes, I suppose there was such an element in the songwriting process too.

Time For Metal / René W.:
Honestly, I don’t like the quiet parts with the clean vocals. On the other hand, the last third of the album is much harder, which I prefer. In Germany, you would say: „Make a big fuss“.

Bambi, you are not only the drummer of Gwendydd but also the producer. Where could you already gain experience as a producer or do you even have a professional education?

Gwendydd / Bambi:
The producing thing started more or less when I decided to make some metal covers of famous Bulgarian pop songs. With the first try-out, I suddenly went viral on social media. I did a couple more after that and people liked them a lot too. I even got an offer from a famous Bulgarian pop artist to do a whole album with such covers. But I decided to put all this effort and energy into something more valuable to me – self-written music. And voilà – Gwendydd. 🙂 I’m not gonna hide, I don’t have a music degree. In my opinion, this doesn’t guarantee you producing a valuable product anyways. Here in Bulgaria, we have the saying “You steal the craft, not learn it.” And this is exactly my case. I watch, listen and take out of it whatever triggers my attention. As for the 1/3rd of Human Nature that you liked, I think that you’ll love our second album. 🙂

Time For Metal / René W.:
The pandemic also affected your works. You weren’t able to do a tour for Human Nature, but you still didn’t rest and worked on new material. How far have you got? When can we expect the first new songs, and when will you have the second album ready?

Gwendydd / Bambi:
Yes! Though I can say that as much the pandemic affected us as musicians in a bad way, it also helped us in a way. I don’t want to sound disrespectful or cold-hearted. I am now only speaking about the business point of view. We had enough time to think about some very important stuff, to learn a lot and make some important decisions. We used the time to shoot some music videos and to write new material for our second album. Which is almost ready by the way. We plan to go into the studio at the end of this summer. We already released our first single from it – We Are The New Order, and we will release a second single this summer. The whole album will be released at the beginning of 2022.

Time For Metal / René W.:
Have you already been able to do a concert together as a band, or is your first gig still to come?

Gwendydd / Vicky:
Yes. We managed to do a couple of shows before and during the pandemic. Some club shows and festivals here and there. We also did an online concert last year and took part in Bloody News Online Festival this year. So no matter what, we aren’t giving up sharing our music with people. This is one of the most precious things for us, and we will always find a way to do it.

Time For Metal / René W.:
Let’s get back to Human Nature: The artwork is very dark. What are the themes of your songs and what emotions do you want to evoke in the listener? You are welcome to share your thoughts in a little track-by-track.

Gwendydd / Vicky:
The main message behind our music is to get people to think about what they are doing to each other. How awful they are acting as a society and how careless and ignorant they are. Our planet is slowly dying, yet few people actually try to do something about it. Each year there are more and more people with mental disorders, unable to work, living on the streets … the list is endless. A lot is going wrong in this world, and we hope to encourage people to change for the better. Every single one counts. And if we showed only one kid out there that there must be a change, it was already worth it. Sharing my thoughts on each song would be a bit difficult though and would probably ruin the magic for most people. As the beauty of music, and art in general, is that everyone can understand it and see it however they like and however they feel at the moment.

Time For Metal / René W.:
Let’s talk about your hometown, Sofia: In Germany, metal is almost a common genre like all the others. How is it in Bulgaria, and what do your compatriots think about a female band that plays hard Melodic Death Metal with Metalcore elements?

Gwendydd / Vicky:
Unfortunately, here metal is not yet what you would call the most common and accepted genre. But still, we are all one big community. There is no poisonous competition between metal bands here, as it should be in every music genre in my opinion. After all, music is all about sharing, communication and emotions. So we all help and support each other with whatever we can.

Time For Metal / René W.:
What are your plans for the future when the stages are open again? Are there any plans for bigger festival gigs? Maybe a small tour in Germany or do you want to conquer your home territory first?

Gwendydd / Bambi:
I may get in trouble for saying this, but I’ll say that thanks to our management team, we have lots of offers and opportunities for shows outside of Bulgaria, and we can’t wait to do at least a part of those shows! We want to play in as many places as possible everywhere, but in these uncertain times, we’ll probably have to wait a bit. I won’t hide that the people in Bulgaria found out about us quite quickly, and now we’re getting offers from almost every national festival which will take place this or next year. This motivates us a lot. 🙂

Time For Metal / René W.:
I would like to thank you for this little insight and finally leave it up to you: What else do you have to say to your fans and our readers?

Gwendydd / Vicky:
Thank you for inviting us for this interview! 🙂 We would like to thank everyone for reading this and to wish them to follow their dreams, continue listening to awesome music, and of course, stay safe!