With:	Erez Yohanan [Drums], Hanan Avramovich [Guitars]
Conducted by:	Jeff (e-mail)
Published:	13.02.2009
Band profile:	Amaseffer

- Shalom guys, and welcome to the Metal world! You're newcomers so please can you introduce Amaseffer and its members to our readers?

Erez: Shalom from Israel to you and thank you for having us here.
Amaseffer are: Hanan Avramovich on Electric & Acoustic guitars, Yuval Kramer on Electric & Acoustic guitars, Erez Yohanan on Drums, Percussions & narrator.


- How do you define your music? What is for you the particularity of the music of Amaseffer and its force?

Erez: I would not define or categorize it for what we do is not focusing solely on one specific genre, we experiment with all kinds of territories even those we have never thought we will, like Death-Metal segment on the song "Midian"! It's all a matter of what would really serve the song and what would be the best piece of music that will help us bring and emphasize the true nature of the actual scene on the album and this is the main reason, as I see it, that make Amaseffer so unique, we don't write our music in a standard way of writing a song, we write our music as if we are composing a movie soundtrack, which is our greatest inspiration!


- Can you talk a bit about the album and present its story?

Hanan: First of all you should know that this is a trilogy and "Slave for Life" is the first chapter. The album takes us on a mystical journey 3,500 years ago recounting the Biblical story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt. We pick up the story at the slavery period (Sorrow & Slaves for Life), next up is a very dark but yet very optimistic birth of Moses (birth of deliverance), then we move on to the times where Moses, as an adult, killing the Egyptian slave master and fled to Midian (Midian) which right after he met his future wife Zipporah. Next scene on the album is Moses first encounter with God on the very mysterious and mystical song "The Burning Bush" where God's commending Moses to return to Egypt as God's messenger in order to free the Hebrews from the ruthless Pharaoh. So basically from there Moses returns to Egypt with his brother Aaron and the magical Wooden Staff only to bring upon Egypt the wrath of God on them by inflicting the Ten-Plagues on Egypt and we close the album with the aftermath of the ten plagues with the very sad "Land of the Dead".


- Can you talk about the writing process of Amaseffer. How do you work, do you all come with some ideas etc?

Hanan: Well we have no rules with that! We all contribute to the process, each has its own way of bringing himself to the table and then we all seat together in order to finalize it to the point of perfection.






- How did you get in contact with all the "guest" singers featured on the album? What is easy or not? Can you talk a bit about this "recruitment"?

Erez: It was not that hard! I truly believed in Amaseffer's message and future so by presenting myself to the artists on the album and telling them all about us, the concept, the musical visions, they all immediately reply to my request and showed great interest of taking part in our Holy Voyage! We want to keep the original line up for we don't want to start mixing many artists on our albums like other bands do, but, if the scene on a specific part on the albums will need a specific talent then we won't hesitate to bring in some new artists in order to deliver the best performance for our music.


- A lot of bands from Israel talk about the country, its people and about religion. Can you tell us why?

Erez: I don't agree with that. Most of them are dealing with so many aspects but Israel!
As Israelis we are very much connected to our Holy Land, and to our religion off course, and it's just natural to take it to the musical levels.


- What are your influences, musical and not?

Hanan: We are all into classical music and movie soundtrack so I would say that this is our main inspiration, not influence.






- Can you talk a bit about the Israeli Metal scene? It seems to be really active and a lot of newcomers from the country begin to become famous.

Hanan: Israeli Metal scene is relatively very small! We are a small country and there for everything is smaller in relation to the other. Israeli metal band are very talented and now and days record labels are starting to look at our direction as a good source of new and fresh music.


- "Exodus: Slaves for Life" is the first release of a trilogy. When will you release the next episodes? Any plan already?

Erez: We are actually in the pre-production stages of chapter two hoping to release it by the end of the year or at the most beginning of next year.


- Will you still have the same line up or will you add some new singers?

Erez: Yes sure as I said earlier but we will bring up at least one new huge surprise for this one! This will surprise you all in a deep and profound manner I would say so stay tuned






- If yes (or even no), would you like to work with someone in particular? Can you tell us why?

Hanan: This is a bit premature to talk about it yet but we will make an announcement regarding that as soon as we can.


- Are you planning to tour? Will it ever be possible in reason of your line up?

Erez: Yes sure but we don't know when this will happen yet. We have made a decision that once we will go on stage then it would be in the original line up with all the artists that took part in our trilogy.


- What are your wishes for the future of the band?

Hanan: I truly hope that we will continue making music and composing movie soundtracks, this is our main goal.






- Thx you for your time and for this interview. I wish you a lot of luck for the future of the band, please give us some news about it too. Any last word?

Hanan: Thank you for you time and support, God bless you and all you loved ones! KEEP IT HOLY !


Thx to Amaseffer for the interview