Interviews

Besta Interview

Hi, Rick!

Hi, hello! How are you?

Fine, thanks! How’s it doing with you?

I’m good, yeah!

Fine! Can you hear me clearly?

Yes, I can! Sure!

Ok.! Can we start the interview?

Of course! Let’s go!

First I would like you to talk you about the band. When and how was Besta formed and what were the main milestones in the band’s life?

We basically started like other bands, of course, like any other bands. We were friends for a long time and decided to play heavy music. The main thing was that we were never really took it like goals, you know. There was no real milestone-thing happening for us. I mean we played good shows like Obscene Extreme for example, we toured in South America and Europe. Now we find LifeForce Records. All of those things, if you wanna call it milestones, you can call it but those were just things that happened in a natural way, you know. We never chased it. We didn’t take the band serious in the beginning but then it started people got interested and we started to play a lot around in Portugal and Europe. That’s all stuff developed this way, you know.

That’s fine! Besta’s music is really unique. How’s your relationship with your fanbase? How much they are a coherent community?

It’s good! I mean, we don’t really call them as a fanbase but we have people that enjoy the band’s music and yeah, we get along well with everyone so I can say it’s a good relationship! (laughs) It’s normal, people go to our shows, enjoy our music, enjoy being with us, we all have fun! That’s the main thing, having fun with everyone.

That’s great! You already published 9 discs. What are those things that changed in Besta’s music during the years?

Well, I think we play in the same style that we played in when we started. The thing is that we have a lot of releases but this is our second album. We had a lot of splits and EP’s in between. The thing that changed the most in my opinion is the production of the record, I mean the mixing, the way of production. I think it’s better on this record than it was before. In terms of the sound itself, I don’t think that it differs a lot from what we used to do, you know. I don’t know, maybe more groovy now than it was before. Less punk and more metal on this record but I don’t think the music has changed that much. It’s still the same. It’s still the same band you can indentify. The only thing that changed is only our singer in the middle of our career. So I think it’s pretty much the same band doing better records, you know.

The roots are the same, that’s good. At the end of last year, a new chapter started for Besta because you signed with LifeForce label. Did you search for them or how did you find each other?

We knew Stephan for a long time, for almost ten years. So he was the first person who I talked with. We just show him the record and he liked it and that was it. I approached him, yes. (laughs) I sent the record to Stephan to LifeForce, they liked it, so they found the band. We didn’t show itt of anyone else, you know. We had a couple of other people that were interested but Stephan wanted to sign us right away. It was a good start for us because we never released an album or anything in Europe just locally and nationally, so LifeForce is a good start for us!

It’s good to hear! The new conctract has been followed by the new album, of course. Eterno Rancor is due to release on the 15th of March. 15 songs in a tight 22 minutes and above all: a Bad Brains cover! Dark, deep, raw sound a real Portuguese taste… What would you tell us about this new album, Eterno Rancor?

First of all, as you can hear, all of the songs are sung in Portuguese. We never sang in any other language, you know. It’s not that we didn’t want to sing in English, just the music itself is more normal to sing in Portuguese, it just sounds better in Portuguese than in English for example. That’s why we decided to keep on singing in Portuguese. The record follows up everything we’ve done in the past, it’s a kinda summon of our opinion, Eterno Rancor means ’eternal grudge’ in English, you know. Like an eternal curse or something like that. The cover artwork reflects our opinion about what’s going on in the world, it’s like our social view on that stuff, you know, on politics, on religion, on everything together. So that’s what the record means, that’s what we intended to say with the record title and the album cover.

I suppose the album lyrics follow these themes as well…

Yeah, all the lyrics evolve around that politics, religion topics. We’re an anti-fascist band, we’re for women’s rights, anti-racist band. We are a very political band. I mean, sometimes we’re trying not to be (laughs) but in the end we are a very political band. So you can see it right away in our cover artwork. We are talking about politics, we are talking about all the crap in the world. So that makes us a political band, you know.

I understand. Where were the recordings taken and what was more impotant for you: perfection or spontaneity?

We are very sponaneous, we don’t really think about songs that much. We make a song and if we think it’s good, it’s good and then we don’t think about it anymore. It’s kinda like, we write a song and if the song feels good for us, „It’s okay, this one we’re gonna keep” so we say „Hey, let’s record it!” . Then we make another song. That’s how we do music, we don’t really think about it, you know. We don’t have a musical direction, every time we write songs, we write just what we feel sounds good for Besta, you know. That’s how we do it. We’re very spontaneous about it.

There are several shows already at your back. What labels did you get from the fans and from the people of the genre? What’s your opinion about it?

They can call us whatever they want! (laughs) I think a lot of people think that we were grindcore. Yeah, we started as a grindcore band but I think we evolved now a little bit more towards metal. But we are still a grindcore-punk band. We don’t care what people call us, you know. They can call us whatever they want. As long as they’d like the music that’s the most important thing, not the label for us. There’s no point in using labels for a band or something as long as you like it. When I listen to a band, I don’t care what is it, I just like it or not.

I agree with you! After the release in March, you will have some concerts in Portugal. Is there any chance to see the band somewhere is Europe?

Yeah, who knows. We have another band called Sinistro and we already played with them in Europe and in Budapest once. So we’re not strangers to Budapest or to Hungary. We’d like to go there this time again, of course. But for now, we don’t have anything planned, maybe England in March, we don’t know yet. We have these Portuguese release shows and these are also important for us, to play a lot of shows in Portugal because we see that a lot of people still can’t know about us and this new record. We wanna play in the left of the year. And when the time is right and good for us to go Europe, we’ll go there also, of course. We wanna play everywhere, so I don’t know why we cannot go to Hungary. It would be wonderful to go there, one day.

We keep the hope to see you live somewhere in the future!

Yeah, of course! We wanna go! (laughs)

Thank you for this nice talking and for your time! I wish you great success in your career! Have a good evening!

For you, too! Thank you very much! Take care! Bye!

Bye!

The interview was taken with Ricardo Da Rocha Correia on 14.02.2019.


Contributed by: Zsuzsanna Muszka

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