“Metal is the most real thing that exists in music. There is nothing like it or that can overcome it. [We all have] bands that can totally improve your life by giving you a [different] perspective on life, and as you grow and mature you realize how real [the impact] is.”
As a part of our series about the metal community, we had the pleasure of interviewing Santiago Maravilla of KADAVRO. KADAVRO is a Death/Thrash Metal band founded in 2017 out of Neuquen, Argentina. The band’s intention is to create new metal while always keeping a base of old school Thrash. Their debut EP “Evil Entities From The Hidden Past” released on January 1st.
Santiago, thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your band’s backstory?
The project arises from the union of Sacha Napoli [and me] in 2017 to create a band trying to cover all aspects of Thrash, Death and Black Metal. [We’re] inspired by the Metal events of the 70s, 80s and 90s, , including Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Venom, Motorhead, Celtic Frost, Death, Mercyful Fate, Megadeth, Exodus, Slayer, Metallica (80s), Sodom, and the list goes on. Then Agustín Chamorro joined, incorporating the drums to give life to the songs. In a long search for a bass player that lasted months, we found Christian Jara with his 4 strings to be the wall of the band, giving it a more overwhelming front and participating in the creation of music.
What or who are your biggest influences? We’d love to hear the story.
As influences there are many bands and characters that marked my musical life. Bands from Argentina I can mention V8, Hermetica and Riff that marked my adolescence. International there are many, I can name Venom, Motorhead, Slayer, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, King Diamond and the list can be endless, but these would be the most important.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Was there a particular person or people who you feel gave you the most help or encouragement to get where you’re at today? Can you share a story about that?
I think with KADAVRO, we are not successful at the moment. I think we have a long journey and objectives to meet, this is just the beginning. But we do have great support from our friend Juan “Cachete” Amorosi, who not only gives us his musical point of view, he is also in charge of the art of KADAVRO.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that has occurred to your band? What lesson or take away did you learn from that?
In 2019, we were able to play with the former drummer of the Argentine band Hermetica, Tony Scotto. We opened the show and destroyed the stage with our Thrash, our drummer Agustin Chamorro had drunk a lot of alcohol and hit the drums very hard. At the end of the set list, the crowd asked us for a last song, which we couldn’t do since the drums were so beaten that they had to find another one for the rest of the bands. Lesson, always have an extra drum.
The road to success is hard and requires tremendous dedication. This question is obviously a big one, but what advice would you give to younger bands who aspire to follow in your footsteps and emulate your success?
As advice I can only say that no matter how difficult and complicated it is, never leave influences and fuck the negative people.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
At this moment we published our EP in January that will be released by the Evil Damnation label of Argentina. Also, taking up post-pandemic rehearsals and creating new material, which will be even more brutal than Evil Entities From The Hidden Past.
OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. Can you briefly tell our readers a bit about why you are a part of the heavy metal community?
We feel that we have to be part of the community because we are one of the bands that fight against everything modern that threatens vintage metal. Our intention is to keep alive the essence of the 80s, and all that it implies. Although, there are new bands we value, [we prefer] those that resemble sounds and performances of the 80’s and 90’s.
For the benefit of our readers, can you help to define what the heavy metal community is?
For me, the heavy metal community are all those bands and people who collaborate so that it never dies and transcends in time, from generation to generation. Just as I buy the material of a band, or [go to] a show, someone does it with KADAVRO. We are [all] collaborating so that [the community] never dies. That is what a community is about: supporting each other. It can be locked into a genre or not, but as long as it is still metal, it is welcome.
This question is for any of the individual band members. Would you feel comfortable sharing a story or anecdote about how being a part of the heavy metal community has helped you in your life? We would love to hear about it.
(from singer Sacha Napoli): There really is no anecdote or story to share, just to say that metal is the most real thing that exists in music. There is nothing like it or that can overcome it. [We all have] bands that can totally improve your life by giving you a [different] perspective on life, and as you grow and mature you realize how real [the impact] is.
Ok. Wonderful. Here is the main question of our interview. Can you recommend five things that anyone can do to help grow and strengthen the metal community? Please share a story or example for each.
Go to metal shows, share material from new bands, listen to music with friends, lots of alcohol. But above all, support the local bands.
Ok, we are nearly done. You are a band of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
It’s a difficult question, but I think that if I had to think of one it would be self-cultivation of food, thus stop consuming the processed foods of big corporations. As well as the legalization of medical cannabis in all countries of the world
What is next for your band?
The next thing is to prepare our next post-pandemic show and get the thrash machine back on the road.
How can our readers further follow you online?
You can follow us on all official KADAVRO social networks.
Facebook: @Kadavrobanda
Instagram: @kadavro_oficial
YouTube: @Kadavro
Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success.