Hi. This is Myk, vox from Testify, trying to answer your questions: This world is filled with shit; madness created by those mentally insane worms called humans. That ought to make you scream with anger for at least several days; we scream only for 49 minutes on MMMYAOOOO and because that is not enough, we still have to record some albums.
How did you start your colaboration with VR ? Have you ever worked with other labels?
Of course we have started releasing stuff in Germany, from where we come. Working together with Rough Trade, and other labels. The collaboration with VR started in 1994, when they began licencing albums from Testify and The Fair Sex (which is sort of fore-runner of Testify).
The industrial genre requires an open minded public. How did you managed at the beginning, when Testify was just a brand new name?
Because of the connection between The Fair Sex and the Industrial scene in Germany it was luckily not too difficult to get a German label contract. But the last three years we had no contract here in the Old World; and we try to re-change that.
How did you pick your band name ?
It was pure intuition. We had the name already in our heads before we wrote the first Testify song. In early 1992, during the Spell Of Joy, one of the latest The Fair Sex albums, we already planned: We have to start a real nasty and hard project! Brutal and merciless, with the features of noise and anger...It shall get the name Testify... Something like that. But nowadaysTestify is no side-project no more. It's the main one.
Your first CD was a big step What do you think now, after this second product, about your music at that time? Is it something you would change?
Yeah. The big dissatisfactions with the first album brought about the sound-change of the second: more metal, more thick guitars, more insane atmospheres... We are still very satisfied with the result of the second album. The first was a nice step into the right direction, but the result was not really that great, somehow uncompleted.
I guess shows are something you are used to how do people react at your music? What show do you think was the best of all, and why?
The best was perhaps in 1994 in Leipzig, but perhaps even this year in Bochum, both German cities. It's very often a really intensive experience; but because of the deal-lack thru-out the last three years the audiences are not that big....
The only way people from Romania can hear your music (excepting folks from Bucharest, who can listen to Radio Europa Nova) and see your video clips is through MTV, at Music From The Underground. Why are you still considered an underground band, after two excellent CDs ?
It's not that easy rising to the top... But I appriate your statement of two excellent CD's, thanks!
01, Mmmyaoooo are somehow strange album names. What drived you to these ones?
Yeah, strange names, might be. It's probably our mental sickness that drove us to these titles... must be something like that.
I listened to your latest CD Mmmyaoooo and I did not see a central idea. Are the tracks just gathered with no connection between them, or do I miss it ?
Indeed I think that you don't miss something. This is no conception-album, just a collection of the best titles we wrote in 95/96, just a collection of brutal screams for relief; and weird tales with fucked up lyrics; a collection of the best riffs we invented. I think that's the way most CD's are created, isn't it? Conception- albums seem to me to be the exceptions...
Dumb, B. Blaster ,Head Of Compassion and some more, are really good tracks, which I liked very much. What was the CDs impact on different radio stations, and other media?
I have not enough knowledge concerning the reaction on radio stations, as you might imagine by now, for in Germany there was never played any of those titles, simply because they were never released here..
I think that the best way to see the impact you made on people is to check out the sales reports. How are things on this side? Where did people buy more Testify products ?
In the States we had our best situation so far... Let's see how the Old World will react, if there ever will be put out a Testify product again.
What are your plans for the near future ?
It's exactly that: Finally a kind of comeback for Europe, with a new deal and new releases. And then: a little bit more of the live activities which have become too rarely thru-out the recent two years; our new life-line up is great, consisting of six insane lunatics.
Do you think it is possible to come in Romania and put out for a show ?
If we ever get the chance to do this, we would appriciate it very much, of course!
Any closing words ?
Heal this world by screaming the big idiots of this planet to death!
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