INTERVIEW: Happy Metal Geek Talks To Freddy Spera of CREJUVENT
CREJUVENT is an extreme metal project from Freddy Spera who refuses to be subjugated by the conventions of social construct and confused by the identity of the world around him. Having played for and produced countless acts including Novacrow, Exhumation, Tiger Punch, Kryocell, and Tasered to name a few, Freddy started CREJUVENT as a way to purge himself of all the musical ideas that arose from all his previous band experiences.
The result is a perfect blend of everything that’s great in extreme metal, and with the astounding reception that ‘Time‘ has received, who knows what the future will hold for Crejuvent!
Right now though, Freddy took a little bit of time out to chat to Happy Metal Geek
Give me a little bit of background of you personally.
There’s really not much to me. I’m just a simple man with simple world-dominating ambitions. I like dogs and long walks on the beach. The smell of rain. I’m big on fart jokes. Like most, I find myself balls deep in some sort of crippling philosophical crisis about 90% of the time I’m awake. I suffer terribly from night terrors. I’m surprisingly hairy. I once accidentally ran into cactus. I once accidentally punched a cactus too (completely separate occasion). Last year I went skiing in a banana costume. Oh, I have a banana alter ego called Ben Hannah, who’s a banana disguised as a human. I suck at relaxing.
How did you all get together to form the band?
I started Crejuvent because I needed an outlet where I could explore the depths of all my musically ridiculous ideas. And trust me, there are a lot of them. I’ve been playing in bands for about 8 or 9 years but I’ve always wanted to do my own music in some capacity – once I obtained the knowledge I needed to make it happen I went for it.
What influenced you to start playing?
It was mostly teenage angst and the fact that I wasn’t getting laid in school. Most people would go hang out with their friend after school or go out partying or whatever teenagers do, and instead of trying to fit in with them and have a regular teenage life I closed myself off in my room and refused to stop playing bass. I was a very angry child for some reason and so I naturally gravitated towards angry music, and now that I’m all grown up I’m still an angry child on the inside. Not out of choice mind you, this shit is exhausting.
How do you find gigging, recording and touring?
I absolutely love it. People often say that when you’re on tour you just want to go home, but when you’re home you just wanna be on tour. I don’t really get that because when I’m on tour I’m so glad to be on tour. The only reason I would want to be home is to work on recordings and shit. It can be very tiring, especially if you’re like me and you don’t really know how to take good care of yourself, but it’s so worth it. Definitely not something for everyone though – spending days in a car with bandmates can be quite the psychological challenge and not everyone’s cut out for it. But the relationships you create with your bandmates and tour buddies is absolutely unique.
Favourite gig/festival you performed at?
Normally I’d say Metal Days in Slovenia, but I’ll save that for the next question. So instead I’ll say Bruis festival way back in 2012 with my old band Tasered. We were just a bunch of kids and we got to play this massive stage with so many people. It was one of the first times any of us had played a proper festival, and festivals in Europe tend to treat you quite differently from festivals in the UK – no matter who you are, if you’re playing you get treated well. We had unlimited drinks and food backstage, so after our show we got absolutely annihilated. It was also really warm that year so we were just a couple of kids, wasted, running around topless throwing water at each other. It was great!
Favourite gig/festival you attended?
Metal Days. I attended it three years in a row and I got to play there on the final year with my other band Novacrow (we were even invited to play Winter Days of Metal that year). It’s easily the best metal festival ever. You get to float down the river drinking ridiculously cheap drinks all day and watch some kick ass bands. It’s super warm so you’re really incentivised to swim in the river. It’s the most relaxing and still eventful festival ever!
What would be your favourite track from your own music?
Ooh, you’re really putting me on the spot here. I’m torn between Dualism from the 2015 release Pretty Demos or Blue Spirit, the B-side to the single I just released last week. Dualism is great because it’s relentless, it’s heavy, but it’s also got that grandiose feeling. It’s a very unique track and it always cuts through. On the other hand, Blue Spirit is also really good. At almost 9 minutes long it’s the longest track I’ve yet to release with Crejuvent and thematically it works really well. I love how it fits together with itself so much, it’s so diverse yet still really heavy and grandiose. It’s definitely worth checking out!
