Interview: Fantazmaz
We’re just very honest about it with this album. I think the songs catch everyone's vibe, pretty much from the beginning.
Coming straight out of London, by way of Brazil, Fantazmaz play frenetic, angry and high energy punk rock and their self-titled debut album, which has just been released exemplifies this to the max. The band consist of vocalist Thami, guitarist Raf Oliver, bassist Chokito and have now been bolstered with the addition of drummer Jamie Oliver (ex UK Subs). Gavin Brown had the pleasure of catching up with Thami ahead of the album coming out to talk about the record and all things Fantazmaz and punk rock.
E&D: Your self-titled debut album has just come out. How excited are you with this album?
Thami: Very excited! This is our first album, and a very special moment for us anyways, because we’ve never done something like that with this band, and we’ve been wanting to do that for a very long time. We decided, to take the move, because it just felt right. We had all the songs and recorded everything in two days. so very excited for everyone to hear it.
E&D: Is the record a statement of intent for Fantazmaz and your music, with this album, declaring who the band are straight away?
Thami: Basically, yeah, We’re just very honest about it with this album. I think the songs catch everyone’s vibe, pretty much from the beginning, because when we started writing song, it was back in the COVID times. So the world was chaotic as well back then, and is still very much chaotic! I think it couldn’t be more earnest, it reflects on everyone’s personalities and how we feel towards the world right now. Just angry and frustrated.
E&D: Are you using your music to tackle that frustration?
Thami: I think, we just want to scream, as we’re quite unhappy with everything, to tackle our feelings. We’re very much helping ourselves really, get out of the darkness.
E&D: Can you tell us a bit about the single and album track, ‘Deaf On The Way Home’, that you brought out, and did you want that song to be la short, sharp burst of anger?
Thami: That was the first single we got out. The song was written by Raf after he saw some news from Brazil. A bunch of boys going back home, they got shot dead on the way home. In Brazil, it’s just pretty common, those things, and it’s just horrific. We wanted it to be really quick and aggressive with pretty much, a shock, really, like it was seeing it on the news on TV.
E&D: How is your new drummer, Jamie Oliver, getting on with the band and how did he come to join you?
Thami: It’s been really great. I love him so much, he’s like a bundle of joy. It was really funny, because when Paulo, our previous drummer left, we had Jamie to cover a few shows with us, and we just got along really well. We knew Jamie before, but not very much. After Paulo’s exit, we invited him to play a few shows, and it was just so natural. It just glued so well together. It’s just going so well, we love him.
E&D: Was it fun but also hard work to film the video for ‘Distortion’ at the Barbican in London?
Thami: It was so much fun. Like I said, our songs are pretty much like a scream. So when I’m onstage, I just want to run and just get it out. The idea for ‘Distortion’ was pretty much like that, because the world is so shit right now that I just want to fucking run. We didn’t have an idea, and we were thinking. I just said, I always had this idea of doing this video of me just running, but, it’s one take and just me running, and the performance is just the run. It was like, fuck yeah, let’s do it. It was really tiring. We didn’t choose Barbican til three days before shooting. So it just came up, the Barbican, because I love brutalism. We went to visit the area to choose where we wanted to shoot. Jamie came with his bike, and we have a 360 camera, so he got that wrapped to the back of his bike, and then we just started doing takes. It was so much fun. We did it in three hours!
E&D: Did you want to capture the energy of your live show with the album?
Thami: 100%! We didn’t do a live recording, but It was pretty much as raw as it could be. I wanted to do it live because we always did live recordings, and I do miss that, because it’s just got much more, raw energy, but I’m very happy with the recording.
E&D: You’ve released music on your own Ghetto Bitch Records. How is it having your own label and will you be bringing out music by other bands as well?
Thami: We don’t have anyone on the label yet, but we recently joined a Brazilian label, Repetente Records as well, we released the album through the label, so we pretty much l put Ghetto Bitch on the side. We will work more on the idea of doing that here in London, but for now, we put it on the side. The Ghetto Bitch story was really funny as well, because we wanted to do something like that, and the name was really fun! I work in a strip club, and the name pretty much came up because I was refusing entry to this woman at the door, and then she looked at me, and she was like, Who the fuck do you think you are? You’ve got tattoos all over your fucking neck. You look like a fucking ghetto bitch. I was like, Thank you. You gave me a great idea. Thanks very much for that! We will do something more with it, but not right now.
E&D: You’re obviously from Brazil, but are now based in London. What has prompted the move over here?
Thami: That was fifteen years ago. Me and Raf, the guitarist, we were married before, and I played with him for twenty years. It’s great. We had a band back home in Brazil that was going really well, but we were just not happy there. This band was going really well for a period. We played on MTV. When I was seventeen, I was interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine. It was, like, the peak of my career, but the band, with time, when people just don’t really have the same focus, I saw that we didn’t have the same goals anymore. I was just really unhappy being there. I am a person who likes moving and changing my life all the time. I was living in São Paulo with Raf, and I woke up one day and was like, I don’t want to live in this country anymore. I said, I want to move to London. And then Raf was like, You’re mad, but we got married, and then in a year, we got everything together, we broke up with the band, moved to London. Because I think, it’s everyone’s dream to come here, especially if you’re from South America, coming to to a country in Europe, London is the city of rock and roll and punk so it was just this big dream come true. I thought me and Raf are going to get in a band right away, then smash it up together but obviously, that didn’t fucking happen. Did it? It wasn’t until, like, seven years ago when we really started playing just, and it was really hard. I was in hospitality, working fucking endless shifts and it was hard until we could get our shit together and start playing.
E&D: Do you feel that London’s got a similar energy to Brazil?
Thami: I think so, because when we were in Brazil, the scene was pretty good. It was just having a downfall when we left, so many people trying to do the same thing and it became a little bit saturated but yes, the energy was basically the same, full of angry people trying to put it out and having fun!
E&D: You have Jão Ratos from Ratos de Porão playing guitar on your song, ‘New World’s Dirty Legacy’. How was the experience of having him on one of your tracks?
Thami: Yeah, we couldn’t believe it! When we started, it was pretty much just me and Raf, so it was cool. Then we had Edgar joining the band, he’s really well known in Brazil and played with Cockney Rejects too and he was, he was the bridge for Jão and us, he was like, why don’t you invite a guest artist to play, and Raf said, Well, I think Jão will be amazing, but, he will never fucking say yes. Ed was like, Jão is my friend. I can maybe ask him. We were just like, Yeah, whatever, but he said yes! Jão is such a nice guy. You look at him, and you’re like, Yeah, I wouldn’t mess with that guy. But he’s just a teddy bear. He’s just genuinely nice. He said, let me just take a listen to the songs, and he asked Edgar, what’s their political take? Because I really don’t fuck with anyone who voted Bolsonaro. They’re not Bolsonaro, right? Eddie was like, of course, no, okay, fine. Then he heard a song, and he got in touch with us, and then that’s how it all started. and then we became super friends. I think, two years ago, we put a show with Jão, at the Dev. It was Jão and Fantazmaz playing songs from Crucificados pelo Sistema and some really cool covers from punk bands as well. He likes playing and it was really good. Being friends with Jão is like being friends with your fucking heroes!
E&D: You played with Ratos de Porão, as well as Antisect and The Vile recently as well. How did that show go?
Thami: Yeah, it was really nice. I felt like, because we were the first band, I was like, fuck, as we were down to play at 6.15. It was such a nice day outside, no one’s gonna be here, but actually, the turnout was really great. It was full, and it was just fucking nice. We had Jão playing with us, we did ‘Suspect Device’ and it was so cool. It was another special moment for us, having the guy on stage with us. The whole evening, Katia did such a great job putting the gig together, everyone on the bill and the people who came along as well to see the show. It had this really genuine family and friends atmosphere. Dean from Extreme Noise Terror was there as well, he’s a really nice dude. The feeling was really nice. I will always remember that.
E&D: Are you looking forward to your album release show at Helgi’s in London as well?
Thami: Yeah, I’m so excited for it. We had test pressings a couple of weeks ago and it sounds wicked. I’m running around doing loads of bits as well, proofing T-shirts and promoting the gig as well. We’re playing with Reptile Dysfunction, Backstreet Abortions and Shit Stirrers as well. It’s gonna be really cool. It’s just loads of friends and at Helgi’s as well. It’s such a nice venue. I think it’s going to be such a story moment for us as well. Having our album pressed. It’s something that we always had dreams about. With the state of the world, we don’t know what’s gonna happen, let’s just fucking go for it. We have nothing to lose, and it’s something that we always wanted to do, so why the hell not!
E&D: Are you also looking forward to playing the Rebellion festival in August?
Thami: Yeah, we’re gonna do that as well. So excited! I’ve always wanted to play Rebellion, and when we got the email saying that we’ve been selected, I just couldn’t believe it! I was at the strip club, and then I saw the email, and it was, oh my god. I called the guys at like, 3am! It’s incredible!
E&D: Are you’re looking forward to playing songs from the album at your upcoming shows and have you been playing some a while?
Thami: For some time we have been rehearsing a new show with the album songs as well and we are so excited by it. It’s going to be awesome!
E&D: How did you get into punk in the first place?
Thami: I’ve always been a metal girl, always been a metalhead, and Raf has been a punk his whole life, and I think it was pretty much because of him. We met in a band, I was the singer, he was the guitarist, standard, and then he was like, oh, you need to listen to this, and he started giving me Sex Pistols and Ramones albums. I was like, it’s not really as heavy as I like. But then we started exchanging CDs. I started getting to punk, because of him, mainly, but it’s just the energy. Punk is energy, right? a feeling. At some point I was like, this is way better than metal, to be honest, because it’s a lot simpler. I have always been into black metal and some of the black metal bands I really love, I started noticing something similar. I’ve always been more into BM bands that had a punk feel, like Darkthrone and Carpathian Forest, so punk! I start linking things, and then I just got into it really quickly. I got hooked on if pretty quickly, but it was mainly because of Raf.
E&D: Would you like Fantazmaz to play on a bill with black metal bands?
Thami: Yeah, I think so. Maybe some black metal bands that are more punk, nothing, symphonic! I fucking love Cradle Of Filth but I don’t think it would fit. But why not? We are making a few new songs as well, and a couple of tracks we’re working on, have some black metal energy in them.
E&D: So you’re already working on the next album?
Thami: Yeah, slowly. We’ve got like three songs already.
