In this interview, we had the opportunity to speak with members of Vendel, an epic heavy/doom metal band from Moscow that has been carrying the torch for old-school metal since 2015. Vendel has steadily built a dedicated following through their distinct blend of epic melodies and doom-laden heaviness, drawing influence from classic bands like Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus, and Manilla Road. Their debut full-length album, Out in the Fields, marks a milestone in their journey, showcasing their refined songwriting and powerful, immersive sound.

In this discussion, members Sergey K and Lasha dive into the origins of Vendel, their influences, the challenges of being a metal band in Russia, and their approach to making music. They also reflect on their latest album, the creative process behind it, and what the future holds for the band.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into the world of Vendel.

TheNwothm: Can you introduce Vendel to those who may not be familiar with the band?

Lasha: Hi! Vendel is an epic heavy/doom metal from Moscow formed in 2015.

TheNwothm: How did the current lineup come together, and what were the initial inspirations behind forming Vendel?

Sergey K: We have been friends with our drummer Sergey Skorodumov for decades and played music together since late 2000s, then our ways split for a few years but we accidentally met at our friend’s party where decided to start a brand new heavy metal band which was some sort a reversal from the music we used to play with our prior bands (mostly hardcore and punk). Then Lasha, the bassist, my old friend with whom we constantly hung around, joined the ship and we started to jam our earliest version of the songs which became our first EP later. But it became the band like it is now only when two more members joined the it- Lasha will follow with his vision next.

Lasha: Some of us were members of other bands in other hardcore/metal genres and good friends before Vendel. We were huge fans of doom metal in almost all of its old-school iterations. Together with Sergey Kargalskiy and Sergey Skorodumov we started a band with our old line-up. After 2 years of non-stop smoking pot and playing doom, we have replenished our ranks with David Kazaryan and Alexey Goryachev, and started to focus more on a music and recordings than before.

TheNwothm: Were there any specific bands or musical movements that influenced your decision to pursue epic heavy/doom metal?

Lasha: Of course, like I said it was old-school doom/heavy in all of its variety: Solstice, Candlemass, Pentagram, Saint Vitus, Scald, Solitude Aeturnus, Pagan Altar, Witchfinder General, Manilla Road, Iron Maiden, Mercyful Fate, Bathory, of course Black Sabbath and many other bands that we all love.

Sergey K: I just love old school metal’s melodism, initial sound, song writing attitude and the visual aesthetics, too. I’ve never been into black metal or death metal much, so traditional heavy metal (and doom metal as its groovier form) was some sort of fresh air after years of hardcore punk noise not music haha. I have always preferred rock and roll  sound and vibe to blastbeats, over-distortioned guitars, lyrics dedicated to guts and gore  and other “newer” metal stuff which is mostly shit to my ear. So there was the only way for me I guess.

TheNwothm: Being based in Moscow, how has the local metal scene influenced your music and opportunities as a band?

Sergey K: At that time when we started I was very active in the local hardcore punk / metal community, but time flew, I have always loved old school metal music even more thank punk etc. so I just urged to start a brand new band in a more serious musical way, a new touch to be developed apart from the punk scene.

Lasha: Actually there wasn’t any influence on us, because we were on our own, playing metal genre, which isn’t so popular here. Except Scald, we always acknowledged them, and listened their recordings and lives many times. We play gigs together with our friends and their bands like Deathwind, Iron Driver, Unholy Night etc but they play in other metal genres.

TheNwothm: Are there any unique challenges or advantages you’ve encountered as a metal band in Russia?

Lasha: I don’t know how to describe some parts of our story as an advantage or a challenge, we just do what we do, and we like every part of that process. You may call challenge that we do everything ourselves, sometimes even gigs, or that we make too long breaks at rehearsals, or start making some new  recordings, which is always a huge process yeah, that was definitely a challenge haha.

TheNwothm: What first got you into heavy/doom metal, and how did your personal journey in music begin?

Sergey K:  I’ve been into Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s stuff since my early years, thanks to my family. And I got keen on doom metal while was on tour Europe with my older band called Fatum (I started playing crossover/hardcore punk stuff in the mid 2000s first, as mentioned above). 

Our tour driver and the guy who managed the whole tour that time, Arne Rouckhout (now a member of an infamous german metal band DOLCH) introduced me into bands like Saint Vitus and Trouble while we were driving down european highways… I was blown away, and obviously I wanted to start playing the same shit straight away I’d heard stuff like that. 

Apart of that I’d always loved NWOBHM stuff like Iron Maiden, Saxon and more underground bands like Manilla Road and Omen. The next year we were touring Europe again, where we met with Lasha, who was on his own vacation journey and we both decided to start the band as soon as we both got home. It was late 2015.

Lasha: I got there through epic doom. Suddenly I found out that it could be as epic as Iron Maiden and as cool as Black Sabbath. There were Candlemass and Solstice. It was love at first listen, and still is.

TheNwothm: Your first EP, “Vendel” (2017), and “Dirge” (2019) set the foundation for your sound. How do you think your music has evolved since then?

Sergey K: We’ve just matured a lot since then, gradually polishing our songwriting, music production, skills and studio work, slowly but steadily!Basically we created our own style of epic-doom metal at the very beginning of the band, so the initial basis was right there just to grow and develop.

Lasha: We don’t change on some purpose. If we do, it’s because we’re constantly listening to something and try something new, but everything is within our concept. Or we just got better at playing our instruments, haha.

TheNwothm: The “Vendel / Dirge” compilation (2020) brought your early work together. What was the motivation behind this release?

Lasha: Our early releases were released in Russia and sold out pretty quickly, people wanted our songs on a vinyl record, and Alone Records just offered us to make this compilation.

TheNwothm: When you’re not making music, what are some of your hobbies or interests?

Sergey K: Harley-Davidson chopper motorcycles, running them all over the country and basically living on ’em during warm season of a year. During the colder it and its about 6 months there’s bikes’ a customising process, building choppers!  Partying, hanging around with women, travelling, reading historical stuff, drinking booze could be mentioned as regular activities, too. And regular jobs of course haha.

Lasha: Oh, that’s differ a little bit between our members. Mine are mostly riding and touring rigid Harleys, boxing, smoking pot, playing hell of a lot of games, and some other minor activities. Sometimes I can dive in science of something, it may take months, but I will eventually figure out what I wanted to know in detail. Some interests overlap between the guys, some don’t.

TheNwothm: If you could collaborate with any musician, past or present, who would it be and why?

Sergey K: That definitely would be Scott Wino Weinrich (The Obsessed, Saint Vitus, Spirit Caravan etc.) – just love his music and respect this genuine underground hard rock legend. From the passed ones… Phil Lynnott  – The Rock God himself. (Should I write about Lemmy haha? Too obvious answer)

Lasha: I should pick only one? That’s extremely hard. Ok, because I’m a bass player I’ll probably pick Steve Harris.

TheNwothm: If you could transport yourself to any historical battle or event that inspired your lyrics, where would you go, and why?

Sergey K: I don’t care about any historical battles, would be better to transport my motorbike and myself to some desert highway right now, haha!

Lasha: That would be Battle of Bravellir. This battle and whole story of Sigurd Ring and Harald Battletooth inspired lyrics to Out in the Fields. I wanna see how mith differs from real life.

TheNwothm: “Out in the Fields” marks your debut full-length release. How does it represent the evolution of Vendel’s sound?

Lasha: Songwriting, recording, sound, everything is the same, but just got better.

Sergey K: It could be easily compared with our previous releases. The growth’s and maturing progress are right there, just in an every second of the album if to compare with the prior EPs!

TheNwothm: What was the creative and recording process like for this album? Did you encounter any challenges or surprises along the way?

Sergey K: Well, due to some different circumstances and just overall – we’ve spent several years in the studio to have it all done ha-ha, basically we had all these live rehearsal versions of the songs we played at the gigs together with two tracks had been released previously to become an album, but it was a huge challenge to put everything in a studio album’s form, to avoid instruments’ parts conflicts here and there since the musical component was just HUGE, it took us a lot of time to re-record some instruments here and there, mending everything in the way we wanted the album to sound, and I’m sure it was all worth it and we achieved our initial purpose.

Lasha: Our perfectionism was quite a surprise. In a way, that we overdid it, haha. It took us too much time to have this record done, now we are more conservative in this aspect.

TheNwothm: Can you walk us through the songwriting process for this album? Did any tracks come together in an unexpected way?

Sergey K:  Our approach is usually team work. So was that with the album, too. We combined the riffs written either by myself or by David, or even by Sergey the drummer who brought some to become the opening part of the title track “Out in the Fields”. Lasha contributed  to the rhythmic parts for the drum and bass lines or just by bringing some tunes for riffs. At first we did a main body of each song altogether. Then AG came with the finished lyrics (I did all the lyrics for the album so the topics of each song also mattered a lot to us since it was a conceptual album dedicated to a certain era/period of history) and then  put the vocals parts usually  from the very first attempt, most of the times for most of the songs. He is a HUGE professional. Due to the usual formula of Vendel’s music  our tracks just could not be shorter and it was always taking a shitload of time for some of the tracks to come up the best way we could produce it. For example

“Vengeance”  had been in work for 1,5-2 years before it became that version you can hear on the album. Despite that, I also had some tracks written at once just from the first attempt, first second of the tune like it was with “Never Surrender”. It took us several years to come up with all the material for the debut album, prepare it and so on. And the main advantage of that material for me was polishing the tracks at our gigs first, they still do have this live vibe to me, but the studio work also has taken its toll. For good, I believe.

TheNwothm: The album was released through Dying Victims Productions. How did that collaboration come about, and what has the experience been like working with them?

Sergey K: 100% positive experience as Florian is a huge professional and a kind, caring person as well. The release looks and sounds just awesome, we are completely satisfied with our collaboration and its outcome. It came about when we met in person first time at RIDDLE OF STEEL III fest in Germany, we had a nice conversation and he told us that he has a label and would be interested to work with us, we were just totally happy to work with the label like DYING VICTIMS. Straight after that the covid-era struck in and it slowened us down a lot, it basically took us 5 years from our first meet to put out the record itself, we are beyond grateful for Florian’s patience, professionalism and honest work. 

Lasha: When I met Florian at RIDDLE OF STEEL fest, I was already loaded heavily, but we had a nice chat about the music we were making and metal in general. He immediately recognized our new tracks that we played during our set, which hadn’t been  recorded yet, and he wanted us to record a full album and release it on his label. We were more than happy with how it all turned out.

TheNwothm: Do you have any plans for future tours or live performances, either within Russia or internationally?

Lasha: Yes and no, things don’t always go as planned, so we just do what we can do under the circumstances.

Sergey K: Hope to tour as much as possible either inside of the country or abroad, touring is any band’s blood, that’s true to me. I personally miss it a lot… It’s almost impossible to tour internationally for us nowadays. The future will tell.

TheNwothm: Looking ahead, what are Vendel’s plans for new music or upcoming projects? Are there any themes or directions you’re excited to explore?

Sergey K: Well, we have made a few new tracks to be put as our next release a little bit later, we truly enjoy these new tunes, I guess they are still in our doom heavy metal style but maybe more down tuned and doomish than the album, as for the lyrics’ component – you will see it, all in a good time! It will be solid Vendel’s continuation, which is for sure. 

TheNwothm: How can our readers buy your music and merch?

You can buy our latest record via DYING VICTIMS RECORDS 

Sergey K: Unfortunately we are unable to ship any of our merch items to other countries as well as get payments from abroad for now.

TheNwothm: Where can fans follow you online?

Sergey K: Check our pages at all the usual social medias like FB or Instagram, the links are below.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vendelrussia

Bandcamp: https://vendel.bandcamp.com/

TheNwothm: Anything else you would like to mention?

NEVER SURRENDER AND DON’T GIVE IN!