10 Quick Ones with FREDDY SPERA of CREJUVENT – October 2017

According to a recent press release: “On July 1, 2017, the world will be blessed with a spectacular musical gift: session metalhead Freddy Spera will be releasing Crejuvent‘s self-produced and highly anticipated debut, Time EP! Packed with 5 face meltingly heavy tracks GUARANTEED to blow minds of all ages,this is one release you will not want to miss! Along with the EP, Crejuvent will be releasing a lyric video for the title track “Time”.” We get Freddy to answer our 10 Quick Ones about new music, his influences, and more…

1. Tell us a little about your latest release.  What might a fan or listener not grab the first or second time they listen through?  Are there any hidden nuggets the band put in the material or that only diehard fans might find?

Crejuvent’s latest release was its debut EP, Time. It’s jam packed with 5 tracks of unadulterated confusion and cacophony. The songs are a culmination of everything I love in heavy music, resulting in a heavy sound sprinkled with experimental elements. It’s great. As far as hidden nuggets, I wouldn’t necessarily say there’s anything hidden, but there were a few elements that I really wanted to include that might not shine through as much, and maybe a few trivial bits here and there. Like the little breakdown in “Malicious Clouds” is a complete rip-off of the breakdown in “Love?” By Strapping Young Lad, and its followed by a section where I automated the pitch of the keyboards like a madman, but I made them so quiet that you can JUUUST about hear the automation! I reused some of the riffs in the opening track “Fuck This Shit” a few times in “Time” and in “Malicious Clouds,” you could consider that a sort of hidden nugget maybe?

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?

Well I’ve always sort of played music since I was young, but I only started to take it seriously when I picked up the bass guitar at about the age of 14. I was just getting into stuff like Korn, Slipknot, Mudvayne, stuff like that, so I just started wanting to learn those songs. You could say teenage hormones and confusion are what got me into music and what made me realize I wanted to be a musician. Before that I wanted to get into the gaming industry as a programmer or some shit, but I could barely pass physics and maths so I thought “fuck it”.

3. Who would be your main five musical influences?

Oh, I like that you asked for five of them, that’s a good number. Devin Townsend, Ryan Martinie, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pavarotti, and Jaco Pastorius. Probably in that order, and all for different reasons.

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be?

Hmm, I’d want somebody that really thinks outside the box and that can contribute something I couldn’t. I’d love to work on something with a more industrial sound, something unnecessarily heavy and in your face but with loads of synths and shit. I once saw this Italian band called Germanotta Youth, I feel like someone with that sort of energy would be awesome to work with! I’ve been getting into Static-X again lately (I don’t think I’ve heard their music since I was about 17) and it would have been awesome to work with someone with the song writing skills and synth-based background that Wayne had!

5. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before?

I always think it’s weird for artists and musicians to describe their own music, because it’s always going to sound different to them than it will to a listener. I would describe it as one giant musical vomit, as a carefully arranged collection of really disgusting ideas and thoughts. I would describe it as having really awesome sex with an ugly person. I would describe the sound as a smooth flowing yet heavy bout of diarrhea. I don’t know. How would YOU describe it?

6. What’s the best thing about being a musician?

Travelling loads for gigs is pretty cool. I got to see a lot of the country just from driving from gig to gig. It also allows me to sort of exercise a degree of expertise in other areas: marketing, engineering, networking, whatever. Other than that, it’s pretty bleak and depressing. Which is perfect for someone with such a strong sense of cynicism and shitty sense of humour such as myself.

7. When the band are all hanging out together, who cooks; who gets the drinks in; and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

Considering this is a solo project, I would be doing all of those. However, even in my other bands I would be the one doing all of those things. I fucking loooove cooking and am really good at it, I fucking loooooove drinking and am really good at it also, and I looooooove singing about farts and stuff and am pretty mediocre at it.

8. If you weren’t a musician, what would be your dream job?

Gigolo. Like a high class male escort for really hot and rich powerful women who just need an accompanying significant other for important business events and a quick fuck. Or some sort of luthier living in a tiny village somewhere obscure in the mountains, building high end guitars for awesome musicians and working with wood all day. Those are the only two things with absolutely zero middle ground.

9. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep or you would like to have a “do over”?

Eh, not particularly. If I had a do-over then it would have to be with the knowledge that I have now, which wouldn’t make much sense because then I wouldn’t have made the mistake that taught me the lesson in the first place, you know? I think people are too afraid to make mistakes so they don’t try to do shit, but that’s the best way to go about learning shit is to constantly fuck it up. Any mistakes I made in the past I learned from and am applying that knowledge now. If I could have a randomized “do over” in life however, absolutely, hopefully I’ll grow up as someone who’s not so dead inside.

10. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

The obvious choice would be whatever the top selling album of all time is so I can rake in the royalties (I think it’s Thriller?). But personally I’d pick either Alien by Strapping Young Lad, October Rust by Type O Negative, or Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Alien is just the heaviest and most unique metal album I’ve ever heard and every song in it is immense. I also saw the 20 minute making-of video and the whole process looked like so much fun and was interesting as all hell. October Rust because it’s such a perfect album: the sonic landscape they created is so absurdly unique, yet the whole album perfectly encapsulates the feeling of autumn, I would have loved to see how the whole album came about. And of course Blood Sugar Sex Magik because I mean come on! After reading Anthony Keidis’ autobiography and watching the documentary on the making of the album how could somebody NOT want to be part of the recording?

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Category: Interviews