Talking Grindcore, ‘Alienated Despair’ and BORIS JOHNSON with IMPLORE Frontman Gabriel Dubko

Multi-cultural grinders Implore release their crushing new album, Alienated Despair, through Century Media Records this week (Friday, September 27th, to be exact) so we spoke to vocalist Gabriel Dubko about the recording, the DIY scene, and getting to work with one of his biggest influences, Tomas Lindberg.

Thanks for your time, you’re gearing up for the new album, what can you tell us about Alienated Despair?
Gabriel Dubko: Thank you for your questions! We are totally excited and confident about the new record, we are really happy with the outcome and waiting to take it on stage by the end of September. It’s quite visceral and the real anatomy of who we are, has attitude and the right dose of grind, punk and death.

Implore are described as an “international” grindcore band. What are the pros and cons about being located in different cities?
Dubko: Now we are split between Germany and Austria, up until April we were split in 4 different countries. It’s not so hard with the tools available nowadays. We chat about the future plans and we have a chat room where we discuss all production, merch, logistics and different topics separately. Pros are that we belong to different local scenes and we have a lot of friends in many countries. Cons… we have to wait until the scheduled days of meeting to do things that can’t be solved online.

How does that work for things like rehearsing, talking about new music, writing?
Dubko: We practice before shows and we write music when we have a new release in sight, we work ideas on our own and then we work them together. But 3 of us are currently living together so it’s way easier in that sense, we spend more time together than it seems.

How much help does the internet and the fact that you don’t have to be in the same room anymore help?
Dubko: Sending each other’s demos is super easy, or even vocal messages on WhatsApp with a new riff. We are absolutely not a computer band. We work face to face, but it’s easy to get the idea of things by exchanging files online.

How would we describe Alienated Despair? Well, we think “All Consuming Filth” just about sums it up:

You come from a DIY background, what is your local scene like and how did you get involved in it?
Dubko: The DIY scene in Linz, Austria is pretty cool, lots of good bands, cool people and active venues like kapu or Ann and pat. Also two of us live/d in Germany and we are involved in the scene there. I personally attended to 3-4 shows per week when I moved to Hamburg in 2013 so, by the time Implore started playing shows in Hamburg, I was already very familiar with the local scene.

Given that you’re located in different parts of the world, what are your long terms goals for the band?
Dubko: Thinking of long-term goals is impossible for us, we set short term goals and things that we can achieve realistically. We don’t wanna waste time thinking on the “what if.” As for now we just wanna get the play tours in countries like the US and Canada in 2020. I only see life in terms of half year to half year. The end of 2019 is full and we are working on next year’s spring. Step by step. Our general long term goal is to keep writing and playing music for as long as it’s possible, but you need to work on those short term goals to get there.

Going back to your DIY scene, are there any bands you recommend we should be checking out?
Dubko: From Linz Withers, Discure, Six Score, Distaste, Atta (RIP), Heckspoiler, Spirit Desire. Also Petro (our guitarist) is originally from Barcelona and there’s a lot of good bands from there worth checking out, as example Crisix, Syberia, Obsidian Kingdom, Ósserp.

The DIY scene from my time was tape-trading, fanzines, word-of-mouth, do you think the accessibility of music via the internet has helped or hindered the scene?
Dubko: MySpace put everyone online and made easier for bands to engage with the audience, now you can be a rockstar without playing in a band if you are an Instagrammer and people care about every fart you post. I still strongly believe that no matter how many followers you have on the socials or how cool your videos are, the real deal is out there on the stage, on the road, playing a fucking Tuesday in Arkhangelsk in the Russian White Sea. Spending countless hours sitting in the van dealing with the hard reality of trying to live the dream and having to take care of the life you leave in the “harbor” and may not be the same when you come back from the tour. Technology helped increase the amount of bands but not the quality of the scene, you hardly see teenagers at shows anymore, are they not pissed off about the world? Do they have any anger to burn? People valued more the scene in the past.

Implore release their new album, Alienated Despair, on September 27, 2019, through Century Media and you can pre-order your copy of this beast of a record right here.

Onto the album, you worked with Tomas Lindberg on one track, what was that like and is he a big influence on you as a musician?
Dubko: That was my idea (Gabriel vocals) I’m a fan of Tomas career and he’s definitely someone I look up to be like one day, to be on your late 40s and still be able to tour a lot and do what you love is my ultimate goal. I’m a big fan of At the Gates, Lock Up (I know he’s not in the band anymore) and of course Disfear, so when the song “Never Again” was done I really pushed to get him to do guest vocals on it, the outcome was really good!

Politics and society are play a big part in your lyrics/music. When did you first become exposed to politics and what do you get out of writing your thoughts and feelings down and getting to air them through your band ?
Dubko: I was thinking about it some days ago cause I came across a picture of my very first gig in 2002 when I was 14 years old. I remember singing lyrics about anti-capitalism and politics, what can a 14 year old say about it? When skateboarding and PlayStation were life to me [laughs], it’s kinda funny looking back as I’m not really sure if I knew what I was saying back then. Jokes aside, I started to learn about it back then. There were things that pissed me off and I didn’t understand much. Maybe my 4th grade history teacher did a good job and I paid attention to his class, I understood fascism and its effect on society and how it was always out there to serve corporations. The new album is not focused much on society itself or politics, rather on the effects of it on us individually. Specially for this generation who is completely hopeless.

Aside from the two albums released so far, you’ve done a number of split releases. Are there any artists you would particularly like to work with?
Dubko: We have a split with ACXDC only, cause we did a couple of tours together in 2014 and 2016. There are so many bands friends of us that would be awesome to put out a split with but, for now, we are not thinking much about it.

Gabriel got to work with a massive influence in Tomas Lindberg and you can hear the end result on the crushing track “Never Again”:

In terms of lyrical direction, are there any particular bands out there that you feel Implore align themselves with?
Dubko: I could say I like the way Anthony lucero (Cult Leader) for his simplistic way and short lyrics on long songs, he’s very graphic yet clear and gives room to own interpretation and Ryan McKenney (Trap Them) he wrote mainly in first person and always found a way to empathize with his lyrics, also Jason Netherton from Misery Index is a great lyricist, he’s a smart dude with a degree in politics and knows a lot about it, I got influenced by his lyrics and also by Assuck, that I’m sure he also took some influence from, and Travis Ryan from Cattle Decapitation, he’s a funny colorful guy, he can make the best rhymes and playful lines with topics like “hating mankind.”

Given your political influence, it would be hard not to ask your opinions on the UK’s new Prime Minister Boris Johnson?
Dubko: He looks like he could be a Monty Python character, I don’t have a strong opinion about him cause I don’t know much honestly. I haven’t been paying attention to the political situation in the UK, I know he’s in favor of the brexit so I don’t think he’d get my sympathy.

Finally, the album is out at the end of September, what are your plans after that in terms of promoting it?
Dubko: Tour the fuck out of that album, as much as possible, as further as possible and as loud as possible! The second single will be out in a couple of weeks and we will put a video clip in September.

The band will be hitting the road in September through October to support the release of the album.

Upcoming Tour Dates:

09/27 – Munich – Backstage
09/28 – Würzburg – Immerhin
09/29 – Weimar – Gerber 3
09/30 – Hasselt – Café de Witte Non
10/01 – Le Havre – The McDaids
10/02 – Rennes – Mondo Bizarro
10/03 – Secret Show
10/04 – Paris – Le Klub
10/05 – Wuppertal – AZ
10/06 – Frankfurt a.M – Klapperfeld
10/07 – Bern – Cafete
10/08 – Zurich – Werk21
10/09 – Chiuppano – Bar Castello
10/10 – Graz – Sub
10/11 – Vienna – EKH
10/12 – Linz – Kapu