Twisted. Bizarre. Uniquely unhinged. That's the soundscape conjured by Extize - the Franco-German outfit that welds dark electro, industrial, techno, darkwave, cyberpunk, and EBM into one genre-busting sonic monster. Founded in 2007 by the enigmatic Rapha Hell, Extize isn't just a band - it's a fever dream pulsing with raw, dancefloor-ready energy. With nine studio albums, a remix record, a bilingual audiobook, seven EPs, a barrage of singles, and countless collaborations, Extize has built an empire of electrified madness. Plus, it has scorched stages at Europe's premier dark festivals - M'era Luna, Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Amphi, Castle Party, and European Dark Dance Treffen - leaving scorched earth and euphoric crowds in its wake. Its latest full-blown tour with Combichrist wasn't just a success - it was a riot in boots and eyeliner. Extize knows how to throw a rave like a ritual. Its hypnotic beats, razor-sharp visuals, and anarchic stage presence don't ask for your attention - they snatch it and drag it to the dancefloor, kicking and grinning. Its latest opus, DeLorean 666, dropped in May via darkTunes Music Group, is no mere album. It's a warp-speed joyride through time and chaos, soaked in sweat, sound, and shadow. Dance with druids under pagan moons, spark revolts with medieval knights, mosh with nu-metal misfits, and hustle with disco-goth royalty. Neon-soaked 80s clubs collapse into glitching techno carnivals, and Beethoven spins vinyl at an underground rave. No era survives intact. We nabbed Rapha for a chat a few hours before his performance in Ljubljana. Curious about the Extize multiverse? Strap in - this interview is your portal.

Interview with: Rapha Hell
Conducted by: Tomaz, Jerneja
Edited by: Jerneja

Tomaz: Hello, Raphael. Firstly, congratulations on the new album, DeLorean 666. The album is conceptual and something special - what inspired you to create such a unique work?
Rapha: Good question. The concept of my Extize project is to do something different with each album. I hate doing the same thing twice, so each album has its own concept. For DeLorean 666, I re-watched the movie Back To The Future and said to myself, "Let's try to do something with time travel and something that challenges me". The concept of the album is a mix of industrial, electro, and darkwave with a specific era genre. OK, I had no idea how to play Viking or swing music, so I chose this concept because I like challenges.

Tomaz: I'm sure it wasn't easy... but which song was the most difficult for you to work on?
Rapha: I guess it was the Viking song, "Techno Viking". First of all, for each song, I had to listen to what the essence of the particular genre was. There's an Elvis rock'n'roll song, there's a classical music song, a Celtic song, a Viking song and so on, so I had to listen to a lot of music to understand what the essence of each was. The Viking song was extremely difficult because I had to find all these plug-ins with old Viking instruments. They have very specific sounds, and I had to do a lot of research to find the right instruments for the song. Then I had to find a female guest singer for the song, not just a sample but a real singer, and in the end, it took me a long time to finish the song.

Jerneja: You've released most of DeLorean 666's songs as singles, about one a month (I think I featured all of them on my weekly radio show DARK Unknown), which I think is clever and good for promotion...
Rapha: It's a marketing strategy. I was looking for ways to grow on Spotify, and its algorithm requires you to release a lot of songs on a regular basis. You have to release one song every month to beat Spotify's algorithm, and I tried to release a new single every three weeks. When the album came out, there were still three new songs on it, but my strategy helped me grow on Spotify.

Jerneja: Did you have all the songs ready before you started releasing them?
Rapha: There are two different ways to do it. One way is to work under pressure to finish one song every month. The other way is what I did - I took two months and wrote the entire album. So I wrote the whole album in two months and had everything ready. Then I could focus on the artwork, the videos and things like that. I did the same thing for my previous album, MonStars. I released 13 singles, but I wrote them all in two months.

Jerneja: So there's always something going on with Extize, right?
Rapha: That's the point. Some bands want to take a year or more just to think about an album, and then another year or two to make it, to generate a super high quality. When I make a song, I know I could do it better, but I'm happy with it. It doesn't have to be perfect, and I like it when it's not. That's why I can make it that way.

Jerneja: And the saddest thing is when they rush to release an album. They put so much time and effort into it, and then they release a single or two (if even) before the album, and it's all over in a month or two... But back to you... I think you have an ear for creating catchy songs, as almost every one is a potential hit.
Rapha: It could be, haha. Yeah, that's why I studied marketing, and I think a lot about how to attract people, so everything is quite catchy. It might be good to think like that, but it can kill creativity because I always think it has to be catchy, it has to be good for the club. For Extize, it's fine, but for other bands, it can kill creativity.

Tomaz: There's also a song on the album that you probably made primarily for your soul, "Nu Metal Saved Me"...
Rapha: Yeah, I grew up with nu-metal. Actually, to be honest, I always wanted to start a metal band. I can play a little bit of every instrument, but I'm not good at any of them, so I never really trusted myself to start a metal band. I tried to do that with this song, and I wanted to do it really well. I put a lot of time into this song, although it wasn't hard for me to make it because I grew up with this kind of music. It took a lot of time because I wanted it to sound exactly like the 2000s, but with a modern vibe. So, I went to the studio, and a friend of mine, who's a rock star, coached me on vocals. He pushed me to the limit, so this song is really the limit of my vocal capabilities. It took me one entire day in the studio to record the vocal part. My friend was yelling at me to push it, and now I know where my limit is, and this song is it.

Jerneja: Well, now you can finally start a nu-metal project. We spoke to Christofer from Therion, who told us that he hires musicians who can play instruments better than he can. Maybe this could be an option for you too...
Rapha: That's also a possibility, but it was super important to me to do it myself. I'm thinking of doing a nu-metal EP, just an EP, and if I do that, I'll ask a friend who's much better at guitar, drums, etc., to help me with it.

Tomaz: So, how did you end up in electro-industrial music, considering you grew up with metal music?
Rapha: It's quite related. All the goth musicians, at least in France and Germany, started with metal. I've always liked electronic music. Before I started listening to metal, when I was 14, Eurodance was popular in France, and I loved it. Almost everything that was playing on the radio was Eurodance. I like the combination of both; I like everything.

Tomaz: We talked earlier about the strategy you adopted of releasing almost all of your singles before the album comes out, and I see that this is a common thing at darkTunes Music Group. Almost all of your clients do the same.
Rapha: Yes, it's true. I use Extize as a test. So, I test a marketing strategy and if it doesn't work, I don't care because it's my band, and when something works, I also do it with other bands/artists. My day job is running a music label called darkTunes Music Group, where I work with 50 bands.

Jerneja: I guess not many people know that you are also the founder and owner of darkTunes Music Group, which introduces itself with: "More than just a label, we are a creative powerhouse dedicated to alternative music genres such as gothic, metal, darkpop, synthpop, rock, electro, and industrial".
Rapha: Because I don't shout it around, haha. At darkTunes, I make about 60% gothic music and 40% metal, and some metal bands when they see Extize, they're like, "And this guy does serious work? No, that can't be". Haha, because Extize is a bit ridiculous, so I don't tell everyone that I'm also the boss of the label. I have some freelancers who help me with that, because it's a lot of work. I was on my own at the beginning, but now I have some great people who help me with design and stuff like that. There's an artist at the label, I think you know C Z A R I N A, and she's currently running the label, now that I'm on tour.

Tomaz: Extize, with which you have released nine albums (already including the upcoming album DeLorean 666) has existed since 2007. But it is not your only musical project – there is also Basszilla, whose music I find somehow strange.
Rapha: I think I started seriously with Extize in 2009. OK, Basszilla is a complex one. It's a kind of death rave or... I don't know what to call it. One day I wanted to make some mainstream electro music and I played it to some friends who said it was damn good, so I recorded an album in two weeks. It was super easy, no vocals. I didn't think about marketing, I just did it. I didn't care if it was good for the club or not. Then the boss of Wave Gothic Treffen called me and said he wanted me to play there. I said OK, but it's not gothic music. He said, "I know and I don't care. You're going to party on stage and that's all I want". Yeah, and I did a show with Basszilla on WGT, and then nothing for four years, until this year when he called me and wanted Basszilla again. Since I hadn't released anything new since then, he told me to write some new music, and so I did. I wrote five songs in three days.

Jerneja: You've also had some really good collaborations with Her Own World, Circuit Preacher, Omnimar, C Z A R I N A,...
Rapha: Yes, I've been collaborating a lot lately, I almost forgot who it was all with. I'm trying to make the artists on darkTunes like a family, and not all of them, but most of them do help each other out. That's my vision for darkTunes. I've also collaborated with Antibody, Binary Division, and we're going to release a song by Extize and Basszilla featuring Agnis. I'm already working on some other collaborations with artists from the label. Extize is currently ranked pretty high on Spotify, so I'm trying to help other artists on the label use my height to climb higher.

Tomaz: And how do you like such collaborations?
Rapha: I love it. I love it when I make the music and ask someone else to do the lyrics, vocals, etc. To be honest, I don't like writing the lyrics. That's why collaborations are super cool because I write the music, they write the lyrics, vocals, and I usually add some backing vocals.

Tomaz: There is one artist on your label that I especially like, Omnimar from Russia, and I'm wondering when we can expect her new album.
Rapha: Oh, it's complicated. Omnimar creates high-quality music, so it takes a long time to prepare an album. We're working on a few singles right now, but I really hope that next year there will be a new album. It depends on her, he producers and many other things. She lives in Russia, she has a family there, so she can't leave. The situation with Russia has been complicated lately, but we're holding on.

Tomaz: We've met quite a few musicians and people in the music industry who are against Russian artists if they don't openly condemn the Russian regime. Have you ever had similar problems?
Rapha: No, we never had any problems because the musicians know each other, they also know Omnimar and some other Russian bands, everyone is cool together, and there is no politics. We don't discuss politics, and that's good for all artists. Yeah, that's life. We can't do anything, but there is no hatred.

Jerneja: Will your fans have the opportunity to see you at any festivals this year?
Rapha: Unfortunately, not. There will be no festivals for Extize this year because it played all the festivals last year. Especially in Germany, if you've played a festival, you have to wait at least two years before you can play the same festival again. OK, I'll have one festival this year, but it'll be the end of the year, and I can't announce it yet. The only thing I can say is that it will be a Christmas festival in Germany.

Tomaz: Do you prefer playing at festivals or in clubs?
Rapha: Oh, it depends. I like to play anywhere, I just need a little space on stage. I like that. I don't care if there are three people or 3000, I always like to be on stage, but I need my space; I like to move around a lot.

Tomaz: In one of your live videos, I saw that you had a very theatrical stage performance with many dancers and performers surrounding you.
Rapha: Yes, but not this time. The dancers are not on this tour with me. This time, there are only two of us on stage for the club shows. But yeah, at festival shows I usually have two or five dancers, plus four members of Extize, a lot of specials, but for the club it's not possible, especially not for this tour. At a club show with four bands, there's just not enough space, but we still have fun, and so far, we've always gotten people to have fun with us.

Jerneja: And what's the next step for you now?
Rapha: I've already started writing the next concept album for Extize, and I'm also working on a nu-metal EP. The nu-metal EP will be released under the Extize monicker, like the DeLorean 666 song, but with only three or four songs, because that's what I want. Then that's all concerning "nu-metal-Extize". After that, I'll go back to electro. I already have a concept for the next album, and it'll be a story about a romance between an alien and a human. The album will be a little more darkwave - a kind of industrial-darkwave music.

Jerneja: Thank you for revealing so much to us and for your time, Raphael. Is there anything else you would like to say to your fans and our readers?
Rapha: Thank you for giving so much love to the underground scene. Especially people like you, the media, DJs, radio stations, promoters and fans, who continue to spread this scene.

Live photos by Tomaz Vogric

Extize links: Facebook, darkTunes, Bandcamp, Instagram