Ukraine's upstart metallers, Ignea, who recently signed with Napalm Records and, earlier this year, released their third full-length, Dreams Of Lands Unseen, are most certainly a band not to be missed out. With its captivating melodic metal, the band, fronted by amazing vocalist Helle Bohdanova, takes the listeners into the cinematic world. Ignea has already earned its status as a band-to-watch, and the cinematic concept album Dreams Of Lands Unseen exceeds all expectations, inviting the listener to follow them into new worlds. Formed in 2015 under the monicker Parallax, soon changed to Ignea, the band released its debut album, The Sign Of Faith, in 2017. With its sophomore album, The Realms Of Fire And Death, released in 2020, the band has already proved itself one of the bands with a lot to offer. The third (concept) album, Dreams Of Lands Unseen, inspired by the life of Ukrainian photographer and documentarian Sofia Yablonska, delivered a spectacular, modern and dynamic blend of various genres, from symphonic metal to death metal and everything in between. This autumn, the band embarked on a long European tour with the mighty industrial metallers Fear Factory, Butcher Babies, and Ghosts Of Atlantis, and on 19 November, stopped in Roncade (TV), Italy. We were there and had to ask Helle some questions about the new full-length offering and Sofia Yablonska, but we also talked about the war in Ukraine and other things.
Interview with: Helle Bohdanova
Conducted by: Tomaz, Jerneja
Edited by: Jerneja
Tomaz: Hello Helle! Congratulations on the great show you offered us tonight. So, how is the tour going so far?
Helle: The tour has been amazing and very intense because it's a long one - of two months. We've already played one month of it. You have to understand that there's a lot of pre-show work, then the show, and we also have to sell the merch ourselves. It's very intense, and Fear Factory is a huge band, so sometimes we get a very big crowd, like 1000 people. So far, it has been amazing, and all the bands are very friendly. We are very grateful to be on this tour.
Tomaz: On this tour, you are mainly promoting the new album, Dreams Of Lands Unseen, which was released this spring. How are you satisfied with the album about half a year later?
Helle: Interestingly, this album is about Sofia Yablonska and travelling around the world, so until we started to travel with it, it didn't take its shape in full. Now I'm grateful we can play it live because I think this album is meant for stages and maybe for experiencing the travel on its own. I mean, we are in a new place every day, just like Sofia Yablonska was travelling. It all comes together on this tour, and I'm really glad about it. I think that an indicator that this album is good is the fact that we don't get fed up with songs. We like playing them, although we play them every night.
Jerneja: Does Sofia Yablonska have the status of a national heroine or something in Ukraine?
Helle: Unfortunately, not many people know about her, even in Ukraine. That was one of the reasons that I wanted to make an album about her. She was not only an inspiration for me, but it feels very sad that we don't learn about her at school. Pretty much only some of the Ukrainians know about her. It's not fair because she is a very inspirational figure. I read all of her books, and she was a very progressive woman for her time. She also made a footprint in travel photography. She has made the first photos of some tribes in the world but not many people know about them.
Jerneja: What do you think is the main reason she's not more recognized, at least in her native Ukraine?
Helle: The problem we have in Ukraine is that for a very long time, Russia didn't allow us to preserve our history. For example, in the past century, people were killed just for speaking Ukrainian. Also, if you read Sofia's books, she feels it too, although it was the 1930s, and she's been travelling all around the world. It's really hard, because we have been suppressed by Russia all the time, so it's only maybe now, with the war, that we are trying to dig up everything in the past and try to save it for future generations.
Jerneja: how did she die? On one of her trips?
Helle: She spent the rest of her life in France because she had a French husband, and she died there in a car crash, unfortunately. She had been travelling mainly in the 1930s and 1940s, and then she returned to France, where she handled some hotel business or something. She had three kids, and so she lived a happy family life, then she died in a car crash.
Jerneja: Have you had any contact with her grandchildren, considering Ignea dedicated a whole album to their grandmother?
Helle: No. I know they assisted with printing her books in the Ukrainian language, but they are not that active. I also don't want to interfere with their lives because they are not her children, they are her grandchildren, you know. Maybe someday I will, who knows.
Tomaz: This year also marks ten years of the band's existence, so is this tour also, in a way, an anniversary tour for you?
Helle: You know, for us, it's different because although the band has been there for ten years, we haven't toured for five years because of the pandemic and the war. We released some albums in the meantime, but I cannot say we were complete as a band since we didn't tour. That's why I cannot say that it's a proper anniversary. We should have toured last year, but it was impossible. I don't know - we have this "ten" in our minds, but it doesn't feel like "ten"; it feels like "five".
Jerneja: As Parallax, you released only one EP...
Helle: Yes, but I sometimes forget we were called like that. It's still the same band, we just changed the name because we started growing, and we figured out that there are too many bands called like that. For us, it was just a name, and then we figured that the name Ignea was closer to us, and it was a perfect time to change the name.
Jerneja: Ignis is Latin for fire (or light, depending on the context), so Ignea must have something to do with fire...
Helle: Yes, exactly. Ignea is feminine for fire, for example, it could mean fire girl, fire woman, or something like that.
Tomaz: Dreams Of Lands Unseen is your first release via the big Napalm Records. What has changed for you and how by signing with Napalm?
Helle: I think the main change was attention from the media; that's also why we are doing this interview. It's also much better with distribution. Our new album is now sold in physical stores all over the world. You know, Napalm Records has a big name, and when a band is booked for festivals, they pay more attention to you. There are some things where they gave us a bit of advice because they have been on the market for a very long time and have a lot of experience, but what I really like is, that they don't interfere with our music. So, they don't tell us what to write and accept our music as it is. I appreciate it a lot.
Tomaz: How did it come in the first place that you signed with them?
Helle: They just offered us a contract, and that's how the bands today usually got signed with labels. If a band sends an e-mail to a label, it usually goes into the trash bin simply because there are too many bands out there.
Jerneja: Have you had a chance to promote your new album, Dreams Of Lands Unseen, also in Ukraine, considering the war there?
Helle: Yes, we actually played six shows in Ukraine right before this tour, but in Ukraine, it was different. We try to support our army as much as possible since we also have friends on the frontline. All the shows that Ukrainian bands are doing in Ukraine are charity ones. We even went to the cities close to the frontline, like Kharkiv and Dnipro. Yeah, we made a short run, but of course, it's different because in Kharkiv, for example, many people went away from the city, so we played in really small clubs. People really appreciate us coming, and we appreciate, that despite the war, they still come to see us. Ignea is a band that has a bigger fanbase outside Ukraine.
Jerneja: Not many foreign bands or artists have played live in Ukraine since the war started in your country, but there's at least one exception, Rome, who also dedicated its latest album to Ukraine...
Helle: Oh yeah, we also met with Jerome, and we have a huge respect for Rome. It's basically the only band from Europe that properly gave shows and raised so much money for Ukraine. We really like this band, and we've been to its shows. We even played at the same festival in Ukraine this year. We don't have a personal relationship with Jerome but we have a huge respect for Rome. It is great; I saw it also live at a festival on a boat.
Tomaz: And, how difficult is it nowadays for Ukrainian bands to come and play in foreign countries? Namely, many bands from your country have had to cancel their tours or festival appearances.
Helle: It's very complicated. Right now, we are probably the only metal band legally touring Europe. Guys from 18 to 60 years old can get mobilized to fight, so they cannot just leave the country. Last year, it was a bit easier; we got invitations from some festivals and clubs, and the culture minister gave us approval to leave and act as cultural ambassadors. A lot of rules have changed since spring, and because of that, we had to cancel our summer festivals. We were supposed to play at Summer Breeze and Leyendas del Rock, for example, but we had to cancel. Then we spent two months to get all the necessary documents. It's just very hard and complicated, and during this process, the guys from the band could easily get mobilized to fight; that's the main problem. I hope that the Ukrainian government understands that we need to be here to speak about the war because even in some parts of Ukraine, especially in the western part of the country, people forget about it since they are far from the frontline. And Europe keeps forgetting. The problem is that we can't post anything about the war on social media because Facebook and Instagram, for example, block the content and our pages, so we can't post anything. For us, coming here is the only way to talk to people.
Tomaz: But why do you think they block posts of Ukrainian people? I assume they are of morale-lifting content...
Helle: See, that's the problem that we encounter. We try to scream, but we get silenced all the time. That's why it's very hard, and we have to prove as Ukrainians all the time that it's not us who attacked, but Russians. Although they committed so many crimes, it's still very hard to prove it to the world.
Jerneja: It's sad enough that there are still wars...
Helle: Exactly! I mean, some people thought it would come, but I never imagined that, in the 21st century, I'd be waking up with missiles flying above our heads, explosions and tanks.
Tomaz: And now the war in Gaza took most of the attention from Ukraine...
Helle: That's also a problem. We came to Europe and saw many meetings and strikes in the Palestinian favour. We see that the awareness of the war in Ukraine only goes down and down. The thing is, that if we fall, Russia will be a neighbour of the European Union and trust me, you don't want this neighbour.
Tomaz: It would be great if we didn't have to talk about this subject, but the fact is that there is a war in your country, and you are the first band from Ukraine we met for an interview...
Helle: It's good that you are asking this because interviews are one of the places where we can actually talk about it.
Tomaz: So, how is it living in a country where a war is going on? It's been going on for almost two years (on top of the previous eight years of tension).
Helle: Well, I think it has changed a lot, depending on where you live in Ukraine. If you are close to the frontline and the artillery can hit you, it is very dangerous because you can die at any moment. If you live further from the frontline, you have a better air defence now than, for example, one year ago. In Kyiv, we have air raid alerts pretty much every day. We have some kind of a system, so we know what is coming and how much time we have to hide in the shelter. Also, you have to understand that we still need to keep our economy running. People still have to feed their children, go to work, and study, and that's why it looks pretty much like an ordinary life. When there's an air raid alert, we go to the shelter, and everything stops. Even if the missiles strike somewhere, we have half an hour, and then we have to go back to work. That's all. It's a crazy life, but a problem is also that people from the outside say they don't see a war. We can't post about it, and one hour ago, we had an air raid, and one person was killed. That is how we live.
Tomaz: I hope you won't have to get used to it...
Helle: We already got used to it, and that is scary. It's really scary, but we don't have any other choice, and we already got so far. We are still an independent country, but we need to fight and get our lands back. We need to get more weapons because Russia isn't going anywhere, and it will continue attacking us. That's why we need to get enough weapons to fight them back. The thing is that we don't want anything from Russia, only to stay away from us.
Tomaz: I hope the war will end soon. I hope this for all the wars since they only bring blood and tears, but let's return to music. Tell me, where are the main differences between your new album, Dreams Of Lands Unseen and the previous two?
Helle: I think that the new album is a bit darker, maybe more mysterious and theatrical. We tried to evolve with every new album. For example, our keyboardist writes the music, and I write the lyrics. It took me half a year to study the subject and read all Sofia Yablonska's books and publicity about her. I did proper research and was not just imagining things but thinking through the subject. So, yeah, I don't know, I guess it's an evolution for us.
Tomaz: How is Ignea's compositional process?
Helle: We composed this album before the war started; we were in the middle of the recording in the studio when everything started. Our keyboardist and the band's founder, Evgeny Zhytnyuk, is the main composer. He usually writes all the music, then gives the demos to me, and I start thinking about the album's theme. Then I write the lyrics, and sometimes I also write the vocal melodies. Sometimes Evgeny gives me small parts of songs, and I try to shuffle them around and maybe try to build a structure of the song. It is how it usually goes. We don't really need to practice all of us together to make new music. We start rehearsing together before the shows or before recording in the studio.
Jerneja: Thank you, Helle, for everything you shared with us. I wish for Ignea and all Ukrainian bands to be able to live a proper "band life" soon, composing and performing music without political obstacles and fear for life. Enjoy the rest of the tour!
Helle: Thank you for having me at this interview. We are very glad to be on this tour. Next year, we are playing at a few festivals that will be announced soon, including Wacken and Summer Breeze, so I hope we will have a chance to meet again, and maybe more people will discover our music. Keep on supporting Ukraine, and keep an eye on what's happening. I mean, even just reading the news about what's happening in Ukraine means a lot to us. Don't forget that we are there fighting for peace in Europe.
Live photos by: Tomaz
Ignea line-up:
Helle Bohdanova - vocals
Yevhenii Zhytniuk - keys
Dmytro Vinnichenko - guitars
Oleksandr Kamyshyn - bass guitars
Ivan Kholmohorov - drums
Ignea links: Official Website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
