KOBI FARHI: 'It's A Nightmare To Make An ORPHANED LAND Album'

Matt Mills of Antihero Magazine conducted an interview with frontman Kobi Farhi of Israeli progressive folk metallers ORPHANED LAND prior to the band's appearance at Bloodstock Open Air, which was held August 10-12 in Catton Park, Derbyshire, United Kingdom. You can watch the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the writing process for their new "Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs" studio album:

Kobi: "It takes a long time. If you take our career, it's been for 27 years now and we've only done six studio albums. It takes us a lot of time and it takes me a lot of time to find the concept. Once we do that, we have a lot of layers and ways that we want to tell the story. It takes us ages and ages to do that, but once we get that album, you can feel the richness of that album. You can still find new things on the 20th time that you're listening to the album. Probably that's the way we're doing albums. We don't do them very often, but once we do them, it's very long, it's very layered and full of richness and stuff like that. So, it takes us a lot of time. It's a nightmare to make an ORPHANED LAND album, but in the end, I hope it's worth it."

On the response to "Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs":

Kobi: "It was a great response both from the fans and the media. We have received album of the month in many magazines and a lot of our fans really connected with this album, they felt like it's a combination of the latest album, 'All Is One', together with the concept albums we did in the past like 'Mabool [The Story Of The Three Sons Of Seven]' and ['The Never Ending Way Of] ORwarriOR'. We felt like we touched a point where we reached a new level with our music and the response was and still is amazing, so I'm very happy about it. I think it's our best album, if you ask me."

On what kind of concepts ORPHANED LAND would like to explore with future albums:

Kobi: "It's very hard to tell. I mean, if I would have those concepts in my drawer, I would do many more albums, more frequently. It's always very hard to find a concept and the angle for which we want to do it. Maybe that's one of the reasons we've only done six studio albums in 27 years. The guys are composing all the time, but in order to put it into a concept and build it like a puzzle, you need the concepts, you need the themes, where it begins, how does it develop, where is it ending? So, yeah, it's hard and I'm the one to blame, sorry. [Laughs]"

On Israel's heavy metal scene:

Kobi: "The heavy metal scene in Israel is amazing. You have a whole lot of bands from all styles, bands with female vocals, like SCARDUST and black metal bands like ARALLU and WINTERHORDE, death metal bands or core bands like SHREDDED. There are many bands from all styles. The scene is very rich; bands are coming to play Israel, MEGADETH, METALLICA, we just played with OZZY OSBOURNE in Israel. The scene is very rich; people are flying all the way for Wacken, Bloodstock, Hellfest. Yeah, it's a very intense area, so I think metal music is very popular probably, for us as well."

On the censoring of certain words on "Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs":

Kobi: "We did it as part of the concept. It wasn't anything done by the label or by the censors. We did it as a conceptual joke because sometimes you bleep the word 'dick,' but then, look at the television. Frank Zappa said 'There are no bad words.' If the word 'dick' is being used, it's the perfect way to describe what you wanted to say. You cannot bleep words, you cannot bleep censor words, it's useless. Look what's going on in our world. What are you trying to censor? Kids from hearing the word 'dick'? Look at their cellphone: they can go to YouPorn at any second. It was something we did as a criticism and a joke of how ridiculous it is. It's part of the music; it's a sound. It's part of the music. When I do it onstage, the word 'dick' comes in, I'm growling 'dick'. It's no problem."

"Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs" was released on January 26 via Century Media. The band recently completed a North American tour alongside TÝR, GHOST SHIP OCTAVIUS and AETERNAM.