(Last October the Chilean doom band Capilla Ardiente released their newest album, and it led our Comrade Aleks to conduct an interview with one of the founding members, Claudio Botarro Neira, last fall. Due to our own delays while focusing on year-end traditions, we are late in publishing their very good discussion, but now we do.)
Chilean epic doom band Capilla Ardiente was founded in 2006, and since then its crew gained a proper reputation releasing rare yet remarkable albums. Each of the band’s members is occupied with different tasks and different bands, so each album of Capilla Ardiente is something you need to wait for.
Claudio Botarro Neira (bass), Felipe Plaza Kutzbach (vocals), Francisco Aguirre (drums), Julio Bуrquez (guitar), and Igor Leiva (guitar) know how to play any kind of metal, but the new Capilla Ardiente album Where Gods Live and Men Die released by High Roller Records in October 2024 is a four-song-long epic journey, or rather pilgrimage, to the peaks of doom metal. We got in touch with Claudio, and here’s the interview we conducted.
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Hi Claudio! How are you? How do you deal now with Capilla Ardiente’s release?
Hi there! I´m doing good, thanks. The new album has had great reviews so far and the fanbase here in Chile bought all our vinyl copies in just a couple of weeks, which is amazing and a great indicator. We worked really hard to get the album the way we wanted it to be, from the rehearsal room to recording and artwork, so yes, we are proud and happy.
Five years passed since the release of your previous album The Siege, a truly epic work which attracted a lot of attention. How do you value it now? Did it live up to your expectations?
We love it. The Siege is a landmark album for us, where you can say “we found our Doomed musical path”. I think it has to do with the fact that that was the album when the lineup was complete, and the composition and melodic/harmonic resources show that. As musicians, we are always critical about our outputs, thinking “what if we had done this or that in a different way”, but that’s every musician’s curse, I guess. As an Epic Doom / Heavy Metal fan, The Siege is an album I really love to hear; I enjoy it like if it was written by one of my favorite bands.
So there’s a five-year break between the albums, how long did you actually work over the new songs?
Indeed, we have had a five-year period between each recording: Solve et Coagula (2009), Bravery, Truth and the Endless Darkness (2014), The Siege (2019), and now Where Gods Live and Men Die (2024). No numerology or occult meaning though, it’s just a coincidence. We usually work until our material is strong enough and with enough running time to make a record; composing, decomposing, and recomposing. Adding, cutting and replacing riffs, etc. The process takes extra time also, since each of us has other, “serious” bands besides Capilla Ardiente, like Atomic Aggressor, Poema Arcanvs, Procession, Destroyer 666, and Scald, to name just a few.
From the first view, Where Gods Live and Men Die reminds of The Siege with its structure: four really colossal tracks of epic length, delivered at full capacity. How do you see the differences between the albums?
As I stated before – at least for me – The Siege is the album where we found our way as a five-piece band, and I guess the main difference between both albums is the sound; for Where Gods Live… our guitar player Igor Leiva took care of the pre-production, recording, mixing, and mastering, which made our recorded music get really close to the way we sound in the rehearsal room.
Another “hidden” difference is the content of the lyrics. The last five years – including the pandemic – were years of personal loss for each of the band members, which in a way, is expressed between the words and giving that somber and solemn aura. You can say that The Siege is a sword being sharpened, and Where Gods Live… a broken sword awaiting to be reforged.
Do you always have the main theme of the songs prepared from the start? I mean, do you grow extra meat of leads, bridges, etc., around the solid carcass, or do you tend to build the songs, completing them from different parts as a constructor?
Most of the time I have had the concepts for the next albums ready even when we are in the mixing and mastering stage. I write some of the main ideas while composing the music, but the actual lyrics come to life only when we work the vocal lines together with Felipe. There are some pivotal phrases that I need to fit into the melodies, but the way the final words come to life happens when all of the music is written (except for the solos, since we like to use them to help highlight some specific vocal parts).
Music-wise, the composing process starts at my place, where I write the riffs. Once I have a coherent sketch of the parts I show them to the guys at the rehearsal room. We try them, throw some, decide how many repetitions they must have, define drum patterns, arrangements, etc., and then, when we have a full song, we send them via email to Felipe to add his magic.
Sometime some bands have some material left after the recording sessions. Does that happen in your case? Taking into account the compositions’ lengths, I doubt so.
Indeed. I have a folder full of riffs I consider great, but that didn’t find their way onto the songs we have recorded yet. In fact, some of the riffs from Where Gods Live… were created for some of the songs of The Siege, and some of the riffs from The Siege date way back to the Solve et Coagula period. Only time will tell which ones are going to find their way into some of our future songs.
I didn’t see the Where Gods Live and Men Die lyrics yet. Can you tell which topics attracted the band’s attention this time?
In a way, it’s the closing story to our two previous albums and our first EP. Again, it’s a solitary journey, but this time it’s the final chapter, a tale of departure. It deals with personal loss, wounds from the youth, disease, and the need to overcome and transcend by willpower. Conviction and Will has been tested.
The band’s lineup is the same, and it’s good to know that you managed to keep the bond, as Felipe Plaza Kutzbach still resides in Sweden. Was it easy to collaborate with him? Did you actually meet during this period?
We have had the same lineup since 2012, when Igor joined us. The same dudes that recorded The Siege are the ones playing in the new one. Felipe has been living permanently in Sweden for almost a decade now, which kind of make things harder, but as they say, “if there’s a will, there’s a way”. We usually take advantage of technology by sending riffs and vocal lines via email, discussing ideas via videochats, etc. For this new LP though, I travelled all the way from Chile to Sweden to have some weeks to work the vocal lines with him and the way the lyrics should fit into them.
Felipe is occupied with Deströyer 666, which tours a lot, and now Scald tries to organize some gigs outside Russia. Will you try to do a tour with Capilla Ardiente?
I know D666 is one of Felipe‘s main bands nowadays, so we depend on their touring schedule; anyway, since we are releasing a new LP, we will try to find a way to promote it, hopefully abroad.
What are your further plans for the rest of 2024 regarding the band?
Rehearse a lot, because in a couple of weeks we’ll be having a Chilean minitour, that will have dates in Santiago, Valdivia, and Puerto Montt. Hopefully, 2025 will bring us to Europe once again.
https://www.hrrecords.de/CAPILLA-ARDIENTE
https://www.facebook.com/capillaardientedoom
https://capillaardiente-northernsilence.bandcamp.com/album/solve-et-coagula-ep