Interview with Miasthenia
Interview with Miasthenia
Interviewed by Victor Augusto
Talking about Black or Death Metal is nothing new when we think about the worldwide diffusion that these styles had, mainly in the 90’s. Perhaps what a few people don’t know is the great number of women playing Extreme music during these years in Brazil, more specifically in Brasília, the capital of Brazil.
In an article made here at Ever Metal, we talked about some of them, but from these Brazilian groups, I believe that Miasthenia is the band that has been maintaining the greatest longevity, without pauses and with a good frequency of album releases and tours.
Not only that, but the band’s theme is a masterclass about the religious dogmas that we suffered in Brazil during the colonization in old centuries. Most of that is possible by Susane Hécate (vocalist and keyboardist) who has a doctor’s degree in history and teaches at a local university, and both of these things help her to create romances based on the theme.
I had the honour of talking to Susane to learn more about this important story and also about their newest album release, “Espíritos Rupestres”, from 2024.
Welcome, Susane. This is the first time we’ve talked here at Ever Metal, so I would like you to tell us about the beginning of the band. How it was created and what the expectations and dreams were at the time.
Miasthenia was created in early 1994 with the proposal of making an epic, dark, melodic, and aggressive sound, in a Pagan Black Metal style, with lyrics in Portuguese about themes of ancient paganism. The band was created by me, Mictlantecuhtli, and Vlad, with the expectation of recording quality, heavy songs, while remaining in the underground, without great ambitions. That’s because the Black Metal scene in Brazil in the 1990s was very underground and precarious. We had to work hard to be able to organize our own shows.
Along this path we recorded two demos and 6 concept albums. From 1999, we had significant changes in the line-up with the coming of Thormianak on guitars, and that was when I started to fully assume the vocals, keyboards, and the composition of the lyrics based on studies and research on pre-Columbian America and the Amerindian resistance to colonial conquest and evangelization. Since the recording of our first full-length “XVI” in 2000, the band has been maturing a lot and improving the compositions, recordings, and the theme of the lyrics.
Victor Augusto: The first demos appeared in the early 90s. As far as we know, from bands with a lineup all composed of women and making Extreme sound, there was Valhalla, Flammea, P.U.S., and you, all in the capital of Brazil. I don’t remember hearing anything like that around the world. Can we say that you were pioneers in this regard?
Here in Brasilia, women have been playing in Metal bands since the 80’s. In 1987 Volkana appeared, and soon after, Flammea, in 1988. Valhalla and P.U.S. were also born in the late 1980s here in Brasilia. There was also Adriana, Death Slam’s bassist in the early ’90s. Outside Brasília, there was the band No Sense with Marly on vocals, from 1991. All are pioneering bands with a female presence in Brazilian Extreme Metal. In Brazilian Black Metal, I think Lullaby and I are the pioneers to play and record some material in the first half of the 1990s. Outside Brazil, we had news of the female presence in very few Extreme Metal bands that were born in the late 80s, such as Bolt Thrower, Holy Moses, Derketa, and Nuclear Death. Already in the early 90s, at the same time I was starting, we had news of the bands Opera IX, Merlin, and Astarte.
The band addresses themes that are against religious dogmas, but with a great historical knowledge of the events that brought religion to Brazil. In my opinion, this is the great differential of Miasthenia to conventional Black Metal or Pagan Metal bands, because the lyrics are very intelligent and with historical basis. How did this direction of the band come about?
This direction of the letters came from my studies and research as a historian. Miasthenia has been a concept band since the beginning, and this has been getting stronger and deeper with each album release. Within the Black Metal of the 1990’s, a movement towards themes of ancient paganism in pre-Christian traditions emerged, originating Pagan Black Metal.
From many readings and studies around themes such as Satanism, demonology, witchcraft, and sorcery, some bands delved into themes that portrayed stories of resistance to Christianization, recovering ancient rites, values, and myths of pre-Christian cultures, or those that suffered historical processes of persecution with the imposition of Christianity in the western world.
To speak of ancient Paganism is a form of resistance to the silencing and destruction that Christianity promoted against ancient beliefs and religions that rivalled its orthodoxy. I saw this possibility of addressing resistance to Christianization in the histories, also silenced, of indigenous resistance to catechization and colonial domination in America, also focusing on ancient rites, philosophies, and cosmogonies of pre-Columbian peoples. It is in these stories that we find the power and inspiration for our compositions.
Beyond the lyrics, Miasthenia is focused on offering compositions and recordings of the highest quality. Everything is very well played, with harmonies and melodies. Still, the band remains faithful to the style in which you propose to play. How did this concern come about in offering something of this level?
From the beginning, we had this concern with the quality of our recordings, and with each album, we learn a little more and incorporate new technologies. Of course, all of this always depends on the financial resources we could invest at each moment and also on the degree of technical knowledge and experience of those who record, mix and master our songs. It is not enough just to have technology in the studio and recording equipment, it is necessary to master the techniques of Extreme Metal recording and this requires a lot of experience, something very rare in Brazil, but we managed to have satisfactory results working with Caio Duarte from BroadBand studio on the last 4 albums. He could well understand our sound proposal. However, we are very self-critical, and we know certain limitations that we try to overcome with each album.
The new album has a very interesting theme of religious oppression, specifically for a female shaman who was accused and had a trial, saying she was a witch during the colonial period. Could you talk about the theme of what the band wanted to bring as a message to the fans?
The historical tale of the Shaman Witch, in which all the lyrics of the album were inspired, is a historical fiction written by me, based on inquisitorial and historiographical sources on indigenous resistance in the colonial period and on Brazilian prehistory. The trajectory of this character takes place between the 17th and 18th centuries at the time of the so-called “War of the Barbarians”, the greatest indigenous resistance to colonialism that occurred in the northeastern Brazilian hinterland. It was born in the cradle of this resistance with the mission of guarding and perpetuating the pre-colonial rock mysteries embedded in the rocks.
However, she ended up being captured in this war and enslaved, managing to escape later, and leading a large spiritual cult of resistance where she evoked the strength of rocky spirits. Her rites of spiritual resistance summoned more and more oppressed and enslaved people, and for this reason, she ended up being denounced to the holy office of the Inquisition. Before the inquisitors, she was treated as a Witch: imprisoned, tortured, submitted by a trial, and sentenced to death by the court of the Inquisition of Lisbon.
Her entire trajectory takes place through her dreams’ memories, at the moment of the pain caused by the violence inflicted by the inquisitors in prison. It is a story of violence, war, invasion, and religious intolerance moved by inquisitors and colonizers/Bandeirantes (Bandeirantes were colonial Brazilian settlers during the 17th century), but above all, it is a story of strength, honour, courage, wisdom, resistance, no submission, and refusal to domination. The Shaman Witch is a strong character who, even imprisoned and condemned, did not allow herself to be dominated.
In the previous album, there was already an appreciation of the Amazon warriors who defended Brazil against the religious oppression of colonization, and now with the ‘Shaman Witch’, as addressed in the previous question. Was it always Miasthenia’s intention to raise this flag, through your music?
We bring to our lyrics strong, daring, and aggressive characters who challenged the rules in colonial times, a fundamental historical moment of confrontation with differences and resistance to Christianization. We learned in school a very Eurocentric and Christian history that erased resistance to colonialism and silenced the existence of other possible worlds in pre-colonial times. Black Metal is a very extreme and cursed musical genre whose themes involve hatred, violence and revolt, but also what is epic, dark, melancholic and ghastly, so we bring these stories into this aesthetic universe that allows us to retell stories of pain, domination and violence from another point of view, for the aesthetic pleasure of revenge, of no submission and the warlike and violent reaction against colonial Christian domination. For this reason, our lyrics are a kind of historiographic metafiction because they aggressively question and challenge the Christian/Eurocentric historical view of pre-Columbian peoples and colonialism.
The new album “Espíritos Rupestres” keeps the band’s identity, but it seems that you went deep into the musical sonority we heard from the previous albums “Legados do Inframundo” (2014) and “Antípodas” (2017), such as the parts with clean voices of Susane. How do you see the final result of the album?
We were very pleased with the results. It was an album that went through several phases of composition and adjustments during the Covid-19 pandemic period, but it was only from 2022, with the arrival of the new members Aletéa on bass and Lith (Ariadne Souza) on drums, that it gained the identity that we present to them. Aletéa contributed a lot to the bass lines and the improvement of the clean vocals, and Lith in the backing guttural vocals. In addition, Aletéa, who is also a violist, recorded some viola lines, bringing a Classical element to our songs. Lith is a drummer who combines technique, brutality, and speed in the blast beats and the two bass drums, which also refers to the deepening of the drum lines recorded in the previous two albums.
Still talking about Aletéa and Lith, what else do they contribute to the new album, considering you and Thormianak have been together in Miasthenia for many years?
They contributed a lot musically, as I mentioned in the previous question, and played a fundamental role in our restructuring as a band, because, for a long time, we played with session drummers and without a bass player. With them, we can share more responsibilities and invest in the band’s visual identity, in addition to sharing and collectively discussing the entire recording and production process of this new album.
For the promotion of the new album, it seems that Miasthenia has had the opportunity to play in shows with better productions and structures, and many of them out of your hometown (Brasília). How are the touring plans for the promotion of the album?
This year ,we are doing a tour to promote the new album in Brazil. We have already played in São Paulo (opening for Rotting Christ) and in São Luís do Maranhão. We have 7 more shows scheduled, and all have been negotiated and scheduled for weekends only.
I have the impression that over the last decade, you (Susane) have gradually become a great reference and idol in Brazil, being frequently mentioned by great artists here. How do you feel about it, and how much does it motivate you with the band?
I feel very grateful and honoured for this recognition. This really strengthens me and encourages me to continue on this long journey with Miasthenia.
Before we finish the interview, I must ask about Miasthenia’s first European tour, in 2018. What did this tour bring in terms of musical and cultural learning for the band? Are there plans to repeat this feat?
We learned a lot on the road as a band in Europe. There is a large underground network of Extreme Metal that remains strong and really supports foreign bands. In addition, anywhere you play in Europe, you always receive a fee and food, even if the fee is small, and this is a great stimulus and respect for the work of the bands.
We also learned that language is not a barrier in the underground to captivate and move people with our music. Even singing in Portuguese, the public in Spain and Germany were interested in our theme, because the sound captivated them. We would like to do another tour in Europe, but at the moment we have no plans, because the costs have been quite high for that.
I reinforce my admiration for the importance and quality of the band. The space is open for final considerations.
Thank you very much, Victor and Ever Metal, for the support and opportunity to conduct this interview. I wish you success and many achievements! We would like to invite those who have not yet listened to our new album “Espíritos Rupestres” to access it on streaming platforms and Bandcamp. Watch our latest music video “Bruxa Xamã” and follow us on YouTube.
Stay Metal!
‘Bruxa Xamã’ (Stereo Version) – OFFICIAL VIDEO
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