Interview with Freddy Spera of Crejuvent, the One-Man Extreme Metal Band

Federico ‘Freddy’ Spera, of the one-man band Crejuvent, applies his idiosyncratic style to everything he touches; his distinctive, humorous and carefree disposition is obvious from the outset, both inside and outside of the music he makes. To say the least, Spera is not exactly what somebody might expect from a founder of an extreme death metal band. He started playing the bass when he was a teenager, and his early interest and persistence with the instrument made him a certified expert.

Crejuvent started up in the United Kingdom in late 2014. Yet Spera–the brainchild behind the band–had been writing his own music well before Crejuvent came into existence. In describing himself, Spera explains that he's a simple man with a simple goal: to write some badass metal music. Despite having achieved this goal, he continues to make some serious heavy hitters in the genre. It's progressive death metal, and it's very likely the most extreme music your fragile ears could handle.

Beat caught up with Freddy Spera to discuss Crejuvent's Time EP and the extreme metal genre and get a closer look inside the man behind the metal. In the interview, Spera gave us the low-down about his musical origins, the other extreme activities that occupy his time and his views on musical inspiration. He even shares some of his wise words for fans (off the cuff, of course).

BEAT: What does Crejuvent mean?

Freddy Spera: Nothing. It’s a dumbass word I invented with the intention to make myself cringe at how bad it is every time I hear it. I could make up some bullshit about how it’s secretly a metaphor for this absurdity of life and shit, but I won’t. It’s just a dumb fucking name.

How and when was the band created?

Eh. It’s a concept I’ve been toying with for a while, but I’d say it’s only been in the past two years or so that I decided to actually invest time and energy into it. I’d argue that it wasn’t until I started recording the EP Time that the project actually became a thing.

If you were to add one more instrument to your band’s repertoire, what would it be?

Sitars. I fucking love sitars.

When did you start playing bass guitar?

I originally started on the double bass when I was ten, then hadn’t really touched it for a few years. When I was 14, I decided to take music as one of my classes in IGCSE just for the hell of it, and in our first lesson, our teacher said that we had to play an instrument. When I told him I played double bass, but didn’t really wanna drag that giant fucker to school every day, he suggested I try the bass guitar. It immediately made sense to me, and that was that.

What’s your earliest music memory?

My parents gave me a keyboard when I was seven and started taking me to piano lessons. It was really exciting at first, but as children are, I got really sick of it after a few months. Oh, I also remember being given a Ricky Martin CD when I was around four or five and blasting that shit on repeat in our living room. I should check that album out again. It was the one with "Living La Vida Loca."

What extreme activities do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

ALL OF MY ACTIVITIES ARE EXTREME! Eh. I go bouldering every week or so. I also do an awful lot of partying and drinking on the weekends. Otherwise, I’ll be home watching cartoons whilst cooking everything I possibly can.

What band or artist shares the most similarities with you and why?

In respect to Crejuvent, I’d say it’s Strapping Young Lad. The whole project is predicated on a similar sort of mentality. I’m deeply passionate about the music, but life is all one big joke, so why should this be any different? All the anger that I experience that I put into this project is just like “yeah, but why?” so it sort of collapses into itself in a most spectacular way, creating this dynamic between the heavy aggression of the music and its inherent humorous side. Also musically, they’re one of the biggest inspirations, taking those sort of hardcore influences and refining them into something a bit more 'metal.'

How has your style evolved since your debut album “PrettyDemos?”

I’d hardly call that one a release, to be honest. I sort of regret naming those demos because now people think it was a release. Really, it was just a collection of demos I had lying around, something to put on the Bandcamp page to give the project some momentum until I had a release ready. In that sense, the sound has obviously changed drastically (in my opinion, anyway). Time is more refined as a release. It’s more cohesive, since the tracks were written with the intention of being released as a collective. PrettyDemos was more like “eh, just whack it on and see what’s what.”

If you could tour with three artists, alive or dead, who would they be?

Escher, Picasso, and Da Vinci.

What is your all-time favorite venue to play at and why?

They’re all the same, man. It really doesn’t matter what the venue is to me just as long as people are enjoying the show. I’ve done shit gigs at venues that are objectively ‘nice’ and awesome gigs in tiny, dingy venues. A venue is really only worth the audience and bands that play. Anything else on top of that is just a bonus.

If somebody had a rough day and was in need of a song to mirror their struggles, which one of your songs would you recommend?

Oh, "Fuck This Shit," easily. Assuming the person just had a rough day in school or something, or somebody cut them off forcing them to take the longer road home, or some other shit like that. If it’s a more existential crisis, then I don’t know. It depends on the crisis really. I’d like to think that "Dental Plan, Lisa Needs Braces" can help out anybody in need.

Can you tell us a bit about the images and inspiration behind the Time EP album cover art?

It’s just my face over and over again. It seemed suitable. I liked the color scheme; it seemed to have fit the music. Again, I could stretch this explanation to some bullshit about how I felt the EP was a perfect representation of myself, hence the narcissistic need to plaster my face on it, but I won’t. It’s just my face. And the back of the EP has a faded picture of me in a dinosaur costume (which was actually a six-foot-tall inflatable T-Rex that exploded when I was riding it down a river).

What is the most hardcore gift you’ve ever received from a fan?

Their appreciation. If you’re into my music, you must have a pretty shitty sense of taste, so if you say you like it and mean it, that’s pretty damn hardcore.

What is your “universal message” that you want to relay to your fans all across the world?

I don’t know man, I ain’t a god or whatever. Uh, try not to be a dick unless you really have to? Don’t try and do anything because life is a meaningless void and the humorous nature of humanity to try and find meaning can only keep you going for so long before that absurdity crumbles into itself and leaves you a meaningless shell of a person, hallow and devoid of any powerful emotions? Don’t feed wild animals?

What can a newcomer at one of your shows expect to see?

Not much, to be honest. So far, since I don’t have a band, it’s just me on stage playing to backing tracks. You can expect great banter between songs, worthy of an Oscar nomination. You can expect to see me spitting everywhere and pissing off other musicians that need to use the stage after me. You can expect to see my backing tracks fail to play 50 percent of the time. And you can expect the floor to be riddled with the ejaculate of everybody in attendance at the sheer awe of the music.

To listen and learn more, find Crejuvent on Bandcamp and Facebook