PT I. 1/ Who is Radek Kopel & what makes him noise? I'm 31 years old man. Married, three daughters & lovely wife (all musicians except me). I work as flow, temperature, pressure measurement/equipment repairer. 2/ So, I've just re-heard B-gore records split cassette (N/Gestörte Nachbarn), I think it was a mixture of lo-fi "kitchen" noise & harshey bits. Can you say it is the rule or was it a chance? What do you use creating the sound, by the way - any extraordinaires? In my view each of our product release is different. Yes, I try to produce all of them in ultra harsh noise, but there are many differencies. No rule in our creativity. Sometime we do soundscape with loud industrial feeling, nextime technoise with harsh elements. Lo-fi "kitchen" noise isn't the right name, better would be "living room" noise, because most (all?) of recordings were made there. We used two bass guitars, drums and voice in the beginning, but that production was little bit musical oriented (kind of impromptu-harsh-noise-core). Then we stopped using of instruments and accepted more junk & garbage things. Now you can hear prepared electronix, woods, metals, springs, tools, pedal effects, tape deck, MD samples, etc. I'm working on home-made instruments right now. 3/ Yasutoshi/Xerxes put your live cassette, right? How often do you play live? How is it going? Do you see any point to play noise on stage in Czech? Yes, you are right, D.I.Y. tape with two live performances of ours was released on Xerxes in Japan. Yasutoshi made simple but nice cover artwork on it. I think this tape is limited around 100 copies. Our free copies are gone. Since our start in half of `94 until now we performed our noise 29 times. Because of we presented ourselves together with metal, punk, ... bands, many people are really surprised and don't understand to our doing and sound. For me it is very interesting to show noise live. Great communication of power. I organize my own festival called "Use the earprotection". Not often, just sometimes. 4/ Has anyone criticized you about your promotion politic? The massive attack of your flyers make somebody thinking (I'm sure): "Oh, this Czech businessman... Off him go!" I think that Anomalous Silencer isn't a bad idea, but it makes some idealistic people sick. Great to hear from you my flyers are circulating around the world. I think to spread small leaflets is the simplest way to let people know about news, releases and my actual activities. I do the same for many other pals I'm in contact with. This isn't problem, because I (must!?) answer 5-15 letters per day. Hard work, but I like it! I don't care about people who call me businessman. It's needed to be "businessman" a little bit. Money I make by my activity I always return back to post or music. Never to cover my own needs. Economical situation here in Czech isn't good, so I can't/don't want to short family budget. Same situation is with the Anomalous Silencer compilation series. Common help is the best and simplest way to show under-underground creativity. Production of releases on NAPALMED label is good, no scummy-cheapo xerox-bad sounded shit, so what? I can't do it other way. Hundreds of artists are very interested, but they don't want to pay money. It's O.K., but I can't help them, sorry. All of our pro-releases were did by the same system (7"Eps, split tape w/YGGDRASIL, soon will be out pro-tape w/HOMOLA TOBOLA - czech techindustrial). 5/ Continue the sentence - I have nothing to offer but...... ????? 6/ As far as I know you're the record collector. I've got your want list last year (I don't know, maybe the things changed?) but there were some weird combinations, sorta Boredoms & Frankie Goes To Hollywood or Gerogerigegege & Jamiroquae. Do this things inspires NAPALMED? What about Czech pop-music? Anything weird? It is still the same with my possession. I collect CDs and vinyls as fuck. I'm into music listening since `83 or so. I started with czech "bigbeat" (name for uncommercial `60-`80 rock music) & heavy metal. Than I found, other music is very good for my ears too, so why to be orthodox listener. I like aggressive, hard, ultra fast, raw, extreme music (such as grindcore, brutal death metal, crust, power violence, etc), weird, jerk, hybrid forms (such as funky, free jazz, ethno, crossover in all ways, ...), also I like very much silent, ultra slow, minimal things (such as minimalism, ambient, pure simple sounds, etc). The most interesting for me are noise/industrial/exparimental artists. They give me full space for fantasy and free thinking. I'm looking for Cds & vinyls for cool price. I can accept used, 2nd hand but playable stuff for my collection. Through the time I found 99% of japanese music is very nice and interesting. I collect unknown bands compilations to see all corners of that culture. You mentioned Jamiroquay or Frankie... Yes I like these too. I think they were tested by the time as not boring commercial quality. Next ones are Beck-all, Neneh Cherry-all, Depeche Mode, Alphaville-1st album, James Brown-all, the Fugees-all, Prodigy and many tons of others. Many artists inspire Napalmed. Many sounds of nature & civilization. I don't care about czech-pop scene. Yes, here is some quality (J.A.R. - super pure funk music, Sexy Dancers - side project of J.A.R. with pop funk), but rather like to listen to jazz rock, bigbeat, alternative, metal, core bands from Czech Republic. In that focus you will find many of weird artists. PT II. 1/1 Tell me about other persons in Napalmed who takes care of that? Other members in actual line-up are: Martin Beraxa - hard & rhythmic metals, locksmith Míra Vlček - electronix manipulations, fireman Petr Kopecký - impro metals, jobless Franta Pačan - keyboards, locksmith/tank coach repairer 2/1 [Videomed sublabel] - is it still actual? Videomed will be silent for some time, but always functional. Petr Kopecký lost his job, so he will try to make some money in Israel and then in the USA. He will fly away in sept/oct. Petr planned his first release but all video fans must wait. 3/1 [Use the earprotection] - please in details. Do you book foreign bands or it's just local party? Use the Earprotection is the name of the "festival" I organize. I stop this activity for some time, because of no money to sponsored that. Only czech bands were booked, once I was in touch with Daniele Brusaschetto from Italy, but there were some troubles, so he doesn't play in the Most town. 4/1 Some words about [!! Sound Zone]. What are those <>? I think you mean one of our first tape releases. It was 4-way split w/E.P.S.+STEAM SYMPHONY&NAPALMED...NOISE LABORATORY. All of these noise projects are R.I.P, except ours. S.S. and N.L. worked in the Most town beside us in the 94/95. 5/1 I notice that you attach great attention to cover design/packaging. Tell me about your practicing in design. Do you have anything to advice? As you know I'm collector of CDs/vinyls. Some of them are wonderful packaged, so me too try to do the similiar with our releases. On my mind it isn't a big problem. No much money are needed, just to control xerox photocopies, make all artwork simple and pure. May be little bit of fantasy, art feelings & ideas. 6/1 <<99 per cent of japanese music is very nice and interesting>> - so, what happened with rest 1 per cent? 1% is: a/ I don't hear enough japanese sounds & music b/ surely there are bunch of commercial/stupid/unlistenable crap too 7/1 Do you use something from your own record collection to create new Napalmed release? In the beginning sometimes, but I wasn't satisfied by that. Now I steal off some samples only. Never the noise recordings, only musical pieces, as you can hear on the 'Mixes I., II., III. or IV.' We used these samples on some of our last live performances as rhythmical basic background/playback. We improvised on them live. 8/1 What were your waitings for noise scene before you start and how far has it come true now? No waitings, sorry. I started making noise, because I felt inside I can/want to do something. Of course there were/are problems, but good things and people too. 9/1 What is noise to you - the idea of having fun or kinda serious message? Noise was/is not a serious message for me. NEVER! (Never say never) I don't like artists with messages or false & trendy image. Same as in the other culture sferes, in the noise there is 'commerciality'. I don't care about all these dark-, death-, doom-industrial or abuse-, masskillers-, sexy-, nazi-noise ARTISTS. Who cares about 12-page booklet with mass killers or nice fashioned guys od dark photos? But it is the way how to find a deal for your upcoming release. For me noise is about sound itself. You can add some technical elements, abstract pictures, but the main thing is the most experimenting & discovering noise. 10/1 Have you been used to knock in the tin can and make AAAAARGH when you was a kid and do you consider it as your first sound experiment? It is normal and spontaneous when you will put something in the child's hands it will be banging and screaming. As likely as not I was big sound experimentator too. 11/1 You regard yourself as a 100% serious noise guy or year 2000 could provoke your appearance with: a/ <>, b/ <>, c/ <>, d/ <> (if I'm right, please, choose position)? I'm 10000000% hyper serious, pretty nice, ubelievable intelligent, ULTRANOISE guy of the year 2000! Radek Kopel, Lipová 1123, 434 01 Most, Czech Republic