JINJER's TATIANA SHMAILYUK: 'I Don't Like The Huge Hype We're Having Right Now'

Super Metal World recently conducted an interview with frontwoman Tatiana Shmailyuk of Ukrainian modern metal frontrunners JINJER. You can listen to the entire chat at this location. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the reaction to their new studio album, "Macro":

Tatiana: "So far, I haven't yet heard any negative reactions to the album, so, that's good. I'm not the one who is surfing the Internet in search of comments and reactions. I don't care what people think because I have a lot of things to do. I don't know…so far so good. Again, I haven't heard shitty responses to the album."

On the songwriting approach to "Macro":

Tatiana: "I don't take part in composing music. Everything I do I'm just writing lyrics and trying to feed them into already-written material. I don't take part in composing it and they, the rest of the guys, write music at their home and they don't even ask me about my opinion about the material."

On whether "Pisces" was the song that broke JINJER into the mainstream:

Tatiana: "Unfortunately, 'Pisces' lost its charm. It became viral, which I don't like. I don't like the huge hype that we're having right now. It wasn't supposed to be like this. This song is very personal and believe me, Pisces are not those people who are begging for our attention. I don't like this word, 'mainstream.' The people made it mainstream; we didn't. We didn't really want it to be like this. But nevertheless, on the other hand, it's really good. It's really good that this song is so much appreciated."

On whether she feels "jaded" about JINJER's recent popularity:

Tatiana: "The only thing I can say about that, [is] me personally, I feel under the pressure. I feel the pressure a bit, but, I'm sure that people are going to say, 'Okay, but this is what you wanted, so don't complain.' And I will say that when I dreamt about being a singer in a band, I was 11, and believe me, I had no idea that musicians had their own reality to face. I had no idea. And I didn't read any articles or didn't watch any interviews because, first of all, I didn't have any Internet connection on my computer. I imagined it to be a fucking fairytale. [Laughs] Obviously it's not like that. I didn't know that I had to do so many interviews. [Laughs] I feel like being a musician in the 21st century is a completely different thing than being a musician in the 20th century in the '90s, for example, and the '70s and '80s. So, I probably cannot compare because I never lived in those times."

On whether she still gets joy out of being in JINJER:

Tatiana: "Yeah, of course. Of course. Sometimes your exhaustion or your tiredness is so overwhelming that you kind of stop seeing those beautiful things every day. You have to always be focused. I have to be focused all the time on the good which is a really hard thing for me. [Laughs] But I'm trying to be grateful and trying to learn."

On whether her rough Ukrainian upbringing has any effect on her perspective on the music industry:

Tatiana: "No. I think I was born like this. I believe that, well, a lot of people think that you can shift energies from negative to positive. I think, to my mind, people are born with a certain kind of energy. Someone was born sad and someone was born, I don't know, very happy and positive and no matter what happens in their life, they are always positive. They don't even have to make any effort to stay positive. This is genuine energy. And someone is seeing everything in black and white. It's really hard."

On whether she's an introvert:

Tatiana: "Yes. Two-hundred percent introverted. [Laughs] It's not bad, and again, I analyze myself all the time. Sometimes people make me think I'm kind of retarded or handicapped being an introvert. A lot of people don't even know that there is a term 'extrovert' and 'introvert.' They think that those shy people, there is something wrong with them, but hell no, I remember once in my childhood, I was very extroverted, but then something clicked in my head. When I was dancing, like in a circle of our relatives at parties, holidays, then something clicked in my head and I started avoiding people. When our relatives came to celebrate some holiday, I was hiding under my bed because there were very crazy dudes. Like not really my uncle, he's not my relative, there's not blood relationships, and he was really loud. [Laughs] And I was hiding from him. I was hiding under my bed so that he didn't disturb me."

"Macro" was released on October 25 via Napalm Records. Punishing riffs, aggressively blended vocals and astonishingly deep lyrics make "Macro"JINJER's most advanced and undeniable album yet — taking the listener on a journey of trauma, power struggle and greed with a progressive groove metal backdrop.