Interview mit Darya von Tardigrade Inferno

To start with your introduction: how would you describe TARDIGRADE INFERNO in one sentence?
Female fronted dark cabaret metal band made of tardigrades.

Tell us a bit about how you came together as a band.
Maxim, Alexander and I were playing together for quite a long time. First we participated in one band while being teenagers, then Maxim established his own band and invited Alexander and me. A few years later we decided to start from scratch and then TARDIGRADE INFERNO was born.

How do you remember the early years of TARDIGRADE INFERNO when you think back, for
example, to your first release, the „Tardigrade Inferno“ EP?
That was fun, interesting and hard. We already had some experience in making music together in our previous bands – we made a full length album, filmed music video. So we already knew what it is – to work seriously and thoughtfully. Music does not live by itself, it needs to be treated properly. In our case we were inventing, synthesizing, learning, developing, exploring – with great respect and passion. As you can see, we succeed.

As far as I know, your genre definition – Dark Cabaret Metal – is a creation of your own. How did you come up with this framing?
Our recognizable style, the one people love us for, grows out of our fascination with the Dark Cabaret genre. But we’ve always been metalheads and wanted to play heavy music very loudly. So the label suggests itself quite naturally. Before us, there were bands doing something similar, like STOLEN BABIES, but they stayed within the broad umbrella of avant-garde metal. We decided that our formula deserved its own separate shelf.

A central, recurring motif for you is the tardigrade. Why tardigrades? What fascinates you about them?
These extraordinary creatures are worldwide famous for their almost supernatural ability to survive. They even can make it in open space! In case of superhard conditions they fall into anabiosis and can stay that way for a long time. When conditions become acceptable for organic life, they come back as fresh as daisies.
It is symbolic that they have been classified as insects, specifically as neotenic fly larvae – it means that they never grow up. Forever young, just like us.

Your 2023 album „Burn The Circus“ ends with the words: “…let’s burn down the circus with all of them inside…”. On „Hush”, the circus tent actually burns and you play your „Final Show.“ Are TARDIGRADE INFERNO now setting sail for new shores?
When we were thinking about „Hush“ beginning, naturally came the image – burnt Circus, and between mutilated ruins an old radio suddenly starts to play. It’s like a reevaluated mind after mental breakdown.
We didn’t hesitate to write long songs, I played some instruments besides kazoo and used a bit more extreme vocals, even more – howled like a wolf in the „Goor“. There are mad songs – I mean real stuff, 100% headbang guarantee, at the same time there is a lyric ballad – so deeply emotional, that one time I actually started to cry during a take. There is an existing record of it, an audial fingerprint of pain.
So yeah, we move forward in all directions.

Let’s talk about the music. How does an album come together with TARDIGRADE INFERNO?
After the „Burn The Circus“ tour, we realized that we wanted to do something new. We had long known that people who had been to our shows say it’s a special experience and that Tardigrades are even better live. We ran a few experiments at our 2024 headline shows and decided to capture that feeling on the next album.
So we wrote heavier songs, performed them in a “best take” style, and our dear Vladimir Lehtinen created a big, impressive, and honest sound.
As it has already been mentioned in the previous answer, we moved forward in music, digging deeper into the tools of expression. We used more thoughtful audial images so the music could properly intertwine with lyrics. Our life experience and mindset grow, as we are creative and sensitive people we do become sad. This album is filled with intense emotions.
Since the first release we have formed our personal combination of horror, humour, irony and empathy. Though it is gloomy and sometimes terrifying, we understand that it is essential to laugh.

Vladimir Lehtinen (among others, GRIMA) has once again perfected the sound of your new album. What do you appreciate about him?
Vladimir is an excellent musician with a refined taste, extensive listening experience, and great professional expertise. He is the leader of the outstanding band SECOND TO SUN, his mixes sell very well, and he always knows exactly what needs to be done to make a band sound the way it should. Vladimir is our Rick Rubin and a good friend.

What inspires you musically as a band, both within and outside the metal genre?
Inspiration doesn’t have to come from music – it can come from atmosphere, from vibes. A song can be born from the sound of a digital door lock in a Turkish hotel. We try not to focus on genre or classification; we’re interested in the whole, integral world of sonic imagery which we clothe in our signature Dark Cabaret Metal sound.

The title of your new album is „Hush“. In German, this can be understood as the hissing sound that means “Quiet!” What does the title stand for, and which themes does the new album deal with?
This album is the picture of an adult child, standing alone with full awareness of one’s own fragility and total responsibility for every decision and action. During life we meet this „hush“ for a different reason – it is a calming hush from mother, it is a warning hush from teacher, it is a demanding hush from boss. More important – it is an anxious hush from the inside of your aching soul, when you are so confused that you don’t trust yourself anymore.
We invited Milena Kress to paint a cover art for this album, for the first time in analog – oil on canvas. It accurately reflects emotional content, the suffering of an innocent naive soul.

This year, a major tour is coming up for you. All locations are in Russia and around. How does it feel to go on such a big tour?
In fact, we love going on tour because our main job there is simply to perform music. Usually, a big tour becomes a kind of mental rest for us after long periods of work, despite the heavy physical strain. And since we tour with what we believe is the best concert booking agency in Russia, Madstream Booking, such large tours are quite comfortable for us.

Where in Europe would you most like to play live someday?
First of all, the countries where we are listened to the most are Poland, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. But we have listeners across all of Western Europe and in parts of Eastern Europe as well, so we would come to everyone.

You have made some of your live shows available on YouTube in full length. One of your concerts was even professionally filmed and recorded. The last time I saw this was with the band KAUAN.
Is this a gift to the fans, or is there something else behind the idea? „Live In Saint Petersburg“ would certainly have been suitable for a physical release…
It’s simply a gift for the fans and an extra reason for new people to discover TARDIGRADE INFERNO on YouTube. Alexander has been collecting concert DVDs of his favorite bands since childhood, and there are still DVD-R discs lying around at home with bootleg recordings of METALLICA shows we attended. The video of the concert in Saint Petersburg was made in a fairly simple way for promotional purposes. For a DVD release, we would do something more spectacular in our own style. We’ll definitely release a live DVD at some point in the future.

What goals do TARDIGRADE INFERNO have for the future – whether in music, live performances, or artistic collaborations?
Plans for the near future: give a tour to support our new album and make tons of brand new merch dedicated to it. Plans for an abstract future: write new music, not forget the old music, grow upward, downward, and sideways, develop our minds and skills, and eventually conquer the world stage.

Speaking of the future: when you look at the world and everything we are experiencing right now, what would be your wishes for the future and for the world?
Stop and turn your brain on.

Finally, I’d like to do our Metal1.info brainstorming:
Pennywise: I wonder what that creature was mimicking before clowns appeared in culture.
Freak shows: Exploiting unusual human features.
GRIMA: The elemental of the cold endless Siberian forest.
Germany: “Man kann dich lieben. Und will dich hassen”
TARDIGRADE INFERNO in 10 years: YES.

Our questions regarding Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as its very concrete consequences — such as their independence as musicians — were left unanswered by the band.

Publiziert am 3. März 2026 von Philipp Sorger