Founded in 2010 by Sadael, long time known as a one-man-band and Alex, well known to metal fans as the bass guitarist and brutal vocalist in “Sworn”, one of the most famous Armenian metal bands. “Bokrag” is the name of the imaginary character, who hunts bad people like criminals, pedophiles and loosers and kills them in a sadistic manner. Later on Gev joined the band (played in Flegethon band) followed by Daniel. Bokrag aims to get to the first positions in the metals bands rating first in Armenia and then worldwide. How can the band be this ambitious? This goal is realistic based on high professional level in performing as the band members are highly experienced musicians, unique sub-style of death metal they are working in and, most importantly, the energy and high spirit of the band members. The band is rapidly acquiring new fans both domestically and Internationally.
It all began in 1993. Being influenced by the Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Pungent Stench, Disharmonic Orchestra, Atrocity, Righteous Pigs etc., we decided to play brutal, very unusual music for Armenia. Mostly metal bands were playing thrash and heavy metal. We (Doom & Festerdead) were involved in the thrash-band called Demon Spirit. I can describe them as an armenian copy of Slayer. After some abortive attempts to play more brutal music, we made a decision to leave Demon Spirit and make our own band.
So, we started to find other members. The metal scene was rising in Armenia in early 90th, and those who wished to play in some band were a lot. But nobody wanted to play grind core/death-metal. The work started. First of all we wanted to find the rehearsal room. It was the hardest thing, because Armenia was under trying conditions. No electricity, state of war, etc. In the meantime we were making our songs at home without drums and trying to find at least the bass player. To find the second guitar player was quite difficult but that worried us less. But the things were going quite the contrary. Timur has joined the band as a second guitar player. He was addicted to death metal also, but his stay in the band wasn't long. There were still two of us. Then the idea was born to invite Dowen to play bass. Dowen and Festerdead were playing together before in the short-term project "Aggel".
"Aggel" subsisted for 4 month. Later, in 1995, the guitarist Trush, who was also involved in "Aggel", have joined Beerdigungs Lauten. In the Festivals section all that transfers are described in details. So there were already three of us. The next step was the rehearsal room. We have rent the place at the scientific institution (Armgiprodor), which was outside of Yerevan. It took an hour and the half to get there. That was the autumn of 1993. The winter was dead period, because of no electricity, no transportation and a bunch of snow. The spring '94 came with an excellent offer. The other armenian band Dumbarton Oaks had a rehearsal room in Yerevan, but without recording equipment. We have solved the problem with the equipment (many thanks go to Helen), and started to use their room together. After two months our first demo - Slay the close of yours - was recorded. It took12 hours to finish with that. There were only two recording studios in Yerevan that time, and we decided to choose "Ardzagank". Some of head staff was famous to us in "Ardzagank". Though, the other studio - "Asparez" had better equipment. The demo consist of three songs - Slay the close of yours, Psychosis/Paroxysm and With God's help. Our friend- Vgo helped us with the lyrics for the last one.
After that we were invited to the "Barev" TV program. Some pictures you can find on the pictures page. It was our first appearance on the TV. Rumors were saying (after that TV program) that the demo "Slay the close of yours" was not made by Beerdigungs Lauten. It's some other unknown band, who's recordings BL staff pretends to be as their own. Later, those rumors have disappeared after some live shows. But another one came up - Doom have lost his voice because of his growling. Just like Dave Ingram from Benediction. But as I have said, all that were just rumors. Our live program started on July 30, 2004 from the "Music 5" Festival. We invited Dramber from Dumbarton Oaks to play guitar, because Doom decided to concentrate only on vocals. And that decision was right. Besides our program we have introduced some new songs, which were written by Dramber, but his band Dumbarton Oaks rejected the offer to play them. As that songs didn't match the Dumbarton Oaks music criteria. The opinions about our band after the first performance were very positive. By the way, the pic on the left was made after that, when the was interviewed.
BOHEMA was created in 2001 by drummer Paata Baramidze (aka BONEM). The band’s often changing staff periodically united on the drummer’s initiative to prepare live performances, which basically consisted of cover versions of compositions of GRIND, DEATH and BLACK metal famous and legendary bands. So the band played a couple of live concerts and performances, but after that band as usual was dismissing.
This tendency in their biography continued until 2005. With the band's new guitarist and vocalist George Gelashvili in 2006 began the new age and a new level in the band’s evolution. Now there are two musicians - Paata Baramidze and George Gelashvili, united around the band’s title BOHEMA. These are two musicians with same appearances, same opinions about kind of music, they have to play and show us. These guys are BOHEMA’s permanent members from 2006. After years of hard work and hundreds of rehearsals bassist George Zautashvili has joined them. He is also the bass player in Georgian DEATH METAL band ANGEL OF DISEASE. And after that BOHEMA’s line-up was finally completed.
On the foundation of extreme rhythms, brutal and hard Asian riffs BOHEMA worked out its conception and ideology, which is also represented in their lyrics. Firstly their lyrics narrate about the ancient mythology of Sumer. That was on initiative of BOHEMA’s ‘spiritual confessor’ Ernest Khabaian (aka DemarieL). The other and more extensive part of the lyrics consists of philosophical issues.
