…. People are more online based, so you have to create most of your content online. You have to be putting out music videos, you have to be putting out constant posts, pictures, music, little clips so that you can reach a bigger audience. It doesn’t just happen organically by going to shows anymore. Unfortunately, as I wish it still did. I feel like that would be a lot easier in some ways because constantly coming up with content can be a little di…
…rld than every day life. People need to pay attention. You may meet people online, but it’s important to pay attention. Dead Rhetoric: Do you believe it’s harder for people to engage in more face-to-face communication, versus the use technology to communicate? Melissourgos: I’m an old school person. I prefer talking to someone straight in their face. I will give you a small example. I didn’t used to have my own Facebook account until a year ago. I…
…ning and growing by doing the smaller steps. This morning, I saw a drawing online of two people. One side had the person going up normal steps and the other they went up big blocks. But the destination was the same, so which one would you choose? I would still choose the small steps and go little by little, enjoying every bit of it. I was taught, since I was small, since I was very passionate about sports, and I was pretty good at it too so there…
…Dead Rhetoric: You mention in another recent High Spirits interview I read online how you felt immense pressure to follow up the debut album, which resulted in your eyes with the less than satisfying You Are Here. What circumstances took place that you felt that extra level of pressure, and looking back what would have done differently to ensure a better outcome? Black: What I would have done differently is not rush it. I would keep writing, get a…
…atever. You don’t need to have covers physically anymore; just upload them online, attaching a file. Now, you got to have a big amount of money to catch them all, but the same was many years ago. You can’t touch what’s digital, but you need a fortune to have it. I still collect albums, tapes, and whatever. It lasts! I also disapprove of AI. It may bring things out of control once and for all. Simonelli: DIY; it’s a great way to keep things as real…
…ons started to bloom much larger for us. I think people in current society/online culture – we are hyperconnected but we are also isolated from each other. Even in our day to day, we become more hardened in what we believe is true or not true and you can start to develop this idea of ‘its me against the world.’ If that’s the case, then maybe I need to do something radical. You can go into some really dark places. But if you start to see ‘oh wow th…
…re does this come from? It’s surreal, you see this car in the magazines or online, you never see it up close with your own eyes. It has such a beautiful vibe, and this car is going to be in a video with Cobra Spell. Alright! And I can play in front of that, it was cool. Totally crazy. It was fun to shoot “S.E.X.” – we had a lot of friends come be in the video. It was nice to see all of these women being a part of this. All of the women had our own…
…ears before that. I could think about joining another band – I found an ad online that talked about Satan’s Fall looking for a singer, gigs were lining up. I thought it was a cool band name, what have they released? I heard the Metal of Satan EP and knew that I could sing this. And that was in 2017. Dead Rhetoric: Destination Destruction is the second album from Satan’s Fall – and first with Steamhammer/SPV after your previous record Final Day cam…
…other people. After I released the demo, and people were talking about it online, I remember thinking that I could make this into a whole band. It took another four years after that to get all the musicians together. I met my drummer and my guitar player both on Craigslist. It’s the funniest thing, not really where you expect to meet the right people. A lot of trial and error, we settled on a lineup. In 2018 we got our keyboardist Michael, and in…
…mething more minimal, iconic, and simple. Dead Rhetoric: You mention in an online interview I read recently you did with guitar.com that in your eyes, Lamb of God were the last ‘metal’ band to truly get big, and you hope that with this new record, Sylosis can fill that gap. What do you believe it’s going to take to get up to that level of following and success, considering the state of the industry currently? Middleton: Firstly, I think there have…
…nd Seven Kingdoms, Lords of the Trident, all those guys have an incredible online presence. And those are our friends, you know? So it’s seeming more likely that you’re going to find your fans in those online spaces nowadays. Because any band will tell you that just playing live and selling merch and stuff barely gets you anywhere, at least when you’re small. But getting online, making these communities, and developing a following, sometimes even…
…. Something that leaves a group like Conquer Divide at the forefront of an online war of words. “I think at first, it was really annoying – it’s still annoying, don’t get me wrong. But at first it bothered me a lot more than it does now,” Castillo notes. “I’m at a point in my life, now, where I don’t really take people’s shit. So I feel like, if we feel like entertaining it, then we will talk some shit back,” she laughs. “Honestly, we did the read…
…the band on the shelf at that moment. We don’t trade files; we don’t write online. That was just the case of putting the band on a dusty shelf and just waiting to see when we could take it down and do some work. And of course, things are not as they once were, It’s too easy to say here we are, but that’s what happened. Dead Rhetoric: You always want to give the listeners deep lyrical content that makes people think – and in this case your draw fro…
…re the technology has rapidly evolved and everything is available for free online. We can finally get information that we couldn’t have unless we went to a library or paid for a subscription. Right now, we can google anything you want and be more informed on things that were more difficult to get information on before. That’s what’s happening. Dead Rhetoric: What’s next for Death Dealer Union, as well as yourself with Infected Rain? Cataraga: Deat…
…with their playing abilities due to all the tutorials and tools available online? Gonzalez: Oh yes. I think there is only one drawback with that. It doesn’t encourage jamming with someone else. I think it’s how I learned a very important skill – to follow along with someone else, groove with someone. Even if you are a little off, that doesn’t matter. It will sound better than hitting a wrong note here and there. I learned to do that with my cousi…
…will never satisfy me because somebody is always going to be making more. Online popularity – that’s about the most bullshit metric that existed in the history of the world. Success to me means, I’ve been writing new material the past three days. That’s success to me – I got caught up in the business side of things, trying to play your favorite shows with bigger bands, or your favorite bands. I’ve played with Metallica and Iron Maiden now, so the…
…thought that was the coolest with the whole punk thing. When I saw Pantera online for the first time, I got more into metal. I had been listening to Metallica, but I was more into heavy stuff, Pantera I thought was really heavy at the time. I got into Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Carcass, stuff like that. Dead Rhetoric: The latest album from Demolizer is Post Necrotic Human. How did the songwriting and recording sessions go for this set of mater…
…love his artwork, he’s always very receptive to ideas. I can chat with him online, and within a few sentences we are on the same page with everything. We had a lot of artists for this record, comic book artists, hired a couple of different merch artists to work with us too. We are very much in tune to what we want with art. Dead Rhetoric: What keeps the band motivated creatively and internally after all these years? Briody: We all look at it as a…
…ut perfection. Let’s just make your heart open and work. I was writing for online and paper magazines in Italy until 2009, and then I stopped because it was becoming too hard. I had to choose for writing or playing music. It was more than ten years of my life, and those were the times where you could still make some money as a journalist. Going into the studio for reports, receiving a lot of album promos -the label would invite us to do studio rep…
…ed at each other. I see it all around me. They are quick to anger quickly, online people don’t have respect, people always complaining. We notice it even when we were in Occult, there was a lot of jealousy. I wish that it was different. That’s something I wish was better. Verweij: Maybe also to hang out more and leave the social media for what it is. People at gigs and they are sitting in a circle on their phones, liking and subscribing to things…
…igorating to see new reactions to the music, whether it’s in person or via online reviews. We’re beyond grateful for everyone listening. Dead Rhetoric: The new record displays a maturation from your first, Echoes from Deep November, especially within the songwriting being more intricate with an impressive level of immersion and flow. What have you learned as a band since the release of your debut and what new aspects have impacted the band’s writi…
…ore on the opera stuff heavily; it was surprising to see people’s reaction online. People were talking, messaging me on Facebook. Adam on bass, he had a lot to do with the really cool songwriting. Even though he didn’t record on the album, we were writing out weird-ass rhythms, clapping 9/8 into 7/8, coming up with what we liked to fit the mood. We were thinking about what would fit and what would be cool, if the song was aggressive. “Slice of Tim…
…like that because they’ve transitioned everything to being on a computer, online. Now we have a whole generation that will end up paying $300-$400 an hour for a plumber because there is no one to take his place. Anything that teaches you about how the government is screwing you, taxes. They don’t teach you about finances until you are blindsided by it in life. Dead Rhetoric: Battlecross recently announced that you would be going on an indefinite…
…t in the studio or the rehearsal room. Those were our new hobbies – living online. Dead Rhetoric: What’s on the schedule for activities, touring, festivals, or other items concerning Burning Witches (or other personal musical endeavors) for the next twelve months? Guldemond: For the next twelve months, we have some release shows planned. In May, in Switzerland, some small release shows in Germany, Belgium. Then the festival season will start, we h…
…t was all fine tuning. There would be times where we would be all together online, talking to each other, telling one person to listen to this. The feeling was kind of like the same as sitting together in a rehearsal room to exchange ideas – but how we arrived at that is 90% this time online. Dead Rhetoric: Are there any songs that stand out to you, or maybe were difficult to reach in a final conclusion from the initial demos? Wechgelaer: Most of…
…nline, it was surprisingly easy to record this and collaborate with people online. I found people who had recording setups at home, tracking the guitars and vocals here in my house – I sent the material to Scott Elliot at Chernobyl Studios who mixed and mastered it. Dead Rhetoric: The World After is the debut EP for Dreams of Gray. What can you tell us about the songwriting and recording process for these three songs? Were there any surprises, obs…
…t would be all new. Dead Rhetoric: Do people ever seek you out at shows or online for advice regarding the music business – and if so, what words of wisdom or thoughts/ideas do you try to give them that maybe you wish others had given you in your early years? Heubaum: Sometimes it happens – but not all the time. There are occasions when people ask about things. Not that much at concerts, but they will write me and ask some questions. Sometimes the…
…u the stuff you make has meaning, it becomes so much more tangible than an online presence, you know? When you actually meet people, it’s fantastic. One of those things I remember in Japan, going there was a great experience. Super enthusiastic and passionate about Twilight Force, to see how they are burning with how into this they are. I guess also being in Japan for the first time is an amazing experience. If time allows and the venue allows, we…
…a lockdown. We couldn’t rehearse anymore; we couldn’t meet anymore besides online. The writing process was completely different. Domingo started writing some music, he sent us some ideas from time to time of the songs he had. We were able to give some input, but it’s not that we got together in the rehearsal room and worked on the songs together like we did on the first album. Domingo and I worked on the songs online. We had some technical difficu…
…s hate that though, they want them to sound like the first album. At least online. I read comments. They did something cool here, why do you not like that? The reception from people, it may be nostalgia, but people want to hear the same thing on every album. I for one do not want that. Dead Rhetoric: How has a failure set you up for a later success when it comes to Screamer? And when it comes to your own personal setbacks or failures, what types o…
