Photo: Ruben Lopo
Translated as ‘bards’ in English from the Greek language, Aoidos is a quintet from Portugal that formed in late 2019, fusing together an interesting blend of groove-laden blackened death metal on their first studio album Oizys. With influences running the spectrum from Gojira and Behemoth to Watain and Children of Bodom, the band also take inspiration from the struggles of personal experience in their lyrics. Mental health issues surviving a toxic relationship, wildfires that took place in their home country, even Warhammer 40,000 plays a part in matching the vivid musical compositions with equally intoxicating themes. We recently caught up with guitarist/vocalist Freitanás and bassist EkID to learn more about their musical background, the songwriting process behind the band, how the band is live versus what we hear on record, thoughts on the metal landscape, as well as future plans.
Dead Rhetoric: What were some of your earliest memories surrounding music growing up in childhood? At what point did you experience heavier forms of music – and eventually the desire to pick up an instrument and perform in bands?
Freitanás: The earliest memories I have of hearing music is in my home. My mom used to play a lot of rock records, like Aerosmith, and she always had the desire to play the guitar herself, but never got the chance to. She didn’t have the drive to do it, so she kept it in the back of her mind. At first, I didn’t actually like it, I was a kid – I didn’t have a good teacher at first on guitar. The first teacher I got would tell me to do this, then go outside for half an hour. I had half an hour of doing nothing, so maybe it wasn’t for me. Then the metal arrived in my life when I was twelve years old. It came in the form of Metallica – at the time I listened to Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed, and System of a Down. Those were my four big bands, and a friend of mine introduced me to Slayer – so I found out there could be heavier things. At that point, I started again with guitar lessons, and I wanted to do it. Even if it was just to write some of my own stuff.
The focus has always been, and even with us now as a band, to make our songs and show them to the world, not be in it for money or the fame. We wouldn’t be playing this style of music if we were in it for that.
EkID: It was Metallica for me. I was never born into a music family. One day I was pissing drunk, and a cousin showed me a show from Metallica in 2004. It was love at first sight. At first, I wanted to play guitar, but then I found out what my true instrument was, and it was the bass.
Dead Rhetoric: How did the formation of Aoidos take place in late 2019? Were you familiar with each other in the local music scene, and did you know straight away the style of blackened death metal you wanted to develop, or was it a natural feeling out process to arrive at the sound you have?
Freitanás: We knew each other already. At first, I didn’t start it with EkID. There is a scene in our town, but it isn’t very big. You will know everyone from attending one or two shows, you get to know everyone. I started playing stoner rock with the drummer. Then we got into metal – I was a thrash metal aficionado for a long time. Then I got into black metal. I decided I wanted to play black metal. In the end, EkID joined us because even though I was into black metal at the time, my roots are always in rhythmic, groovy songs. Gojira is one of the greats for me, and I take a lot of inspiration from their guitar work. Although I started as a black metal band, I take some inspiration from other sounds. When Ivo the other guitar player joined, the black metal aspect got bigger because he is the real black metal guy. He wants us to inject the tremolo melodies for ambiance, and I want more of the rhythmic stuff.
Dead Rhetoric: Oizys is the group’s debut full-length album. How do you feel about the songwriting and recording process with this set of material? What challenges, obstacles, or surprises came up during the development and how do you feel about this record at this point?
Freitanás: This record has been a long time coming. The most recent song is almost two years old. With all the lineup changes, we started in 2019 with me and Victor, the drummer. Then EkID joined us in 2020, and we started as a trio, but we never got to play live. We just did a live recording, a live session, but not a show. Then COVID struck hard, and we were without a drummer. We decided to do a project to see where it goes. I started to write more songs because I grew tired of all my older songs, I have a lot of ideas. I started playing guitar fifteen years ago, and I started writing songs fourteen years ago. Writing is my thing, my jam.
Joining forces with EkID new stuff came. Then Ivo joined, we got a new drummer with Pedro – and Pedro is more of a grunge and progressive metal guy. His approach to the songs was really different, and I wanted to give him the freedom to do more of what he likes. These songs, although the oldest are five years old, it has so many changes and differences. We have a pianist as well Erlkönig, she brought all these classical influences in as well, she’s a teacher. It really morphed the sound into something different. I mixed the record as well, so I’m tired of it (laughs). I took the time to clean my plate. I’ve been away from it for two months, and I listened to the album a week ago and I still like it.
EkID: The biggest challenge was in the songwriting. We recorded the whole thing five times probably, each song.
Freitanás: Always something new to add. When you sit on something for too long – one of my greatest inspirations is Devin Townsend, and he talks about this as well – you grow tired of it. So, you change it, this could use a new lead, a choir, or whatever. You are constantly changing things, and it never ends – it never is finished. You want to move on, but it’s a complete hurricane of emotions. It’s off to the races.
Dead Rhetoric: Considering some of these songs are over five years old, which song do you think took on the greatest transformation from the original idea to what we hear on the record?
EkID: “From the Surface Grate”.
Freitanás: Yeah. Originally when I wrote the song it was at 120 BPM. It went to a 100, and now it’s 140 BPM. It is really different. It was ten minutes, and I cut a really big chunk of it. When we play it live, I remember the lyrics that I cut sometimes. And also “Black Swan” as well. But not the recording of the single, as it was already like that. The first recording was called “Anger” at the time. I salvaged one riff from that idea, and I built “Black Swan” around it. Even that riff is gone – it’s in the single that came out last year. Now it isn’t even there, it doesn’t work.
Dead Rhetoric: You draw from personal experiences as well as ancient Greek mythology for much of the subject matter in terms of the lyrical topics. Do you draw any parallels from both that work perfectly to match the diversity present within the music to capture the best atmosphere?
Freitanás: I think the most important thing in the music for me is the storytelling of an idea. Making the song for the act of it – the song must have a message. That’s why how I came across the figure of the bard Aoidos, it’s from Greece – it’s like lightning in the bottle. It made sense to continue getting some ideas from mythology, Greek mythology has lots and lots of Gods. I found out they had one even for anxiety and depression – yes, of course! My girlfriend has always battled a lot with anxiety and depression, and at the time of COVID when most of the songs were written, it was the thing going on at the time in our lives. It made sense, most of the songs are about things she went through. It’s her experience through her eyes, how she dealt with trauma.
I started with the storytelling part of it, then EkID took it and went to the next level.
EkID: I am a big wrestling guy. Most of my inspiration comes from the old school WWF at the time. We have some stuff that I write from there. We are a bit chaotic. We take less inspiration from metal and more from everything else. Metal is our smallest inspiration.
Freitanás: Metal is our tool. Our way of showing things. We love storytelling a lot.
Dead Rhetoric: Sofya Alves did the cover art for Oizys. What was the process like developing what we see as the final product – do you still see the importance and significance of strong cover art to draw people into the band in today’s modern scene?
Freitanás: Sofya Alves is actually my sister and cover artist as well. I had the idea to have her do a full -size painting. I wanted to unite all the things that we had done up until this point. What you see on the cover is Oizys the goddess where her heart is open, then there are parts of the first single we produced. At the right side you have the trees from the fire, the cover of that single. At the left is the black swan from our third single. Then we have up top the face of the crow for the trauma. A little angel as well. To take all those isolated steps throughout our career, mix it all, and try to give a full picture of where we are right now. I did a little sketch for her in Photoshop – I can’t really draw, at all. I sent it to her; she had a sketch in two days.
Cover art is really important. We have a saying in Portuguese that we say – we eat with our eyes. I think that cover art in this day and age, it’s important. If cover art has the power to capture your attention, it’s really as important as the music itself. If the first glimpse is interesting, you are probably going to want to check out the music.
Dead Rhetoric: How would you describe Aoidos when it comes to your live performances versus what people hear and experience on record? What have been some of the more memorable shows or festival appearances for the group so far in your career?
EkID: Good memorable or bad memorable? (laughs). Bad memorable – we played in Spain for five people. Two of them were staff from the venue, and the other three were from the other band.
Freitanás: It was the first show on the tour. Still memorable. We have a mindset that if you want to hear our songs like they are on the album, play the album. Pedro the drummer, he sticks mostly to what he does, but other songs he has already changed live, and we weren’t going to go in and re-record things. He changes it, we have some breaks and moments of silence between the songs that work well in a live performance that aren’t on the album. These are two different artforms. At first when they started recording music, it was to capture the live sound. Then it inverted, trying to replicate the other way around. I had a moment in time where I said I can’t do this – because I won’t be able to replicate it. When I took a course in studio engineering, my friends said you have to paint the best picture you can. And then you do another thing, the presentation of it. It’s like sending a picture to a gallery, then you have the presentation to show it to the people. That’s the live show.
We try to be charismatic and talk to people. We are not the looking at ourselves as a black metal kind of band. I joke a lot, when I speak, I do jokes, mostly Dad jokes. We take the band seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. It gets to a point where you are too serious about being brutal and metal, and it gets a little goofy. We are not goofy, but we are a little comedic. Our guitarist Ivo is like – you can’t smile for pictures; we have to be serious. But we like to hang out together, so we are smiling because we are happy.
The first show was cool, the birth of a baby. We played as a trio, with one guitar. I knew that we needed a second guitarist after that. At the second show, we added a second guitarist. The train was running. Our first live open-air festival, we had a crowd-surfer. That was a good accomplishment for us.
Dead Rhetoric: How do you see the state of the heavy metal scene on a local versus global level? What do you enjoy most about the movement, and what changes (if any) would you like to make for the greater good of all parties involved?
EkID: Quality-wise, it’s probably great. Our bands are awesome. Being good is not enough. The metal scene, it’s almost like a grind. We don’t have any support here. There’s no tv time, no radio time. We have bands that tour the globe, but nobody in Portugal knows them because they play metal. It would be a nice change, a little bit of help.
Freitanás: You have one radio show that has been alive from the 90s. It goes on at one in the morning, really late. If you are not up at that time, you miss it. We have loads of gigs and shows happening. There are five other shows that are going on the same night as when we want to do our album release show. The quantity of shows is up there. Most of the time, you can’t even cover the costs for the gigs. Some don’t even give you food. You pay to play. On the pop side, indie rock genres, there is a little more money for them, but not that much as well. For metal, it’s like fifty Euros – we are like, eh? Most bands will say yes. The promoters, most of the promoters have bands as well. And sometimes the ones that have bands seem to be the worst. They want us to play for twenty dollars. Would you play for twenty dollars? A little more money for the bands – please!
Dead Rhetoric: Where would you like to see Aoidos over the next three to five years as far as establishing yourselves in the music scene? Do you have short term and long-term goals you’d like to achieve, or bucket list items to check off?
Freitanás: First, a European tour would be awesome. We are working on it, with the contacts. We were trying to book one last year, but we didn’t have the album out yet. Going to America would be awesome as well. It’s the thing everyone wants to do. Financially speaking, the idea is always to have the band pay for itself. We don’t think we are ever going to be able to do this as a full-time job – if it comes, it comes. We would be happy for it, of course. But we do this to express ourselves, and I want all of us to be involved in the process of writing and developing the band. So, everyone will be happy participating in it. A lot of bands focus on getting bigger and getting bigger faster. But they forget that they are a group of people trying to be together, trying to do something together.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s next on the agenda for Aoidos over the next twelve months to promote the album?
Frietanás: We will start promoting the record locally. We have two shows booked right now. These are the first of this album cycle. We are planning a tour of Portugal and Spain for next year. From there, the world, I guess. We will try to do things piece by piece. Start locally, start creating a community. People know us already, before having an album that’s pretty cool. It’s our main focus right now, to expand things outwards.
