Dead Rhetoric: What do you hope for the listener to take away from your lyrical concepts – as you mention a dichotomy between the primordial and the trans human, citing Lovecraft and Asimov as writer influences?
Zayarny: Primarily the lyrics concentrate on story-telling. That’s what I grew up on. I think that stories are what captures the human imagination. And again, at the risk of sounding too pretentious, every good story has to be frightening in some way, that’s where I’m coming from in terms of Lovecraft. I think he was fantastic in the sense of taking the reader into the semantics and the way he structured things. He never revealed anything direct in his writing, but the horror is lurking underneath, with seemingly mundane details and characters. I think that’s a very good explanation for what the primordial is- how far we’ve come as a race as thinkers, it’s very structured now.
There’s a lot of things built on top of the raw primal aspect of what we are- but that aspect still breaks through in a lot of people. You have serial killers and people acting on emotional impulses, you have the mystics, all that stuff is still under the surface. It’s easy to pull from that subject, and that’s what I try to do in the music as well. Then there’s the juxtaposition of the trans human aspect with Asimov, that’s very important to focus on right now. There are a lot of questions that have to be asked about man versus machine, how far are we going to go with artificial intelligence for example. That’s a fantastic topic that I love to talk about- so the clash is a very interesting theme that I like to explore. That will be more and more relevant as time goes on, if I can discuss and communicate it with a poetic manner and stories, it’s like building my own piece of a literary tradition based on all these great thinkers and authors.
Dead Rhetoric: Being a part of the Western Canada scene, has it been difficult to establish yourselves when cities like Toronto and Montreal in Eastern Canada appear to be metal hotbeds compared to Calgary and Vancouver?
Zayarny: It’s difficult to say. In terms of a live performance, fewer people are coming out to shows than maybe in Toronto, so that might be a little bit more of a challenge. I think there’s a strong scene in Western Canada as well- we have a very strong deathcore and death metal scene here, it’s a little bit less strong in terms of progressive metal or power metal. However there have been some fantastic bands that have come out of this scene with technical skills, Scythia is one, we had Every Hour Kills. The tradition is there- but there’s been a lot more media focus on Toronto and those areas out East. When you are on the internet and building a fan base there, it’s not so crucial to see where you are located. We’ve had some success internationally, just yesterday a guy from Turkey messaged our page and he came across our video and loved it and he wrote us a message. He said there’s no real music that he likes over in Turkey, so he is searching for independent bands from different countries, so he buys CD’s from other bands he likes, and that speaks to the global appeal.
Dead Rhetoric: Where do you see the biggest challenges in moving up the ranks for Red Cain? How important of a role does instant communication and social media play in developing a wide reaching fan base?
Zayarny: We are only just discovering what social media means for a band. As an indie band very new to the scene, the biggest obstacle is obviously getting your music to the right people, to a fan base that is consistent and doesn’t just want to listen to one track and never come back. The best way to do this is by writing good music and releasing good music. Our main concern is getting our full-length done and having it be at an even higher level than the EP- which is going to take some work. The flip side to this is how you market your music- and that’s a big question. Before YouTube, before Facebook, before all these thousands of bands were accessible online immediately, you had to rely on word of mouth. Even HIM for example, they were signed to BMG Records, virtually two weeks after they released a single which was a cover of Chris Issak’s “Wicked Game”. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen in today’s world. No one is really going to hear a single unless it’s got a lot of power behind it.
So what do you do with your music once it’s out there? How much money do you spend moving it around and targeting the right people? This leads us to the model that music is sold by these days- so do we want music to be free, streamed on Spotify, or buy the album? Do we start out selling the record and hope to make enough money from it to start recording a second one? These are big questions. I’m trying to stay away from that as much as possible and focus on the material. We’ve got really great support from Asher Media, which is our PR firm. Jon Asher has been able to push our material to quite a few outlets everywhere. That’s something we are very grateful for, and that’s at the grassroots level the best that we can do. Obviously utilizing channels like YouTube and making videos, because everything is so visual these days, is another great way to go about it. We’ve got a lyric video out, and may do another.
Dead Rhetoric: How do you personally define progressive metal? Who are some of your favorites in the genre that appear to be going in the right direction with their discography, live performances, or overall approach?
Zayarny: That’s an interesting question. I think the word progressive has been distorted through the ages. A lot of bands could be called progressive- I’m not even sure if we can be considered purely progressive. We are progressive enough to match some other bands. I do tend to remember auditioning a drummer a few years back who told me that he was told we were a progressive band, but we have hooks and choruses, so what’s going on here? Progressive is music where something tends to evolve throughout the song- where you may not have the chorus with the exact same instrumentation, you might have a variety of the same instrumentation but it’ll be different enough to hold its own. Classical music is very progressive in my opinion – in a sense that there are similar melodies and chord progressions to a piece by Bach for instance, which we can do very differently. It could be that the melody has a different cadence, or goes in a different direction.
Some of my favorite bands… it’s difficult to say. Opeth have been known for a long time as being a progressive metal band. They aren’t so much anymore I would say, especially with their latest album. There are bands like Sybreed for example – a Swiss band that has very good progression and their own take on darkwave or deathwave. They had vocal progressions and very ambient, space-themed melodies and guitar hooks in their works. Of course, there is Dream Theater, and they are giants of the progressive metal genre, along with Symphony X- and Symphony X has been a band that I’ve loved for a very long time. I’ve heavily leaned on them as an influence several times.
Dead Rhetoric: Considering the wealth of professional hockey teams and talent, please tell the readers why you prefer to extend your eyeballs to the activities of the Washington Capitals – and what’s your prediction for how their season will go?
Zayarny: (laughs). I like the offense, I like Ovechkin, he’s a great player and I am a little bit biased because I am Russian. He’s got the passion that a lot of Russian players didn’t have and the skills, and he deserves a Cup. I like the Capitals because they have had some great coaches and players through the years. My belief is you have to outscore your opponent to win, you’ve won the game. Defense is good, but defense shouldn’t be winning the games. I am also a soccer fan, but they are completely different animals- hockey is attacking and exciting. I don’t know if they are going to win the Cup this year, but if they can overcome that second round hurdle in the playoffs, this might be the breakthrough. We’ve fallen short year after year, going against hot teams or hot goal-tenders or a puck bounce can do you in. There’s a really good hockey culture in Calgary for their team, and a lot of pride as well. It’s a great market to be in, and I love watching those games too. Calgary is a very sports oriented culture.
Dead Rhetoric: We’ve had talks online regarding Kamelot – how do you feel about the different phases of their career, lineup changes, and current incarnation?
Zayarny: Yeah, Kamelot. The current incarnation is very good, it’s starting to remind me of the Khan era. I think Tommy is a fantastic singer, I was pretty skeptical initially when Khan left and they were looking for another singer, I thought this could be like another Nightwish debacle when they got Anette who was still successful despite being a good singer, just not fitting the mold. Kamelot in terms of their career they’ve done very well to stay true to their style, which doesn’t happen to a lot of bands. I think if you listen to a Kamelot song without knowing it was a Kamelot song, you can recognize the style they have. I’m confident that Thomas Youngblood being the core of the band, I was hoping that wouldn’t go away when Khan left. It did take a bit of a dip in my opinion with the Silverthorn album, which was the first one Tommy did. I didn’t think it had the same edge and bite. But with Haven I think they are moving in the right direction.
Previously I loved Kamelot because they were so self-contained in the way they told stories, look at Karma, Epica, and The Black Halo – those are the trio of albums that really put them in their own niche. Tommy is more of an entertainer, he speaks to bigger crowds on a higher level, and that’s the direction they are going in now. It means they have a larger fan base, and that is a fact- my niece who lives in the Ukraine is 13 years old and knows about Kamelot which didn’t happen 10 years ago. They are showing a lot of music fans that it’s possible to be a metal band and have a big commercial fan base that can appeal to a large audience. I was lucky enough to see them a couple of years ago in Calgary, and just looking at the audience it was eclectic. There were people from all walks of life, a 60 year old grandmother in the audience, and people with their kids, and everyone was there. That’s what you want as a musician- music is pretty universal and you want to reach everybody.
Dead Rhetoric: How do you see the next year or so shaping up for Red Cain? Has work begun on the next EP or album – and if so, where do you see the next batch of songs going style-wise?
Zayarny: Yes, we have begun. We are actually reviewing a bunch of stuff that we worked on before. To come to these four songs on the EP we had to go through about 20 other ones. And then we’ve written some material since. So we are trying to figure out which ones are worthy of the mark that we set for ourselves with the EP. I think a few of them are, and I think a few others will have to be re-worked and will be good enough. For the next year, once we finish the EP promotion, at the end of this year we will switch our focus to the new album and we are hoping to get done soon. Songwriting will be going through the spring, but we are doing a few shows here and there in December and January. We’ve gotten some offers to play in Vancouver and Edmonton, we may take a short road trip there.
We are probably going to do a bit more experimentation in the vein of the EP. There may be faster songs too- we’ve tried our hand at cinematic landscapes, and we will keep that too. “Guillotine” is a song that’s gotten a really good response from the audience, and it’s one of my favorite songs personally. I want to have more of those driving rhythms, because a lot of us come from that direction and more aggressive aspect while saying in the same limits. We will put more mythology as well in the lyrics. One of my favorite artists right now is Ihsahn, from Emperor. His latest album was fantastic- the way he fused everything from jazz to a trance-like song on there. It created this amazing soundscape feeling that you were continually surprised by- I want to have that surprise in our songs. We can’t reinvent the wheel, but we would like to surprise our listeners from time to time.