…ere afflicted with other things too. We have a lot of deaths that are COVID-19-related. Sweden has a lot more dead people per capita. So something has failed. I’m no expert but I have seen our government being slow in its response, a lot of these things take time and they come to decisions too late. We have laws in Sweden that say you can’t lock down the country. We have a very strong freedom for the individual. We only have one law that allows th…
…w years, brings me a lot of stress relief. Makes me feel good. I have a one-year-old puppy, German short haired pointer, take him on walks all the time. His name is Ronnie James, I am sure you can guess where that is from. I live with my fiancé, that keeps me occupied with my day job and music. Mann: We’ve all been friends for a long time now. I think it’s a great group of dudes. We all have different hobbies. Especially during the pandemic I got…
…or two takes. We recorded the full album in six or seven days, we were well-prepared and he was in the same zone. We had this punk edge, let’s try to capture real performances, real drums for the sounds. It’s very spontaneously recorded and I think you can hear it. We tried to have a similar approach as the last album – continued that in that mindset. Raise everything an extra bar. Dead Rhetoric: You shot a video for “Motordeath” that incorporates…
…wledge to learn more about the group, guitarist Håvard (pronounced like How-ard) Alvarez happily answered questions through our Skype connection. Through this interview you’ll learn more about how Warzaw came together, their video shoots and live performance philosophy, the diversity within their local Norwegian scene and how Warzaw will stand out amongst others, and their hopeful quick turnaround to release another album to the public. Dead Rheto…
…et across musically and lyrically. We reached out to Diva Satanica through Skype who brought us up to speed on the new lineup, the album recording, the personal development and tools she used to get stronger as a vocalist, plus a bit of behind the scenes thoughts on her day job as a psychiatric nurse and juggling her work with another band Bloodhunter. Dead Rhetoric: Nervosa has gone through a major lineup change, as there are three new members in…
…lture and imagine Paganism and mythology. Dead Rhetoric: How did you get ex-At Vance/ current Avantasia member Oliver Hartmann to sing on “Revolution Rise” – as it’s great to hear him soaring again on this fine track? Petrossi: I’ve known him for many years. He sang for me 15-16 years ago on the Magic Kingdom albums, guest tracks and he also did the choirs. He was also on the second Iron Mask album Hordes of the Brave and he did a few lead vocals….
…. We have some cool guests playing with us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nas1gemgVo0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpB9BwUT-og Wreck-Defy on Facebook…
…Guigan: I guess that song had been around for a couple of years. It was a b-side from Untouchable Glory that didn’t end up getting used. We had a spare song sitting around. We asked our ex-drummer Paul if he would mind if we used his drumming, and reconfigure it. We knew we were going to make a record, and test the waters that it would work okay and stop us from all going mad. Dixon: That was a huge aspect of it, the timing factor. We were going t…
…now up to their eleventh studio album for Skycrest. Combining a love of sci-fi themes and natural ‘metal’ topics with a sound that galvanized those of us who love everything from Judas Priest to old Helloween and Blind Guardian, not even the real life challenges of cancer for bassist Jan-Soren Eckert or the devastating coronavirus epidemic could stop this quartet from delivering more of their steady anthems and uplifting hooks/melodies to their fa…
…one of the epicenters in Europe due to its diversity, population, and well-regarded and well-attended festivals that have been established for decades? Schütz: I think the metal scene in Germany is definitely one of the biggest. We have a few of the world’s largest festivals, and the community is very loyal. The problem I see right now with the pandemic, there are no concerts and no clubs open, and we have a lot of people who had to close their c…
…more diverse, and choices are good. If you want to listen to Dream Theater-ish bands, you can – but if you want to listen to the Genesis style, Kansas- there are a lot more great offerings. As a band, I know that people call DGM a progressive metal band, but I care more about the songs. Sometimes we write super easy songs, 4/4 without the odd time signatures or the three-minute solos. I don’t know if it’s progressive or not, we care about music….
…fore. With the band, we are doing interviews and promo stuff. Luckily with Skype and all of that, it’s still possible. But when it comes to live shows and all of that, it’s a bit tricky. We can’t plan anything. As you know, tours have to be planned really far ahead. It’s very, very tricky and no one really knows. Dead Rhetoric: Leaves’ Eyes has a lot of really big productions, especially for videos. What have you enjoyed about being a part of some…
…t would be the last EP we put out, and we’d just stay with our regular full-time jobs. But “Brother” really took off and that put us in a spot where we could not only continue, but we could focus on it even more full-time. That led us to being spun all over the country on radio, and Spinefarm caught wind of it, contacted us, and flew us out to New York. We had a couple other labels interested but after meeting these guys and seeing how family orie…
…sical music and he was speaking as a metalhead. Nico: I was speaking chugga-chugga, duh-dah… and she was like ‘in which key?’ (laughs). Suvimarja: It was a great time. We were stirring the pot. Nico: It was great to have this in the founding stages of the band, the spark and determination and willpower that there was nothing we couldn’t do because we were bombarded with information about music. We had our own idea of where we wanted to go – they w…
…, so a lot of the guitar riffs, solos, and stuff Nevin came up with himself- so in that way this effort is a little bit more guitar-driven, a bit heavier. There’s a little more emphasis on having a bit more technicality, more progressive elements in our music. Jessica Frost: I would just say that maybe in our performance aspect we have a bit more energy. Especially Diego, when you joined up I remember the first practice we had together you were ju…
…nger to get to the public. We reached out to guitarist Chris Porcianko via Skype, and we had a fascinating time catching up on the six-year gap between releases. You’ll find out about Silvio’s vocal issues and recovery, a look at Chris’ development as a songwriter including some pinnacle Vanishing Point songs in the back catalog, thoughts on the music industry at 49, and where his hunger and passion lies with the genre and continuing forward with…
…en through some of the band performance aspects you showcase? Slayes: COVID-19 put a bit of a wrench in things. “Abyss” was filmed two weeks before it came out, and we had one ten-hour day in that studio so we had to get as much done then as we possibly could. It was as soon as the studios opened up, we had to get in there and get this done. “Soulbound” was filmed over several days, months in parts and pieces when we could get together safely. In…
…e, as a journalist you hear all the time that this is our best album of all-time. I mean it about this one – we’ve looked backwards to move forwards. VI was probably our most technical album to date. And we wanted to strip things back a little with this one. I have a writing partner with Andy Rosser-Davies on the last two albums, where the music was 50/50. This time the majority of the songwriting was down to myself. We had discussion between Jeff…
…iduals on a personal level. The music we were making was around the time nu-metal hit the scene, all those bands were dominating rock and metal music. A lot of bands from our era fell by the wayside during that time. Same could be said for the grunge thing, but it didn’t affect bands like us. The nu-metal thing shook up the scene, suddenly bands that had a lot of coverage didn’t get any coverage. It was a bit of a bumpy time for bands like us in t…
…ecame a whirlwind thing of writing, and those demos took on a completely un-robotic life of their own after that. Dead Rhetoric: Considering the epic-length arrangements, are you conscious of the balance necessary to maintain listeners interest while also expressing the needs of the individual song through your atmospheric, doom metal style? Green: I feel like we have gotten some awesome feedback. I find a lot of people are really loving the recor…
…arts, he learned all the songs. All the songs he wrote, the ones Jerome (St-Charles) wrote, and he laid it out. Jerome did his bass parts, Jean-Mi Perrier did his drum parts, and then when I was a little bit free with the baby thing I got to record my solos and vocals. It was back in 2017 when we started writing, 2018 the baby arrived, so we could only finish the pre-production during late 2018, early 2019. Dead Rhetoric: Where do you see the majo…
…s. It’s a quicker process than what was around at the time, which were four-tracks and eight-tracks. Dead Rhetoric: You have a day job as a guitar instructor. Have you had to adjust your teaching to more video/Skype sessions because of the virus? Niemann: Absolutely. We are doing everything online since a month back. I work three days a week, I go to my work place because I have some drum students so I have a kit there and work with them on that….
…or a full-concept storyline for the record like Immortals, there is a three-part sci-fi story spread out over the record with the songs “Orbitual Sunrise”, “Longing to Know You”, and “Space Cowboy”. Can you discuss what takes place in terms of the lyrical content, and how it came to be that you spread it out over the track listing rather than have all three songs appear in consecutive order? Gus G: Sure. The whole idea was I was talking with Herbi…
…tion of the Nation tour got postponed to 2021 due to the ever-present COVID-19 pandemic. We talk a bit about that during our Skype interview, as well as the band’s guitarists shuffle, the Finnish/Russian conflict during World War II which shapes the lyrical themes for the new album, and frank discussion about the melodic death/extreme scene and thoughts on newer bands output versus the veterans. Dead Rhetoric: Wolves of Karelia is the fifth Wolfhe…
…amming everything, recording the vocals, and sending it to him. He would re-write some parts, such as the drums, which I’m not much of an expert in. Or he would re-do the guitar parts in a way that a real musician would play it. That’s how we created the sound of Ad Infinitum. Later, Nick [Müller], Jonas [Asplind], and Adrian [Theßenvitz] joined the team and we continued the process together. It was actually funny, because I had known Nick since 2…
…t for Stallion to balance out the speed/heavy tracks with occasional bluesy-based hard rock anthems like “Time to Reload” as well as the longer, Scorpions-esque ballad “Die with Me”? Äxxl: Yes I think so. I like to have a balanced record. It just so happens that we write the right amount of songs in each style, that you just have to put them in the right order and you’ll have that basic balance. It was the same this time around. I don’t know if I…
…something that we wanted to set as an anarchistic sign, against the market-driven, song-streaming days. Of course, the record still works on the streaming services, but for people who are still buying physical records, it’s really something special for a band to deliver something like that. It’s just what we wanted to do. Dead Rhetoric: Could you specifically discuss the two longest tracks, “Expatriate” and “The Sorrows of Victory?” Weichert: “Ex…
…harmonies from their latest vocalist Laura Guldemond. Reaching out through Skype we were able to talk to drummer Lala Frischknecht with supplementary support from guitarist Romana Kalkuhl. You’ll learn more about the recent surgeries for these two women and subsequent recoveries, thoughts on releasing new material on an annual basis, band chemistry and respecting the good times as well as the bad, and thoughts also on overcoming discrimination wit…
…t watching the shows and the other bands, hanging out in the audience front-and-center, hanging out with people the whole time, and then going to people’s houses and hanging out there until whenever. We were a lot more social, but as time goes on and touring happens – you get tired and things can get a little more dangerous. You kind of have to be a bit more careful as the fanbase grows. We’ve realized that we can’t always be out at the shows. The…
…around the country and recording and releasing a three-song EP plus a full-length follow-up. Their approach to the genre incorporates melodic singing along with screams and growls, plus a varied musical aspect that can have everything from traditional to death and technical influences. Their latest album Insanitorium has been receiving great praise in the press, which led me to seek out the husband and wife tandem of guitarist Colin Ryley and voc…
