…guitar. It was my passion, I was practicing every day. I’m not one of the best solo guitarists, but I try my best with the music we are playing. The music we are playing now doesn’t need a total shredder on the guitar, something more melodic over the music. It has to fit the music. Improving is always a good point. Dead Rhetoric: Being a long-time musician and a part of the Dutch metal scene, what are your thoughts on the state of heavy metal in…
…tle bit different. I had to ask a lot of questions – how do I get my music online? When we released music as Abolisher, there were no streaming services, you printed CD’s and had to send out tapes/CD’s, sold them at the shows, tape traded. I used to love getting printed magazines and fanzines in the mail. This is a little different, now you have streaming, it’s accessible but you aren’t necessarily getting direct sales. There’s a tradeoff, it make…
…of who could be the best to do that. For me, Ralf Scheepers is one of the best metal singers to do this, super powerful and a bit rough, like Rob Halford in Judas Priest. Now that I say that, everyone remembers that he was almost the Judas Priest singer, it just fits that association. He was a very good choice; he could do everything we wanted on that song. It was a bit difficult to mix in the end, that song is just so full with the arrangement,…
…. A bunch of new fresh ideas coming about. Wilderun for example – take the best parts of Opeth and adding orchestrations, basically is how I would describe it. Really brilliant songwriting and arranging. It’s really funny that they use Swedish mixers like Jens Bogren and Dan Swanö, across the pond collaborations to bring out the best of both worlds. I am optimistic. I don’t know if it’s getting bigger or what the numbers are looking like in terms…
…ll, The Fundamental Paradox was written during the COVID pandemic, in March 2020 the government declared 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 togethe…
…y. And I’m not talking about reinventing the wheel or anything. One of the best new heavy metal records in the 2000’s is Enforcer – Zenith, because they did what they wanted to do on that album, and it’s dynamic. The fans 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…
…rg Neuhauser: (laughs). Yeah, to be honest, this gig has been planned since 2020. When this COVID thing blew up, we were not able to do our big headlining tour for The Last Knight album in April of 2020. We did some brainstorming due to that, and we always did one or two acoustic songs in our live shows in the past, and people loved it. We thought it was a good idea to make it a bit bigger, in a special location, with special guests. This was the…
…blast festival in Germany this year, just a month ago. It was probably the best gig of all time for us. It was a full house; everyone was really into our stuff. It’s a progressive metal festival, so it was a proper audience for it. Maijala: It was a dream come true. A full circle moment, as we were there at Euroblast in 2014 just as fans, listening and enjoying the festival. Now we got to play there. We are a little bit like perfectionists, to get…
…gs. We could have started a bit earlier. Olof and I wrote the first song in 2014 and started writing more in 2016. We went to Australia and Japan on tour in 2018, and after that we had a creative burst, so we pushed for getting this done. The production also took a little while, the release schedule, it adds to the time. Dead Rhetoric: How would you assess the main recording and songwriting sessions for this set of material – and where you see the…
…Which for me, I couldn’t have done that two years ago. Sean Reinert is my best friend for twenty-five years, I couldn’t have done that, I wasn’t in that headspace. I can look at that record as paying tribute to my brother. Dead Rhetoric: Will this be an interesting arc for Gruesome, moving from the first three records of Death’s career parallel to what the band did on the back half of their career? Rios: We have had an interesting conversation ab…
…here and there. Ian has to do a summer tour with Deep Purple and writing in 2023 in March. Me, myself, I am tied up with Purpendicular, starting to write new material. We have a tour coming up in the Czech Republic, four dates there. A French tour in November, twelve shows there. Then Germany, Sweden, and the rest of Scandinavia. I am hopeful for some festivals in 2023. We are all pretty busy. Nick is doing some sessions in Paris. During the summe…
…er the last few years. We had such a thriving scene here in Brisbane around 2013 to 2019 but seemed to have died down with bands such as Deraign, Kaustic Attack, Malakyte and Wartooth breaking up. Bands such as Harlott, In Malice’s Wake and Mason have held the fort in Melbourne as they have all been working on and releasing albums. Hidden Intent from Adelaide have been absolutely smashing it with their touring cycles and endorsements. All bands ar…
…develop new songs for the second album Descending into Xibalba released in 2020 – then play some online festivals with artists like Jinjer, Shokran, and Arise in Stability while reintroducing people to the latest version of that debut album. Killing for Pleasure Forever contains thirteen of those original fifteen tracks, updated with better production values plus the insight/knowledge of the musicians on hand – the current rhythm section getting…
…olution of people learning the craft and the access to so much information online? What are specific traits or tools that you hope these players work upon that will be beneficial in the long run? Carstairs: I’ve been teaching for ten years. There are definitely times where I feel like my playing has gone stagnant, and you have to take the time to be critical about what you do to be better. When you don’t have a private teacher… I’ve had many priva…
…who like us, they are a small but honest group of people. They deserve the best that we can do as a unit. The best music that we can put out. I never thought to stop myself and say, ‘I hope this is as good as’, it has to be the best that it can be. To that end, I feel like that is where we were on the first two albums, we really pushed as much as we could. We hope that the new album as well resonates with the listeners. Dead Rhetoric: What is it l…
…ink that anytime you put out anything that’s brand new, you think it’s the best that you’ve ever done. What I look at this as is where we are. We’ve gone through… if you go back and listen to New Blood, it’s got a specific feel to it. Same with Voices. And when you listen to Polarity, it’s got a little bit of everything. I think the reason why, the reason we’ve grown the way we have, a lot of people I hope what they say is good about Farewell to F…
…the drums, everything about it. I had the chance to see Ronnie James Dio in 2007 in Oslo, Norway and at Sweden Rock with Black Sabbath in 2007. He was magic live. His connection with the audience, the great voice, I just love it. Dead Rhetoric: What do you think are some of the biggest challenges and struggles you face as a younger band trying to ascend up the ranks, develop more of a following, and stand out against the thousands of other bands i…
…, you know how it is. We have a bunch of offers coming in, but most are for 2023 and 2024. We will do live stuff, festival stuff, maybe support slot stuff. I don’t think we will be doing headlining tours immediately because it needs to build up to that for a while. We may start writing the next album pretty soon as well because we finished this record last October. About Lost Sanctuary, it’s been a bit quiet around that. I have this new lineup tha…
…way; it would get really warm in Europe. This leg was originally planned in 2020, the sea towns that should have happened after our big tour. We are doing the opposite, so we did the short run now, and then we have the big tour in the fall. We still could see the consequences of COVID – a lot of people had their tickets, but a high percentage didn’t attend the shows. We talked with the promoters from all the countries we visited, and they said thi…
…sit “Custard’s Last Stand” the reaches back to the band’s self-titled EP in 2012 as a bonus track for Invaders? Carpenter: The guys were talking about that song, and we’ve done it a few times live. They really like that song, but they felt not a lot of people got to hear it as it was just on the EP. They wanted to get that out there again, and it’s the tenth anniversary that it was first released. It was quite a while back. Dead Rhetoric: What can…
…demos, EP’s and live efforts until your debut album Visionaire of Death in 2019? Charlie Southern: I started the band when I was fourteen. I played the field; we had a bunch of lineup changes and demos. We actually recorded a couple of full lengths that we just completely trashed. I wanted the first full-length to be proper, and I wasn’t working with the right people yet. I waited until I found the right crew – I finally did when Joe joined the b…
…have someone managing that for us, so we have a more professional presence online rather than me every once in a while, taking a picture and sending it online. Those are the bigger challenges – how to deal with social media, how to build your brand locally, getting booked on better shows and better tours. We are finalizing a deal now with a management and booking company who will hopefully resolve that for us moving forward. Dead Rhetoric: If you…
…ded and stay home. Now, you can see the crowd is hungry, it was one of the best shows we ever played. I hope that people will remember this time and learn to appreciate the luxury we have of going to a show whenever we want. Dead Rhetoric: What concerns you most about the state of the world currently? Where do you believe the average person needs to put more attention and focus on to make things better for the society and world as a whole? Joe: I…
…of the people that believes in the good side of the world. I tooled around online, this thing popped up already done online for the first album. We got the rights to use it, I liked having a character. Spirits of Fire to me is like my modern Doctor Butcher. A metal band I get to have fun with. This fire spirit is like my Eddie – I have this thing online where I am trying to get people to name him and animate him. With the new record, Frontiers had…
…year. Prior to that, we had done some shows online. Starting at the end of 2020 and over 2021, we did shows where we revisited Nothingface, Dimension Hatross. In the meantime, we were trying to build the album out of snippets we had written during 2020. For a long while it was a process of trying to build a puzzle. In June of last year, we were able to record this in a studio. We started in June 2021, but it was also the time when the festivals i…
…eat and so humble and they talked/shared experiences with us. We also won a 2013 worldwide contest online too. Dead Rhetoric: With that period of time, what can you say about how the band’s sound has changed in that span? Cruz: It’s changed a lot, but we have always kept the identity. My vocals are the same [laughs]. So the identity is there, but we have changed. I had a tumor on my thyroid that caused me to have surgery and we had to stop playing…
…the band. Dead Rhetoric: You released a single “Kraven the Hunter” in late 2020 – how was the response to this effort, and do you believe this helped you establish a foothold and presence not only locally but internationally? Porisson: It was a lot better than we expected, especially here in Iceland – we never thought a glam rock-ish power metal song about a supervillain would be played on Icelandic radio for as long as it did. It definitely help…
…is to get recognized as a real band. Because we have this impression as an online project. We’ve never played live so far, so it’s difficult to get booked by promoters and agents as we are now on album number three. I am pretty positive though that in 2022 we will be playing live. To make people see that we are a real band. Once we have a couple of live gigs, it will become easier to have more shows down the road. We want to get together, rehearse…
…with albums is that it is a snapshot of time. An album that was recorded in 2012, that is what you were going for in 2012. The stories you wrote about and the emotions are from then. Especially when it’s a first album, it’s the culmination of all of those feelings up until then. I love listening back to my albums, and remembering what I was going through. It’s cool because it’s like a diary for us. So listening to Infected Rain’s new album, to me,…
…for April 2018 and the recordings for the vocals were scheduled for January 2018. Alessia and I had joined the band in December of 2017. Everything was so super fast, we knew each other before with Marco and the guys, but the studio time was intense and we gave the best we could without really knowing our skills and our abilities in the studio. Then we played a lot of shows, something like 80-90 in a year. Being together for that long for so many…
