Q: What motivates you to record and release your music?
A: What motivates us to record and release our music is simple. We all have a passion for music, both playing it and listening to it, and we have fun doing it! I’ve personally always loved fast,
complex, melody-driven music. It’s the reason why we have so many leads and solos! We also want to share what we have created with the world and recording allows us to do that.
Q: How would you describe your music to people that have never heard your music?
A: I’ve thought a lot lately about how I would describe our music and it has been tough! Perhaps it’s because I’m so close to it as I do the majority of the writing,
but I don’t feel as though it sounds a whole lot like the bands that have influenced me. That is the topic of the next question, so I’ll come back to it.
The way we have our music described genre-wise on our Facebook page is part joke, part truth. We like to call it “Glorious Melodic Speed Tech Death Metal”. In short, there are lots of leads and harmonies,
numerous developments in a somewhat progressive style, and it’s always, at least reasonably, fast!
Q: What bands do you listen too?
A: The bands I listen to most come from the melodic death metal genre. Bands like Wintersun, Ensiferum, and Kalmah are always revisited. Lately,
I’ve been listening to an enormous amount of power metal too! Anything from Gloryhammer and Twilight Force to Galneryus and Powerwolf.
As with our own music, what I listen to always needs leads and interesting melodies (whether vocal or instrumental). I listen to a fair amount of classical music as well,
predominantly Paganini. I’ve always thought of Paganini’s works as “shred violin”. Hopefully that doesn’t bother any of the classical elitists out there! I just really love shredding…
Q: How did you all meet to form this band?
A: As for how we met, most of us met through immediate proximity!
That is, most of us worked at the local music store, Long and McQuade. Pierre and Andrew worked in the store as salesmen and I have taught guitar lessons there for several years.
Pierre and I had known each other for some time due to our work at Long and McQuade. We had originally joined what could loosely be called a symphonic metal band together but that didn’t pan out.
Pierre was recruited for bass back then! We always got along well and had, and still have, the same view on how drums ought to be played. That is, interesting, dynamic, and seamlessly integrated with the music.
I tried writing the drum parts at the beginning, but we don’t talk about that anymore…
Aidan was actually one of my guitar students! His drive and focus was immediately apparent and I knew, far before he could shred, that he would be an incredible guitarist someday. After teaching him for,
I think, two years I decided we could take his training to the next level by jamming together with him and Pierre! It went extremely well, we all got along way better than I could have hoped, and it took off from there!
Trey had responded to an advertisement on Kijiji that we were looking for a bass player. We had one other bassist try out but Trey made such a good impression on us, despite only having just picked up bass,
that we wanted him to join. He fit in with the band so well right from the beginning I knew he’d be an excellent choice.
Andrew started work at Long and McQuade after the rest of us had already joined the band. We had talked about getting a third guitarist for some time and so Pierre suggested Andrew.
I like to say that this is because of my not-so-mild love for Iron Maiden! Pierre’s other band, Wenches and Rogues (a celtic rock band), had also just hired him on as a rhythm guitarist.
After playing rhythm guitar for us for about a year we decided our vocalist at the time wasn’t working out. In the interest of downsizing our band a little (because small stages had a hard time fitting 6 people)
we moved Andrew to vocals. His Amon Amarth style vocals fit closely to what I had in mind for the band and he has only improved since then!
Phew! I apologize if the answers were longer than you bargained for! I love talking, as any of my band members would testify to (although they’d call it something else), so sometimes I overdo it.
I’m honestly just super pumped to be in a band with such excellent people who work so well together.
Q: I see you opened for trivium.
A: Yes! It was such an incredible show and Trivium is great live! Matt Heafy is an awesome frontman and a good dude. We had never played for a crowd that big before and so it was a huge deal for us. We loved every minute of it!