Interviews - Heavy Blog Is Heavy

Category: Interviews

Valentin Hauser of Betraying the Martyrs: The Heavy Blog Is Heavy Interview

Nov.29, 2011

Original photo by Anthony Dubois.

Believe it or not, France is steadily becoming a beacon for excellent metal, as evidenced by this year’s stellar debut releases from Uneven Structure and Betraying The Martyrs, the latter of which are currently embarking on their first ever tour in America, supporting Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya, and Carnifex [show review here]. I caught up with Betraying the Martyrs bassist Valentin Hauser for an exclusive interview in which he discusses the origin of the band’s name and the troubles of getting a European band into America. I also make a fool of myself by pronouncing his name wrong. Luckily, Valentin is a great sport and a friendly dude!

Alright, so for everyone who doesn’t know, who are you and what do you do?

I am Valentin and I play bass for Betraying the Martyrs.

Oh! “Valentine!” I’ve been pronouncing it like “Valenteen” this whole time! [laughs]

Yeah, in French, “Valenteen” is a name for a girl…

Oh!

So please, don’t do so! [laughs]

I apologize! I am very American…

No problem!

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Tags: As They Burn, Betraying the Martyrs, Born of Osiris, Bridal Procession, Gojira, gorod, Hacride, sybreed, The HAARP Machine

Auré “worC” Pereira of Uneven Structure: The Heavy Blog Is Heavy Interview

Filed Under: Interviews

Nov.04, 2011

Photo courtesy of our friend Patrick Häberli of Prog Hippie

Since we first heard it, it hasn’t left our ears much since. Uneven Structure‘s much anticipated debut album Februus is making waves that will no doubt propel them to the forefront of progressive metal. We spoke with uneven axeman Auré “worC” Pereira for an interview regarding Februus, his kickass hair, and other such oddities.

First off, introduce yourself! Who are you, what do you do, and why should people care?

Hey my name’s Auré, I play guitar in Uneven Structure and people should care because I have strange hair.

So your debut album Februus is finally here and the feedback has been phenomenal. How’s it feel?

After all these years of hard work, it feels a bit weird actually to know that Februus is finally out and that we don’t have any control on it anymore. To be honest we weren’t expecting such a huge amount of feedback. People seem to enjoy it a lot, the reviews have all been very positive and as far as I know pre-sales are good so yeah, we can say we are really happy with how things look at the moment.

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Tags: Blood Command, Long Distance Calling, Protest the Hero, TesseracT, Uneven Structure, Vildhjarta, worC

ASK TEXTURES ANYTHING! Week 4: The End!

Filed Under: Features, Interviews, Tours and Rumors of Tours

Oct.07, 2011

WEEK ONE!
WEEK TWO!
WEEK THREE!

Our tour-long interview with the great prog progenitors Textures has come to an end. Periphery‘s Frak The Gods tour featuring The Human Abstract, Textures, and The Contortionist ends this weekend, October 8th, in Richmond, VA. Check out our fourth and final interview with Textures below:

Tour’s just about over! How did this tour treat you compared to your expectations?

Zzzz, we’re still sleeping…zzz..eeh expectations. Wake up guys! It’s HeavyBlog.

Hey, here we are! Well, what we didn’t expect was that we would lose weight and would get so little sleep. Personally I’ve never experienced so many days with 4 hours of sleep, no breakfast and a crappy dinner. Actually we thought we would gain weight because of all the fastfood stores over here. Instead of USA our girlfriends probably think we did a hiking trail for weeks haha.
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Tags: Frak The Gods Tour, Nuclear Blast, Periphery, Textures, The Contortionist, The Human Abstract

ASK TEXTURES ANYTHING! Week 3: The Dreaded Djent Question

Filed Under: Features, Interviews, Tours and Rumors of Tours

Sep.30, 2011

WEEK ONE!
WEEK TWO!

Each week while out on the Frak The Gods Tour in support of their fantastic new album Dualism, Textures are taking fan questions and answering them here on Heavy Blog! The last of the questions have been sent in, so if your question wasn’t answered or you missed your opportunity, then we apologize!

Here’s this week’s Q&A:

What is your proudest recorded moment? Like a riff, lead, fill (what have you) that comes to mind as being extremely proud of?

STEF: I think the new song Singularity. I guess to all Textures guys this is a new masterpiece in the band’s history. A typical Textures song with a lot of rhythmical and structural changes and a long tensionspan that totally drags you into its vastness. All musical qualtities of us personally + the total bandqualties is expressed in its best way.

How do you think North American crowds compare to European crowds? I’ve heard they’re quite different in some instances.

STEF: It differs from city to city. For us cities with universities are the best to play. We attract a lot of people between 18 and 27. In other cities there’s more kids and most of the time they are a bit less into music, but more into socializing. That’s not especially good or bad, it’s just different from where we come from. The social aspect is of course very important in Europe, but at concerts the music comes always first.

Besides that I think that European bands sound different than US bands. European bands are more into experimenting with their sound (Anathema, Radiohead, Katatonia, Textures) while US bands stick more to a certain – commercial – formula.

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Tags: Anathema, Katatonia, Meshuggah, Periphery, Radiohead, TesseracT, Textures

Cliff Campbell Of Fair To Midland: The Heavy Blog Is Heavy Interview

Filed Under: Interviews

Sep.28, 2011

Photo © brittany for ftmband.com/ftmfans.com

As you all may know, I’m a bit of a new blood around these parts, but I’ve been actively trying to throw myself into the thick of it, and just get my feet as wet as possible. So when Jimmy [Alkahest] offered me a chance to interview guitarist Cliff Campbell from Fair to Midland, I jumped at the chance.

Fair to Midland are currently undergoing the final leg of their most recent headlining tour in support of their absolutely stellar Arrows and Anchors album. Despite some set backs during soundcheck, I was able to get Cliff all to myself for a nerve wracking 15 minutes. As most people who aren’t socially awkward could have guessed, what followed was a completely comfortable and deeply entertaining experience. Despite the conditions of the venue, and the heat of the night, Cliff was super nice and showed no sign of annoyance as I stumbled my way through my first interview. I hope you all enjoy it. Sorry if it runs a bit long, Cheers!

Okay first thing; you guys have been touring for a pretty long time, non-stop. I mean we saw you back in April at the exact same place. How has it been touring for so long?

It’s been good. I mean it’s a little tedious, you know? You kind of end up hating each other, but you get home and you kind of disperse for a while and you’re good again. This whole lifestyle is kind of addicting, you know? You miss home while you’re gone and you miss touring while you’re home. It’s kind of hard to live through that, but the tours have been good. It’s been good enough to get us like, The Damned Things tour.

And you guys are Touring with Evanescence in Europe, right?

Yeah, yeah. It’s going to be great.

How did that get set-up?

We got really lucky with that, man. We have a really great agent out there in Europe, and she’s done really well for us. We’ve been on Rock AM Ring and Rock IM park, twice. And you know it’s just crazy that it happened, cause who the hell is Fair To Midland, right? (laughs)

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Tags: Arrows and Anchors, Cliff Campbell, Darroh Sudderth, eOne Music, Fair to Midland, Musical Chairs, Serj Tankian

ASK TEXTURES ANYTHING! Week Two: Fine Dining!

Filed Under: Features, Interviews, Tours and Rumors of Tours

Sep.23, 2011

VIEW WEEK ONE’S Q&A HERE.

Each week while out on the Frak The Gods Tour in support of their fantastic new album Dualism, Textures are taking fan questions and answering them here on Heavy Blog! You only have ONE MORE WEEK to submit questions to them, so keep your questions coming! Here’s this week’s Q&A:

While on tour, good food can be hard to come by. What’s the best meal you’ve had on tour so far?

We are eating very healthy this tour actually! We heard a lot of stories that you can only find fast food stuff, but if you look a bit further you can find a lot of great restaurants; Italian, Sushi, Mexican food, and in a lot of stores you can find enough fresh ingredients to make your own salad meal. But next to making our own meals we eat at a restaurant sometimes, yesterday we found one next to the 101 near Gilroy, had some great pasta with fish and lasagna! BART, JOCHEM

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Tags: Dualism, Nuclear Blast, Periphery, Textures, The Contortionist, The Human Abstract

ASK TEXTURES ANYTHING! Week One: Cookies and Hair Gel!

Filed Under: Features, Interviews, Tours and Rumors of Tours

Sep.16, 2011

Each week while out on the Frak The Gods Tour in support of their fantastic new album Dualism, Textures are taking fan questions and answering them here on Heavy Blog! If you could only see our excitement!

We decided to ease the charming Dutch gentlemen into it this week with only a handful of questions. We’ll ramp up on them as we go along, so long as you folks keep your questions coming! Here’s this week’s Q&A:

1. First off, thank you guys for taking the time to do this with us! How’s America treating you guys so far, in all?

The secret to Remko's sleek and sexy style

It’s been one hell of a ride so far! We’re having a blast, meeting all the new people and driving through the beautiful landscapes. The crowds are awesome every night we play, it has even surpassed all of our expectations! BAND

2. Since you guys jokingly put it out there, what hair gel DOES Remko use?

I use Albert Heijn Styling Gel Extra Strong. I call it: ‘The Yellow Blob’ since it has a life of it’s own. REMKO

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Tags: Textures

ASK TEXTURES ANYTHING!

Filed Under: Features, Interviews, Tours and Rumors of Tours, Upcoming releases

Sep.09, 2011

Here’s your chance to ask Textures whatever’s on your mind! The Dutch prog sextet are currently on tour with Periphery, The Human Abstract, and The Contortionist, ripping North America a new hole in which to send and/or receive. Luckily, they’ve been gracious enough to take some time off from doing that to answer a few fan questions every week while out on tour, beginning next week! We’re excited, and hopefully you are too! Leave all of your questions in the comments section below!

Textures’ highly anticipated new album Dualism is due out Sept. 23 (EU, JP, AUS, South America) and Sept. 27 (North America). You can check out Chris’ review of it here and pre-order it here. The Frak The Gods Tour is in full swing! Check for the remaining tour dates on the band’s Facebook page. See you folks next week!

- JR

Tags: Periphery, Textures, The Contortionist, The Human Abstract

Keith Buckley Discusses Forthcoming New ETID Album

Filed Under: Interviews, Upcoming releases

Aug.19, 2011

Every Time I Die, Buffalo NY’s southern metal raconteurs, have finished recording their sixth studio album with producer Joe Baressi, and in an interview with Altpress, frontman Keith Buckley had a few things to say that make this record an even more interesting prospect than I already had it down as. Peep dis:

“Everyone [in a band] is always saying the newest thing is their best work. No one is going to be like, “You know what, to be honest, [our new stuff] sounds like shit.” [But] this is the first record we’ve done with a new drummer [Ryan Leger]. You know, we’ve had our old drummer [Mike "Ratboy" Novak] from day one. When you make a new foundation for the band, it’s going to alter the way the things get built. It sounds like a different band; it sounds like it’s got a lot more energy to it, a lot more aggression. [Ryan’s] just a better drummer. You can tell there’s new vitality, which we haven’t had in a long time.”

“It was crazy, because we didn’t realize before that [Ryan] is the most technical and professional member in the band.”

I’ll rip off no more – go read the full thing here – but it seems like Keith will be coming from a different place lyrically too; I’ve always loved his stuff, so this is going to be an interesting deviation, but I have faith in the man – he’s as close to a modern-day Shakespeare as we’re likely to get from a metalcore band.

No release date yet, but I can tell you that their upcoming stint headlining the Rocksound Riot Tour in November/December will be supported by the fantastic Defeater and some dudes known as Trash Talk. I’ve heard the name, but I can tell ye nae more than that. Can’t wait.

- CG

Tags: Defeater, Every Time I Die, Keith Buckley, Trash Talk

Thomas Sifuentes of White Arms Of Athena: The Heavy Blog Is Heavy Interview

Filed Under: Interviews

Aug.12, 2011

Ever since Gein first posted about these guys back in February, I’ve had the biggest nerd-boner for Texan prog-metal quintet White Arms of Athena. Despite mercilessly abusing my position and tricking them into giving me an advance copy of their debut album Astrodrama, bassist Thomas Sifuentes was kind enough to also grace me with an in-depth interview, explaining the elaborate concepts behind the record, how the band got named, and the artist behind the awesome artwork. You can also catch a complete stream of the album over at Hails and Horns right now!

Hey guys, thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions for us. First of all, for those who aren’t familiar with you, please tell us who you are and a little bit about the band’s history.

Thank you for having us! I’m Tom and I handle the bass guitar duties and the business stuff. As far as the band goes, we are the result of an earlier band. A few of us were looking to do a more aggressive style of music, and in early ’06 three of us joined up with two other guys (Austin and Andrew) and kept the last name we had, White Arms of Athena.

So Athena. Why are the crotchety old bitch’s arms white?

I was in my freshman English class reading about that Athena chick and the “white armed goddess” Hera. Through the events explained in that certain story, I guess I felt that Athena stepped up and took the role and responsibility of what should have been Hera’s. I remember writing White Arms of Athena all over my homework that day thinking I found a good band name!