Interview with Kilmara 2014

Last month Metal Harem reviewed one of promising heavy metal album of Kilmara, a band from Spain. After some short of online communication we were able to ask for a writen interview. Kilmara drummer, Javi Morillo , is kindly answering all our questions in lengthy stories. Javi talked about how Kilmara as a band, their new album behind the scenes stories, their collaboration with Roland Grapow, and also serious discussion about how the current metal music scenes. Just read their full interview below. \m/

If you still haven't touch on this band, read their bio HERE.

Their latest album is "LOVE SONGS AND OTHER NIGHTMARES", released worldwide early this year. Check their full discography here.

Metalharem.blogspot.com, interview with KILMARA  (Spain)

Enjoy....

Javi Morillo: "Hello metalharem, it is a pleasure talking with you. This is Javi, Kilmara’s drummer..."

Q Metalharem.blogspot:  Can you briefly tell us again, who is Kilmara? Is this a full band, side project or solo project? Have you become friends each other before deciding forming Kilmara? The five of you, are you staying in one area?

 We have been dedicated only to Kilmara for a lot of years; every single project we think about is just for this band. We never wanted to put us any kind of musical limitations and, in the same way,  we never know which will be the next step for Kilmara. Obviously, this is like this, because we are friends. We know each other so much that we have forgotten for how long we do it. John, Kike and I, are the oldest members, because we played together before being called Kilmara. Wolf arrived a little bit later and Raul was the last one that came. We could say we live in the same area since we work one near the other.

Love Songs and Other Nightmares, Kilmara 3rd studio album

Q: The first impression listener going to acknowledge is your unique style. We hear bit of power metal, American thrash metal, and also death metal in Kilmara. How do you describe Kilmara styles, if possible? What kind of band that inspired Kilmara for going this direction?

We could say that what moves us close is the same attraction for the melody. Apart from that, each one enjoys music in his way. We are inspired by several groups, and we like classic groups as much as modern ones, but we always try not to be a copy of an existing one. In this last Cd we had the intention of giving more prominence to the voice and of being more consequents with Wolf’s registers. We wanted that the music would go exactly with what words want to express. 

Q: How is your 3rd album 'Love Songs and other Nightmares" being produced. Tells us the writing process, recording duration and any interesting stories about it.

After our previous disc (Don’t Fear The Wolf) many things happened in our personal and working lives that made us grow apart.  Although we tried to find time to go on with Kilmara, this became quite difficult and that was harmful to us.  However, John, who has always been the driving force in the group, found at that moment a chance to develop his creativity. We took advance of the critics (good or bad ones) that we had had about “Don’t Fear The Wolf”,  and we decided that Wolf should do all the lyrics of this new project. We were looking for a more sincere and direct interpretation. John composed the music, but he had to do some final touches after Wolf had written the lyrics. Even the vocal melodies changed several times. I went to record the drums in September 2012 taking with me some demos with different versions of the songs. The lyrics of some of the themes were recorded by Raul and John because wolf had a sudden lesion in his vocal cords. Although everything seemed a mess, we all had everything more clear than ever.

Q: And also about Roland Grapow. Can you tell us stories behind your collaboration with him. How many times have Kilmara worked together with Roland? Did he involved or influenced in creating / writing music for this album?

 “Love Songs and Other Nightmares” has been the second CD that we have recorded in Roland Grapow Studios. We had totally clear that we wanted to work again with him. He is very professional and he is also a friend. We explained him that this time we wanted to give more importance to the voice.  When I arrived ( I was the first one ) it was quite difficult because all the demos I took with me looked just like themes remnants.  He also gave me his opinion about the drums in “Don’t Fear The Wolf”. He thought they weren’t as good as they should be, and he had the intention of improving them in this last work. As soon as John, Kike and Raul arrived to Roland Grapow Studio, everything seemed to flow and Roland got really involved. He gave us some advises and he even took part in some of the backing vocals. We lived plenty of anecdotes, but the funniest for me was that he took us to a concert. His drummer (Marthus) was going to give a concert with his personal project (Inner Fear) near there, and although Marthus had recorded drums for Masterplan, Roland had never seen him playing at life.

Javier Morillo recording drum for album "Love Songs and Other Nightmares"

photo from Facebook

Q: How did you guys ended up with Sony Music, are there many new metal band that signed with 'mainstream' label as Sony. How is this going to help Kilmara in distributing your music.

The music business is not in a very good moment nowadays but Kilmara keeps on having faith in the truth record companies. We already knew that for people like us, it was going to be difficult to carry out a good distribution. We knocked on several doors and many of them were a fraud. Others were not interested in our music. In fact, Sony is being really good with us and now everything depends on the product demanding. It is simple, if things do not go further, it does not make sense that we wait a bigger investment.

Q. How is your view about metal music nowadays, in your area, Spain, Europe and across the world? As blogger we found many new metal albums everyday, is there a room for one more metal  band? How about the internet, social media, and uncontrolled music distribution over the web? 

I will let you know only my opinion. I think it is almost impossible to create something new. Besides, we have overload of music information. Record companies used to put some filters that are now lost because of the uncontrolled music distribution. This has caused quality deterioration because most of records are self produced.  Music industry is not working any more because selling discs does give enough money. Everything has been harmed by this. Groups record discs the best way we can and later….nothing happens. Nowadays, all the effort falls on a good promotion (of course, the group is in charge of it) in order to stand out from the others. The final product is often very poor because of the lack of wherewithal. Crowds just go to see a concert of renowned groups because they are the only ones that can keep the quality. Among all the options, people prefer what they have always been listening. I think it is difficult that this changes.

Q: Do you hear any fans feedback from our area, Indonesia and Asia in general, about Kilmara?

We are receiving feed back of half world! This makes up live with hopes. Knowing that our music likes gives us strength to go on.

Q: Lastly, what is your next plan for Kilmara, touring or producing new materials for next album?

We would like to tour all over the world but this is not according to our possibilities. We will do as many concerts as we can and we will go on working on taking our project as far as we can. We are already preparing new songs and really exited with Kilmar’s future.

Thank you! It was a pleasure! - Javi

and we thank you you to Javi, for the time and stories you shared to us. Please follow Kilmara on their website and social networks:

KILMARA :

Christian Wolfgang Kohl (vocals)
Jonathan Portillo (guitar)
Enrique Torres (guitar)
Javier Morillo (drums)
Raul Ruiz (bass)

Guests on their latest album:
Roland Grapow (Masterplan, ex-Helloween)
Pilar Villatobas (Resilence)

http://www.kilmara.com/
FACEBOOK
TWITTER

Interview with Nikita Merzlyakov of Hammerforce

The metal communities were surprised with the arrival of new power metaller from Russia, Hammerforce. Their latest album Access Denied (Metal Harem review here) were accepted with great enthusiast. The inclusion of synthesizer attack in metal genre got re-touch when Hammerforce introduce this to us in this album. Metal Harem takse the changes to wrote few Questions and Answer for the band's spoke person, keyboardist and guitarist Nikita. Read this insightful interview about their struggle in metal music, internet power and Russian version of their album. Visit their website as well and support the band.
Hammerforce - http://hammerforce.bandcamp.com/ 

The Interview

Here is Nikita Merzlyakov from Hammerforce. I am keyboardist, arranger, sound producer/engineer, manager and partially rhythm guitarist in the band and together with Ilya Kapralov we form the heart of Hammerforce.

hi Hammerforce,
Metalharem.blogspot: Can you briefly (or lengthy ... ) describe how you guys come together and formed a band? Are you come from same school or met later in the process of making a band?

Nikita: Hammerforce actually evolved from local Power/Prog Metal band Legioner that played live in Saint-Petersburg and recorded few demos. Legioner was formed by Ilya Kapralov and Alexander Moroz (drummer on “Dice” album) in 1998. They met on audition for one band and ended up with their own band. I joined them in 2003 as rhythm guitarist. I was looking for a band and discovered them playing live on festival. Luckily guys were looking for a guitarist. As time passed I also addicted to synthesizers and now I am more keyboardist than guitarist. In 2006 Ilya and I decided to take our music to the new level: record full-length album and spread it all around the world. While it was common for European bands that time, there still were very few Metal bands in Russia with good recorded albums and with any presence outside Russia. Legioner had only Russian lyrics and Legioner itself is a Russian word (Легионер) that means “legionary”. In addition we had new members and new attitude. So the change of name was needed. That was how Hammerforce was born.

Metalharem.blogspot: In your new 2013 album, Access Denied, there is high energy of metal music, and interestingly additional of synthesizer sound along the guitar riff. How you guys come with this approach? Are you deliberately composed the music in such way, or it is a spontaneous come from your band member (supposedly the keyboardist) ?

N: Well, it’s my “fault” ;) It was absolutely intended and elaborated. I love 90’s Eurodance music such as Masterboy, DJ Bobo, Maxx, E-Rotic, etc. It probably seems weird to like such music being hairy and beardy metal head. But that is what I am and I can nothing to do about that. I think it is boring to play traditional Heavy/Power Metal these days. There should be some fusion of musical styles or may be even developing of new styles to keep music being interesting. I know that many die-hard metal fans aren't agree with this as it doesn't seem to be “true” to them. Okay, there are a lot of True Metal bands out there. =) We just try to combine some old things and not so old things to get some new and hopefully interesting results. We really love what goes out and plan to make more in the future.

Q: How long it takes to produce Access Denied? Normally how you guys write the songs, and what is the most inspiration for the lyrics?   (C) metalharem.blogspot.com

N: Oh, it was very long journey. This time I decided to record, edit, mix and master everything myself at my private studio. It took about 3 years of trials and errors to get things right. But I believe it was worth it. This approach lets to control every detail of recording and mixing process and not to give a compromise to third party producers and sound engineers. So the album you listen to sounds exactly as band wanted it to sound.
As for songwriting process, we do it little unusual way either. First of all Ilya composes all guitar riffs and structure of a song. After that Dmitriy and I compose vocal melodies. Sometimes we have two or even more different vocal melodies for one part of a song: from Dmitriy and from me, so we have to choose from. After everything is recorded I start working on synth arrangement. Dmitriy is really genial lyricist. He writes lyrics on the fly, just needs to choose topic beforehand. We decided to devote this album to social problems that we see in our everyday life. Why to sing about nonexistent things like dragons or devil while we can try to make our real world little better and kinder. So our inspiration is just real life.

Q: Can you give in brief background story of songs from this album? Maybe one or two interesting ones?

N: Hmm… Song “Mass Media” was the first composed for this album. And there were good chances to name the album “Mass Media”. We really are concerned about the power mass media has nowadays. Sadly this power is very often used just to fool people or make them buy things they don’t actually need. Most people don’t even notice it or think about it but it is all around us yelling and blinking, diverting attention from what really matters. We couldn't pass it by and here is the song! Another important topic is touched in “Templates for All”. It is not new (remember Helloween’s “I Want Out”?) but we are still the same slaves of stereotypes and social templates as 25 years ago. People often don’t even think why they do things, just do because everybody does. Human is creative being and one should use one’s own brain. I don’t mean that we must throw away all external influence. But it is much better to decide yourself what is better for you. If we can change this even a little we must take our chance. All other songs have same significant ideas which hopefully help, dig it out yourselves.

Q: What is the most influential bands to Hammerforce, can you point out the old bands (Helloween, maybe) and your contemporaries this day (Avantasia, Dragonforce etc.) ? Any favorite ones?

N: Helloween, Masterplan, Gamma Ray, In Flames, Dimmu Borgir: they are our main Metal influences. Also every band member has his own influences of course. Dmitriy likes Queensryche, Judas Priest as well as some modern Rock. Ilya is more into Metalcore and MDM. My inspiration for this album mostly came from Raintime, Kovenant (“Animatronic” album), 2 Times Terror, Twilightning, Lost Horizon, MyGrain, Labyrinth (“No Limits” album), Athena (“A New Religion” album) besides mentioned above well-known acts and some 90’s Eurodance music. There are many more, but here is the main list… =)

Q: In the era of digital information, how would you approach the rise of internet. How you guys been benefit from the usage of Youtube, Blogging, social network, itunes etc in reaching the market.

N: Many famous artists suffer from Internet and ease of digital sharing of music or at least many claim that. But for us being from country where Metal music was always deep underground, rise of Internet is the greatest thing. Without Internet we would just play few gigs a year at our local venues and the chances are that you would never know about us. In Russia we have no long Metal traditions and infrastructure for Metal such as present in Europe, USA and some other countries, very few Metal labels that distribute mostly inside Russia and have very weak international distribution (if any) and not so many Metal fans as one could expect from our big country. That’s why Internet helps us a lot! We reach fans all over the world and that excites and motivates us very much. Our Facebook page has already more than 4000 likes for example. On the other hand the main flaw of Internet for musicians is that some sites (mostly Russian ones and it is a shame for me) earn money on advertisement providing illegal downloads of music. For some reason years pass but government does nothing about it. Please understand it right, I am not against free distribution of music for people that can’t afford buying it, and we give away our music for free from time to time. But dozens of insolent sites that make money from pirated information and never share with creators are on top in search engines. That’s absurd and definitely not the way our world should evolve... By the way good idea for future song! =)   (Metalharem addition: check their Twitter as well in http://twitter.com/HammerforceBand )

Q: What is Hammerforce's next step after the release of Access Denied? Will be there a tour to Europe or other region being scheduled?

Nikita: Many fans ask us about touring. The truth is that we decided not to play live until we get enough fans to make good tour with good sound and at good venues. We believe that it is better to spend our time and effort on writing and recording new songs for now. We have fans in a huge amount of different countries, but we can’t afford long world tour now (to be honest we can’t afford any short and small tour for now as well). So while we are on tour many of our fans that live in other cities and countries will just sit down and wait for next songs. That is not fair I think.

As for future plans, we are working now on version of “Access Denied” with Russian lyrics. It is some kind of experiment to see if people outside Russia are interested listening to Russian language. Also instrumental (Karaoke) version of “Access Denied” is going to be released soon. Work on new material for the third album has already started as well. The process of album creating is worked out now and I promise there wouldn’t be another 4 years between albums anymore. Stay tuned and no more templates for us all! \m/

Thank you very much, Nikita for the time answering the questions and share the story to us. Let's keep touch to the band with their new album and support them.  10 April 2013

Hammerforce bandcamp Merchandising Store