Hanna Tsepesh: Hola (hello in Spanish) Lord Dan! Thanks so much for accepting this interview and Welcome to THE GATES OF METAL! First of all: how are you and how are the things doing with your concerts? Lord Dan: Hello Hanna! Thank you for your devotion and dedication to the metal world.
Well now I’m recovering from a knee injury that made us cancel some shows some time ago, but I’m quite better now and we’re rocking the stages once again! We’ve started a good 2010 for that matter because we have some very interesting shows on view. We’ll be playing with Kells when they come to Spain in their European tour and we’ll be featuring in the third edition of the Metal Femmes Festival with other great emerging bands. But it doesn’t end here because we’re about to close some more gigs. We’d also love to be able to play in your country, that’d be amazing!
Hanna Tsepesh: For those who do not know the band, could tell us a little how it all started?
Lord Dan: NoXiuS Corp. is created as we know it in 2009 with our current formation: Laura Espejo on vocals, J. Monfu on guitars, Luka Gómez on drums and myself on bass, growls and synth programming. Founded by Miky Vega (ArboreA) and me, it’s originated on 2007 when it was called just NoXiuS and the line up was quite different. We released then a demo called “The Dying Earth” and the video clip for “Slavery”
But after some line-up changes, the band has now found stability and has evolved to what can be heard nowadays, the “Grey Shades” EP and the first LP that will see the light late this year.
Hanna Tsepesh: What inspired you the most to create the lyrics and what process the band use to create the riffs, melody to comply with the lyrics?
Lord Dan: We don’t actually close any door when writing, but the truth is that usually the roots of our songs come from the instrumental side more than the lyrics one.
When I write usually the work comes form a rhythm base that leads to everything else. I believe that a good instrumental job it’s essential for the vocal line and for a good song. Once the musical base is finished we focus on lyrics and vocal lines, keyboards and finally the last arrangements to close it properly. When writing the lyrics our inspiration comes from things that happen to and around us. Some other times we just try to listen to what the music tells us or just create a little story that fits with it.
The general idea for the band it’s not just having a good vocal line with emotive lyrics to make the world believe that we are very, very sad or very bad ass. We think some bands take that role too seriously and that it’s the typical “cliché” of female-fronted metal bands... for that stuff there are lots of bands out there that do it better than we do! (laughs)
Hanna Tsepesh: What are your favorite bands? You have any musician that you admire the most? Lord Dan: The answer is hard and could be endless but well… I’ll try to be as tight as possible!
I love all from Mikael Akerfeld & Opeth, they’re one of my biggest influences and it’s the band I’ve seen the most live (on our new LP you will be able to check their influences, specially in one concrete song). I also love the “renewed” Dream Theater, I believe they’ve found a way to bring progressive music to everyone, and speaking ‘bout prog I can’t forget Porcupine Tree. Turning into more extreme metal stuff there is Strapping Young Lad (I strongly believe that Devin Townsend is a demi-god), Dark Tranquillity, Katatonia (who seem to start to get the popularity they deserve). Then there would be Samael, Queens of the Stone Age, Sybreed, Muse, Senteced & Charon, Chuck Berry, Diablo Swing Orchestra, Skindred, Stollen Babies, Fear Factory... I also got into some rock-related (or not) bands such as No Doubt, Mindless Self Indulgence, Portishead, Mr. Bungle (God save Patton), Zombina and the Skeletones, Goran Bregovic... and so I could write for hours but no-one would read. Actually everything depends on the season, the day, the mood, the moment...
Hanna Tsepesh: You have another band or some future project?
Lord Dan: From some years now I’ve been also playing in ArboreA
ArboreA stands in different ground, it’s music was more to do with progressive while extreme metal and pop music walk hand in hand with experimental stuff (which sometimes is close to psychedelia). In three words : Alternative, Fusion, Metal
We’ve edited some promo CD’s and the first LP is predicted for late this year (like NoXiuS Corp)
Those who are curious can and will check our stuff at our myspace (www.myspace.com/arboreaband) and on Facebook. Check it!
Hanna Tsepesh: When you start to play bass? It was difficult to learn?
Lord Dan: I got my first bass as a gift when I was 16, but real intentions of playing seriously started some time after that.
As self-taught, I would say that learning process is always more difficult and slow than when you’ve got someone giving you their knowledge, guiding you and making you have a discipline. Nevertheless, I believe you never end studying an instrument because there are always new things to do, to learn and play.
Hanna Tsepesh: What was the highest and lowest point of your career as a musician?
Lord Dan: I believe the lowest point of my career (and I believe it’s common to most of the musicians out there) it’s when i’ve been almost defrauded by promoters who haven’t promoted on their careers, club owners who want to own your money and managers who couldn’t even manage their live... all those people who doesn’t love music and the only thing they care about is to steal some money to the musicians and make profit out of their dreams. I believe that all bands should get serious with those people and kick them out, all together we can make them see that we don’t need they. That’s really the cancer of the underground scene, at least in our country.
Luckily, not everyone’s that way and you can always find some people who loves music and wants to do his job as best as he can.
Hanna Tsepesh: Let’s talk about the “Grey Shades” EP. Can you tell to our readers what they can expect from this EP?
Lord Dan: What they can expect is what we've tried to show! Modern metal that doesn’t forget or obliterates the past but at the same time is coherent with the year we live in, sweet, clean, crystal voices suddenly march with some filthy, desperate and visceral growls; a strong rhythmic base very tight on drums, bass and guitars, some keyboards and samplers to add textures and a lot, and I mean a lot of metal! (laughs)
Grey Shades merges different rock styles such as industrial, progressive, metal core, gothic, heavy and death metal… among others. (Warning: advertising ahead) So don’t forget to listen to it when the interview it’s over... or even better, don’t wait boys and girls! Check our MySpace or look for us at Goear and let our music play while you read this! (laughs)
Hanna Tsepesh: at recording studio, you guys faced with difficulties? If yes, tell which was and how as the whole process?
Lord Dan: Not many, really. My team is very capable and strong, everyone’s a great musician and person besides good friends, so the only musical difficulty was just to find and choose the right arrangements and really getting satisfied with every single section. Luckily most of them were in our minds before recording so everything went great
Hanna Tsepesh: How has the response been to the EP by the fans and media?
Lord Dan: Oh the response has been awesome! The underground specialized media are helping us a lot and we’re obtaining really good reviews from all around the world. Just check our MySpace and you’ll see that almost every week we’ve got a new review or we’ve featured in some radio show.
We’ve have had some major response from the fans, a lot more than we expected! People has bought CDs from some parts of the world, Japan, Russia, Canada, France, South America... besides what is downloaded in the web that, on the contrary of what labels want us to believe, it’s always a great helping hand to these bands, specially from the underground!
The truth is we’re very thankful to all of you and your support is decisive. You’re the fifth member of the band!
Hanna Tsepesh: If one of our readers wants to buy your EP, what they can do?Lord Dan: It’s very simple and you’ll be always in touch with the team for any question or doubt that might come out.
You just have to send a e-mail to noxius@noxius.net asking for a copy of “Grey Shades” and specifying your data (name, address, etc.) and there you’ll receive more details to get your CD as soon as possible!
We’re also working on an e-market (an online store) for our web page. From here I want to thank our web-mistress all the hard work she’s doing for us.
Hanna Tsepesh: what is your favorite music in this EP and why?
Lord Dan: Though it’d be very difficult to tell, I’d say my favourite is “I Hate the World” because of it’s rawness and viscerality. Every arrangement has been taken care of, the music is frenetic and lyrics have that spot of insanity that makes it interesting.
Hanna Tsepesh: What is your opinion about the metal in your country (Spain)? It is easy to get some support and places to play?
Lord Dan: I believe that there are very good bands both on the main-stream and on the underground, the problem is that there is too little support beyond the top 10 of best known (national) bands and the underground scenes doesn’t work at all on our country. There’s no tradition of going to the local club where you drink your beer while every night a new band plays (like happens in other countries), on the other hand it must be pointed out that the locals charge abusive amounts of money for bands to play and the government organizes witch hunts against locals and clubs, and that doesn’t help to the fact this is not a majoritary music on our country.
So as you can see the support in general is something to fix in Spain. The huge rental prices for locals and clubs (whom many times have no legal validation to hold live music) work against culture reducing it to the most capitalist and market-focused part of it, so the result is the ouroboros (snake biting it’s tail). At the end of the day, the musician remains a pariah, without rights, money and being robed everywhere always worthless. Nobody seems to care but what’s happening is that they’re killing music and underestimating the role of the musician.
Hanna Tsepesh: Do you want to send any message for the people who going to read this interview?
Lord Dan: Yes, I’d like that everyone who reads this interview and becomes curious about us to enter our MySpace, listen to our songs and give your opinion! We love to hear your opinion, it’s great for us and helps us to do our job better every time!
We’d love to play in Portugal, so the more support and fans we get there, more possibilities of playing there! To all of you interested on doing street team, you just have to get in touch with us.
Don’t forget to ask for NoXiuS Corp. On your local radio and thank you so much again for the support. You are the reason for all of this!
We’ll try to answer everyone who gets in touch with us.
Hanna Tsepesh: Thanks so much for your answers and time. THE GATES OF METAL wishes the entire band a big success and a great 2010! Hope to see you guys very soon in here…
Lord Dan: Thank you Hanna and the Gates of Metal team! We appreciate very much all your work and support. I hope it’ll be a great year for all of you to and we can soon meet!
Hanna Tsepesh: You are very welcome and thanks a lot! All the best...
Lord Dan: And search for NoXiuS corp fan club on Facebook, Vampire freaks and twitter!
By: Hanna Tsepesh
To listen to some NoXiuS corp music’s and for future information’s go at:
www.myspace.com/noxiusmetal
www.goear.com/listen/885ed54/Grey-Shades-noxius-corp.
www.noxius.net
www.noxiuscorp.com (coming soon)
