LORD (Eng.)
– Hi, thanks for your time. What are you currently up to? How is everything doing right now with LORD?
Hey there! Thanks for the interview! Things are going great here in the LORD camp. We’ve just released our new album “Digital Lies” and we’re in the middle of yet another tour. Things are always busy!
– First off, for all those who may don’t know about you yet; could you please share some history of the band?
There’s a long version and a short version – I’ll give you the short one! Basically we used to be known as Dungeon up until 2005. Dungeon released a string of albums and DVDs, and played with some fairly well known bands like Megadeth, Opeth, Destruction, Edguy, etc. and toured quite a lot around the world. The name changed to LORD in 2005 and we went out on tour straight away with bands like Queensryche, Nightwish, Gamma Ray, Iced Earth, Saxon, etc. and have so far released four albums and two EPs. We really consider all of the Dungeon material part of our own history, so it’s been a fairly long and interesting ride!
– You have just released a new album, entitled «Digital Lies», which has gotten overwhelming reviews. Did you expect such a good feedback for the record?
Honestly, no, not really. In the past a lot of people have been a little bit confused about what kind of band we were. They assume we’re a power metal band only so when they listen to our albums and you get everything from thrash to AOR to melodic death to traditional metal, there’s usually at least something on there that people will hate or don’t understand because it’s not what they were expecting. With “Digital Lies” we brought in a lot of futuristic elements to fit in with the theme of the album, so with the diversity and extra synths and samples, we were really expecting a bit of a negative response from it. To see that people are really embracing the album and enjoying what we do really is fantastic! At the end of the day, so long as we’re proud of the album, that’s all that matters even if everyone else in the world hates it, but it’s really nice to get positive reviews for something you’ve done.
– This is your first release since 2009 so, how could you say has the band evolved musically since then?
If anything, I think we’re even less afraid to take risks. During the Dungeon days, we had a core power/thrash sound and while we did go off on different paths and expand on that sound, at the heart of it all we tried to keep it very true to what we were known for. With LORD, the first thing we said when we were getting it together was that we should just do what we feel is right, with no regard to the style at all. I think we’ll always write with a very strong traditional metal style at the heart of our sound, but with every album we do, we get more adventurous with what things we like to bring in to the mix. Who knows? The next album could have a lot more thrash or black metal influences, or could be more AOR. I don’t really see it as the sound as evolving as such, more so we just feel more freedom to do whatever we want as we go on.
– I could personally say this is your most mature album in lyric and musical terms. Do you share this same feeling? As most bands use to feel their last album is the best one, anyway in your case is true, as you have perfected all your trademarks and solidified your personality.
It’s nice of you to say so! I’m not sure if I would call this our best or most mature album. I actually don’t think I’ve known this album long enough to fully understand it yet, to be honest. When you write an album, you become so close to it that you lose a lot of perspective about it. Is it good? Will it stack up to our previous work? A lot of our older albums have very special places in my heart and we’ve lived and breathed these songs for years. When a new album comes along, of course it’s new and exciting, but is it better than anything we’ve done before? Ask me again in four years! But I am really proud of it, and I do think we did some good work on it.
– Talking about such; what are some of the lyrical themes covered on this opus? What link does it share with the CD’s title?
We have everything from songs about personal reflection to different points of view, emotional stories about long-dead stage actors, epic Conan-inspired songs and fun sci-fi songs about dark, dystopian futures. It’s a mixed bag, but we’d like to think that whatever we write will touch you in some way, either by making you think, or making you feel something, or just pure escapism. The title of the album comes from the song “Digital Lies” which is the science fiction song on the album. There’s not really any others like it on there, but since we had a lot of synth elements in many of the songs, the album title kind of tied into the theme of the music more so than any lyrical ideas.
– On this effort there are plenty synths, samples and quite futuristic lyrics. How did you come up with this concept? And how easy has been to express the ideas on the lyrics through your music?
We didn’t give it much of a thought at all, to tell the truth. It was just one of those things that kind of happened. When we sat down to talk about how we wanted to write a follow-up album to “Set In Stone” we had a whole bunch of plans of which direction to take it. There were some great ideas but it all felt really forced so we threw everything out and just wrote what we wrote and let it flow naturally, and the synths and samples just felt like the right thing to try out this time. Lyrics-wise, it can take a while to get everything perfect since lyrics are so important to us, but we generally have a good idea of how to say what we need to say.
– The cover artwork reflects the aforementioned really good but, could you please tell us how did you work on it?
Once we knew the title and theme of the album, we thought it would be cool to have our mascot monster guy put into the situation from the “Digital Lies” lyrics, where people were being abducted by the government and forced to be upgraded into cyborgs against their will. Once again we had Felipe Machado do the art. It was a bit tricky this time because Felipe was a bit busy working with Blind Guardian and a whole bunch of other bands, so scheduling it all in was difficult. As usual I handled the rest of the booklet artwork and layout.
– In fact this gives the feeling everything on the album works as a whole. Are the visuals and lyrics as important as the music itself?
Yeah, absolutely. Lyrics have always been important in our music and I think the entire package of music, lyrics, artwork and video clips go a long way to
presenting the band to the audience. I think that’s where downloading is a little bit sad – you miss out on a couple of really important elements of what our albums are about.
– Anyway this futuristic «view» contrasts with your classic roots, with your traditional musical basis. Is it easy to, somehow, refresh a classic style? Is this a planned contrast/equilibrium?
I think the only thing that was really planned was making sure the guitars and drums sounded big and natural so it offset the electronic elements, or the album could have had a very cold and digital sound, which we didn’t want to focus on. The electronics are there as an enhancement of the sound rather than the main focus of it. But as far as bringing in the futuristic elements and making a balance of sounds style-wise, we just really let the songs dictate what should be in there. Stuff like “2D Person in a 3D World” and “Point of View” have hardly any electronic parts in them for example, because they just didn’t feel like they needed it, but other songs like “Digital Lies” and “Final Seconds” felt right to add this stuff in.
– All this about «Digital Lies» being said; how could you describe it in just 3 words?
Solid yet diverse.
– You have already done a singular video for «Betrayal Blind». Could you please tell us how did the whole process go?
We’ve actually done two clips from this album now; “Betrayal Blind” and “Because We Can”. “Betrayal Blind” was just a case of wanting to do a no-frills simple clip, just for a refreshing change. Our previous two clips for “Set In Stone” and “Forever” were massive and a lot of hard work with actors and CGI effects. This time, we just wanted to have a little bit of fun and do something easy. The “Because We Can” clip was a lot of fun, though. Absolutely silly and immature but that’s the whole point of it. It’s good to not take yourself so seriously all the time!
– And finally; what are your near-future plans?
Well, we’re currently on tour around Australia and New Zealand right now and we have plans for more international touring after that. We have a couple more video clips planned from this album and some cool new merchandise and then we’ll just see where it all takes us. We’re still right at the start of the promo cycle for this album so anything could happen from this point.
– That’s all, thank you once more for answering our questions. If you want to add some final words; feel free to do it.
Thanks for taking the time to chat to us about our new album, we really appreciate it! And thank you to everyone who bought it and enjoyed it – it really means a lot. Cheers!
