– Hi, thanks for your time. What are you currently up to? How is everything doing right now with PROCESSION?

Hi Sergio, thank you for your interest towards the band. Nowadays we are playing some festivals to promote our new album and spread our message of DOOM. We have already played Heavy Days In Doomtown (DK), Muskelrock (SWE), Hellfest (FRA), Metal Magic (DK) and now we are going to hit PartySan (GER).

– I guess you may have been asked this a thousand times, but it gets the attention the fact PROCESSION is a half-Chilenean, half-Swedish band so, how did the band get together?

Well, that’s a little more complicated than 50/50 as I’m living in Chile, Felipe and Uno living in Sweden and Jonas in Denmark, so I guess it would be better to call us “half Chilean, half Scandinavian”. Taking advantage of technology, we send each other riffs and discuss ideas when we are on the first steps of the creative process, then, when we have a skeleton, we have to travel to have proper rehearsing/recording. Same goes with touring… It´s a really hard task, but when you truly love and believe in your work, you must make sacrifices in order to keep the essence pure, right?

 

– Moreover I have always been curious about the fact there are several Chilenean musicians playing in extreme Metal bands in Scandinavia, specially in Sweden, as yourself. It’s funny as you don’t share language nor weather for instance so, what is the reason why several artists from Chile are moving to Sweden? Maybe is easier into the music world to get more coverage in Europe rather than in South America, for instance?

I can’t speak about other musician’s decisions to go north, but yes, I agree on the amount of Chilean dudes playing here in Sweden. Personally, I believe that the opportunities to have your music/message shown, distributed… Playing live, sharing stage with other musicians with a different approach to music, are not the appropriate in Chile nowadays, where capitalism wins the final war and any expression of art is considered unessential if it can’t be measured in numbers. Here in Sweden, the respect, understanding and love for music are something people –not only metalheads- have as an important part of their life. About language barriers, isn’t music a language too?

 

– And have you ever considered singing in Spanish? Or maybe English fits better your music?

Not really, because first of all, we want to spread our message to the most people and English is the language that fits us the best. Also, now that we have a Swed and a Danish on the band, there’s no point on doing that.

 

– Your new album, «To Reap Heavens Apart», was released just a few weeks ago and has gotten superb reviews and a great feedback from the fans as well. Did you expect such a good response for your sophomore album?

I don’t want to sound like a pretentious prick, but yes. When we were in Hofors (where the 4 of us moved for a month to live/record the album), just finishing the recording we sat just to listen to what we have done and, in silence, we knew: “This is something”. Now, about the press and fan support and feedback, we are truly and deeply thankful and proud at the same time. I guess we managed to do what we needed to, in order to get the best of ourselves.

 

– If with your debut album, «Destroyers of Faith», you set really high standards, it seems with this new effort you have top over it. Does this make you feel more pressure when it comes to the songwriting, as maybe you try to improve always, or maybe is it rather bonus motivation?

Not really. We are confident about our skills and or way of working; we always throw to the trash can lots of riffs that we considered not transcendental to what we want to express (we hate having fillers!). Of course we always want to improve in terms of sound, but it is part of our work and I don’t think we take that as a pressure.

 

– On my opinion this new «TRHA» is not a step forward but the band, but a lesson of how to perfect the few details that needed to be just perfect on your first «Destroyers of the Faith». What are your thoughts on this? Could you say you have solidified your own recipe?

I agree to that. It’s like what I just answered. I want to add that having Uno and Jonas in this album –first on the 10”- also gave us the chance to explore different ways to approach to our message, for example, the harmonies and structures derived from having 2 guitars now.

 

– And what do you think are the main differences between your two albums? If you were given the chance of changing anything on «TRHA», what would it be?

I guess the main and obvious difference is the guitar work, as now that department is shared between Felipe and Jonas, which opened a new world of possibilities. The other thing for me is the “Southamerican/European” alchemy, as myself and Felipe came from a “world” totally different from Jonas and Uno´s background; the mixture of thoughts, visions and referents was a creative boiling cauldron. “Destroyers…” for me was 100% southamerican DOOM Metal.  About “To reap…” I would not change a single note.

 

– You have always had a pretty traditional sound, so I guess your main musical influences may be oriented to «old school» Doom, am I wrong? Anyway your previous «Destroyers of the Faith» (at the JUDAS PRIEST’s style) had some classic Heavy Metal elements (still present on «TRHA» but not that much). What have been the most influential bands for PROCESSION?

You are right. We are not one of those bands that wants to hide their influences, as they are very important to us, and also, if people know from which musical fountain we drink of, it can help them to understand our own music and languages. I guess the main influences from us as a band would be Candlemass, Iron Maiden, Scald, Judas Priest, Count Raven, Sorcerer, Solstice, Trouble, Solitude Aeturnus and Black Sabbath (plus 1000 more!)

 

– The cover artwork is simply superb but, what did you want to express with it? And who did it craft it and how did you work on it?

That magnificent piece of artwork was done by Master Timo Ketola. It wanted to show a Procession of damned souls ripping the skies, as a metaphor of the destruction of the material/physical world, with all their restrictions and paradigms, in order to discover the mysterious inner landscape. The album name “to reap” is also a game of words about the harvesting of all the experiences towards life, which would serve as a key to the unknown.

 

– There have been a couple of line-up changes for this new album, so I would like to know what do the new members bring to PROCESSION and how have they fitted in (though they already played on your latest EP if I’m not wrong).

I think I already answered your question, but more into detail, I can say that Uno came to replace Francisco in drums, bringing his telluric rhythms and Jonas assumed as the second guitar player, adding more layers to the music and taking care of the composition, together with Felipe.

 

– You have also had some interesting guest artists, such as Peter Vicar and Messiah Marcolin. What have they provided with their cooperation? And, if you would have to choose some other 3 artists to cooperate with, which ones would you choose?

Well, we have been lucky to have such influential musicians working with us. It has been an honor and a joy. Peter contribute with a solo on “Destroyers…” and play with us live in one gig in Finland, Messiah had sung with us in couple of unforgettable shows. If we (I’ll try to speak for the band) gotta pick 3 musicians to work with in something, I guess they must be Bruce Dickinson singing in one of our songs, and John Perez and Toni Iommy making some soloing here and there…

 

– Something that caught my attention off your two albums is the fact them both feature 6 songs. Is something intented or simply coincidence?

In fact, our first vinyl release, “The Cult of Disease” has 6 songs, then “Destroyers of the Faith” has 6 songs too, and our last effort, “To Reap Heavens Apart” also has

6 songs. I guess that number fit us, “For it is a human number” 😉

 

– All this about «To Reap Heavens Apart» being said; how could you describe it in just 3 words?

“DOOM METAL CONCHATUMADRE!”

 

– And finally; what are your near-future plans?

Keep on touring as much as we can as a full line up, try to compose new songs when we feel that we need to, sell our merch (buy it!) and drink free booze.

 

– That’s all, thank you once more for answering our questions. If you want to add some final words; feel free to do it.

Thank you for your interest on the band. Final words? Listen to MOTÖRHEAD!

 

Sergio Fernández

sergio@queensofsteel.com

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