REVERENCE (Eng.)
– Hello, thank you so much for answering our interview. How is everything doing right now with REVERENCE?
Everything is great! Our new album, ‘When Darkness Calls’ came out a few weeks ago and all the reviews have been extremely positive. We’re really happy everyone is enjoying our music so much.
– First off, as you have just released your debut album; could you please make some history of the band?
Sure, vocalist Todd Hall and myself on guitar formed the band together in early 2010 and are the core songwriters, Todd is currently in Jack Starr’s Burning Starr and I was formerly the guitarist for NWOBMH band Tokyo Blade and Arrest. I have known former Savatage, Crimson Glory drummer Steve ‘Dr. KIlldrums’ Wacholz for over 15 years, he came onboard upon hearing the early demos. Doc then suggested guitar shredder Pete Rossi, formerly of Sanxtion as our second guitarist, Pete and I have very similar influences so our styles are very complimentary and worked very well. Todd then brought in bassist Ned Meloni, also from Jack Starr’s Burning Starr and also Funny Money.
– Though you are a young act you are not newcomer into the Heavy scene at all. Do you think this works as benefit for you or does make you work under more pressure?
Yeah, I think it helps us a bit with our past band’s name recognition and fans have been very open minded in knowing that Reverence is a new group and we are not trying to copy any of our past bands but obviously we have a lot to live up to as well and that can be tough as people have certain expectations and with those expectations it seems to already box us into a certain sound from just our past band affiliations but we’re hoping we can break out of that a bit, we aren’t veering too far from our roots so its not like we’re doing jazz now. We’re still metal and thats not going to change!
– This debut record is entitled “When Darkness Calls”. How is its feedback being so far? What are your expectations?
Both fan and media feedback has been overwhelming, we’ve had nothing but positive reviews so far. We feel very fortunate to have all of the support thats been shown to us. As for expectations, we tried not to get our hopes too high, we knew we had some good material but when your so close to the songs and we’ve heard them literally thousands of times, its hard to be subjective knowing when something is good or bad. We released a few demo clips to the public during the writing stages along the way and that helped a lot with knowing how people felt about the direction of the band so we felt confident we were on the right track.
– This record is just amazing in all aspects. Could you say having a good chemistry between the band members is something important to get a nice final product?
Thank you very much, I think its essential that the band have a good chemistry, Todd and I clicked from the very beginning with the writing sessions and once everyone came together, the recording, photo and video shoots went very smoothly, we all got on like we’d been doing this for years together. I believe that without us all being on the same page musically we would not have been able to get to this point. It takes a firm foundation to build something strong, we are only getting started so having a solid lineup and solid foundation is a must.
– Despite your Heavy basis it’s obvious you guys take inspiration from different styles but, what could you say are the main musical influences for REVERENCE?
Well for myself, I draw mainly from Criss Oliva, Randy Rhoads, Rik Emmett and the classic metal I grew up on like Judas Priest, Queensryche, Scorpions and Thin Lizzy. It tough for me to speak for Todd but I believe he’s a big fan of Dio and Queenryche too and I think he’s also a fan of Warrior and Malice as well and I think thats evident in his style, you can hear little bits of influences while also being true to ourselves, I think this is true with most musicians.
– And what could you say are you bringing new to an overcrowded scene as the metallic one?
Thats kind of a tough question, we just tried to be ourselves, whether that actually brings anything new to the music world is really not for us to say. I can say we weren’t intentionally trying to reinvent the wheel, all we were trying to do was create our own unique sound coupled with the music we grew up loving and revering, hence the name Reverence. We wanted to bring back that classic metal vibe but with an updated 2012 sound.
– How is the songwriting process like in REVERENCE?
Well as I stated Todd and I are the core writers in the group, Pete came in and added a lot of texture to the songs once they were written too but I think its essential to have the songwriting team on the same page as far as direction of the material. Todd and I did not know each other before Reverence so it was a big gamble if we would be able to mesh at all but after we first met, hung out a couple of times and then started on the first song ‘Revolution Rising’ we knew right away we had something really cool, the trick is keeping it going that way! Its very difficult to explain really, all I can tell you is writing with Todd has been an amazing experience.
I usually write and record the entire demo song musically, then send it over to Todd, he may have suggestions on the arrangement, Todd then writes his lyrics and melodies and sends it back to me, we keep tweaking the song, moulding it into what we hear in our heads until we’re happy. We then send it out to Pete so he can add in his textures and he and I work on solo sections together. The crazy thing is we never set foot in the same room for any of this writing, we did it all via emails using Pro-tool and Sonar. We did however record the album using a real studio.
– The cover artwork was crafted by seasoned Jobert Mello, of Sledgehamer Graphix. How did you work on this and what did you want to express with it?
Working with Jobert is wonderful, he’s a complete pro. I had worked with him previous while I was still in Tokyo Blade, he had done some artwork for us and I knew exactly who I wanted to do the Reverence artwork when we were ready. As far as the When Darkness Calls cover, I showed him a rather basic design of the dead priest and told him we wanted it brought to life, more 3d and lifelike. At that point no title of the album had been chosen yet, we were still working on tweaking the songs so we only had the basic concept and he came back with what you see now, we made a few tweaks and that was it. We let him kinda run with the basic design concept and he turned out an amazing cover, we couldn’t be happier.
– On the other hand, your lyrics deal just with real life. What aspects or experiences do inspire you?
Todd writes all the lyrics and melodies so he could probably give you more details than me. I suggested some of the titles and topics when I would send him the music but he didn’t always follow those suggestions. Some of the songs he did keep my titles and thoughts about are ‘Vengeance Is Mine’ which is completely based on my former band experiences, ‘Revolution Rising’ is about the current state of the world and how the governments rule the people vs. the people ruling the governments. The title track ‘When Darkness Calls’ is loosely based on Todd’s loss of a friend to suicide. ‘Bleed For Me’ is about obsession for someone, how far would that person be willing to go to be with you. Actually we made a really cool video thats answers a lot of your question on the song topics.
Official Song-by-Song Video: http://youtu.be/CU3xqyxFLwU
– Talking about such, how do you see the current state of the musical scene? Are tools like the Internet something positive for it or rather negative?
I think the current scene is over-saturated. So many bands sound the same, it hard to tell them apart. Back in the 80’s/90’s you could tell bands apart Motley was different to Ratt and Ozzy was different to Priest, etc. but now everyone down tunes and their singers don’t really sing they shout or they all try to sound like Nickleback, Disturbed or Godsmack. We just tried to shoot for what we loved and what we felt was missing in metal, that classic 80’s metal.
I think the tools on the internet are a huge thing that bands like us can and do use to our benefit to get out to the fans. It takes a lot of time and many bands don’t want to spend the time but it has been a huge help for us so far and best of all most of it is free. On the flip side the booting of albums is nothing new to the music world but with it being done on the net on such a grand scale instead of local tape traders the damage is much bigger, so its both an advantage to reach new fans and a huge disadvantage as no one pays for it. So we’ve had to take a different approach, we view the album as just another marketing tool to promote the band and to bring people to the shows and tours where they will hopefully purchase tangible merchandise.
– All this being said; how could you describe “When Darkness Calls” in just 3 words?
Old School Metal
– You have filmed a video for “Too Late”, how was the shooting like? And do you plan doing any other videos off this album?
Shooting ‘Too Late’ was a lot of fun, everything went very smoothly! Todd had his production team working on a concept for the video, those guys worked very hard for us all weekend and I think the final version shows off the quality of work that was put into it. And yes, we do plan on releasing two more videos, the next single and video will be for ‘Bleed For Me’, we hope to have that out in the first week of August. There is another song which we will release a video for but I can’t announce what song that will be yet, sorry.
Official Video for «Too Late»- http://youtu.be/B4GzT_geBKM
– I’ve read you are working on a European tour for later this year; could you already disclose something about this? Do you have any dates booked?
Thats true, we are currently in the midst of booking for a tour in November which at this point will take us to Ireland, UK, Belgium, The Netherlands and Switzerland. I know there are more to come but those are the dates I am aware of that are confirmed. We’re really looking forward to heading over and bringing the album to life as well as playing some classic songs from each of our past bands.
– Finally, what are your near-future plans?
Well, as stated above we have two more videos that we’ll release over the next few months, the tour in November is in the works. Pete and I have shot some guitar instruction video shorts that we’ll also be posting over the next few months and I have already begun writing for the next album, so far its in the same vein as ‘When Darkness Calls’ but heavier!
– So that has been everything from our side, thank you once more for taking your time. If you now want to add some final words; feel free to do it.
Its my pleasure Sergio, Thank You so much for allowing me to do this interview, we really appreciate your support and thank everyone out there for liking our music, you can check out the band and get all the latest news at the links below. Please support all music because if you don’t the musicians will no longer be able to create it at a loss and the music we all love will dry up and be lost forever.
Keep It Loud! ~ Bryan Holland
www.facebook.com/Reverencemetal
