– Hi John, thank you so much for taking the time. What are your currently up to?

Sweating my ass off in the hottest recorded temperatures in Texas this summer! Just went to the traveling metal festival called Mayhem fest yesterday, got burned by the sun! Good stuff.

– First off, why «Solitude Aeturnus»?

If you mean the name, well, originally called Solitude, another band claimed the name so we added the latin word for “eternal”, giving us a rather strange but different name.

 

– You have just released your «new» compilation «In Times of Solitude». How did you come up with this idea?

It’s actually an old idea, I’ve wanted to release the old material with original band members for some time now and since we’re still in the writing mode for a new album, this was a good opportunity to release it. I think the early days of the band were very important to the development of SA (of course), and it was time to document this properly.

 

– This album was released past July; how was its feedback?

Actually it was just released I think on August 5th, as we had some delays getting the artwork finished for the vinyl version. So far the feedback is pretty good, although I’ve seen a few reviews that are somewhat negative due to the “demo” like quality of the release. These reviewers are missing the point, since I’ve tried to make it clear in the booklet and in our press that this is an early DEMO release package for the HARDCORE Solitude Aeturnus fans. I know we’re not going to win any new fans over with this early material and I am very aware that it doesn’t sound as good as our albums and I’m also aware that the rehearsal and live tracks sound like hell, but again, this is for the SA fan that wants to explore the early days of Solitude. If I were a fan, this is something I’d be interested in as well.

 

– «In Times of Solitude» features, among other things, your «And Justice for All» demo. Why did you decide to do so?

The Justice 5 song demo is the main part of this release actually. It’s over 30 minutes long in itself. This is the first time it’s been officially released on CD and I’ve mastered the demo for the first time as well. The quality of these tracks sound really good to my ears. The other tracks are live and rehearsal tracks and one demo track. Some of these sound like shit, but they were the only way we had the songs preserved, so rather than never hear them, I figured the true SA fans would want to hear some unreleased early stuff no matter what the quality.

 

– I guess this album may also have some emotional content for you. For example, how do you now remember the recordings for «And Justice for All»?

Yes, this was very emotional for me. The early days were very special times, full of youthfull energy and so much fun putting this all together. We worked very hard to get better at what we wanted to accomplish. We put a lot of time and effort into the band and so when we recorded the Justice demo we were very prepared and ready. I think the Justice demo tape, for its time, is pretty damn killer! Way different than anything else that had come out at that time, I truly believe we were doing things that no-one else was doing. Yes we were influenced by Candlemass and others but if you listen to the songs and the sound, it honestly doesn’t sound anything like Candlemass. The recordings were very quick, one weekend and maybe a day more to mix. We were very excited at the time, but also nervous.

 

– And something I have always been curious about; why that name for the demo? Did it have something to do with METALLICA? As, if I’m not wrong, they releasde that album in 1988 too…

Honestly we had the title 6 months before Metallica released their album. It was really just a case of coincidence and nothing more!

 

– On «In Times of Solitude» we can also find rehearsal songs and a live track; why did you choose those concrete tunes?

Again, this was the only way some of these unreleased songs were available as we never officially recorded them. For a mega fan of SA I would think these would be cool to check out as they are some of the only songs we’ve written but didn’t record. I know for myself, as a fan, I’d love to hear some unreleased Sabbath, Witchfinder General, Nemesis, Black Hole etc… tracks from the early days, no matter what the quality!

 

– I read yourself remastered the tracks, and this part of the album has been something I really liked. Most compilations of this style tend to be way too unpolished or too clean, but yours seems to have a real good balance. How did you approach this work?

Well, the Justice demo was actually never mastered in the first place. We basically just took the recording from the studio and made the demo tapes from that. So this is the first time the recordings were actually mastered. We didn’t do too much to them, just made it sound sonically a little better overall, something that should have been done initially but we didn’t know any better back then. So it’s not really a remaster on this compilation but just mastered for the first time. On the shitty sounding rehearsal and live tracks, I did the best I could on these, but it’s very difficult to make something like that sound good considering the source quality. I mean back in 1987 you only had shitty quality jam box recorders or early video cameras with terrible microphones on them. So I was able to clean up the tracks a little bit but they are a bit rough. The Justice tracks are the main feature here and these tracks sound great to my ears so…

 

– Your sound has always been quite «Metal», but most US Doom Metal bands seemed to went for a more Rock/Blues oriented style. What are your main musical influences?

Yeah, the blues doom route is more or less what a lot of bands did. I think we took our cue more from the Dio/Sabbath era where the material was more advanced and maybe less blues based overall. I grew up with all the classic and still to this day best of underground metal like early Judas Priest, Scorpions, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple and then of course the great early to mid 80’s onslaught of my favorite stuff like Savatage, Metal Church, early Slayer, Fates Warning, early Metallica, Celtic Frost, Death, and so many more!!

 

– You’ve been since 2006 without releasing new material; do you have plans for a new studio album?

Working on new songs as we do this interview. About 5 done so far and hope to have the rest finished soon. Next album will have a few changes on it! We’ll keep it interesting that’s for certain.

 

– In fact, you haven’t had too much studio activity since «Adagio», I mean, you don’t seem to release new studio albums as you normally did back then. Is there any concrete reason for this?

Combination of many things actually. As we get older our lives get more busy with everyday stuff and work. Also I’m a firm believer in releasing only 100% high quality killer albums and no fillers so I’d rather do less albums with higher quality than twice as many with everyone getting bored of the sound. It gets harder each time to write an interesting record without repeating yourself and this is also another reason.

 

– Anyway, still having your very own sound, you have never repeated yourself. Is this something easy to achieve? Specially after so many years of existence for SOLITUDE AETURNUS.

It’s definitely not easy! I’m very aware of the “repeating” factor, even bands that I love have this happen to them. It’s just the way it goes after releasing so many albums in a particular style and/or sound. But I don’t want that to happen to SA, so I just take my time when it comes to writing material and recording it. It has to come naturally, I cannot force it or it would be fake and weak. Something that I’ll not let happen within SA.

 

– As I said, your career is quite extensive now and you have never splitted-up. Is there any secret recipe for this?

A few “secrets”. #1 is we do it for the right reasons and that is, we are very passionate and LOVE the music we play and write. IT’s the bottom line really. We’re the biggest SA fans around, we do this for ourselves and then share it with as many metal heads that want a part of it and fortunately for us, we’ve been able to connect to many people and many people feel the same way about our music as we do! #2 a sense of humour about it all. Lots of hard times to get this far and no money ever made, but we just keep a smile and laugh about it and everything else for that matter. As doomy as we are, we do have a pretty insane sense of humor running through this band.

 

– After all these years with SA, what have been the best and worst moments?

Best moments, touring with Mercyful Fate for 6 weeks in the United States, recording our third album Darkest Hour in England. Worst moments, Robert losing his voice 2 songs into our set in France on ’95 tour with Revelation and also doing the early Milwaukee metal fest, driving 20 hours only to do a 3 song set late at night. Haha! Now that’s some funny stuff!

 

– And is there anything you haven’t done yet but you would like to do in the future with this band? What’s left for SA?

Nothing really, other than maybe playing the main stage at Wacken! That would be pretty freaking cool I would think. I’d like to release more albums and continue writing HEAVY music that challenges the soul and mind!

 

– And now, though this is a bit offtopic actually; how’s everything doing with Brainticket Records? As it seems now to be tough times for labels.

Times are tough indeed but Brainticket still carries on as much as we can! We’re doing a new Blood of the Sun release soon, we just released my 3rd solo album of psychedelic music under the Liquid Sound Company, called Acid Music for Acid People and also the new Elliott’s Keep CD (doom/epic from Texas). I plan to do it as long as I can, but yes CD sales are falling quite rapidly. Maybe we’ll do a vinyl only label in the future?!

 

– Finally, what are your near-future plans? Will you tour? And will you play some of these demo/rehearsal songs live?

No live shows until we record a new album! So for now, it’s just writing music and then record and then maybe a short tour or some festival shows in Europe! I’d like to bring the song Sojourner back but I don’t know for certain at this point.

 

– That’s all, thanks once more for your time and our best wishes. If you want to add any final words; is your time.

Thanks so much for the interview! Keep it HEAVY always and stay true to the sound of HEAVY METAL!

 

Tania Giménez

tania@queensofsteel.com

 

Deja una respuesta

Tu dirección de correo electrónico no será publicada.

Highslide for Wordpress Plugin