D A R K N O I S E - Elvenking

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Elvenking

Ecrit par hellsAngel, le 05-01-2008 14:45

Pages vues : 335

Créé en 1997, Elvenking fut une révélation pour la scène metal italienne. Leurs musique a su nous transporter directement vers le monde fantastique de notre cher J.R.R Tolkien.
P.S: Merci beaucoup à Alessandro pour son aide précieuse :) Hi Aydan! How are you?
Great thank you! Just finished all the Xmas and New year parties!

First of all, could you present your band and yourself to our readers?

Sure! Going shortly, the band was founded in 1997 by myself and other guitarist Jarpen. In 2000, after the release of the demo-cd “To Oak Woods Bestowed“ we signed a contract with AFM-Records and released “Heathenreel“ in 2001. In 2004, after a difficult period where our singer Damnagoras left the band, we released “WYRD“ with a different singer, Kleid. Then Damna joined back and “The Winter Wake“ was released in January 2006. In 2007 we released « The scythe » album which is already our most succesful album so far. I am the guitarist and the founder of the band.

Does the word “Elvenking” means the king of the Elven? From what is the band's name inspired?

It means King of the Elves, and the name was inspired from JRR Tolkien’s “The hobbit”. When we founded the band this was a great fount of inspiration for us.

I read that “Elvenking” was the result of a shared passion for “metal music and folklore” and that “the primary goal of Elvenking is to create a fusion of power metal and folk music”. So which are your principal influences? And how could you define your music style?

Very hard to say. We are not able to catalogue our music and I see that journalists have the same difficulties, and this is absolutely a good thing! I would say that we are a melodic metal band with some extreme and folk influences as well as a touch of romanticism, if this can make some sense.

The band was formed on 1997 by “Jarpen” and you but both had to face many problems especially on the line up. So, could you tell us please how the band was born and how were your conditions at that time?

We come from a little town out of nowhere, and back when we started the band there was absolutely no metal scene in Italy at the time, so the whole project was a kind of musical suicide, but in the end…we are here! Obviously seemed nearly impossible finding the right people interested in this kind of music at the time but we were lucky enough to have a lot of perseverance and finally found Damnagoras on vocals and Zender on drums, which made the real Elvenking line up and brought us here after so many years.

Could you tell us about the making of your Demo “To Oak Woods Bestowed” ?

It was our very first time ever in a recording studio so we were totally inexperienced. By the way we worked so much to obtain a good result before the recordings. I remember we used to rehearse 3 times a week for so many hours in order to obtain the best from our performances. In the end we came out with a very good product, being the first demo from a young band.

The success that you had with this demo allowed you to sign a contract with AFM Records, the German metal label of many bands as “Avantasia”, “Blackmore's Night” , “Magica” and “Theatre of tragedy”. What did this new support bring to the band?

Obviously it was a complete new step for the band. It was really unbelievable for us, because it was our goal and we reached after few days since we sent the demo. Being under contract with one of the leading European metal label is still nowadays a great result.

Your first album “Heathenreel”, recorded at “New Sin Audio Design” on Italy and mixed at “Fredman Studios” with the contribution of the producer “Luigi Stefanini”, “Fredrik Nordstrom”, “Travis Smith” and “J.P Fourmier” for the cover artwork, appeared on July 2001 and was a revelation not only for the European metal scene but also for the international one. So what could you say about this album?

We gain our contract with a demo that was pretty power metal oriented and that was what AFM expected from us. Instead we came out with a debut album totally different. Our label was completely shocked eh eh! As we have always done in all our releases we felt the need to come out with something new and fresh every time and Heathenreel was a pure example of craziness. We were a little bit more experienced and we knew already Luigi Stefanini from the demo recordings so we were more relaxed. We worked with one of our legends, Fredrik Nordstrom, on the mixing table and was a real dream for us. Everything looked so wonderful at the time!

After this, the line-up underwent several changes as the departure of the band's singer “Damnagoras” and the integration of “Kleid” as a new vocalist and a violinist . This led to your second album “Wyrd” appeared on April 2004. So how was its making especially with the arrival of new members?

We already had violin on Heathenreel as well as on our demo so it came pretty natural to have a permanent violin member in the band, also being Elyghen our close friend. Was really interesting, and came also from our big love for Skyclad. Unfortunately we went into some discussion with Damna at the time, also because of some problems during live shows, and he left the band. We were already into the songwriting process for the new album and I have to confess that we made some very stupid and fast decisions, that brought a lot of problems in the band. Kleid was not the right person for Elvenking.

Your third album «The Winter Wake» was released on February 2005 with the return of “Damnagoras” and the departure of “Jarpen”. So, how was the making of this new album with those new changements?

As said Kleid didn’t worked out, and I asked for Damna’s return pretty soon, but Jarpen did not agree with this. It was pretty obvious that it was the kind of thing “me or him”. The situation inside the band was really going downhill and we took the decision to have Damna back in the band in order to rebuild the equilibrium of the line up trying to convince Jarpen. Unfortunately he left and he totally quit music: he was not interested in playing metal music anymore. So with new spirit and new 5 piece line up we faced our new album “The winter wake”, which I describe as a mixture of old influences and new ones, a sort of new start for the band.

The promotion of your last album “The Scythe” was in September 2007 and you said on your website that with this new album “Italian Fantasy Metallers ELVENKING open a very interesting new chapter in their history”. What's the added value to the other albums? And how was its making?

As said we always need to express ourselves in different and new way, and this is also for “The scythe” album, which is more aggressive and obscure album compared to the other. It is a theme album about Death, so this came out pretty naturally. It is a great step forward for the band and shows that Elvenking can do once again what they want, without limits and bounds. All the copies of the album printed went sold out in a couple of weeks and this shows the success of the album. We also shot the video for the song “The divided heart”.

So which are your favourite songs of each album? Why?
Well, always difficult to tell, but if I need to choose I would say “The regality dance” from Heathenreel, “A poem for the firmament” from WYRD since it so personal and deep, the title track from “The winter wake” because it is so great to play it live and has a special vibe. From the new album I would pick “The scythe” and “The divided heart”.

Do you have a message to transmit through your music? How do you choose the subjects you approach through your music? And how do you choose your albums’ names?
With our music we express our deep emotions and feelings. Lyrics are really important for us, and go close with the music. Every song tells a bit of ourselves and our dreams or experiences. The album titles represent the whole contents of the album lyrics.

You supported many bands during your concerts, especially during The Winter Wake tour across the Europe. What could you say about this kind of experiences and its consequences on the band’s career?
Yep, we supported Savatage’s Jon Oliva on his European tour in 2006, and we had the opportunity to play with some other great bands as Blind Guardian, Edguy, Saxon, Sonata Arctica, etc etc, so far, and we learnt so much from simply watching these incredibly professional musicians on and off stage. You can learn so much only looking at them .

And in general, what can you say about the concerts you played? What’s your best concert and your worst one?

Well, I think Belgium Pestpop was one of the best memories I have, also because was our last tour gig so it remains special. About worst ones, well, it happened to play in front of few people or having played very bad because of a bad day…. Shit happens! ;-)

Are you satisfied with your work? What is your future vision to “Elvenking”?
Yes I am satisfied, especially because we had the chance to try something different every time, which is really important to me as musician. For the near future our goal is to support our new album “The scythe” on the live side as much as we can, and we are looking for European tour chances as well as summer festivals. At the moment we have already been confirmed for Progpower USA ’08.

So, what do you know about Tunisia?
I have been there for holidays a couple of years ago and had a wonderful time!

Did you expect the existence of a Tunisian metal scene?
Not at all, sorry.

During this two last years we have seen many international bands as “Firewind”, “Adagio”, "Robert Plant" with his new group… on our scene. So, Will we have the pleasure to see you one day in Tunisia?
It would amazing! If some organizers would like to have us playing there just ask us and we will run to play there.

I think that’s all. Thanks very much for the interview. Do you have a last word to say to your Tunisian fans?
I hope you have the chance to give a listen to “The scythe” album, even if I know it is not easy to find over there, and really hope to have the possibility to play in your country one day!

Aydan – ELVENKING

Dernière mise à jour : 05-01-2008 22:36