Prior to their gig in London (review here), James sat down with Andorran prog-metallers Persefone for a quick chat about life on the road and the current album, Spiritual Mitigation.
MT: You’re currently on tour with Loch Vostok and One Hour Hell. How’s it been going so far?
Carlos: It’s been a lot of fun as we are not really big bands so we’re not too worried about crowd size. It’s been a lot of fun so far even with the technical difficulties with the drums as you saw today.
Mark: We had a guy bring us a tom!
Carlos: A fan brought us a tom today. It’s both good and sad at the same time!
MT: The most recent album Spiritual Mitigation came out around 2 years ago. What the response like when you play these songs live?
Carlos: The last tour we did, the album wasn’t released but when we see the guys at the shows on this tour wearing the t-shirts they obviously want to hear the new songs. Pretty much every day we have people singing the lyrics and that’s really great to see. The fans reaction has been great and when we play older songs they are like “That’s great. But some of the new ones!”.
Bobby: I’ve actually noticed a lot of people at the front air-drumming to the songs.
Carlos: They know how to headband to the time signatures as well.
Bobby: It’s been great to see them.
MT: Given it’s been nearly 2 years since the last album, have you been working on any new material?
Miguel: We have been working on some new stuff and have a couple of song ideas.
Carlos: We had some success with Spiritual Mitigation and we’ve had people saying “You should make the album similar to this” and our record label wants a kind of part two to the album. It’s so similar and uninspired and we want to have a bit of variety in there. We have a few new ideas and we want to go out of our comfort zone.
Mark: We’re trying to keep it similar but with a few differences.
Carlos: Don’t tell our label that we’re taking our time with it!
MT: What would you say makes you unique as band. As in what sets you apart from the other bands you are playing with tonight?
Carlos: I press the clean guitar pedal sometimes!
Miguel: One Hour Hell is really brutal all the time. Loch Vostok is also very heavy stuff.
Mark: We have some melodic stuff. I mean we have keyboards and clean vocals and the transition between songs.
Bobby: We have a lot of dynamics in out music. I would say that is the main difference between us.
Carlos: We think that if you go with the same attack all the time to the listener then they can loose interest. If you go with like a fast song and then an instrumental that leads into a fast song it keeps them interested.
Bobby: We also play with a click track so we have lots of samples and things.
MT: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen or done on tour?
Miguel: I think that would be a Japanese guy.
Carlos: Sukay I think he was called.
Miguel: A long time ago he ed us when we released our first album and we kept in via mail. 12 years later we went to Japan and met him in person. We met him at the show and hung out with the crowd afterwards.
Carlos: We played twice in the same venue and he was there both times. We’ve known him for a long time and felt confortable with him. And I said to him “So we are going but if you come to visit Andorra you can stay with me”. He freaked out after I said that and hugged me crying like a baby. He said it was the best day of his life and I was like “Ok calm down now”. I mean my house is not that big so to me it’s nothing big.
Mark: I a weird time when a girl came to kiss your hand.
Carlos: Oh shit that was freaking weird.
Miguel: And it happened here!
Carlos: Oh yeah it happened in London. She came up to like “Can I kiss your hand?”. I’m like, “No that’s weird”.
Bobby: And Tony doing the Geisha thing in Japan.
Carlos: Oh yeah our bass player trying to get a picture with a real Geisha women. He was scaring everyone. He was like “Can I please!” and they were like “No!”. Nothing really crazy though.
MT: What’s your live gear like?
Miguel: Interesting!
Bobby: Not today! As you know, we’ve had a few issues with gear this tour. I normally use a simple setup with 5 cymbals and 3 toms.
Moe: We normally share material and use whatever is provided. It depends on where the tour starts for where we can bring our own material or not. On this tour we are sharing gear with Loch Vostok.
Carlos: When we use our own gear, I use tube amplifiers with hi gain with a little delay. I use active pickups to give more gain.
Bobby: We use an in ear system as well as we all need to hear click track.
Carlos: We tell jokes in the middle of the click track as well!
Bobby: Oh yeah that’s funny, the come on in the middle of the song. We all laugh at the same time and no-one else in the crowd gets it. We know it’s coming but it’s still funny when we hear it every night.
MT: If you could pick any two bands in the world to you on a headlining show. Who would you pick?
Miguel: Pink Floyd!
Carlos: Kiss and Pink Floyd! I don’t think they fit, they need to change their style!
Bobby: No someone cheesier!
Carlos: I my opinion, we are not that famous and aren’t really in that position to be headlining just yet. I would love to play with Animals as Leaders, Obscura those sorts of bands.
Mark: I’d like to tour with Lamb of God. Also a few bands from Andorra.
MT: Thank you for your time guys!
All photos courtesy of katiefrostphotography.com
