XERATH

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MORGANA
WEBSITE: www.myspace.com/xerath
COUNTRY: United Kingdom STYLE: Metal / Progressive

I SEE THE TERM “CHUG-SCORE” BEING USED TO DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC. WHO CAME UP WITH IT AND DO YOU PLAN TO PATENT THE TERM; YOU COULD MAKE SOME MONEY IN THE FUTURE, YOU NEVER KNOW?

Chug-score is ironically both a parody of constant new genre classifications and also the quickest way of describing our music! People will either laugh and understand or get angry because they think we are arrogant enough to insist on our own genre. Xerathcore!

Not sure whether to stick with it or not as the joke will eventually get old, we think Orchestral Groove Metal pretty much sums it up without sounding retarded!

XERATH COMBINES CRUSHING MESHUGGAH STYLE RIFFS WITH EPIC ORCHESTRAL COMPOSITION. HOW DO YOU GUYS USUALLY APPROACH THE SONG WRITING PROCESS FROM BEGINNING TO END?

We actually change our approach for every song as we go... Every member in the band writes drums / guitars / bass and orchestration, and the order in which we do this changes every time. For example we could lay down some guitars and experiment with ambient ideas over the top, or just write some orchestral ideas and write riffs underneath them.

It’s purely a case of experimentation!

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT XERATH IS THAT YOU ARE NOT AFRAID TO SAY WHAT BANDS HAVE HAD THE BIGGEST INFLUENCE ON YOUR MUSIC AND EVEN THOUGH ONE CAN CLEARLY HEAR THOSE INFLUENCES IN YOUR SONGS YOU HAVE CREATED ALMOST SOMETHING COMPLETELY “NEW”, WOULD YOU AGREE?

We would like to think we are touching on something that hasn’t really been explored properly, which is orchestral metal that doesn’t sound neoclassical or like a cheap keyboard. Whilst at the same time adding to the new wave of Meshuggah inspired bands out there who have been rhythmically inspired.

In the future we want to push this out much further, and delve into bigger and more complex film-score style orchestrations whilst keeping it heavy and massive sounding with the Meshuggah / SYL and Dimmu influences.

THE COUNTDOWN IS ON FOR THE RELEASE OF YOUR ALBUM “XERATH 1” AND FOR THOSE WHO CAN’T WAIT THE ENTIRE ALBUM CAN BE PREVIEWED USING THE XERATH E-CARD (www.xerath.net) HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP THE ENTIRE RECORDING PROCESS OF THE ALBUM?

The final version of the album was recorded by us, and re-mixed in France by a talented producer called Brett Caldas-Lima (towerstudio.net). However before we were signed, a full length album which was entirely self-produced was used as a demo, which was refined twice before we started the final version.

All in all the final version of ‘Xerath I’ is actually the 3rd and final remix, the process was quite long although the songs still retain their original essence and are in roughly the same order they were written. The first track on our album “Intrenity”, is the first Xerath song which was written as an experiment to combine a basic groove with orchestral score, before the band even had a finalised line-up.

WHAT SUBJECTS DO YOU COVER LYRICALLY ON THE ALBUM?

Our aim when we write music is to conjure up imagery, which we re-enforce with vocals without giving a literal subject away. Most of the time we use most abstract lyrics to give a strong sense of something and add to the overall “epic-ness” of the song... But we also cover a little war and religion, since we are still a metal band after all :)

I REALLY LIKE THE XERATH LOGO AND THE ALBUM COVER FOR THE NEW ALBUM. COULD YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT HOW THE IMAGERY YOU CHOSE FOR THE ALBUM COVER REFLECTS AND SERVES AS A “VISUAL INTRODUCTION” TO WHAT IS CONTAINED MUSICALLY ON THE ALBUM?

Again the imagery we chose was to create the image of something massive and epic without showing anything literal in context. The artwork opens up to reveal a panoramic scene of devastation, without giving any clues to what has happened or how.

Hiding subject matter is quite a powerful tool, as you leave the listener guessing and creating their own concepts and imagery based on the music, we imply devastation without showing it and it has made for some quite original artwork.

As for the logo, we wanted to keep the design very simple so it would be easily recognisable. We also had the extra “X” logo designed to symbolizes the number of the album, e.g. our first album has the X with a single stroke through it, and the next will have two etc. Which we thought was pretty rad.

THERE ARE MANY TECHNICAL BANDS OUT THERE THAT JUST AMAZE ME SOMETIMES TO WHAT IS POSSIBLE MUSICALLY BUT HOW DO YOU BALANCE MAKING YOUR SONGS TECHNICALLY GOOD BUT STILL LEAVE ENOUGH “ROOM” SO THAT A PERSON CAN KEEP IN TIME AND HEADBANG TO IT AND NOT GET LOST HALFWAY?

This is something we put a great deal of time into during the writing process, we have a sort of “quality control” with writing that always leaves us questioning everything before it is part of a song.

Our older influences date back to bands like Pantera who were a perfect balance of technicality and song writing, and this is something we will always be thinking about whilst we write. As we move into the future we want to strike the perfect balance between beautiful epic film-score and sheer headbangability.

YOU USE 7 STRING GUITARS IF I’M CORRECT. DID YOU START OUT WITH 6 STRINGS AND THEN MOVE ON TO 7 STINGS AND IS THERE JUST A CERTAIN LEVEL OF “HEAVINESS AND EXPERIMENTATION” THAT IS MORE ACHIEVABLE WITH A 7 STRING GUITAR THAN A 6 STRING?

Xerath was started with 7 strings in mind, we don’t believe that more strings is always better or allows for more heaviness however 7 strings was a fairly new thing to us at the time and so allowed for fresh ideas and helped with the inspiration of a lot of our riffs.

We plan to continue using 7 strings for at least another album and eventually maybe switch to 8, again not because it is lower but just because it is new and fresh, a good example is when a guitarist changes tuning he/she will always stumble on new things to try out.

IF I’M RIGHT YOU USE SAMPLES TO PLAY THE ORCHESTRAL PARTS OF YOUR SONGS LIVE. WITH SONGS THAT ARE ALREADY TECHNICAL ENOUGH HOW MUCH OF AN ATMOSPHERE DOES THE ORCHESTRAL PARTS ADD TO YOUR MUSIC IN A LIVE ENVIRONMENT?

This is something you would have to experience to form your own opinion. When you get used to seeing bands with a standard line-up of guitars / bass / drums etc... It does make a difference to suddenly have this huge backing of real orchestra as opposed to keyboard, we like to think it just adds to our sound and that more is better!

The fusion of low end groove with high end chord changes live is definitely something different from the majority of live metal bands; we haven’t had any complaints yet anyway!

DO YOU THINK THAT MORE DOORS WILL OPEN FOR YOU GUYS WHAT LIVE SHOWS ARE CONCERNED WITH THE RELEASE OF YOUR NEW ALBUM?

We certainly hope so; we started this as a project and then turned it into a band. The vast majority of our fans are spread out and therefore unsigned shows were generally good but with very limited turn-out. We are hoping to get noticed enough that we can secure support for more major bands and get this on the road to as many ears as possible.

YOU GUYS HAVE A REALLY GREAT FORUM AT: http://www.unionblack.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=34.0. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR YOU TO STAY IN TOUCH WITH FANS OF YOUR MUSIC?

To us it is very important, we would like to remain accessible as a band in terms of people being able to ask us questions or share their feedback with us... We have always had respect for bands which post on their own forums or try to keep on the same level as the listeners.

HOW HARD IS IT TO BECOME LEADERS IN A CERTAIN GENRE AND NOT FOLLOWERS, AND DO YOU THINK THE RELEASE OF “XERATH 1” IS AN INDICATION OF THE TYPE OF DIRECTION GROOVE METAL DRIVEN MUSIC IS TAKING?

Tricky question :) We wouldn’t yet call ourselves a leader of any particular genre but hope to eventually earn that title, so we would say that yes it is very very difficult indeed.

Meshuggah are definitely a leader in their genre and have inspired a whole range of “groove metal” bands to split in different directions. We are hearing more bands cropping up who are taking this kind of rhythmically inspired metal and adding a general ambience to it or combining it with other genres.

We think our sound will go through a much heavier refinement and then it will grow to be more distinct as its own direction as each album comes out.

ANY LAST COMMENTS / ADVICE OR PEOPLE YOU WOULD LIKE TO THANK?

Advice to other bands would be to just experiment, and to be prepared to work hard and make sacrifice if they want to get signed and get their release out there.

We would like to thank Lee Barrett for signing us, our label Candlelight records, our producer Brett Caldas-Lima, and all the peeps at Union-Black for their great underground metal community and giving us a forum.