Metal-Rules.com interview with George Call of ASKA
Interviewed by EvilG
Every now and then a
CD pops up the grabs your attention both musically and lyrically. Aska's
AVENGER is one such CD. Not only is the album's music and
storyline interesting, but so is ASKA's lead guitarist / vocalist -
George Call. His answers to my questions make for some very interesting
reading. I think we'll be hearing much more from this band in the next
couple of years.
Let's
start out with what I know about your band...AVENGER. Like you said,
this does take a few listens to start getting into it. I've heard it
maybe 10-12 times now and it gets better on each listen! Why do
you think this has been people's reaction?
I think simply because there is so much going on in
AVENGER that it takes that long for the enormity of it to sink in.
It's been our experience within the band that songs that grab you first
or immediately, tend to leave you just as quickly, while the songs that
take a little time to grow on you seem to stick with you for the long
haul. Believe me, we'd written enough of these quick-hook songs in
the past to know that we didn't want this for AVENGER. We wanted
AVENGER to be a more serious work and thus the writing was done from
that perspective. We also did many subtle things within the songs,
musically and melodically, which don't really surface on the first
listen or two. When they do you can't believe you didn't notice before.
It's these little things that I think have helped propel this recording
onto so many people's 'favorite' list; The attention to detail. It has
been said that beauty is in the details.
I bet all the press on this CD was good?!
Actually, yes. I'd say 99% has been resoundingly
positive and beyond our expectations. All of the major and minor
underground mags have given the disc great marks. And many have even
gone on to call it cd of the year and all that goes with it. ROCK
HARD! magazine in Germany recently featured 'Crown Of Thorns' on the cd
that comes free with their publication. That's 100,000 copies of our
song pressed up for their disc because they liked it that much, and it's
at absolutely no cost to the band. Same with France's METALLIAN magazine
which included 'Lethal Injection' on their freebie disc. We have
absolutely no label influence with these magazines. None. No major ad
campaign. Nothing. They're featuring these songs because they like
them, period, and that speaks volumes to the fans I think.
Interestingly enough, and I'd be remiss to not mention this, the two
pieces of negative press we did receive were from right here in
Dallas/Fort Worth, our hometown so to speak. Go figure. Nothing
like nurturing and encouraging the talent in one's own backyard!
I've read that AVENGER was a big step for
the band in that it is your most consistent album. What was changed in
the band that made this happen - attitudes, playing ability, etc?
Well, for starters, and I did a lot of analyzing here,
we've been a great band with many great songs but I think we pandered to
too many people in our past recorded work. We had a really cool
thing going with myself, Darren, and Keith all sharing lead vocal
duties. We wrote our music around our individual strengths within the
various styles of the rock/metal spectrum without embracing any
particular direction. No limits or boundaries. If it felt right and
sounded good, we'd do it. This worked well for us live, but from a
record label's perspective, and many a music critic, it became
impossible to categorize us. Our sound was just a bit too
diversified. Schizophrenic even. You couldn't really say "Oh yeah,
ASKA? They sound like so and so" because we sounded different song
to song, singer to singer. Now, understand that Darren and I come
from the school that says multiple singers in a band is a cool and
positive thing. Hell, it worked for The Beatles, KISS, Triumph, on and
on, but I began to see how it could be detrimental to a band in our
particular genre where the music we were playing was out of favor with
the mass media. The immediate thing we agreed to do was limit the
lead vocalist situation. The songs which featured my vocals were
the ones that excited the metal press the most so the logical conclusion
was that we would focus on myself as the lead singer. This was a
major change and departure from the way we'd conducted the band for
years and it wasn't an easy decision to make for some of us. I
mean, Darren and Keith are good vocalists in their own right, it just
worked out that we were gaining press acceptance with the songs geared
to my range moreso than theirs. Had our lighter rock tunes been
the ones to cause the stir in the press, or if circumstances had
warranted something else, it might have been one of them handling the
lead vocal duties for ASKA instead. The second immediate change
was then based around and prepositioned by the first; If I was now going
to be doing all of the singing, I didn't want to be singing about some
of the bullshit subjects or topics I or we had written about in the
past. I wanted the subject matter to have depth and allow for some
thought and insight from the listener. We'd written songs like
that on our earlier recordings and I thought a full project featuring
these more serious themes would raise the bar, so to speak, so we
approached the writing from this perspective. The final thing was that
we wanted to have full band autonomy when it came time to mix the
record. We'd had plenty to regret on the mix of our first cd and
we felt that nobody in this town that we could afford knew more about
how we should sound than us, so we banked on that. It's easier to
sleep knowing that if our record sounds like shit it was because of us
and not anybody else. You know, so many people like to point
fingers at others for their failures, sometimes justifiably so, but it's
my belief that in the end everyone is responsible for themselves.
People make their own luck. You ever notice how when praise is given to
people, they accept it but when blame is cast they readily pass it off
and point fingers elsewhere? It's human nature. We have to live with
this recording for the rest of our lives, the outside producer doesn't,
so as far as the mixes went, the last word was strictly ours, for better
or worse. I can honestly say though that I am very proud of AVENGER.
I completely agree with the critics when they say it's a winner through
and through.
I
know that there is a storyline for AVENGER. What inspired the storyline
(watching endless episodes of The Outer Limits?)
I'd say the inspiration came from Spanish artist, Luis
Royo's AVENGER cover artwork, and from my own voracious
consumption of science and speculative fiction works. I love to
read about the future; Alternate versions of reality, space and time
discordance, alien landscapes and culture. Love the stuff. Absolutely
cannot get enough. My major regret in life even is that I was born too
soon. I would have preferred to live in an era where man has
conquered space or faster than light space travel. A time when man has
realized beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are not alone in the
universe. Just imagine the possibilities! Or to exist in the
last hundred years of our sun's natural lifespan. It would be
interesting to see if man will have evolved enough to leave this solar
system. Everything would be cooked well before our sol's eventual
supernova but I'd like to think that humanity's spirit of survival and
ingenuity would somehow pull us through and get us far out enough in the
Milky Way that we'd persist. So you're not far off when you talk
about 'The Outer Limits'.
How does the song "Imperial Rome" fit
into the story line?
I prefer to leave this to the listener to decide for
himself but I will say that the passage of time for an outworlder is not
the same as it is for a human just as a rat's lifespan and their concept
of the passage of time is not equal to a human's. To really get this in
focus, think of an ordinary housefly. The fly's entire lifespan is
a period of mere weeks and that includes it's maggot larval form. It's a
pittance to us but those few weeks to that fly, with it's accelerated
metabolism and deccelerated view of the world around it, is like a full
sixty year lifespan for us. It's confusing because we look at
everything on human terms, that's how we can relate and empathize. We
don't have to die to know it's not something we neccesarily want to do.
We don't have to smoke to understand that there is a host of ill effects
that comes from doing so. We have perspective. But what in
the world do we know about what, if anything, goes on in an amoeba's
conciousness? We can't even begin to understand. In the
story, it's kind of implied that the outworlders had been to Earth long
before any suspected giving rise to many religions, myths, and societal
hierarchies. Throughout the story of the concept as a whole, one
can also get the sense that Earth isn't where humanity originated.
It can be as confusing or as simple as one chooses to interpret
everything. The cool thing about AVENGER though is that if you choose to
ignore the conceptual part of it, the record still works as all the
songs easily stand on their own. This was done intentionally.
If anyone heard any of these songs on the radio or at a friend's house,
there would be no apparent tie whatsoever to the conceptual storyline
presented in the cd booklet. Only when the concept background
information is present can one begin to see the threads that encompass
the entire work, and even then it requires some imagination on the
listener's part to fill in the blanks. Such is the case with
'Imperial Rome', which without the story arc, is just a killer song
about Rome, the empire, from a historical perspective.
I read that L. Ron Hubbard inspired a song on
AVENGER, 'Against The Gods' - was that purely based on his early sci-fi
writing or is there a hidden scientology message in your music/lyrics?
Well, it wasn't the late Mr. Hubbard himself as much as
one of the stories featured in his 'Writer's Of The Future' anthology
book series. That's about the extent of the Hubbard connection.
Specifically, it was 1997's "A Prayer For The Insect Gods" by
Morgan Burke. That's where Darren's inspiration came from. Any
scientology message would be strictly coincidental. My inspiration
for the song came from a short story written in '52 by Walt Sheldon
called "The Hunters". It's funny how these two
completely different stories fired us up and inspired each of our
portions of the song and yet the end result has absolutely nothing to do
with either story.
What do you think of religion, spiritualism,
cults, etc...is it something that you think about at all?
It's certainly something I think about, but it's more
from an anthropological view of the reasons and need for it in societal
structures than as a search for the meaning of life or my own personal
salvation. I have a tendency to think of things in a philosophical
way so I'm always up for discussions concerning those subjects.
I love the album cover for AVENGER. How does the
title reflect the storyline? (ie. who's the chick? Heheh).
Well, the female on the cover is the one that according
to the story, carries the last breeder male's son in her womb.
This of course is unknown to her outworld master, whom is also on the
cover. If the child is born, he would be the "Avenger"
that was prophesied to come and help humanity reclaim it's freedom.
The thing with prophesies is that they're usually invented in desperate
times by desperate people. I love the cover as well though. As I
mentioned earlier, the cover was the initial inspiration for the entire
feel of the album. We liked Mr. Royo's work so much in fact that
we've got the rights to another of his pieces for a future release.
I'm a huge fan of fantasy art and I'd love to feature many of my canvas
heroes on ASKA covers down the line as well. I'm working on trying
to score the rights to an existing Frazetta piece at present which if it
goes through would be quite a coup for the band as Frazetta's work
hasn't graced an album cover since the 70's and 80's Molly Hatchett
recordings and, in my opinion, their musical style didn't quite fit
those covers if you know what I mean. I also had some discussions
with Rick Berry earlier this year so one thing's for certain; No matter
who we eventually go with, our covers will continue to be top notch and
will be an integral part of the work in question. It's probably the most
important thing for me after the music.
Your CD is out on EMA records - a label I haven't
heard of before - is this your own label?
EMA is defintiely ours. We were screwed by a label
in California on our second release, IMMORTAL, so we decided to just
continue to do it ourselves until we could hook up with a label of
higher integrity. As we speak we're just a matter of days from
signing a nice deal with a well known label so it looks like AVENGER and
it's follow-ups will be more accessible and easier to find for people in
stores and such. I don't want to say who the label is yet, not
until all of the paperwork and contractual things are agreed on, but
they did offer a five album deal which we're trying to reduce to three.
Either way it's safe to say that ASKA will be around for quite some time
to come.
Have you sent your CD to any of the metal labels
like Noise, Century Media, Metal Blade, etc...?
Oh yeah.
What was their reaction?
Their reactions were very positive. We fielded
offers and interest from Metal Blade, Pavement, Nuclear Blast,
Underground Symphony, Adrenaline/Energi, Iron Glory, Neat, Molten Metal,
hell, the response has been quite phenomenal. Some of the labels we
contacted, others contacted us first and solicited our material. It took
a while for word on AVENGER to filter out but it's getting great
word-of-mouth out there. I think it's just now really starting to come
to people's attention in a bigger way. We also just completed our
second month and a half long tour in support of AVENGER so that helped.
The tour you mentioned was a five week tour of
Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc. Firstly - I can understand a Japan tour
because all metal bands seem to do well over there but Singapore and
(South??) Korea? Tell me how you hooked that up and who you'll be
playing with.
We've toured internationally now for about the last
eight years for the United States Department of Defense. They send
us around the world to some well known places like Japan, Germany,
England, Australia and to other less established, hot spots, like Saudi
Arabia and Bosnia. We love it. Not only do we get to see the
world and support our military metal brethren stationed overseas but we
get exposed to a lot of people and places that wouldn't under any other
circumstances be in a position to see a metal band live. We've
done 13 tours in this manner and in the process we've visited 36
countries around the globe and made many new fans and metal brothers.
It's how the band managed to stay viable for so long while basking in
seeming obscurity.
What types of venues do you play over there -
theatres / clubs...?
Mostly clubs but it's pretty much anything goes. We've
played embassies, hotels, domes, halls, auditoriums, festivals,
theaters, gyms, mess halls, hangars, you name it, we've probably done
it. Our motto for a while there was "Been There, Done That."
People would start asking us a question and we'd just cut 'em off and
say "Been there, done that."
What kind of touring have you done in Europe -
have you played at any of their big summer festivals?
No, nothing like Reading, Donnington, or Wacken but
we've been to Europe rather extensively over the years. We've played
just about every major country in northern and western Europe as well as
most of the Mediterranean coastal countries plus several of the eastern European
nations like Hungary and Croatia. Europe is always a blast but
again, we're not out there doing major concerts, just club shows at the
American bases mostly. It's a lot of fun.
How many songs from AVENGER do you play live?
We do a good eight or so songs from the disc live. We
mix it up though so realistically, depending on the show, you may see
four or five songs from AVENGER per night. We try to do songs from
each of our four releases as well as some cool covers. I remember
when we did the cd release show for AVENGER, we opened with a
pre-recorded version of 'Prelude to Darkness', you know, the piano
piece, and we could hear people in the audience going "What is
this? John Tesh?". Fuckers had me rollin'.
Did you play any newer material on this Asian
tour?
Do you mean music from AVENGER's follow-up?
Post-AVENGER? No. We used to give people a preview of what we were
currently working on at the time but we stopped because before we knew
it the "new" songs would become regulars in our set and by the
time they were actually recorded and released we were tired of playing
them. Now we save them so that when the new discs come out these
songs are still fresh for us.
Did
you not recently contribute to a Maiden tribute?
Yeah, we were on Italian label, Adrenaline/Energi's
"Children Of The Damned", 2- disc tribute to Iron Maiden set.
Killer package.
What song did you cover and what made you select
that particular song?
Well, we chose to record 'Flight Of Icarus' because 'The
Trooper' had already been taken by Greek band, Diphtheria. My favorite
Maiden album has always been PIECE OF MIND so I think it was easy to
gravitate towards a song from that era. I also wanted to do a song that
allowed me to show my vocal range so 'Flight...' was a great choice.
It's also the only song Maiden ever charted with in the U.S.
Did this cover open any doors for the band?
Sure it did. For one, it got Adrenaline/Energi all hot
for the band. Twice in Italy the label bosses, Simone and Primo, took us
out and wined and dined us and hooked us all up with one copy each of
every release the company had and promised we'd be featured in their
next issue of 'Metal Force'. That was a very cool thing to do. We
also got a lot of mail and interest from Maiden fans that had discovered
us via the tribute. See, disc two of the tribute featured an original
song from each of the participating bands. We included a remixed
version of 'The Stalker', a song we had originally featured on our NINE
TONGUES disc which has a very Maidenish feel. It got people pretty
excited. We even had some of the other participating bands
emailing us saying they were impressed with the band. The whole thing
was a good experience. Now we've been offered a spot on an
upcoming UFO tribute for Midwest Metal records, all Michael Schenker era
stuff, which I'm almost sure we'll be doing. Tributes are fun but
like everybody else I know, I think there may be just a bit too many of
them out there right now.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you based out
of TEXAS?!?! What kind of scene do you have there and do you get to play
many local gigs?
We've got a pretty damn good scene. Very supportive.
We've got a nice cult following out here and we're always playing out.
All over. Many people get visions of country music and cowboy hats when
they think of Texas and that's pretty accurate but what they don't know
is that we've got some of the wildest headbangers in the world right
here in Texas. When Priest and Maiden were barely squeaking by
elsewhere they were selling out places in Texas. When the rest of
the country was going grunge and alternative we still had a thriving
metal scene here with numerous places to play and lots of fans. Belts
got a little tighter and some venues went the way of the dinosaurs but
nowhere near as bad as Denver or Seattle or places like that. It
may have helped that Pantera was from here and that King Diamond lives
here as well. Others too. We've got Omen and Manny Charlton who
used to be in Nazareth. Andy Timmons of Danger Danger, Z-Lot-Z,
doom-merchants Solitude Aeturnus. Absu even. From what I understand Tom
Araya of Slayer is living in Texas now as well. Every now and then we
get the Pantera guys or King Diamond out at an ASKA show and the place
gets electric. Of late we've been getting a lot of support on the major
FM station in our area. They've been spinning 'Lethal Injection' off
AVENGER and 'Flight Of Icarus' which we talked about earlier. The
station also nominated us 'Regional Act of the Year 2000' so you can't
ask for better. Believe it or not there is quite a bit of support here.
Even the two weekly local papers that trashed AVENGER for being too
heavy metal nominate us practically every year for metal band of
the year and stuff like that. Last year we had four separate nominations
from one paper alone. It's a good place to be, Texas.
What about playing gigs in the USA in general?
Within the U.S. we pretty much stick to playing in the
south, Louisiana, and Texas being our primary stomping grounds. As
much as we'd like to play throughout the U.S. it's not really
financially feasible for us at present with the metal market being what
it is, so we stay close to home. In this fashion we keep expenses
down and we can survive to rock another day. Once we sign and
finalize our deal I think this will change and we'll try to get on the
road in the U.S. with Iced Earth or somebody of their draw and caliber.
Have you ever toured in Canada?
Unfortunately, never. I can't wait for the day though.
We'd be there tomorrow if we could.
What do you think of the metal scene in the USA as
compared to Europe as compared to Asia?
I think without a doubt that Germany is THE metal
country, bar none. England is very similar to the U.S. in that it's
very pop oriented. Places like Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy
have rabid fans and are very much fans of the genre despite trends.
There they seem to be more accepting of the fact that
there are different segments of the population that go for different
styles of music. Here in the U.S. if you're not flavor of the
month, stylistically speaking, the mass media will completely dismiss
you as if you didn't exist. It's not like that over there. All
genres seem to be on more equal footing. They don't try to pretend
metal music doesn't exist and they certainly don't try to devalue it or
poke fun at it like they do here in America and in England.
As for Asia, I think they may be the most starstruck of
the pack. They don't even really seem to care if they like your music or
not as much as they like the concept or idea that you're a touring
artist from somewhere else. Anywhere else really. I think this is
mostly due to the xenocentricity of Asian culture in general. Don't get
me wrong, they know what they like without question, they just tend to
go "Beatlemania" on bands more so than other places we've been
to with the exception of maybe South America, but our experience there
has been very limited so I couldn't make anything more than an educated
comparison regarding South America.
The bottom line really is that every place we've ever
visited on tour has been a unique and interesting experience all of and
in itself with maybe one exception; Haiti. If I never go back
there again it will be too soon. Hell, Cuba was even cool.
Most memorable tour moment (good or bad)?
Gosh, there are so many. All of the pranks come to mind.
On this last tour our drummer Jason and one of the fellows in our
touring group, Daryl Norton, wanted to go to a Korean disco that was in
the basement of our hotel in Taegu. It was after a show and I
thought what the hell, I'd join them, but when we got to the front desk
and turned in our keys I learned the disco had a cover charge. I wasn't
paying anything to sit and listen to Disco while the guys got blitzed so
I asked for my key back and headed back up to my room. Well when I tried
to get into my room I discovered that the key wouldn't open the lock.
The lady at the front desk had given me Jason's room key by mistake!
I immediately went and got Keith out of his room, video camera in tow,
and we proceeded to film ourselves demolishing Jason's room. Man it was
hilarious. We threw his laundry everywhere, upended the bed, unrolled
all of the toilet paper, threw all of his shampoo and stuff into the
tub, put a table and chairs on the boxspring of the bed, unrolled all of
his condoms, filled his suitcase with hotel items, just completely
ransacked the place. Then I returned to the front desk, swapped out keys
and was informed by the receptionist that my friends were at the second
floor bar. I went up and found them knocking some beers back and
asked why they weren't in the Disco. Apparently it was a Korean
only club, no foreigners allowed, so they made their way to the bar
instead. I made up some story about changing my mind and looking
for them and then I started with the subterfuge. I told Jason that
the funniest thing happened while I was coming down...I saw Keith
wandering our floor with his video camera out and that he was laughing
his ass off. Jason was like, hmm, that's strange, and didn't think
anything else of it until they closed the bar on us and we returned to
our rooms. The look on his face when he opened his door was
priceless man. He thought he was in the wrong room! When he
realized what he was seeing he remembered what I had told him earlier
and was like "That Keith!!! Bastard!!!". He took
it all in stride though while we were practically rolling on the floor
with our sides splitting from laughing so hard. The next day on
the bus to the show we watched the video of me and Keith trashing his
room and he just about died! We totally fell out. Stuff like that
goes on all the time. Somebody will fall asleep on the plane and
we'll load them up with ice cubes and newspapers and watch the stuff
melt all over their clothes. We definitely keep ourselves
entertained and no matter how pissed somebody gets, a few days later
they're laughing as hard as the next guy.
What bands have you toured with and what ones did
you feel you fit in best with?
Well, we've opened for Ratt, Firehouse, Legs Diamond,
Wildside, Dee Snider's Widowmaker, Quiet Riot, Kix, Heaven, just a lot
of those commercial metal bands which is kind of where we were with our
first two discs. To be honest though, I'd be much more comfortable
on stage with bands like Riot, Virgin Steele, Manowar, Priest, Maiden,
Sabbath. These true metal bands are the ones that have always done
it for me anyway but they played so rarely in the mid 90's that it was
near impossible to get on a bill with them. I'd prefer to play
with them but I won't turn down a gig no matter who's on the bill.
Even if it's opening for No Doubt or somebody like that I'd do it
because we're bound to turn a few heads. Case in point; We did the
X-Fest in Shreveport, Louisiana a few years ago. There was a crowd of
about five thousand people and it was, except for us, an alternative
bill with bands like Coal Chamber, Powerman 5000, Sevendust, that kind
of thing and we went out there with our black leather and studs metal,
hair included, and totally won that crowd over. The dudes from Sevendust
and some of the other bands were coming up to us going "Who are you
guys?!". They couldn't believe that we'd gone out there and
got as strong a response as anybody else on that bill and we didn't have
any label or MTV support like many of them had. After our set, we
even went and one-upped everybody by going out into the crowd, signing
autographs and shaking hands and talkin' to all of the people that were
interested in doing so. It kind of disrupted alt night but hey,
the way we saw it was another victory for metal music.
You are currently working on a new album. How much
of it is written or recorded?
I'd say we're about halfway done with the writing.
We've got some killer metal in the making. Truly powerful stuff. The
whole process takes time though when you're trying to do it right.
There's no loops or pre-programmed synth patterns here so it's bound to
take a bit longer. I'm very impatient though. I'd love to have it
done and out today, but you know what they say...Good things come to
those who wait.
What is the material sounding like in comparison
to AVENGER?
It's right along the same lines. Lots of harmony
guitars, killer melodies, heavy subject matter, power rhythms. If you
loved AVENGER you're gonna be a real happy guy when you hear the next
one. I think it will be even better than AVENGER and that's saying
quite a bit.
What lyrical topics will be covered on the next
album?
It's too early to tell right now. We've got lyrics
and subject matter for everything we've written for the disc so far but
we've been known to completely scrap a song lyrically just moments
before recording is to begin on it so we can't really ever be 100%
certain until we lay it down in the studio. And even then it's not safe.
To give you an idea, 'Imperial Rome' was originally demoed in the studio
as a song called 'Selling Her Soul' with completely different lyrics and
subject matter. It was only later, when we were days from
recording it for the album that I said "fuck this" and
scrapped the whole thing lyrically and made it into what it is you hear
today.
What
kind of material do you read or watch when researching story
backgrounds?
I've been sparked sometimes when watching the Discovery
Channel or The Learning Channel to the point of taking notes along with
the show if I think it would make great subject matter for a song. I
have a ton of notepads laying around the house just waiting for their
moment to come. Also, if I know I want to write a song about a
certain topic I'll go out of my way to research the subject in a fairly
in-depth manner. I'll purchase non-fiction historical books, or
get my hands on whatever text I can find regarding said topic.
When I wrote 'Blood Of The Wolf' for the NINE TONGUES cd, I bought all
of the werewolf and real-life wolf books I could find. I picked up
shirts, card games, calendars...anything that could shed light for me or
get me inside the head of a wild, pack wolf. That's how meticulous
I tend to get when it comes to the creative process.
In the song "Valkyries" you have 2
characters (Magnus and Thorsen). That's two of you on vocals right? What
is the reason behind turning it into a "dueling" vocal song?
Were the lyrics written first then you decided to do this?
Actually yeah. Originally, the song was written for only
one singer, but I thought the idea of making it a multi-character song,
with the character's interacting was much more appealing, plus it
allowed us to ease into the one singer thing that we had just adopted
with a little more grace. The song took on a whole new life when
we added the dual vocal because it invites the listener to really get
into these guy's heads. Viking brothers going to war, swearing oaths and
making sacrifices to their favored gods, while burying their grievances
against each other and getting their affairs in order in case they don't
come back. Everybody going to war fears death and prepares for the
possibility of it in their own way. Vikings, whose way of life was
war and pillage, fooled themselves into believing that if they died on
the field of battle it would be okay because Odin would then send his
handmaiden's, the valkyries, to fetch their souls and return them to
Valhalla where they could then fight again in glory side by side with
the god's on the day of Ragnarok, which is basically the norse
Armageddon. What a concept. An entire belief system centered around the
very real possibility of one's death in battle. I also really
liked that Darren's voice sounded very much like Eric Adam's on his
verses in the song. It all came together and made for a very
intense song.
When I listened to AVENGER I heard sounds of
Maiden, Dio, Jag Panzer, Virgin Steele, etc., all stirred up into a
blend that was entirely ASKA. Are any of these bands an influence?
All of those you mentioned are most certainly influences
with the exception of Jag Panzer who we're not overly familiar with.
I think Darren picked up their latest, THANE TO THE THRONE, and what I
heard of that I liked but we're not familiar enough with their work to
call them an influence. The other big influences are Priest,
Manowar, KISS, Saxon, that kind of stuff. One thing I notice is
that all of these bands are still around today doing their thing while
all of the bands that the masses just loved on the radio are in the
"missing persons" files. There's something about true
metal music that engenders a sense of loyalty and devotion that mass
market groups will never tap into no matter how hard they try.
Any more concept albums up your sleeve?
Hmm...Not sure really. Maybe if we did it in the
same fashion we did AVENGER, where the songs can stand independently,
that would work for me.
What are your long term plans/goals for the band?
To forge on and carry the metal torch into a new millennium
making ASKA the best it can be along the way. We'll have an easier
go of it with the upcoming record deal. It'd also be nice to get some
heavy rotation radio play but unfortunately that's not really within our
control.
Any closing comments?
Yeah, I just want to invite everybody reading this to
get themselves a copy of AVENGER. I have so much confidence that they'd
dig it that I'm willing to refund anybody's money personally that buys
it and doesn't like it. I'd also like to invite your readers to
visit our website at www.askaband.com.
There's lots to see, do, and hear there so I highly recommend a visit.
And finally, thanks Geoff, to you, for your support and for a great
interview. It's always refreshing when an interviewer does his
homework and asks interesting questions. I look forward to talking with
you again soon.
©2000 Metal Rules!!