Just a little update of what we have in store for you this coming week ;)
Something that we owe a lot of people for months now. Had some problems with the audio and we actually still do but let’s just make do with it yeah. It’s the best we could do. But before you get to see everything, check this teaser out!
On 16th September, MME got the opportunity to interview Alesana all thanks to the amazing Upsurge Productions who brought them in to play a show with special guests, Crossfaith. We managed to catch up with Shawn Milke and Dennis Lee, the two leading men of Alesana to answer some of our burning questions.
Alesana, a band that started out in 2004 with post hardcore as their genre, have gathered many fans throughout the years. Using literature as their strength, their albums are based on different literati that inspired them to write short stories to bring the flow in the songs in each individual album. Expressed through beautiful words, Alesana has brought post hardcore up a notch with their popular number ‘Ambrosia’ and ‘The Thespian’. They also recently released their single ‘A Gilded Masquerade’ followed by ‘A Forbidden Dance‘ from their new album, ‘A Place Where The Sun Is Silent’. These songs gave fans a feel of how the new album is going to be like and what they can expect from it.
Welcome to Singapore, first of all. So how do you find the weather here?
S: It’s alot like Florida. Very humid. So we’re getting excited cause we can start wearing hoodies again and then we came out here and it’s really hot again.
D: Weather is humid.
How is touring life for you guys?
S: Long, tedious but it’s also exciting cause you get to play shows every night. I mean that’s what we dreamed of so…
D: Long and hard my friend. Yeah we all signed up for it.
Halloween 2008, you guys performed at the house of blues in New Orleans wearing bikinis, who came up with the bikini idea?
S: I actually think I did believe it or not. So we just went for shock value. We don’t have any other costumes so let’s just wear bikinis.
D: Yeah everybody else had like, Silverstein was all dressed up in death cloak and we didn’t have any costumes.
And we hear, you guys are fans of literature so were there any particular literati inspiration for your new album?
S: For the new record it is The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. That was our big influence for this one.
Question from a fan, Elissa Zapata: Does Dennis still have a necklace a fan gave him at VWT’10 Florida? It’s a high-life bottle cap one Elissa made for him?
D: Oh man, yeah I lost that. I actually like that one alot too. Sometimes I get like weird things that are just like crazy coloured beads and stuff and I’m like yeah thanks but I’m not a 14 year old girl. She actually made me that necklace out of a high-life cap and it’s really cool.
S: Yeah it’s really cool. He lost it.
D: I liked it. The joke about it is this hat, I just got it to try and see if I can actually last the entire trip without losing it. I actually already lost it last night.
S: I ended up finding it but it was missing for about an hour or so.
Question from a fan, Dzul: Dzul wants to know what’s the most dangerous thing you have ever done in your entire life?
D: I held our old tour manager out of a door of a van going about 60 miles an hour, I was just fucking wasted.
S: And I laid there laughing about it.
D: There’s that jumping off that balcony into that pool. Probably legitimate like pretty dangerous.
S: Oh yeah that was like 2 stories down into a pool. Yeah that was pretty dangerous.
D: Yeah and that borat bikini on.
Question from a fan, Wayne: Will Shawn be putting up some old tracks/demo from your old band ‘The Legitimate Excuse’?
S: Yes. I am. Yeah. It’s just been difficult with Alesana still taking up so much time so…
D: I’m sorry.
S: No. It’s ok. It will be coming soon. I promise to do it. And actually my good friend, the guitarist in that band, he and I are going to write some new material for that band too and release it.
How do you guys handle any pressure you received form the Media or your fans out there?
S: Like criticism? Yeah it used to bother us a lot back in the day. Obviously when you spend a lot of time doing something and you really love it and then somebody just tells you that it’s terrible, and you know can sting a lot but I think we’ve grown up and maturing as artists and we realize that not everybody is gonna like it and you’re better off focusing on the people who do than the people who don’t.
D: That’s the freaking internet dude. It’s like built just to talk shit about people.
S: It’s like a lot of criticism here and you take so much offence to it and you realize that it’s probably just some 13 year old boy sitting in his bedroom just writing that. You know we’re out here living our dreams so we really don’t care about what people like that have to say.
Alesana, though they are an internationally well established band and having gone for countless tours around the world along with other awesome bands, are really laid back and down to earth. They made us feel as comfortable as we can be throughout the interview. We were glad we got to speak to them and we can push aside all those comments about band members being all snotty and shit. What Shawn said at the end about being out here and living the dream, well they definitely are and nothing is going to ever stop them.
Oh and we managed to pass to them a tank that Dzul, owner of Heratic Clothing had packed for Alex Torres as a birthday gift.
It was a great day for us all. And we do hope that Alesana will come back for another show.
On 16th September, MME got the opportunity to interview Crossfaith all thanks to the amazing Upsurge Productions who brought them in to play a show alongside Alesana. We managed to talk to Kenta Koie (Vocals), Terufumi Tamano (Panorama/Program) and Hiroki Ikegawa (Bass guitars) and got a few of our questions answered. Time was limited and there were alot of translations happening, which Hiroki managed to assist us with, thus we only managed to ask 3 questions altogether.
Crossfaith, a Japanese homegrown band made up of young talented individuals, brought their music out and about in the midst of the stereotypical society they come from. Being an electronic metalcore band, they have brought metalcore music to a whole new level, fusing electronic sounds and screamo inserts into their song piece. Having covered The Prodigy’s ‘Omen’, they have since spread their music worldwide and garnered fans from all over the world. It was their first time performing in Singapore and Singaporean fans were anxious and overly thrilled to know what Crossfaith has in store for them.
How do you feel about performing in Singapore for the first time? And what do you like about here?
K: It’s our first time performing here in Singapore and we can’t wait to meet the crowd here.
H: The food here is great though the weather is pretty warm.
T: I love the frog porridge and durians here.
How do you feel about the music direction you are in, compared to maybe…..J-rock?
K: Japanese people don’t enjoy listening to music with screaming and heavy instrument sounds.
T: They prefer listening to pop songs like J-pop.
H: Despite it all, we have numerous fans in Japan who love our music direction and the support we received from Summer Sonic 2011 was great!
You did a cover of the Prodigy’s Omen and it has been one of the core favourites amongst your fans. What do you think about this with it just being a cover and not your song?
H: We were actually playing a game titled ‘Punk Goes Rock’ and the song by prodigy came on so Teru and Ken decided that we should do a cover of the song, in our own way of translating the song in our own genre.
K: We chose the song because we want to transpose the initial genre to our own with our own inserts of original lyrics.
Crossfaith, having to be a relatively new band and already performing in major gigs such as Summer Sonic 2011, their level of respect and their courteous self denies the stereotype of hardcore musicians being rowdy and loud. These guys are total opposites and are humble with the music that they make. They have proven that metalcore definitely can make it in a country like Japan where pop reigns. These guys have worked hard to get to where they are now and could not be more thankful for it.
If you did not catch Crossfaith performing here then you have definitely missed out on a great opportunity because their live performance was mind blowingly intense and full of energy. Let’s hope that Upsurge Productions or any other promoters will be able to bring them back to perform here, perhaps even for their own headlining show?
