Invection interview

I recently had the chance to interview up and coming thrash act Invection.

MM-Tell us a little about the history of you band.
Andy (bass): The band started out in the spring of 2007 when John, Andrew and myself began practicing together. From then on we just kept playing with each other. With out first stable line up we played our first show in December of 07 and we've gone through a bunch of members up until the current lineup of myself, Andrew, John and our new guitarist Drew.

MM-Who are some of your influences?
Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): We've had a lot of influences over the time we've been a band and each person has their own set of influences which combines and makes for what we think is a fairly different sound. Through the different members we've had our sound has changed a lot since the beginning and each person has put their mark on the sound but probably our biggest influences would be Exodus, The Haunted, Pantera, Testament, Megadeth, Slayer, Arch Enemy and At The Gates. It's mostly a combination of Gothenburg melodic death metal/old school thrash/a little bit of Death metal style groove.

MM-You have a new EP due out soon. Tell us about it.
Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): We've had the EP done for a long time but hadn't gotten it pressed up until recently due to lack of money and a bunch of plans just not working out. We put it for free download online at a bunch of places and the response has been great; now that we have hard copies though we'll be selling it and sending it to magazines for reviews, labels and other places to try to gain more exposure so we're really excited about that. It's already on sale at a couple different sites but it should be at more in the upcoming weeks. We recorded it at Panda Studios in Fremont, CA and took a bit more time with it than Demented Perception due to a bigger budget and I think it turned out a lot better and more polished but every band seems to think their most recently release is the best they've done.

MM-Did you approach this album any differently than your 2009 EP “Demented perception”?
Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): It was approached a lot differently in that we weren't as happy with Demented Perception as we wanted (even though we do like it and think it has its own style it's a little bit raw and not as much was put into it as we would've liked) it to be so we made sure to fix all those flaws in Derealization (better tones, more time spent on recording, different methods of recording etc). Even though there are still some flaws we're not too happy about it definitely came out sounding a lot better and just gave us more experience of what to know and what to do and not to do for the full length. The songs were written in a shorter amount of time than Demented Perception but were more thought out for the structure and the guy who recorded it, Sam, gave us a bunch of ideas for things and really acted as a producer whereas for Demented Perception we didn't have much time and basically went in as fast as possible and got it recorded, mixed, mastered and out there. Demented Perception is definitely good and a lot of people like it and there are some great songs on there but if we had a bigger budget and a bit more experience it could've been better (we think at least).



MM-Where do you the ideas for your song topics?
Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): I write basically whatever I'm feeling or something that interests me that relates to a greater theme for the release. On the new EP it's really a bunch of songs about mental problems and psychological issues because that's what's interesting and real to me so instead of writing songs about fantasy or over the top satanic stuff I tend to write about more realistic issues and things that people can relate to or think about if they read the lyrics; I think it adds a more human aspect and that comes out in the vocals and songs where there's more attachment to them and it comes through in the music. There are times when the guys will bring in an idea for a song with a couple lyrics maybe that I'll tweak a bit and turn into full song lyrics but for the most part I've been the main writer of the lyrics because it's just come really easily to me (though I still have a lot of room to improve in terms of writing vocal lines I think which is where the other guys help and give a lot of ideas). Hopefully in the future the lyrics and vocal lines will just get better and with the combination of all of us it'll really help on making for some interesting songs that have good lyrics while not becoming too much like a book or boring and not music.

MM-Why two EPs and not a full length? To go along with that, I know you mentioned you will be doing a full length in the near future. Any time line on that?
Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): We actually have 3 EP's if you count our first one which is World Plague that we did in 2008 but it's really hard to find now as we never got it to any sort of label or real pressing so it's mostly cd-r's with covers and only a few people have it. We mostly did EP's because we never really had the money or felt we were really ready to do a full length; it felt better to do a bunch of smaller releases as we wrote new songs and evolved and sent our releases to media and labels along with posting them on the internet for people to hear about us. It's actually been a good thing for us because if we had recorded a full album in 2009 or 2008 we wouldn't have been ready and it probably would've sounded mediocre but now that we've recorded a bunch of times, played live a ton and gotten much better at writing songs it should really be a great cd and able to stand on it's own as a debut of the sound we should've had all along but were just building up until this point. That combined with the fact that internet promotion has gotten a lot of people to hear us means that hopefully when we get it actually released we can get it released on a wide scale and reach the people who hadn't heard of us before and show them how we sound and also hopefully make something that satisfies the people that have liked us in the past and heard our stuff on the internet.
All we know right now is that we'll be recording it at 2 studios (Panda Studios in Fremont, CA and another studio in San Francisco for drums) in late August and it'll be 5 old songs slightly tweaked and rerecorded (1 from World Plague, 2 from Demented Perception and 2 from Derealization). Once we have the recording completely done, art completely done and everything is set we'll be shopping it to labels to see if anyone is interested in signing us and to see what kind of distribution we can get as we really want this CD to reach places we've never reached before. It's going to be a much longer recording process than our previous releases and hopefully will be much much better than anything we've done before.

MM-What are some of your favorite tracks on the new album and why?
John (drums): Favorite song for me was Noetic Affliction because I love the texture
of the song and I am really into all that The Haunted melodic shit.

MM-How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you before?

Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): Our sound is like if you were making a metal dinner and took new Exodus (Tempo of the damned to present), The Haunted (from rEVOLVEr up until now), old Pantera and put them in a blender then sprinkled it with some old school Arch Enemy (anything up until Burning Bridges).

MM-What are thrash bands such as yourself doing that the thrash bands of the 1980’s didn’t do?

Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): The most obvious change would obviously be internet promotion as that's gotten us a huge number of fans we couldn't have reached before. Bands in the 80s had to copy and trade tapes and it made it hard to find out about all the bands out there up until now because bands can use myspace, facebook, last.fm, official forums and other methods of online promotion to get their music out there. There's a huge number of thrash bands now like there were in the 80s but the difference is every single band is able to be heard so the ones that work the hardest and have the best music can be heard and get out there if they really put a bunch of time into it while others that are either unlucky or not very good end up getting forgotten about. We use the internet a lot and are active in myspace, facebook, our official forum on Thrashunlimited.com and other places which allows us to get our music out to people who back in the 80s would've never been able to hear us. Technology has definitely helped us in terms of promotion and being able to get a CD out there where in the 80s we might not even have had that chance at all, no matter how big or small it is.



MM-What bands have you played with so far?

Andy (bass): We have played with the likes of D.R.I., Fear Factory, Dying Fetus, Arsis, Misery Index, Warrel Dane, Sworn Enemy, Pro-Pain, and Hatchet to name a few.

MM-Who would you love to share a stage with?

Andy (bass): I would love to share the stage with Testament as they are one of my all time favorites and playing with them would be a dream come true.
John (drums): Messhugah.

MM-Tell us about some of your most memorable shows?

John (drums): Most memorable show for me was CA Metal Fest. Because we made the crowd dig our stuff and we were the only thrash act that day so we
stood out amongst a lot of people.

MM-Who comes to your shows? Do you get a lot of old school thrashers or younger fans or a mixture?

Andy (bass): I believe that we get such a good balance of ages because the older thrashers always try to make it out to see us while the younger fans are just getting into the genre so they go to as many shows as they can.

MM-What are some of the best albums you have heard so far in 2010?
Andy (bass): The new Exodus is really amazing as is the new As I Lay Dying, the guitars on that album are outrageous.

MM-Where do you want this band to be in five years?
Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): Hopefully in 5 years we'll have worked enough that we're able to be on a big label such as Century Media or Nuclear Blast and are able to do world tours at least supporting the bands we enjoy now that have paved the way for us. Even though it's not likely we'd ever make any real money and be able to do music as a full time job it'd be great to figure out a way to still be able to make music, tour the world, play on a bunch of huge festivals and play places for people we've never played for before. With label backing it'd also give us the ability to be more widely distributed and allow us even more time to work on our albums so hopefully by then we'll be touring all over and have been able to record our 2nd album exactly the way we want which would be great.



MM-Pick the band from the following pairs that you prefer and tell why you picked them.
Merciless Death or Warbringer
Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): I'd have to say Warbringer because their most recent album is amazing and they've really put in the time on the road to make sure everyone hears their music; it seems like they tour and work harder than most other bands I've seen.

Vio-lence or Death Angel
Andy (bass): Death Angel because they have a more varied sound and do a lot more while Vio-lence is just blistering thrash with little variation. The vocals are also much more enjoyable with death angel because mark can actually sing.

Heathen or Testament
Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): Everyone else would probably say Testament but I think Heathen because I've always loved all their albums and even though they haven't put out a lot, everything they've released has been amazing. Their new album has been worked on so long I thought it'd end up feeling stale and not very good but it completely proved me wrong.

Exodus or Slayer
Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): Definitely Exodus because not only are they one of our biggest influences but they've consistently released amazingly heavy albums since the start and have a style completely their own. Slayer also have their own style and have recorded a couple of the best thrash metal albums ever but when compared to Exodus even though Reign in Blood might be the best thrash metal album ever, their other stuff doesn't compare as well to Exodus (especially now).

MM-Anything else that you want to say about your band, your music or any other topic?
Andrew (vocals/lead guitar): Thanks for interviewing us and having an interest in our music and we hope everyone enjoys our music and checks out our newest EP "Derealization" and our new album when it comes out.

http://www.myspace.com/invectionmetal