domingo, 28 de febrero de 2021

AMMYT - INTERVIEW



1. Ammyt was born in 2012, why did you decide to create the band? Why did you choose the name Ammyt and what does it refer to?

There's been a couple bandprojects before Ammyt started happening. We were all in the same rehearsal place which at that time was an old shutdown factory site. Back then the four of us, with our old drummer Andreas, we all shared the love for a little darker music then the one we were playing and so we started Ammyt in late September 2012 (it was a classic, completely shitfaced "ey man let's start a band" kind of situation, hahaha). Ammyt comes from ancient egypt mythology and is the name of a creature-goddess, that devours the souls of the ones who didn't live a truthfull life. Back then it had a meaning to us, but over time as we changed our style and grew up a little (; the name still sounded cool, so why not keep it?


2. In 2016 they released their first album “Between Art and Madness”, an album that perhaps at first was a way of making themselves known with a style that we could define as melodic black but that contained other influences that were not within it. They ended up having all the prominence they should have. How was the writing and recording process for your first album? And what do you think it lacked to get more impact?

 Between Art And Madness was our first full-length release, and it was supposed to be melodic black metal back then. It was a completely different time in our growth-process and I think I can speak for all of us when I say - we're glad that time's over, haha (; But all jokes aside, I don't think, that the album was polished enough. Those are more like demo-songs which should have been worked on longer - so I don't think that Between Art And Madness deserved a better response or anything. Now, that we're in the melodic death metal-genre we're way happier and it feels like we've arrived at a point were we can just freely write whatever comes to mind and we don't have to force some mask onto it. Also that's the reason we're calling our new CD New Perspectives our "debut", because it's way beyond anything we've done before that we decided to better "start from scratch" - so if you want to give us a listen go for New Perspectives or our new single If You Stay (;


3. However, the new album “New Perspectives” is much more concrete and defined than your previous album, emerging in a sound more focused on melodic death. How was the composition and recording process for the new album and how has the sound compared to the previous one?

New Perspectives is also the first album we didn't fully record ourselves. The drumrecordings as well as mixing and mastering happened at Woodshed Studio with V. Santura and we're very happy that it came out the way it did - raw yet still polished in a way - he really does an amazing job!! As I stated above the writing process is way easier than with our old songs - we just have a better musical connection to one another when it comes to the music we now make. That means every song anyone is bringing to the table is a solid basis to work on - there's no disconnect in what anyone likes or not.


4.It is clear a greater weight of melodic death in the sound of the new album, however something that the band seems to be clear about is not wasting any influence within extreme metal, be it melodic black or progressive or heavy sound with clear references to death melodic of the Scandinavian school or to the Dissection band in other facets, how would you describe the sound of the album for those who have not yet heard it? What main influences in terms of bands and sound have been an influence on you when recording the album? 

I have heard before that our new CD has a lot of DISSECTION in it, but honestly I don't really see that as much. I mean it totally makes sense 'cause that's basically the band that brought 3 out of us 4 into metal - so maybe that's a 'handwriting-style' we adopted a little. Our main influence and also our genre is 2000s melodic death metal with bands like Norther, Children of Bodom, In Flames etc. We don't want to reinvent the wheel or anything, we're just trying to revive what was the music we grew up with and love - with our own touch of course. The drums for example are a little more ..dare I say interesting then in the mid 2000s? haha



5. “New Perspectives” contains a conceptual story about the inner struggle of the human being, why did you decide to treat these issues in your music, how did you decide to develop it and in what way is it a representation of your own experiences?

So lyrics are Fabian (our singer) and my job. We wanted to give New Perspectives a story and were thinking a lot about it. The first songs, Phobia, Valkyr and Stranded were done before we even had the idea for that topic. But they were very easy to embed and lead the path we were going lyricwise. Without going into too much detail about who or when let's just say that we all have our struggles and our inner battles we have to fight, so we wrote it for everyone who shares that feeling.


6. A fundamental aspect of the album is the sound of guitars with that melodic death tone that makes an appearance from the beginning. How have these aspects of the guitar sound been worked on and how have they made the recording in the studio? 

Yes, we're very happy with the guitar tone we ended up with. It's the EVH 5150 III with a ENGL 4x12 Pro. Philipp and I recorded the guitars with our modelers that we also use live, but decided that we should send Victor (V. Santura) the EVH amp, so that he can reamp the guitars, and what more can I say - it worked out perfectly. 


7. The figure of  Alexi Laiho at the time of focusing is part of the sound of the album?

Man what can I say.. Alexi Laiho was one of my main influences on playing guitar. It's a shame that such a talented person had to go so early.. concerning the guitar tone on the album Children of Bodom were no influence, but playing- and songwritingwise he/CoB was probably the biggest one.


8. The voices also offer disparate registers, from a lower tone to more acute ones, creating an interesting contrast that I suppose will be aimed at the setting of the conceptual story related to the inner struggles of the human being. How was the composition dealt with? and recording the voices and how is this task shared between Fabian and Daniel?

Honestly the vocals are just the way they are because they sounded the best that way. We went down that path with different voices for different characters, but that never really worked (for us at least). Also I don't sing anymore, so all the vocals are 100% Fabian - he's just the better singer period. So why should I 'help out', when it sounds way better when he's doing it alone? haha (;


9. Adrian Bodensteiner did not participate in the first stage of the band but if he has been present in the last album, how does the incorporation of him take place and what do you think he has contributed to the sound of the band?

Adrian was the drummer of Fabians band before Ammyt started happening and as I said earlier - we were all in the same rehearsal place (door to door) so we naturally became friends over time. There was no integration process needed or anything. He had time, felt like giving it a shot and luckily he liked it. Because he is such an amazing drummer and the fact that he is the one of us with a little different taste in music makes him absolutely indispensable. His drumming style to me is pretty unique and he always writes his drumparts himself. Fabian Philipp or me, we'll write something so that he get's the idea, but what ends up on the album is his decision. At least 9 times out of 10, hahaha.


10. You have always opted for self-publishing of your music, why is this lack of editions by any record label?

Let me put it that way - it wasn't always our decision to self-publish (; But with New Perspectives for the first time we were confident that there would be someone that would work with us on this release. And together with STF Records we made that CD happen and that in a better way than what we would have been capable to do ourselves. 


11. The covid-19 has supposed a hard setback for bands like yours. You usually give concerts, however you have made a video-clip of the song “As Leaves Turn Red”. How did the idea of ​​making this video come about and how was it? the whole process of composing and recording it? Is this a way to maintain a closer contact with your fans and give them something in exchange for not being able to enjoy your concerts?

 We always wanted to produce a music video, but we never had the capacities. But now with our new CD, our first release together with a label, we decided we had to finally make a video. The dudes from Wayward Media in Regensburg in Bavaria were really nice and helpful with that and gave our simple ideas the right scale to make them work properly. As for the pandemic we can't rehearse, that's true, but we still write new song and work on singles without a break, so 'no rest for the wicked' I guess. 



12. Who designed the album cover, what do you intend to represent with it and how do you react with the content of the album?

Our friend Matthias Hieber drew the whole artwork for us - thank you again very much! The color red in the booklet represents the 'other person' in oneself, so the bad thoughts and feelings and the main character over the course of the album realizes that this is not himself but more of a disease. At the end he finally wins over the bad thoughts, and is free again. Matthias got the story and a couple of ideas for what we 'kind of want' from uus - the design is basically all on him, and we're very glad we didn't try that ourselves, haha. No wonder he meanwhile graduated at university in designclass.


13. How were your beginnings in music: first albums you bought, first concerts you attended? What did you do in your lives that made you want to be musicians?

 Okay, so for me the first CD I bought was American Idiot by Green Day. And even though I hated it throughout my teenage years I recently started to listen to it from time to time and I have to say it sounds pretty damn good - Rob Cavallo did an amazing job on that one! For first metal-album it's Manowar's Hail to England, which I got as a present. The mysterious sound and energy really got me, so I asked my friend who got me this CD for more. And then he showed me Dissection and, yeah, that was that, haha. I feel like I have to say that this band, though brilliant musically, we only refer to musically. We do not approve or even think it's okay what the band / Jon Nödtveidt stood for / did.

My first concert was Hans Söllner, who is a german singer-songwriter, famous for smoking weed and critizising the government. 14 year old me obviously thought that was cool, haha (; 

I grew up in a musical family. My grandfather was a teacher for music and my dad played acoustic guitar from time to time. At some point I started playing around on this beautiful '79 Fender which still is my goto acoustic guitar to this day. I never had a teacher - I always felt like that might kill the joy in playing guitar. So I'm all Guitar Pro (;

Unfortunately I can only speak for myself - would be interesting to see the differences here.


14. How do you describe the extreme metal scene in the area where you come from: Weiden?

In a simple word: nonexistent, haha. No but honestly, Weiden is only a 40.000 people town there are a couple metalheads, but most of them know each other. So there's not much 'ground to conquer'. Most of the time we play out of town. Which is totally fine - a little sad, but fine.


15. Which album represents for you the essence of German black metal? And what about melodic death? What latest albums have you bought?

 For german black metal I'd go with Dark Fortress. Their latest release Spectres From The Old World is a really great album - go check that one out if you don't know it already! For german melodic deathmetal I recommend listening to Aspar. They just released their first album Maifrost one song a week, and finally the whole album is out - and it's plain and simple amazing!

The latest album I bought was Magma by Gojira. I know I'm a little late to the party, but man is that awesome. So much raw energy and so well and tightly played. Not much of an insider tip I have there for you, is it? hahaha (;


16. What more immediate future plans do you have for Ammyt in terms of upcoming releases, reissues, concerts, etc?

We thought about giving online-concerts but at the end of the day we're no Steel Panther or anything. It's not that we wouldn't do it, but the (financial) effort probably isn't worth it at this point in our career. We decided to use the time for songwriting and production - releasing singles. At the moment I'm remixing our last single The Evolution Of Lies which we will rerelease in the near future. We also are writing on 2 songs at the same time - we'll see how and when they will be released. But were working on it (; And after that, when we will be able to play live again and probably tour a little, the plan is releasing the "second" full-length. Maybe independently, maybe with a label. That remains to be seen.


17. Thank you very much for the time dedicated to Black Metal Spirit, if you want to add something for Ammyt fans this is the place. I hope the questions have been to your liking

Hey no problem - I hope that my answers aren't way too long, haha. It became quite a shortstory, hahaha. (Also please forgive me if my english is not that perfect) To our fans we would like to say thank you very much for the support!! And feel free to write us on facebook or instagram if you liked the album or what you didn't like that much etc. Feedback is always welcome - at the end of the day we write the music for you guys as much as we write it for ourselves! Thank you again Black Metal Spirit for having us and have a nice day everyone! (Does anyone remember the video game 'have a n.i.c.e. day'? That was fun!! Guess I'm gonne be playing that tonight, haha) .

Daniel

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