<< Interviews deze maand
Een absoluut voordeel van een internet blad zoals dit is de ruimte die je hebt om info te weergeven. Je bent niet gebonden aan een vooraf bepaalde grootte van je tekst, en dus kun je ook opkomende bandjes eens lekker in het zonnetje zetten. Aangezien ik in januarie aangenaam werd verrast door de nieuwe (mini) cd van ons eigen thrash – death – heavy metal gezelschap Stronghold (zie ook de cd recensie) werd het dus de hoogste tijd om deze fanatiekelingen eens aan het woord te laten. Zanger Koen was dan ook graag bereid om het een en ander te vertellen....
Text: Tormentor Erich
Stronghold has been around for a couple of years now. But what happened back then that made you decide to start this band?
A little boy’s dream of being a rock star! No, seriously, it all started with Dominique and me, just listening to metal en thinking “hey, what the fuck, let’s start a band”. Just making music for fun and to make the music you like the most, taking al the influences you want and try to create something of your own. At first that didn’t work out because we had a bass-player who liked punk-rock. Luckily he found out himself that punk-influences were not what Stronghold needed, so he left, and Maarten van Haaren and Maarten Havik arrived to come to the current line-up.
Where does the name Stronghold come from anyway? What does it mean?
Nobody in the band really knows when the name Stronghold arose. It was a few weeks before our first gig that the organisation forced us to make up a name, because the posters had to be printed. Somebody remembered we once thought about Stronghold as a band name. Suddenly everyone thought is was a cool name, and thus we are Stronghold. The meaning of Stronghold as a band name is to visualise a massive powerful force, which is completely invincible.
How did the band work on the new songs? Where did you get the inspiration from?
New songs usually start with one or two riffs/ideas from our guitar players. This usually ends up in some jamming, where the first outline of a song arises. From there on we rewrite, rewrite and keep rewriting until at least the majority of us is satisfied with it. Sometimes it was quite hard because we wanted to play live as much a possible, so we had to rehearse the live-set and then again write new material. We usually ended up with half written songs that were again torn apart and all separate riffs were again used in new jams.
The inspiration usually just comes with the atmosphere a riff has. If it’s one hyper-aggressive melody, the whole song usually turns out that way. The lyrics a written that same way. The emotions / atmosphere that the music creates gives the head start for the lyrics, or at least the general subject.
How would you describe the music of Stronghold? Thrash metal perhaps?
Stronghold has surely great thrash metal influences, but as you already wrote in your review, that’s not all. As I said earlier, the most fun about playing in Stronghold is to create something with all of our own influences. Every song we write usually has some kind of thrashy touch, but it a lot more in it also. Maarten Havik and I both love death-metal, and our drummer and bass-player are way more into the NWOBHM and such, which gives the great variety to our sound and song-structure. Funny detail is that our vocals usually are marked as black-metal-influences, which I never intended to.
The new demo ‘Coming Terror’ is self financed. Does this cost a lot of money?
How do you as a band get this money together?
Self-financed is not completely correct. Last year we competed in a band-contest, De Kleine Prijs van Dordt, in Dordrecht. Amazingly as it was, playing against pop/rock-band, we won. One of the prices were 2 days of recording in the Prosound Studio in Dordrecht. We bought one extra day to mix, and we had a new mini-CD. Then again we already saved some money from gigs because the recording-plans already existed, but not having to pay for your studio is always a good deal, isn’t it?
The track ‘Seen My Spleen’ is a bit different then the rest. Is it an ode to a certain style of music?
This song actually was created out of a brainstorm session for an extreme death-grind-project which me and Maarten Havik are planning to start. We were just having fun making up the most crazy or horrific album- and song-titles. Then this one came up, and during a jam-session with Stronghold we tried it, and we all liked it, so it became a Stronghold “song”. It usually gives a great reaction when we play it live, so just for the fun of it we thought:
”hey what the hell, this won’t take any of our recording time! Let’s just put it on the album!””
Why must anybody see your spleen anyway?
I reckon you haven’t seen my spleen. ‘Cause if you would have, you would know why!
About the other songs. Who writes the lyrics and what is the message behind them?
I write most of the lyrics. Dominique and Maarten Havik also sometimes come up with some. The message behind them. Phew, that’s a good one. Like I said, I usually write my lyrics inspired by the atmosphere that a song has. For example “Your soul bleeds” has this really high speed aggressive thrash-thing. That brought those war-like visions up, so it became a war-inspired song. “Otherworld” on the other hand is based upon a book I read around the time we wrote that song. A real message to the listener is really there. They usually cover a general thought, more than they are about one concrete subject. If anybody finds one, please let me know! I would be pleased to know that someone really had some special thought or found a special meaning to one of our songs/lyrics.
I heard that the cover for ‘Coming Terror’ has a connection with The Lion King. Is this correct? What’s the story behind this?
Hahaha, how did that rumour get to you? I’ll explain it. This “Lion King-thing” was made up when the early sketches were made for the cover. It looked somewhat valley-like with a aggressive horde coming down, and someone said it just looked like the The Lion King. Finally when the cover was finished a lot had been changed, but the horde is still there. Hey, but how did you get to know something about this?
What are you’re goals with ‘Coming Terror’? How far do you think this band will get?
The main goal we’ve set ourselves with “Coming Terror” is doing a lot of live-shows. Those are the moments we all have the most fun: being on stage! Hopefully there’s a chance in doing some European gigs or maybe even a small tour with this album. That would be really great! The same thing with a record-deal. You never know how things turn out. If it happens, we’ll all go for the 100% but the main issue is that we all have a great time doing our thing. We all see Stronghold as a very serious hobby, that is allowed to turn out anyway it turns out, as long as we’re having fun!
A live gig by Stronghold is always fun to watch because of the action on stage. Do you practice this? Do you pay extra attention to the stage act?
Thank you! No, we don’t practice our live-gigs, but surely pay extra attention to a live-show. That is, extra attention…. It’s more that we’re just doing the thing we like, and that turns out to be fun to watch. That is usually the case, by the way. I think a band is in any way more fun to watch when the band is enjoying themselves. If they’re just doing their routine-show, it surely can be a good concert, but there won’t be any atmosphere going round on stage. When the band is enjoying themselves, you’ve already won half of the crowd! Of course there are some special features like the maidenesque movements during “Emptiness” and the drumstick-juggling of our drummer, but hey, that’s cool!
Ok, that’s it for me. Do you have anything to add for our readers?
Sure, come and check us out when we’re playing. You won’t be disappointed!
http://www.cyberstronghold.com
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