DragonForce By Rei Nishimoto
Born of Fire
While British heavy metal act DragonForce made major strides on American shores, they are often tagged as a power metal band. While the band’s technical guitars and high-ranged vocals draw comparisons to that sub-genre, guitarist Herman Li isn’t crazy about using that tag to describe the group’s sound.
“It’s good and bad,” he explains. “A few weeks ago, I put on a Stratovarius album, which was one of the biggest power metal bands. That was one of their albums at the peak of their career. When I listen to that, I couldn’t hear why DragonForce is in the same style. We’re so different, compared to our new album.”
Genre labels aside, the heavy metal export is making an impact that harkens to the days of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. The group that made its long awaited U.S. appearance in front of thousands of rabid fans back in 2005. Now they return with Ultra Beatdown, slated for an Oct. 7 release. The group just wrapped up a slot on the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, this past summer’s big metal tour.
“The U.S. is so big, it’s different from the places you go to,” says Li. “You always get the DragonForce fans and the people who have never heard of us or heard us but never seen us. You can see the different reactions. Some people that have never heard of us are trying to work out what’s going on. People who like us are going crazy. You get on this tour to play to new people and convert them.”
On every tour stop, people are introduced to the band and have varied reactions to their music.
“I don’t know if it’s odd, but some people are just staring at us,” says Li. “Their eyes are just staring, trying to figure out what’s going on. They haven’t seen guitar solos for 20 years or something. They didn’t know you have to go ‘wahhh!!!’ There’s so much going on in our show that it’s hard to concentrate.”
Following the success of 2006’s Inhuman Rampage, DragonForce created another record that stuck to its highly energetic yet technical guitar metal sound. They played “Heroes of our Time” during recent shows prior to the album’s release to give fans a taste of the new material.
“Everybody’s been calling it Sonic Beatdown, because we have an album called Sonic Firestorm,” snickers Li. “Basically we didn’t put up any boundaries. We took a long time to write the songs and to record. It was a long process making sure the record is better than Inhuman Rampage. The main thing is to come out better than before. We didn’t say what we’re not going to do. We even have a mid-tempo song, which we usually don’t.”
“I think every time we make an album, everything is harder,” he continues. “Our ears get picky. We’re hearing things differently. Some of the takes on this album that got rejected would have easily made the first two albums.”
Just keep your “power metal” descriptions to yourself.
“You can call us power metal if you want, because our first album was close to that” Li says. “We’ve taken it to a whole new level. The whole style and approach is different. I guess you need some kind of thing to understand what it is. Power metal could be the totally wrong description for our music. People could get the wrong idea to think we sound like the older style of bands. I do listen to those bands. I think our music is different compared to the older style.”
ON THE STAGE: Nov. 7— Hollywood Palladium (L.A.)
On the web: dragonforce.com
No comments:
Post a Comment