Untitled Document


	<< back ANOTHER MESSIAH (Holland) Another Messiah is a pretty unknown band, but it seems they are about to break out soon, that’s why I sent them some questions to know more on what they are proposing to the public. Also you’ll be informed on their up-coming debut album, “Dark dreams, my child”. Hello! Welcome to Tempest Music & More Portal! To start the interview please introduce yourself and your band. Hi, Martijn here, guitar player for Another Messiah. Another Messiah is a post-doom metal band from the Netherlands and we are about to release our first full album. Another Messiah arouse from the ashes of Nee. When deciding to found Another Messiah you were the same guys from Nee, and just change the name, or there were some other guys too? Actually nothing changed in the line-up. It might sound strange, but the actual decision to change the name was based on psychological grounds. Everyone of us went through to quite some personal tragedies in those early years, of which many were pretty related to the band and its name. Therefore the name of the band kept chasing us with things we didn’t want to be remembered of. I can’t really go in detail on this, but we collectively decided it was time to leave some shit behind and make a fresh start. Please present us, shortly, the history of Nee, as maybe there are some readers who don't know the band (to tell the truth, I didn't knew the band also). We started back in 1994 as four ugly faced teenagers who couldn’t play a single note. It is almost too sad to be true, but the basis of the band met each other in a psychiatric clinic. Believe it or not, but we started making music on a therapeutic basis! Of course it took some years before the music did make any sense, but the basis of our current style was already present in those early years. We started combining all styles we liked, ending up in some kind of hard to define mixture. Some demos were recorded in the 90’s, but it all started to get serious when we recorded our first EP in 2000. Although the band flourished after this release, the clouds above our personal lives were getting darker and darker. At the end of 2002 we decided it was really time to get our stuff together again: the band was the only way to go and we wanted to take it to a higher level. That’s about where Nee ended and Another Messiah stood up… Who thought about this new name and tell us if it has some special meaning for you. I can’t really remember who brought up this name as we thought it up after shitloads of beer, hours of discussion on the meaning of life and more beer. However, it does have a special meaning to us. The term ‘Messiah’ should be seen in a broad perspective. Each day and everywhere, people stand up to make promises to other people, inspire them and lead them. They can appear in all shapes you can imagine, from a politic or religious leader to your local biology teacher. This may give hope, yet depresses at the same time. This whole idea is pretty much striking with the way we feel about our lives: there are some relieves, but overall it sucks. When changing the name anything else was changed? And I am talking here about your music. How would you characterize Another Messiah's music? Not deliberately, but I think the music has gotten more complex. Another Messiah plays a mixture of energetic, atmospheric and innovative metal or in other words: post-doom. We try to combine huge loads of different styles, yet always maintaining a sombre and melancholic undertone. A special feature in our music is the use of a real oboe, a classical instrument that fits perfectly in our concept. Last year was the debut of Another Messiah through its first EP, "Another Renaissance". Please present it to our readers both musically and lyrically. How was it promoted and how was it received? “Another Renaissance” contains four tracks that are pretty different from each other. Musically they go from heavy doom-like riffs to clean parts that are pretty easy to digest and from death-metal to regular rock parts. Lyrically, they mainly treat our own boring problems. The EP reflects what we did in the three years before its release and is therefore rather diverse. Concerning the promotion, we did it ourselves by sending massive amounts of CD’s around the world, making many phone calls, sending lots of emails and of course promotion through our website. Although the EP certainly doesn’t have the best production ever, it was received very well and we got attention from all over the world and especially Europe. After your Holland tour you hit Poland too. How was it? It was only Poland in that mini-tour for Eastern Europe? We wanted to do some kind of try-out tour abroad to get some experience in arranging larger international tours. As the countries in Central and Eastern Europe fascinate us all, we decided to hit Poland. It was an amazing experience and we immediately agreed that we would go back this year for a more expanded tour. With the release of our first full album coming up, we can’t wait to get on the road again and do what we do best: playing music and drinking beer in the beautiful countries of Central Europe! If I'm not mistaking it was before that tour that your bass player leaves the band and is soon replace by another one. How did you find Erik and how did he fit the band? What are the differences between the two bassists? That’s right, Merijn Salverda, who was actually one of the founding members decided he wanted to quit. It was a big shock to us all, as you can imagine. We had to support him in his decision, but it really felt someone died. However, as we were determined to go on, we started to search for a new bass player. We had some auditions, but we finally thought of a friend of Rob E who was playing in a Brazilian death metal band at the time. He was already considering moving back to Europe again and he was pleasantly surprised when we called him to come over. He left all shit over there and one week later we were already rehearsing for Poland. It felt perfect from the beginning and we’re still very glad to have him aboard! Whereas Merijn was slightly a more melodic player Erik is more focussed on rhythmic playing, so he might have brought a little bit more heaviness. They’re both good bass players though… In Holland it seems you have a lot of honest and good organized fests where bands are competing each other. I think that's great you have the chance to see your real power on stage that way. What do you feel about those contests? And if we are here, what do you think of bands' contests on zines or webzines where the public votes? Indeed, there are quite some opportunities for young bands to play on those competitions. That’s good for your stage-experience, but I think it is maybe even more important to have cooperative events in which bands get to talk with each other and exchange knowledge. I mean, if you are playing for the tenth year in a row in the same local pub with the same local audience, you might want to know how to get beyond that. After one of those competition-fests you formed a kind of union with another 3 bands from your area and were thinking to go on tour all together. Please tell us some things on that union and on each of the other bands. Anything new with that project? We played in the national finals of the so-called ‘Metal Battle’ and met three cool other metal bands from other parts of the country. We decided to team up for a collective tour and arranged everything for it. Unfortunately, it appeared to be logistically too expensive to get things working. We decided however to invite each other every once in a while for a collective gig, because they are cool guys and good musicians! If you want to know more about the other bands, check out the impossible URL of http://home.wanadoo.nl/warnick/metalpackage//bandsE.htm, there are some old biographies over there… Now let's talk about your up-coming album. Did you finish the recordings? How many tracks will be on this album? Did you think of a name for it? Yes, it’s finished and actually it has been released a few days ago… The album contains 9 songs and will be called “Dark dreams, my child”. Can you please tell us a few words on each track of the album? The album is built up both lyrically and musically around one central theme. It’s up to the listener to find out more about this theme, but I can give a brief description of the individual songs: - These lonely eyes: the opening track of the album. Heavy and intense, harbouring almost all elements Another Messiah stands for. - And now I will: a pretty easy-to-digest song which reminds me a little bit of the old Moonspell-style. - My God it’s him: a technically pretty complicated song which will take some listening turns before you’ll fully appreciate it, but well worth it ;) - I never noticed: in my opinion the most emotional song. It’s almost a ballad… Harbours some sensitive 12 string acoustic guitar parts that fit very well to the atmosphere of the song. - Sweet dreams: a short, yet very mysterious song erupting in a big storm of grunts and distortions. I hadn’t heard the result of it until I received the masters, but I think it’s one of the coolest things we’ve ever done… - She softly starts to cry: brutal parts combined with the most fragile part of the oboe on the whole album, that’s how we like it best… - Dead man walking: this is pure doom. Looking forward to play this one live, ‘cause it’s really heavy… - Left to die: musically a pretty refreshing song towards the end of the album. Some very catchy riffs in here! - The Queen bee: can’t tell anything on that. Interesting for people trying to find out what the whole story is about! Your new producer is Joost van den Broek (After Forever, Ayreon). How did you get together and how's the collaboration so far? We knew him already from our very early beginning days, shared the stage at age 15 and stuff… We didn’t see him for years until we announced our plans for this new album. In the last years he’d done work in and for major bands and now offered his services to us. We gladly agreed and it appeared to work out fantastically. He’s a great guy and a stunning musician, so we’re very happy with the result! On your website you said the album will be promoted on a huge European tour. When? Any countries confirmed by now? Recently we’ve had a storm of bad luck, gigs being cancelled by venues in Central Europe, forcing us to cancel some other shows too. The result is that we will do only some shows in Poland in October. We’ll do a bigger tour later on this season however, including several countries in Central Europe. Off course this also depends on which major labels are willing to sign us in the coming months ;)… Talking about websites, I saw you update quite often your site. Is it important to you? Do you agree that an often updated site attracts more and more visitors? Hehe, you already gave the answer yourself! Off course, a website is nowadays probably THE most important way to promote yourself. Therefore, it has to be good and frequently updated! We try to take care of that as much as possible… OK, that would be all for the moment. Hope to talk again soon. The final of this interview is yours; please tell some concluding words to Tempest's readers. Thanks a lot for paying attention to bands like us. We have quite some samples of our new album on our site (www.anothermessiah.com), so take a listen! We hope to visit your country sometime soon, so keep an eye on our site for upcoming tourdates…

ANOTHER MESSIAH (Holland)

Another Messiah is a pretty unknown band, but it seems they are about to break out soon, that’s why I sent them some questions to know more on what they are proposing to the public. Also you’ll be informed on their up-coming debut album, “Dark dreams, my child”.

Hello! Welcome to Tempest Music & More Portal! To start the interview please introduce yourself and your band.

Hi, Martijn here, guitar player for Another Messiah. Another Messiah is a post-doom metal band from the Netherlands and we are about to release our first full album.

Another Messiah arouse from the ashes of Nee. When deciding to found Another Messiah you were the same guys from Nee, and just change the name, or there were some other guys too?

Actually nothing changed in the line-up. It might sound strange, but the actual decision to change the name was based on psychological grounds. Everyone of us went through to quite some personal tragedies in those early years, of which many were pretty related to the band and its name. Therefore the name of the band kept chasing us with things we didn’t want to be remembered of. I can’t really go in detail on this, but we collectively decided it was time to leave some shit behind and make a fresh start.

Please present us, shortly, the history of Nee, as maybe there are some readers who don't know the band (to tell the truth, I didn't knew the band also).

We started back in 1994 as four ugly faced teenagers who couldn’t play a single note. It is almost too sad to be true, but the basis of the band met each other in a psychiatric clinic. Believe it or not, but we started making music on a therapeutic basis! Of course it took some years before the music did make any sense, but the basis of our current style was already present in those early years. We started combining all styles we liked, ending up in some kind of hard to define mixture. Some demos were recorded in the 90’s, but it all started to get serious when we recorded our first EP in 2000. Although the band flourished after this release, the clouds above our personal lives were getting darker and darker. At the end of 2002 we decided it was really time to get our stuff together again: the band was the only way to go and we wanted to take it to a higher level. That’s about where Nee ended and Another Messiah stood up…

Who thought about this new name and tell us if it has some special meaning for you.

I can’t really remember who brought up this name as we thought it up after shitloads of beer, hours of discussion on the meaning of life and more beer. However, it does have a special meaning to us. The term ‘Messiah’ should be seen in a broad perspective. Each day and everywhere, people stand up to make promises to other people, inspire them and lead them. They can appear in all shapes you can imagine, from a politic or religious leader to your local biology teacher. This may give hope, yet depresses at the same time. This whole idea is pretty much striking with the way we feel about our lives: there are some relieves, but overall it sucks.

When changing the name anything else was changed? And I am talking here about your music. How would you characterize Another Messiah's music?

Not deliberately, but I think the music has gotten more complex. Another Messiah plays a mixture of energetic, atmospheric and innovative metal or in other words: post-doom. We try to combine huge loads of different styles, yet always maintaining a sombre and melancholic undertone. A special feature in our music is the use of a real oboe, a classical instrument that fits perfectly in our concept.

Last year was the debut of Another Messiah through its first EP, "Another Renaissance". Please present it to our readers both musically and lyrically. How was it promoted and how was it received?

“Another Renaissance” contains four tracks that are pretty different from each other. Musically they go from heavy doom-like riffs to clean parts that are pretty easy to digest and from death-metal to regular rock parts. Lyrically, they mainly treat our own boring problems. The EP reflects what we did in the three years before its release and is therefore rather diverse. Concerning the promotion, we did it ourselves by sending massive amounts of CD’s around the world, making many phone calls, sending lots of emails and of course promotion through our website. Although the EP certainly doesn’t have the best production ever, it was received very well and we got attention from all over the world and especially Europe.

After your Holland tour you hit Poland too. How was it? It was only Poland in that mini-tour for Eastern Europe?

We wanted to do some kind of try-out tour abroad to get some experience in arranging larger international tours. As the countries in Central and Eastern Europe fascinate us all, we decided to hit Poland. It was an amazing experience and we immediately agreed that we would go back this year for a more expanded tour. With the release of our first full album coming up, we can’t wait to get on the road again and do what we do best: playing music and drinking beer in the beautiful countries of Central Europe!

If I'm not mistaking it was before that tour that your bass player leaves the band and is soon replace by another one. How did you find Erik and how did he fit the band? What are the differences between the two bassists?

That’s right, Merijn Salverda, who was actually one of the founding members decided he wanted to quit. It was a big shock to us all, as you can imagine. We had to support him in his decision, but it really felt someone died. However, as we were determined to go on, we started to search for a new bass player. We had some auditions, but we finally thought of a friend of Rob E who was playing in a Brazilian death metal band at the time. He was already considering moving back to Europe again and he was pleasantly surprised when we called him to come over. He left all shit over there and one week later we were already rehearsing for Poland. It felt perfect from the beginning and we’re still very glad to have him aboard! Whereas Merijn was slightly a more melodic player Erik is more focussed on rhythmic playing, so he might have brought a little bit more heaviness. They’re both good bass players though…

In Holland it seems you have a lot of honest and good organized fests where bands are competing each other. I think that's great you have the chance to see your real power on stage that way. What do you feel about those contests? And if we are here, what do you think of bands' contests on zines or webzines where the public votes?

Indeed, there are quite some opportunities for young bands to play on those competitions. That’s good for your stage-experience, but I think it is maybe even more important to have cooperative events in which bands get to talk with each other and exchange knowledge. I mean, if you are playing for the tenth year in a row in the same local pub with the same local audience, you might want to know how to get beyond that.

After one of those competition-fests you formed a kind of union with another 3 bands from your area and were thinking to go on tour all together. Please tell us some things on that union and on each of the other bands. Anything new with that project?

We played in the national finals of the so-called ‘Metal Battle’ and met three cool other metal bands from other parts of the country. We decided to team up for a collective tour and arranged everything for it. Unfortunately, it appeared to be logistically too expensive to get things working. We decided however to invite each other every once in a while for a collective gig, because they are cool guys and good musicians! If you want to know more about the other bands, check out the impossible URL of http://home.wanadoo.nl/warnick/metalpackage//bandsE.htm, there are some old biographies over there…

Now let's talk about your up-coming album. Did you finish the recordings? How many tracks will be on this album? Did you think of a name for it?

Yes, it’s finished and actually it has been released a few days ago… The album contains 9 songs and will be called “Dark dreams, my child”.

Can you please tell us a few words on each track of the album?

The album is built up both lyrically and musically around one central theme. It’s up to the listener to find out more about this theme, but I can give a brief description of the individual songs:

- These lonely eyes: the opening track of the album. Heavy and intense, harbouring almost all elements Another Messiah stands for.

- And now I will: a pretty easy-to-digest song which reminds me a little bit of the old Moonspell-style.

- My God it’s him: a technically pretty complicated song which will take some listening turns before you’ll fully appreciate it, but well worth it ;)

- I never noticed: in my opinion the most emotional song. It’s almost a ballad… Harbours some sensitive 12 string acoustic guitar parts that fit very well to the atmosphere of the song.

- Sweet dreams: a short, yet very mysterious song erupting in a big storm of grunts and distortions. I hadn’t heard the result of it until I received the masters, but I think it’s one of the coolest things we’ve ever done…

- She softly starts to cry: brutal parts combined with the most fragile part of the oboe on the whole album, that’s how we like it best…

- Dead man walking: this is pure doom. Looking forward to play this one live, ‘cause it’s really heavy…

- Left to die: musically a pretty refreshing song towards the end of the album. Some very catchy riffs in here!

- The Queen bee: can’t tell anything on that. Interesting for people trying to find out what the whole story is about!

Your new producer is Joost van den Broek (After Forever, Ayreon). How did you get together and how's the collaboration so far?

We knew him already from our very early beginning days, shared the stage at age 15 and stuff… We didn’t see him for years until we announced our plans for this new album. In the last years he’d done work in and for major bands and now offered his services to us. We gladly agreed and it appeared to work out fantastically. He’s a great guy and a stunning musician, so we’re very happy with the result!

On your website you said the album will be promoted on a huge European tour. When? Any countries confirmed by now?

Recently we’ve had a storm of bad luck, gigs being cancelled by venues in Central Europe, forcing us to cancel some other shows too. The result is that we will do only some shows in Poland in October. We’ll do a bigger tour later on this season however, including several countries in Central Europe. Off course this also depends on which major labels are willing to sign us in the coming months ;)…

Talking about websites, I saw you update quite often your site. Is it important to you? Do you agree that an often updated site attracts more and more visitors?

Hehe, you already gave the answer yourself! Off course, a website is nowadays probably THE most important way to promote yourself. Therefore, it has to be good and frequently updated! We try to take care of that as much as possible…

OK, that would be all for the moment. Hope to talk again soon. The final of this interview is yours; please tell some concluding words to Tempest's readers.

Thanks a lot for paying attention to bands like us. We have quite some samples of our new album on our site (www.anothermessiah.com), so take a listen! We hope to visit your country sometime soon, so keep an eye on our site for upcoming tourdates…