By Elimar "Amraking" Oliveira
Is there a Gothic Metal band formed only by women? Many people may be disgusted if they wondered this could happen. In this case it is different. First of all, Asrai's music is not cliché, they really travel while composing. But ops sorry, there's also a guy among them girls. In this talk they mentioned many aspects about their history, music, the Dutch scene, and many other things. So, let's get into the interview to know what's going on:
Eye of Shiva Since Asrai is a little known band for the Brazilian scene, who formed the band?
Asrai - Karin and Margriet formed the band, they started in 1985 an all over girlband what in 1988 evolved into Asrai. For about eight years they played in a steady line-up, in that time they released several tapes and wanted to record a cd. But due personal reasons the guitar and bass-player decided to leave the band. Lucky enough we had in a very short time a good replacement and recorded our first CD "As Voices Speak". Maybe it's our curse of recording, but when we had some ideas for a second album, the guitar-player got an offer he couldn't refuse so he left, and this time it was much harder to find a new steady member. But in the end Rik became our guitarist and it was about time to record the album we wanted for some time. We met Roman Schoensee and made an appointment for recording our demo-cd in his Studio. And also this time the curse was doing his job. Our bass-player went ill and wasn't able to play the bass. It was two weeks before a gig and a month before we would go to the studio! Karin was and still is playing with Martin in another band so we asked him if he would replace our bass-player till the time that she could play again. So he did, and we recorded the album at the Beautiful Lake studio at Aichtal. But it became clear that our bass-player wasn't able to play again and she decided to leave. In the meantime we'd send the demo to Transmission records and they signed us. And gave us the possibility to record the album with a larger budget. A friend of us (Manon) heard the demo and before we all knew it we where a five piece band: (Margriet Vocals, Rik Guitar, Manon Synth, Martin Bass and Karin Drums). We wanted to continue working with Roman, so he became our Producer and we recorded the keyboard and bass parts at his studio and the rest of it where recorded at the Excess studio with Hans Pieters. Sasha Paeth mixed the album and was the finishing touch of our album "Touch in the Dark".
Eye of Shiva Over Brazil , when talking about Netherlands , The Gathering is the very first band one thinks, for it is very well known over here. Your style reminds this band, since they also count on a vocalist and so on Picture is another band, they used to play Traditional Heavy Metal, and their works were available here in Brazil . Would you tell us how is the Dutch metal scene like?
Asrai - A difference between most of the Dutch bands, like the Gathering, After Forever, Within Temptation, etc, are their roots. Our background lays mostly in the late 70's and early 80's punk rock and New Wave. So we never really been into the Metal scene, but of course you met a lot of people through the years, and at the rehearsal studio's. We always liked different kind of music styles. So we always seen a lot gigs not only from punk, Gothic but also Rock, Stoner and Metal bands. The Dutch metal scene seems a solid one, but of course it evolved, different kind of styles are integrated. And a lot of new forms of this genre are created. I don't know what's going on at the whole circuit but my comments are a reflexion of my view about the scene that we have in Rotterdam . In the beginning there were more venues specially for Metal, but also other venues for Punk and what so ever but due to political influences a lot of venues and Metal bars had to close their doors. That had an important impact to the scene. The less venues that stayed had to change their programs to survive. It became more difficult to get a gig, and I think that was one of the reasons for the generation after us who wasn't into bands anymore. Dance parties where more profitable for the venues. We notice that the new(est) generation seems to be more interested in bands again, and not only to the dance parties And it was about time!
Eye of Shiva Your fist album "As Voices Speak" was released in 1997, and the public accepted it well. In with country you had best repercussion?
Asrai - In Germany and Holland . At first we released that album on our own, but for a good promotion you need not only the right connections but also a nice budget. We send the cd to several record companies. A German record company; Poison Ivy records was interested and singed us and so a German release was issued. We got some good reactions over there and also in Chile . But the label went bankrupt and so in the end "As Voices Speak" didn't got the attention what we wanted and expected to. And to promote the Cd by ourselves didn't feel right, because we wanted to spend that energy for writing and recording new songs.
Eye of Shiva How have been the public reacting to "Touch in the Dark", your second work? Do you think about a tour? What are the plans for the future?
Asrai - The reactions are various, we noticed that the real metal head finds our music not Metal enough. That was not our intension. We have our background in Punk and wave. So we like the music strong, honest, emotional and atmospheric. But we had enthusiastic reviews, especially from our fans. In November we start with touring and in the future a new album?!
Eye of Shiva What do you know about our Brazilian metal scene? Do you contact people from here? Please, tell us about your relation to Hellion Records and the way you issued the album.
Asrai - We never been in Brazil so it's difficult to have a good impression of the Brazilian metal scene So to be honest, we don't know much about the Brazilian metal scene. But we hope to get to know it better. Hellion Records does the promotion for the bands from our label Transmission records. For the Brazilian market a special edition was issued.
Eye of Shiva What are you main influences, and what is the source of inspiration by the time you are compounding and writing your lyrics?
Asrai - Life and relations are the biggest source of inspiration for us. We think that our back ground is still the main influences of Asrai. We've grown up with the Birthday party, the Cure (at the period of Pornography and Faith), the Damned, Dead Kennedy's, Stranglers, The Ramones, Joy Division etc.. The energy of punk and the dark side of the doom wave, mixed with this time.
Eye of Shiva More radical fans criticize some new elements some bands add to the heavy metal music for they create new styles and so... some say innovation, etc I myself only say shits like New Metal are not real Heavy Metal. What do you say about these kinds of criticism and innovations?
Asrai - That people want to experiment with different kinds of music isn't that strange, because every generation wants to have their own identity. And that's not a bad thing. A lot of metal bands flirt with Gothic and industrial (for a lot of musicians it's also a challenge to experiment with different styles to deepen their music, but there are always bands playing music for just getting popular) and through that we think it evolved so much that it became a new scene and it's not something what you can't compare to Heavy Metal. The "new" music style became popular and the commerce smelt money, So they built a new image around this kind of music. But what a lot of people don't realize, most outsiders, is that Heavy Metal is not only a music style but also a way of living, Just like Punk or fill in every kind of (music). But the way of thinking or experience is something they ignore too much. When we where younger it gave a special meaning to explore different kind of music styles. We where never into the disco-shit and (Heavy) Metal was one of the first music styles we liked. But when we got in contact with the punk scene it was more our thing. Not the whole thing, but it gave us the ability to start an all over girl band and a way that we could express ourselves in the way we wanted too. We never played the typical Punk rock or Metal, we always had our own style. A mix of different influences. We understand that Heavy Metal shits on New metal, we can imagine the criticism from the radical fans, we guess they felt betrayed by this innovations, because Heavy Metal is a way of living and New metal doesn't suite in that. New metal have some roots in the music style but hasn't the element of the straight to the point mentality of Heavy metal. It's a pity when commerce smells money... Asrai is not a heavy metal band but neither a new metal band. We explained our roots before. We describe our music as Gothic Rock, and that's our way of living. You can't please them all, and we don't want to. We want to do it the way that suits us.
Eye of Shiva Thank you for the interview; and here you have room to leave a message for the Eye of Shiva's readers.
Asrai - keep your soul alive, we might come and collect it!
