Interview By Marc "Peston" Sels

 

When somebody mention Romania, the first things I think of are Negura Bunget, Magica and Interitus Dei. But that will change very soon, cause from the capital Bucarest there is a band that blows us away with their first full cd "Post Scriptum", that was released on 2008. I had an interview with singer Alex.

After the fall from Ceaucescu metal was no more an underground phenomenon. How is the metal scene at the moment in Romania?

Unfortunately still an underground phenomenon. But it is emerging through quite a few new and very good bands. There is virtually no promotion on the nation-wide tv, radio or newspapers, but there are many powerful webzines and online media that are doing a good work on keeping metal alive in Romania. A lot of famous metal bands visited our country these years, and this also benifitted the local metal scene. We still have, nevertheless, a long way to go until we can dream of reaching the levels of western countries in this perspective, however I am positive that we are moving in the right direction.

How was the gig with Kathaarsys? (A black/progmetal band from Spain, M.S.)

In a few words, it was short but intense. We had the great opportunity to open for some strong bands, and even though our genre was a bit different we had a wonderful public. All in all it was a excellent experience for us for having the chance of sharing the stage with some great bands, and most of all having the chance of actually meeting them and seeing them perform.

Can you introduce the bandmembers to us?

Well, there are 8 of us now. There's been quite a few changes in the past but we believe we have a good “formula” at the present.

Our leading voice, Anda, is the icon of Tiarra. She writes most of the lyrics and is pretty much the very soul of the band.She's also playing an important role in composing and structuring of our songs while her voice is one of our trademarks.

John, our keyboard player, is the one responsible with most of our compositions. Along with Anda, he create the basic lines for most of our songs, skeletons upon wich all of us are adding up until we reach the final products. His interest, expertise and skills in classical music give us this bit of an elaborated "orchestral" sound without which Tiarra wouldn't be alive.

Tudor, our guitar player, is the drive. Literally. He gives some of the heavy touches of our music. His musical interests are quite antagonistic. He ranges from blues to the very most extreme genres of brutal metal, and one can hear this in his parts.

Completing John's "orchestra" are Iulia (cello) and Diana (violin). They are both studying music and this, along with the very presence of their instruments enhances our classical aspect. They have totally opposed personalities and this makes their instrumental dialogues within our songs more interesbass.

Gabi (drums) and Adi (bass) form our rhythm section. They are the heart of the band. Opposed characters as well: while Gabi is our oldest member and has quite some experience with other bands and musical activities Adi is much younger and Tiarra is his first such experience. They are both hard working and together they make sure the band never goes to cardiac arrest.

I'm Alex, and I'm the male vocal. This after being one of the long line of ex-drummers of the band. If Anda is our beauty, than I'm the beast, the one that brings the bad news. Sometimes literally since I also take care of most of the administrative chores of the band.

There were five years between the demo and the cd. Why did it take so long?

Actually there were three years. But still a lot of time. Mainly it was the changes in our line-up. We took the time of finding our identity along with a sound we can call our own. We are still working on that, but I think we have the best possible formula member-wise. Another reason is that both albums were recorded with our own resources, which I have to admit are very limited. Even though Omvina, the label that produced "Post Scriptum" helped a lot by taking care of mastering, production and world-wide distribution, it still took us a long while to do the actual recordings, which were already finished by the time the label approached us.

I liked the cd-cover. Is there a story behind? Or behind the mask?

The artwork was entirely Costin Chioreanu's idea (http://twilight13media.com). We sent him a song, I think it was "Broken echoes", and he literally turned it into an image. He's definitely one of the best in Romania, and he's now working for famous names like W.A.S P., Running Wild & Summoning.

Your songs are very "orchestral". Haven't you thought on stripping them down and bringing them acoustic?

Indeed we did. And we are definitely planning to. We are thinking on an acoustic side project and some live apparitions in the near future. We are anxious to see how it will turn out. It's still Tiarra, but on a lighter version both as music and as the number of members. We will promote this as soon as we're ready.

One of the ways for a band to earn some money, is touring. You can sell cd's and t-shirts and stuff, and you have the ticketsales. Can we expect to see you in Europe?

If in the rest of Europe to make money as a young metal band is quite hard, in Romania it actually is impossible. Here, when you draw the line you discover that you actually have to pay to do music. Even if we have five years of existence as a band, we still are at the beginning of our career.If you add this to the fact that Romania is a grey area on most of the strong booking agencies' maps you realise that it is hard for us to have such opportunities. To do a tour on our own, without being invited and supported by some good promotors is virtually impossible. But we hope this will change in time we succeed in making a name for ourselves. We will most definitely welcome any opportunity to come and perform anywhere around Europe and we would be honored to accept any such invitation.

If you could choose a band to play with on tour, which would it be, and why?

There are eight of us, and our personal musical interests are so varied that we could probably list hundreds of bands. Let's just say we would prefer a strong band of a similar genre so that we could learn from their experience as much as possible. Maybe Haggard?

Isn't it going to be very hard to record a follow-up for "Post Scriptum"? (I'm thinking of the “second record syndrome”)

We don't think so. We definitely don't hope so. We already have the songs, for we like to believe that inspiration isn't something we lack. But it is still depending on our financial resorts. As soon as we have the nacessary ressources we'll start recording. We are actually planning to release a self-produced EP with three new songs that will appear on the album. The EP will be called "Le monde des tenebres" and will contain the songs "Le monde Des Tenebres", "Hard To Let Go" and "Goddess Of Stone". We are already playing these songs live and the public loved them. The EP will be digital only, and we hope that we will be able to make a clip for one of the songs as well. We are planning to use it for promotion, and hopefully we'll manage to get some support to record the actual full lenght.

That's all for now. Is there anything else you want to add?

Yeah! Thanks a million for this. And whoever wants to hear our work or find news and updates, can visit us on our myspace : www.myspace.com/tiarraband and on our webside : www.tiarra.ro. We can also be contacted by mail at info@tiarra.ro for any questions or comments. Everyone is welcome and everyone gets an answer.

 

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Links

Tiarra Official MySpace

Tiarra Official Site

 

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