An exclusive interview with PERSEFONE

PERSEFONE,Andorran death metal band had a great tour with the Taiwan band Silent Hell during June 27-30th.

Before the debut in Beijing，Guitar China had an interview with PERSEFONE！

GC: First of all thanks for taking the time to do the interview.

Q1: Could you please introduce yourself to metal fans in China?

Persefone: Ok, hello we are Persefone, we are from Andorra, this is the first time we come to China, and we are very happy being here.

Q2:Your band formed in 2001, and you have been playing for 12 years, what musical genre influenced u the most ?

Persefone: We are 6 members band,and we have been together playing for 12 years, so the influences has been changing through the years all the time,with new members coming and all the years playing, but at the end we try to mix every kind of music we like with this kind of metal style, because we really love performing metal live ,this is very delicate and positive for the people, so we try to get influences from all kinds of the music.

Q3. Can you name some your favorite bands and some records you have been listening to lately?

Persefone:We like DreamTheater, Symphony X, Gojira etc. Lately we have been listening to: Loch Vostok(Sweden)-Dystopium, Gojira(France)-The Link, Textures(Netherland)-Drawing Circles, Cynic(U.S)-Focus,Leprous(Norway)-Bilateral, Animals As Leaders(U.S)-Animals As Leaders,etc.

Q4. As we know, Persephone is the goddess of the dead, a character from the greek myth and wife of Hades, at the beginning I heard the name, I thought your band had a female singer, but unexpected u r all guys, so where this idea came from?

Persefone: When we just formed our band, we needed a name, and we struggled several ideas and most of them sucked so one I was watching the the tv series, someone mentioned persephone, a female from underworld, I read the whole story and I like this idea so finally we got this name. And we made an album for this story, the second album “Core”.

Q5. You are from a small country Andorra, the population is 76,000. since you band got big success, have u become the pride of nation? like a national treasure?

Persefone:You know, it’s a small country, people know us actually, because we have newspapers and TVs support our band, even the government. People know the band, because there are a few bands in our whole country, it’s something really special. For some people don’t like metal music, if they know us, they also feel proud:”Look at those kids are doing! They are cool! They make Andorra’s name go around the world! They bring our country’s name outside the country!” We promote our country, we bring Andorra’s name to lots of people they had never heard about it before. So our band in Andorra is famous, but we are not celebrities, people know us personally, it isn’t like:” Hey this is the guitar player from the band!” it is like ” This is the guy I’ve known for years!”( so there won’t be a fan shows up and say” Can I have your autograph?”) Maybe at first time a kid would say:” Hey you are the guitar player, can I have your pick?” and the second time he would say” How you doing ?” the third time would be “shut up!” (laugh)

Q6. How’s the metal environment in Andorra? Could you recommend some other good bands in you country?

Persefone:In fact metal isn’t very popular in Andorra, a few people like metal music. Of course we have some artists as well like the other places in the world, we have another metal band is called Nami, and they are doing well outside the country, they have a great album “Fragile Alignments”. Besides we still have some little bands going to record albums. And the shows, people usually go to the shows, it’s not cultural but generally the shows are free and people go there because they have nothing else to do. Not different from other places.

Q7. So far you have released 4 albums, which one is your favorite ?

Persefone:Last one is the best and the third one “Shin-Ken” is good too.

Q8. Your third album ” shin-ken” borrowed elements from traditional Japanese music. would u like to put some more exotic elements in your next album?

Persefone:Yes, like I said, we really listen to different stuff, not only metal, so exotic music or music from other countries inside our music is cool, we always want to try something new. The unique instruments, legends, stories, something dramatic always inspire us a new theme.

Q9. You toured with American metal band Obituary in 2010, that was a remarkable tour in your band history, and the tour inspired you making the fourth album Spiritual Migration. so could you guys talk about this?

Persefone:That was a amazing europe tour. Before that, we really had a hard time, we were not able to have any tours, we tried to fit in a europe tour for years and years and never had a chance.We contacted Obituary with our arrangement and they invited us this tour and we jumped in.Those guys were really nice, we learned a lot from them, that was our first tour, and we were kind of lost, they really taught us a lot and showed us how to work. And for the first moment, we got promoted by people not only by internet , it’s like people saw us playing, and they recommend us to other people, they post something online, and more people came to our show and contacted us. That’s why this tour means a lot to us. And when we were in the tour, that was the birthday of the Obituary singer, and we had a little party, we were in that musical environment, and we were inspired to create something new , and we talked about the new album,like the theme, lyrics, most of the ideas came from that night.

Q10. Let’s talk about the new album “Spiritual Migration”.

Persefone:Our drummer Marc joined us in the third album, when we made the Shin Ken, we were in a rush, we wrote the songs and record them really fast because we’ve been told by the record company that if we could finish it in time we could be labelled. So everything was so quick, Marc wrote the drum part only as the first time working together with us. With this new album, he worked as a musician and a producer, because he can play guitar and sing as well, so he took on lots of the work. This album is the first album that completely cooperated by all band members, we did our best，we tried something extreme, we tried to write some lyrics with meaning, not only screaming,like stories, something can give a positive message, this may be our best album because it allows more emotion,feelings and our spiritual lifes inside, and we had more time to produce, so everything is better. Normally we write the lyrics together, put the ideas on the table but in the end Marc had good skills to fit the right word on the right timing in every song, he took the most credit for it and he is the genius.

Q11. And after released the 4th album in March, what are u going to do in the rest of this year? any other tour plans? Which place you want to go if possible?

Persefone:We always like having tours everywhere, but nothing settles down yet, there are possibilities to have another europe tour. We want to go to Japan,because of the Shin Ken album. We heard from other band, they talked about the crowed Asian audiences, sounds amazing.

Q12. What equipment you guy are using?

Persefone:Carlos uses Mayoues Guitars, Amps,Black Star.Jordi uses Capsisou Guitars,ENGL Amps.Toni uses Musicman Bass, and AMPEG Amps. Moe uses Korg Keyboards. Marc uses Mapex Drums, and Sabian Cymbals.

GC:Thanks again for taking time to do this interview! Anything you want to say at the end？

Persefone:Thank you too. We really enjoy this tour in China, the schedule, the promotion, everything is outstanding and perfect, and we are with the Silent Hell all the time, it’s really good to communicate with them. And we like chinese food here, it is more delicious than in chinese restaurants in Andorra. We hope we can give fantastic shows and rock china ！