1. Hello and greetings from Perú, how are you guys feeling today?
Hi Edu, a little tired but good!
2. What does your music have to offer to the fans, rather than “just” good music? How do you like being associated to in that as "Philosophy" of the band refers?
In this regard, one could talk about Kerberos’ Lyrics, some of which are quite profound and personal. It might be worthwhile to look into them more closely if one is looking for meaning in the band beyond the musical aspect. This also applies to the visual level, for example in our newest music video “Icefall” where we act out the lyrics in an abstract way.
3. Kerberos is a symphonic death metal band with a variety of musical influences including modern metal. Is this a way for you to tell that we need to keep up with modernity without betraying the traditions?
In our view, there is not really a contradiction between the modern and the traditional. We enjoy both styles and incorporate them into our music as we see fit. And in the end, maybe we create something new that cannot really be described as either “modern” or “traditional”.
4. The first thing that caught my attention was that there are a lot of symphonic elements, clean vocals and a lot of melodies also. Was this your intention from the beginning of the band?
Clean vocals and melodies were a part of our sound since the very beginning. The symphonic elements, however, were added gradually to enrich our style and make it more complex.
5. How do you find your sound? Do you take a whole bunch of influences and mix them together to make it your brew?
Basically yes. Kerberos to us is something like a musical playground where we experiment and write music according to our own ideal, even if it goes against common music conventions. Definitely we are influenced by bands like Epica, Decapitated or Meshuggah in achieving this but in the end we try to make it our brew.
6. What do you find most appealing about all these symphonic elements in your sound? What can these elements perhaps add more “vibes” to the songs?
Incorporating symphonic elements enables us to write more melodies and counterlines and to create different moods and atmospheres. Also, we enjoy the challenge of writing intricate orchestral arrangements.
7. Your new production "Of Mayhem and Dismay" is about to be released tomorrow. Why did it take so long to release a debut album (Having regard to the fact that the band was formed in 2013)?
8. Precisely looking back to the old days, what would you say was the biggest success in your career and what was the biggest setback?
Haha, when looking back to the old days there were mostly setbacks until we established a stable lineup. What could be described as a success is that over those years we made great progress as musicians individually and as a band, which can be seen as the foundation for what the band has become afterwards.
9. Talking back about the album, were there any songs that didn’t make it onto album or did you use all of the material you wrote?
There are a few songs that we didn’t record because they do not fit into the album. We plan to use those songs in a future release.
10. Are you personally pleased with the way how the album turned out in terms of production and mixing?
We are very pleased with the production aspect of the album and are very happy with our sound engineer Christoph Brands from Iguana Studios Germany. He is not a guy to simply impose a certain production style on a band but instead works together with the band to realize their vision of the sound.
11. What makes the perfect Kerberos song? Is there one on the album in particular that encapsulates this?
The ideal Kerberos song has to be progressive, riffy and epic. Furthermore, it should have some interesting interplay between clean vocals, growls and choir. On our debut album, “One-Dimensional Sight” might be closest to “perfect” because it has all these signature features.
12. Talking about the three members of the band, what principles, what attitude to life do you personally represent?
13. As you mentioned, you’re multi-purpose musicians, Ai-lan Metzger (the vocalist) for example is a painter and she was the one who did the cover for the album. Could you tell us a bit more about different aspects of yourselves?
As you mentioned, Ai-lan is responsible for the art and nowadays, she also writes most of the lyrics. Félicien is the main composer and arranger of the band and is the one mainly involved in the music production process. Nicolas does most of the outside communication and admin stuff and ensures that our hellhound’s machinery is running smoothly.
14. Last question, what can we expect after the album is released? Any gigs or Tours planned?
Right now, there is nothing planned except that we definitely want to enter the stage in 2023. We are currently making the necessary preparations to make this happen.
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