1. Hello my friend, pleasure to have you on Rotten Pages ´zine. How are you doing today? Let us set the scene first. Where do we find you right now? Please describe your surroundings.
We are Atlas Ashes, a young melodic death metal band from Switzerland, we
formed the band 4 years ago with our two guitarists and our drummer. You can
find all our stuff on Spotify, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and all the
streaming plateforms.
2. Could you describe the vision/hallucination that inspired the name "Atlas Ashes" and how it relates to the band's identity and music?
The origin for Atlas Ashes is inspired by the Greek mythology, the titan Atlas
carries the world by himself and the humans are burning this world, so we
made a reference with it. Our lyrics spoke about all the abusive mentality that
we may face in the world
3. As an emerging band in the extreme metal scene, what are some challenges you've faced, and how have you overcome them to pave the way for your future?
The hardest challenge is to find places where we can play and to break all those
stereotypes about the metalheads. For the future, we maximise our efforts on
stage so that people remember us and talk about us around them.
4. Your debut EP “Dead End” delivers a powerful, massive, and melodic sound. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the songs and how it felt to release your music to the world?
Our inspirations come from all the bands we listen to, a riff from Arch Enemy
an other riff from In Flames or a drums pattern from Trivium or a song theme
from Parkway Drive, etc... We put all our creativities and inspirations from the
bands we listen to find the perfect melody, the perfect riff, the perfect drums.
When we put a song on the streaming plateforms we are really proud, a little
bit stressed because we put a lot of effort in every song we have to be the more
perfect.
5. Can you give us a glimpse into the creative process behind your music? How do you typically approach songwriting and arranging?
We firstly start to compose with the guitars, we search if we want something
heavy, calm, fast, etc,,,, when we found the style we wanted we compose the
riffs. After that, our drummer compose the drums, our bassist follows what the
drummer do and add often some grooves, then our singer write the lyrics about
a modern problematic, we try to be as close as possible to the vision we have
of this world.
6. How do you manage to incorporate melodic elements into your music while maintaining the aggression and brutality of death metal?
Honestly, it came naturally. We don't force ourselves to find THE perfect
melody, it comes with the mood. The rythmic guitar and the drums made a lot
to have this brutality and this energy, our drummer put a lot of grooves on his
patterns (when he's not going as fast as he can with his double pedal) who
matches the melody. We took a lot of inspirations from differents bands like In
Flames, Arch Enemy, Trivium, Parkway Drive, Lamb of God.... If you listen
closely to our song, you'll see that in the verses the brutality is highlighted and
in the chorus the melody takes over.
7. As a band, what do you hope listeners take away from your music? What emotions or connections do you aim to evoke through your songs?
We hope that our listeners can feel the efforts, the energy and the feelings we
put into our songs and maybe they can find themselves in our lyrics and give
them hope about what they endure in their lives.
8. Have you read any reviews regarding the EP? Do you care about what critics have to say about your work?
There will always be haters to critic your work, we don't care about it, we are
juste happy to share our passion to everybody in the world, we just take the
constructive critics that can help us to be better and better.
9. What is the theme of “Dead End” you would say? What is your favorite song of the EP and why?
The theme of our EP ''Dead End'' is the domestic violence that women or men
can unforunantly endured. And I think, I would take ''Relapse'', it's about the
addictions, the harms of drugs on our body, on our mentality. How to be
stronger than those addictions.
10. What can fans expect from an Atlas Ashes live show? Do you have any particular rituals or routines before hitting the stage?
We love to share our work with everybody, to see them enjoying our songs,
jump all together, sing along with us and have the best time of their lives.
When we play with other bands we can share our experiences that we could
have on stage, take good advices in relation to the mistakes that they could
have made.
They can expect a great show with a lot of energy. We don't have rituals or
routines before hitting the stage, we warm up a little bit, then we go on stage,
wishing us to have fun.
11. The metal world is known for its intense brotherhood and camaraderie. What’s the craziest and most memorable experience you’ve had as a band so far?
Our first show, we weren't expecting much and the atmosphere was great, the
venue was full and people really got into the spirit of the evening. A truly
incredible memory.
12. If we divided the history of metal into decades--70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s... Which do you prefer and why?
I think I would take the 00s, because it's were the most of our favorites bands
were created. And it was during this period tht metal had a revival with all the
new styles like Metalcore, Deathcore, Djent, Rap Metal, etc...
13. That's all the questions I have for you guys. I'll let you have the final words by saying whatever you'd like to our readers and your fans out there.
A huge thanks to Rotten pages for this interview, hope you will like our EP, Big news
coming very soon.
Cheers, Atlas Ashes
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