{"id":5008,"date":"2012-04-17T00:00:05","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T00:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=5008"},"modified":"2012-10-18T16:06:13","modified_gmt":"2012-10-18T16:06:13","slug":"feature-dragonforce-04-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-dragonforce-04-12\/","title":{"rendered":"DRAGONFORCE – Holding On (April 2012) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

DRAGONFORCE – Holding On<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nApril 2012<\/span><\/p>\n

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DragonForce (l-r): Herman Li, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Leclercq, Marc Hudson, Vadim Pruzhanov,
Dave Mackintosh and Sam Totman<\/b><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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The departure of frontman ZP Theart from United Kingdom-based power metallers DragonForce was confirmed in early March 2010 following an 11-year stint, the man having lent his voice to the albums Valley Of The Damned<\/em> (February 2003), Sonic Firestorm<\/em> (May 2004), Inhuman Rampage<\/em> (January 2006), and Ultra Beatdown<\/em><\/a> (August 2008). Musical differences were cited behind the parting at the time, though DragonForce sadly doesn\u2019t wish to discuss ZP\u2019s departure due to legal concerns. Auditions immediately followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince DragonForce has been around for awhile, we thought the best way to look for a singer was to do a worldwide search,\u201d explains Herman Li, lead guitarist and co-founder of DragonForce. \u201cWe pretty much approached singers from other bands that we like, and also had a few sending us auditions. There were so many things we were looking for. Of course they had to sing well, and had to have a good sense of melody. They had to be able to sing all the old songs well as well as the new stuff too, but I guess the old stuff is actually in a different style in some ways. The new songs have low range and high range, so they had to be able to pretty much cover everything. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou got the musical side there, but you also have to be able to work with the singer of course. The way we approached working things out was really different to the previous album. We wanted a singer that we could really work with better, and have good communication with. That was one of the important things, to be able to move on. Of course hopefully they could play onstage well, sing live and everything, yeah (laughs). It\u2019s hard to be able to know exactly what you\u2019re getting into until after knowing a guy for a few months at least.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll that actually lasted quite a long time. Of course while that was happening, we were also writing songs for the new album. It was surprising to find someone from Oxford to sing the kind of stuff that we do, because it\u2019s hard to find a singer who sings melodically. I think it\u2019s easy to just find a guy who growls and goes \u2018Raaarrrr!!\u2019 but finding a melodic singer who\u2019s good was really difficult actually, one to fit in the band (laughs).<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore Marc was even in the band, we actually worked him really hard in terms of the audition process. He sent us a video, and we got him to sing more songs that he had to record live on a video. After that we met up with him just to see his personality, and then we had to have a rehearsal with him; singing a 35-minute set, getting him to learn a bunch of songs, and playing them together. After that I went to see him play with his band live in Reading somewhere, and then afterwards we got him into the studio to record demos of the new songs. If you think about that, that took about eight months to do and that was before he was even in the band. Later on it was just a continuation of what we were doing, rehearsing songs and recording and all that. Marc had a long trial initially before he was even in the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marc Hudson\u2019s entrance into the DragonForce line-up was publicly announced in March 2011. \u201cApart from the musical side, one thing that Marc really has is that he is a really fast learner,\u201d the axeman enthuses. \u201cComing in as a non-professional who was playing pubs he was able to learn really quickly, and he got better and better while he was still recording the album and still while we were rehearsing the old songs as well as the new songs. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a lot of jamming on new songs to get him confident before going into the studio. That was so he could express a song by himself, instead of him reading from a lyric sheet in front of a microphone and things like that for example. That\u2019s why we did all this rehearsing and jamming that we didn\u2019t do before, because we had to integrate Marc into the band. That was so that it was a real band instead of Marc plus DragonForce. We had to do all this jamming to make sure he knew what was going on, he knew us and all that. That was the way to bring out his confidence and things. Confidence needs some time to grow, so his first show and his tenth show are different things. The progress that he made while in the band before we finished the album was a huge leap though. That\u2019s one thing that was really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The right candidate being a fervent admirer of DragonForce\u2019s material wasn\u2019t extremely important, however. \u201cOf course they had to like the music,\u201d Herman stresses. \u201cWe weren\u2019t going to get someone who didn\u2019t like the music, but they didn\u2019t have to be a fan fan. As long as they liked what we were doing, that\u2019s good. Some people just like the music but aren\u2019t really fans, you know what I mean? They\u2019re kind of different, and look at the band differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

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DragonForce (l-r): Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Leclercq, Dave Mackintosh, Herman Li, Marc Hudson,
Sam Totman and Vadim Pruzhanov<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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Musically comparing the two, the assortment\u2019s co-founder feels that Marc is a metal vocalist while ZP is a hard rock vocalist. \u201cThe tone, the approach, and the techniques are very different, so the way they approach the arrangement and the way they express themselves musically is different,\u201d he reckons. \u201cIf you take someone like a classic metal singer against a classic hard rock singer \u2013 like Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) versus Bon Jovi \u2013 you can hear the difference in the style. I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s like that, but it\u2019s similar to how you would compare the two.\u201d<\/p>\n

On April 2012\u2019s The Power Within<\/em>, Herman feels that DragonForce really brought its \u2018metal side to the surface.\u2019 \u201cI think that was due a mixture of everything, including the approach to the way we made this album,\u201d he muses. \u201cPreviously on the last two albums, we used to just write the music and then go straight to the studio to record it. On this album we didn\u2019t; we wrote the music, jammed it out, and played it together as a band before we even recorded the album. We had more time to rehearse these songs and play them, so it definitely made a difference. Just the approach was much different, and I guess we wanted to reflect that kind of organic feel of the band playing the songs together on the album. Previously we used to just write the music, record the album straight away before we even played it together, and then go on tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the sheer complexity of past DragonForce tunes, it would be natural to assume that learning such compositions just prior to tour commitments was a mammoth task. \u201cWe did it back on the second album, where it was like \u2018Oh God, the songs are so long,\u2019\u201d the guitarist remembers. \u201cIf I take you back to 2004, when we went on tour doing songs from Sonic Firestorm<\/em> we found songs like \u2018My Spirit Will Go On\u2019 and \u2018Fury Of The Storm\u2019 really difficult to play. Now they\u2019re the easiest songs to play though, and we can have a conversation while playing them. We\u2019ve grown, gotten better I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

While past DragonForce tracks haven\u2019t been altered for live performances, Marc\u2019s delivery somewhat contrasts with that of ZP\u2019s. \u201cYou don\u2019t wanna change the melodies around because those are written the way the songs were,\u201d Herman emphasises. \u201cYou put a few screams here and there, and a few touches of his sound. His tone vocally is very different anyway to ZP.\u201d<\/p>\n

The musician judges The Power Within<\/em> as closer in feel to Sonic Firestorm<\/em> than Ultra Beatdown<\/em>. \u201cUltra Beatdown<\/em> is a much more extreme, longer songs kind of album,\u201d he surmises. \u201cEvery song was long, and every song was over the top with more things than you can imagine putting into a song and into this kind of music. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Power Within<\/em> doesn\u2019t sound like any of the other albums because this album is more diverse with all the different tempos we have. We went full-on, 100% with everything on the new album. In the old days, we had one tempo pretty much. We stuck with a fast tempo, but this time we played around a bit with different tempos and showed different sides of us. Every song has its own feel so we tried to have one song more symphonic, another song more guitar driven with less keyboards, and things like that. You\u2019ve got your acoustic song, and you\u2019ve got your seven-string, faster than all the other songs and heavier. Of course you have the fast stuff and the faster stuff, but there\u2019s definitely more on this album. We\u2019ve mixed the feel for each, whereas every song on Ultra Beatdown<\/em> had everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Fallen World\u2019 has been touted as the quickest track that DragonForce has ever recorded. \u201cOf course there are some slower songs like \u2018Cry Thunder\u2019, \u2018Seasons\u2019 and some songs that are somewhere in between,\u201d Herman acknowledges. \u201cWe can\u2019t just go in one direction \u2013 slower \u2013 so we have to go faster too (laughs). You\u2019ve got your normal, fast DragonForce songs like \u2018Holding On\u2019 and \u2018Heart Of The Storm\u2019 and then you\u2019ve got even faster than that, so fastest ever for us. We\u2019re pushing in all different directions. \u2018Fallen World\u2019 I think was actually written a little bit later, but it changed quite a lot after Marc joined the band. We wanted to go a bit more extreme but also a bit heavier, so that\u2019s why we brought in the seven-string guitars \u2013 to give it a different tone. It\u2019s actually kind of weird. With a six-string and a seven-string guitar, the sound is so different and even the mix of it sounds different. <\/p>\n

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DragonForce (l-r): Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Leclercq, Vadim Pruzhanov, Marc Hudson, Sam
Totman, Dave Mackintosh and Herman Li<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\u201cMixing \u2018Fallen World\u2019, it was just the way that it sounds compared to the other songs because of the notes and the key. The approach to the vocals is different too; they\u2019re a bit more aggressive and a bit lower until you get to the chorus which has a more epic kind of tone. We kind of mix it up on that song, and then you\u2019ve got the high screams at the end and stuff like that. It goes from a low to high level in vocal range.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the axeman alluded to, \u2018Heart Of The Storm\u2019 is one of the pacier numbers on The Power Within<\/em>. \u201cThat\u2019s your more classic DragonForce song,\u201d he appraises. \u201cThat\u2019s 200bpm, your fast DragonForce song with double guitars and all that. That\u2019s the classic sound right there that you\u2019d expect; if you hear that song, you\u2019ll know it\u2019s DragonForce no matter where you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Positioned as track number five, \u2018Wings Of Liberty\u2019 is the album\u2019s longest song. \u201cIt\u2019s the more symphonic, epic one on this album,\u201d Herman figures. \u201cThat\u2019s actually got more use of keyboards than some of the other songs, so when I talk about the feel of different songs we went for a symphonic feel on that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cut initially as a part of DragonForce side project Shadow Warriors, \u2018Power Of The Ninja Sword\u2019 was recorded for use as a Japanese bonus track. \u201cWe thought we\u2019d just do that one,\u201d the band\u2019s co-founder states. \u201cWhy not (laughs)? It was as simple as that. We did it last time. Basically, Shadow Warriors wasn\u2019t a side project. To cut a long story short, we worked on those songs with Sam and I helped him record them because I was learning how to do recordings. Those songs are songs that were written a long time ago. We did do one on the last album as a bonus track and people liked it, so we thought we would do another one this time. That\u2019s Japanese only though, so it doesn\u2019t make any difference to this part of the world (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n

Although solely a Japanese bonus track, fanatics will inevitably discover \u2018Power Of The Ninja Sword\u2019 through the internet. \u201cThe internet? What\u2019s that?,\u201d Herman jokes. \u201cNever heard of it. I don\u2019t even know what the internet is (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Cry Thunder\u2019 was selected to highlight The Power Within<\/em> for music video purposes. \u201cThat was the first song that we actually played live from the album, and funnily enough we never thought that was gonna be the first music video,\u201d the guitarist reflects. \u201cThe reason that we played that one live was because we thought \u2018Hey, we\u2019ve got this mid-tempo, slow song. Let\u2019s play that live and throw that in the set.\u2019 If we played the old songs, almost every single one of them is fast. When we played with Iron Maiden, that was when we started playing that song for the first time. It became the first music video, just like some songs I didn\u2019t expect to be on the album like \u2018Seasons (Acoustic Version)\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe filmed a performance music video on purpose. We thought it\u2019d be cool to approach it that way really, because the last one we did was all computer graphics generated stuff. We thought we would go back to the live stage performance stuff, and take it back to the basics. That\u2019s how we got known in the first place, doing lots of shows. In the old days we were totally the best live band, and then suddenly things changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comments regarding \u2018the old days\u2019 inevitably spark questions about \u2018the new days\u2019. \u201cI think we play better than we\u2019ve ever done before, but with the internet and incredible technology…,\u201d Herman begins. \u201cOn a mobile phone, it sounds like complete shit. It\u2019s kind of a fucking weird thing, because people don\u2019t really care about bands live in the same way we do. Years ago people judged bands live by going to live shows, instead of judging them by a compressed audio \/ video feed on a low resolution computer screen. Unfortunately a lot of uneducated people think this is what it is musically. That\u2019s how it sounds when the microphone in your smartphone is only supposed to pick up your voice, and not record a whole PA blasting out with that much bpm and that much intense music. It sounds like garbage. That\u2019s why a web stream always sounds horrible, because the compression is pretty lame these days. Especially all this so-called secure streaming or whatever that gets captured, it\u2019s always really bad quality anyway. That has changed what live music is all about. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople think when you hear a band live they sound exactly like they do on the album, but live productions are supposed to sound totally different anyway. I think people have been blown away by the amount of music they hear, but they don\u2019t see enough shows to understand what shows are supposed to be like. If I went to see a band and they sounded exactly like they do on the album 100%, I would think something is wrong. It isn\u2019t humanly possible, but hey, people are accustomed to having a certain ear. Imagine you hear 100 albums, but just one show. You just don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on in a way, how live shows are supposed to sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

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DragonForce (l-r): Herman Li, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Leclercq, Marc Hudson, Vadim Pruzhanov,
Dave Mackintosh and Sam Totman<\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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Officially released live material including Marc is yet to exist, but time can rectify this. \u201cI\u2019ve got equipment that I can take on tour to record, so we\u2019re probably gonna record some stuff anyway at least for ourselves to listen to,\u201d Marc\u2019s bandmate speculates. \u201cThat\u2019s to see what we\u2019re like, how we can improve on things, and how to get better. We\u2019re always looking at ways to improve the show. I think the way we play now compared to any time before is definitely the best we\u2019ve ever played to date.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slowing down the tempo in certain instances meant that additional guitar techniques could be implemented. \u201cThe guitar had to be played differently, the vibrato and the note choice and all that, techniques,\u201d Herman analyses. \u201cWhen I say techniques, I mean techniques you use to express the music have to be done differently. I think there is a lot of emphasis on different bending of the notes, because when you\u2019ve got a bit more time to play you\u2019ve got a bit more time to use different techniques. When you\u2019re playing really fast you don\u2019t really have time to bend the notes, so that\u2019s something we worked on for this album.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, The Power Within<\/em>\u2019s tracks are among the shortest that DragonForce has ever recorded. \u201cIn some ways we thought that we should maybe compact it a bit, and make sure every single bit is good instead of having long melodic bits which are okay but not that amazing,\u201d the axeman divulges. \u201cWe just made sure that every bit punches you in the face, and kicks your ass kind of thing (laughs). Because of playing together, rehearsing, and jamming those songs before finishing the recording, that kind of changes the structures of the songs when everyone is playing them at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyrically speaking, The Power Within<\/em> delves into a mixture of topics. \u201cWe\u2019ve got some fantasy lyrics, and we\u2019ve got stuff which is more straightforward which you can obviously hear are based on current events,\u201d Herman reveals. \u201c\u2018Give Me The Night\u2019 is actually about a problem with any kind of addiction. \u2018Seasons\u2019 is more of a personal relationship kind of song. That\u2019s weird to say in a DragonForce interview, actually (laughs). There\u2019s that, and then you\u2019ve got \u2018Holding On\u2019 which is about current events. Things are really tough these days, so it has more of a positive message.\u201d<\/p>\n

The record\u2019s cover artwork, meanwhile, is more simplistic. \u201cIt\u2019s just one way to approach it,\u201d the co-founder ponders. \u201cWith the last album we did something really complicated which I thought was really cool, very artistic. This time we\u2019ve gone for a more simple approach. It\u2019s just a different approach. With every album we try to not do exactly the same as the last one, so this one is nothing like the Ultra Beatdown<\/em> cover.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the United Kingdom, the release of The Power Within<\/em> will be handled by DragonForce\u2019s newly formed label Electric Generation Recordings. \u201cIf you look at what\u2019s happening these days, a lot of small labels are closing, bigger labels taking over the smaller ones and closing them, and all that kind of stuff,\u201d Herman notes. \u201cWe already went through that before; we were with Noise Records, and then Sanctuary took over. We pretty much made all the decisions before, and now it just makes it easier to control what\u2019s going on, like when we want the album out. It helps us to get on tour easier, for example. If anything doesn\u2019t work, it\u2019s our fault. We can\u2019t blame anyone. The main thing here is that we have control of the music. We don\u2019t have to worry in a year\u2019s time if the label actually gets closed down, and you have no-one to talk to and you can\u2019t do this and that. I\u2019ve experienced that myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Power Within<\/em> marks the closing of one chapter, and the opening of another. \u201cThings change pretty quickly these days,\u201d the guitarist contemplates. \u201cFortunately, we were never part of any scene which is the reason why we also took our time to release this album. We\u2019re not a part of any scene that we needed to catch up on. We just basically carry on doing the music we want to do, and if people like it then that\u2019s great. If not, then they don\u2019t (laughs). It\u2019s not gonna change the way we look at the music. If you think about it, if we followed what people say then we\u2019d never even be here anyway \u2013 we wouldn\u2019t be playing this kind of music. If you look at the scene as it was in the UK ten years ago or whatever, it was completely different. If you played solos, people would just drop dead laughing at you. Now, apparently it\u2019s cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Power Within<\/em> was released on April 11th, 2012 through JVC Victor in Japan, on the 13th through 3Wise in Australia, and on the 15th through Electric Generation Recordings (distributed by Essential Music) in the United Kingdom. The full-length was subsequently issued on the 16th and 17th in the rest of Europe and North America respectively, all via Roadrunner Records.<\/p>\n

Interview published in April 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DRAGONFORCE – Holding On Anthony Morgan April 2012 DragonForce (l-r): Herman Li, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Leclercq, Marc Hudson, Vadim Pruzhanov, Dave Mackintosh and Sam Totman The departure of frontman ZP Theart from United Kingdom-based power metallers DragonForce was confirmed in early March 2010 following an 11-year stint, the man having lent his voice to the albums Valley […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dragonforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5008"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7086,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5008\/revisions\/7086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}