Back in February I was lucky enough to get a listen to “Pulses of Pleasure” by the highly promising and fast rising Belgian metal outfit, Evil Invaders. The young band clearly have an old head on their shoulders as everything about them from their looks to their music taste to their stage attire screams out 80’s. None of that synth pop/new wave stuff, we’re talking the full on spandex, sideburns, mullets, air raid siren vocals, lightening quick solos and galloping riffs a plenty! I loved the album so much, I consider it to be a very early front runner for Album of the Year, and with some of the releases already out in 2015 by the time this piece goes up… That is no easy feat to pull off.
Catching up with Joe, the frontman/lead guitarist, I picked his brain about some of the more important issues like who is better, the “Big 4” or the “Teutonic 4”? What do you make of the modern thrash sound and approach? What’s in the pipeline for Evil Invaders next? And Joe had a question he’d like me to ask too… In all, it was a rather interesting experience. Take a look for yourself and if you have an answer for Joe’s question, the address is in the post!
AN: Starting things off, Loved the album! How was the recording process? Did you have any last minute changes for the album or any problems during the recording?
Joe: Hey man, thanks!!
Recording the album was a fucking great experience for us. We did everything ourselves with the help of our live sound engineer Koen Keijers. No fancy producers, no super expensive studio, just us fooling around with the sound! We really wanted it this way because we knew exactly what kind of sound we were looking for. We even spent 2 entire days to search for the perfect guitar sound. And we’re really satisfied with the result. We even did the mixing and mastering of this album on our own. With our ideas and Koen’s knowledge we managed to deliver an album we’re really proud of. We even recorded the acoustic guitars on Eclipse Of The Mind in a church to give it that spooky feeling. We recorded 2 tracks that didn’t make it to the album because they didn’t really fit in. But in the meantime we rewrote one of them already and it could be that you will hear it on the 2nd record.
AN: The first single (Fast, Loud and Rude) has a real classic 80’s feel to it. This was what got my attention right away! What made you take the old school approach on this album instead of the more modern, ‘angrier’ style most thrash styled bands employ nowadays?
Joe: To be honest… I never liked this modern sound most thrash bands have nowadays. It feels unnatural and it’s all about being the hardest and loudest. But aggression and anger isn’t only created by your sound… it can be in lyrics, solos, riffs, drums in subtle ways too. Of course you have to be loud!! But don’t over-compress your album in the end everybody will sound the same… We really chose to have a more dynamic sound because it suits us better. We have a lot of melodic parts in our music too. It’s not full on thrash metal. We combine heavy metal, speed metal and thrash metal so the more melodic parts have to sound a bit more mellow than the aggressive ones. We create aggression with the way we play our instruments and not in the studio.
AN: You’ve done a video for the same song and being honest, not only do you sound like 80’s metal, but you look the part too! How did the filming go? Was it something you are looking to do again?
Joe: Haha yeah we really want to revive the style of music we love the most and for us that’s the good old 80’s metal!
For filming this one we did a couple of takes in the afternoon when the cameras were set up. In the evening we played a gig so the first few takes were done without the crowd and we just left the cameras there to film the entire show. Later on we combined live footage with the other parts and that was it basically hehe.
Well it’s cool for the people that don’t know us to be able to check out something like a video clip on YouTube so I guess we’ll be making some more in the future but for now no real plans for new video clips. We have just filmed our entire release show for the album and we’re probably gonna release that on a DVD or something like that.
AN: Keeping with the 80’s metal theme. Which bands and/or albums helped shape the sound of this one? I heard a lot of Iron Maiden styled harmonies in the record and bits of Annihilator too.
Joe: Hard to say… we have a great variety of influences. Motörhead, Flotsam and Jetsam, Exodus, Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Savatage, Sanctuary, OverKill, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath.
We don’t want to be a copy of a certain band. We just want to remind people of the great bands that were rockin’ in the 80’s. But Iron Maiden and Annihilator… I’m flattered. Thanks!
AN: This album has really turned heads. Congratulations on the chart success! Is this reaction something you had expected or did it catch you all totally by surprise?
Joe: Weird shit is happening to us lately man! Didn’t expect anything of all of this… We’ll see what happens in the future. But we keep our feet firmly planted on the ground don’t worry.
AN: The two recent album launch gigs you recently played seemed to have gone down a storm from what I saw in the pictures from them. I know you have a few dates penned in for April/May. Do you have any plans to tour further or on a larger style?
Joe: We’re just back from our tour with Majesty and Bloodbound. We’ll be hitting the road with Skull Fist in May/June for 5 weeks all over Europe. Things are pretty rough here right now since Sam decided to leave the band. We have a temporary bass player to take over the 4 string for this tour and Max is gonna play the guitar on this tour instead of Sam. So we don’t have much rest before this crazy ass tour but I’m sure it’s gonna be a total blast for all of us! After this tour we’ll be doing auditions for a new bass player or guitar player so if you think you’ve got the balls to join us, feel free to send us a video to show your skills! ([email protected])
Apart from that we’ll still be playing some festivals like Out & Loud, Metal Fest CZ and Graspop Metal Meeting here in Belgium! After that we’ll be playing a show in Malta too! Already looking forward to that one!
AN: Is there anyone you’d like to tour with or festivals/places you would like to play?
Joe: Oh man! Touring with Exodus would be fucking awesome! I’ve never been to Wacken so it must be cool to play there since it’s the biggest of them all! I heard a lot of good things about the Metal Days festival too. Some festivals in Spain like Leyendas Del Rock seem very attractive too! We haven’t played in Scandinavia yet but we’re working on that one. Brazil must be really cool too! Too much to mention!
AN: What about the follow up? Some bands like to sit back and let the album sink in a little while and get more shows under their belts after a release whilst others like to head back to the drawing board and start work on the follow up. What have you guys got in mind?
Joe: We’re working on some new stuff when we have the time and inspiration. We’ll keep on writing until we feel it’s time to record again. First we need songs of which we are totally convinced. And the more the better. So we can just take the very best ones. I don’t want to have any fillers on an album.
AN: Music wise, are there any album releases which have caught your eye or ones coming out which you are looking forward too?
Joe: I’m not gonna lie… I’m not up to date at all! Hahaha
I do like the new Enforcer record! But lately I’ve been filling up my vinyl collection with some more of the classics that I didn’t have yet.
The old bands just catch me more than the new ones I guess… and I’m not the kind of guy that’s checking on internet all the time what’s happening in the world. I prefer to be surprised when I’m walking around in a record store and find albums I don’t know.
AN: One last question – The “Big 4” or the “Teutonic 4” ?
Joe: I like the old stuff from the big 4 (apart from Anthrax, I was never really into them) but I think they’ve lost most of their strength and aggression throughout the years..
We’ve been on tour with Destruction In October and I must say I was amazed by the energy and anger they still have going on on stage. We partied with them every single night and it was an awesome experience… I think the Teutonic are closer to their roots that the Big 4 and that’s something I really like about them.
(Interview Fraggle)
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