Biomechanical
John K of Biomechanical
Hey, how are things in England as we speak?
A bit hot man, we are experiencing our 2+½ days of UK summer!!
Will start off by introducing yourself and tell us why you play metal?
I'm John K vocalist of Biomechanical and I play metal as it's the best music on the planet!!
A small introduction of the rest of the band, together with their strong and weak sides will be great too!
Sure (woah this will be fun!!), Jamie Hunt is one of the band's guitarists. Strong point I would say definitely his guitar skills. He is into Satriani, Vai and all these great players and he adds a great colour to the band. Weak side? He has broken the volume button so that nobody touches it (because he is so fucking loud!) and when he fires up for a solo we have to evacuate the city before the sonic onslaught begins!!
On the other guitar we have Chris Webb. Awesome guitarist in the style of Gilbert, Dimebag Darrell. Great brutal sounding playing. Weak sides? He is a sick fuck and makes everybody puke with the gore he comes up all the time.
Matt C our drummer is the best drummer I have played with. Very technical and very open minded in music. Weak side? He is a drummer. Just kidding, he emits methane 24/7.
Jon Collins is the bassist of Biomechanical. He couldn't be any more perfect for the band. Great powerful style and agility. His playing reminds me something between Cliff Burton and Steve Harris. Weak side? None, he is the main dude!
You are ready with your first album for Elitist Records "The Empires Of The Worlds", how do you feel about the album?
We feel very pleased with the way the album turned out to be! It has been a long road to get it finished but it couldn't have been done any better. The writing of it started back in 2003 when our debut album was released. Since then the material was written sporadically as I was busy promoting "Eight Moons" and getting ready for a few shows again for the promotion of the album. The material was finally ready in 2004 and we recorded a few tracks as a demo. Around the same time Lee Barrett from Elitist Records contacted us and after a few meetings we got introduced to Earache Records who then offered us a four album deal. We finally got signed last September and "The Empires Of The Worlds" is out now!
How have the reactions to the album, as you have received so far been?
Awesome man, something we honestly didn't expect that. You know, you do the best you can do and work your ass off to materialize the album and then you give it away and there is nothing you can do but wait and see what happens. We were very surprised and pleased with the reaction of both the internet and printed press. The support has been fantastic!
What do you expect from the album?
Well, I hope it's going to go as far as possible. We would really love to tour it with a known band so that we can showcase our stuff to people and I am sure Earache is on the case as speak. From what I can see so far the album has been embraced by the metal sites and magazines which is great thing and now it's the case of whether or not people will give the disc a shot.
As I said earlier it's totally out of our hands. All we can do is to work very hard and take it from there
Did you have a goal, which you wanted to accomplish with the album, when you started out to write it?
With any new effort you should go in the direction of creating something different from what you already have done in the past. So the "The Empires Of The Worlds" is pretty much constructed under the same work ethic.
How is your first album "Eight Moons" compared to your new effort?
I would say "Eight Moons" is more melodic and slightly less aggressive from "The Empires Of The Worlds". Also the writing of "Eight Moons" was done under totally different circumstances, it was more of a spare of the moment thing were as with "The Empires Of The Worlds" there has a been a lot thinking involved for the writing, I.e. how would the album flow, what direction can it take to represent the mood and sound of the band and things like that. All in all a heavier album but still with melodic writing and the orchestral writing is involved the same way as it was on "Eight Moons".
How was "Eight Moons" received?
As I said before thankfully very good, we are very pleased with reactions from the press and fans!
Was it "Eight Moons" that got you signed to Elitist Records?
Basically yes, we made a conscious decision to sign "Eight Moons" to Revolver Records who have had a great track records. Revolver took "Eight Moons" as far as they could and the album created great opportunities for us also gathered great reviews! Lee Barrett from Elitist, he noticed that there was a bit of noise happening about us and decided to contact us. As I said earlier this lead to us getting signed on Elitist/Earache
What do you want to accomplish with your music?
My main goal for a long time was to fuse film scoring type of writing in the style of John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith with metal writing. I wanted to do this since I can remember. Now a days it has become a bit of a cliché saying that, but the truth is that I have been listening to film scores since I was eight years old and studied composition and orchestration, so I have taken this extremely seriously, and the main goal is to create some kind of a style, that accommodates both worlds without damaging each other. It's easy to go off the rails with very complicated orchestral writing for instance and lose the listener. The song should tell you what it needs. And the same goes for the metal aspects of writing. Both metal and orchestral writing should serve their purpose. Other than that from the metal music point of view the goal is to bring good old British Steel and early 90's thrash in to the this decade.
Who writes the music in the band?
I am the main songwriter of the band and I also do the arrangements and orchestrations. The guys shape the final thing with their performances and personal sounds.
How did you end up with the mix of old heavy metal, some thrashy parts and more groovy elements, all mixed up to a lethal outcome?
It's something that just comes out. I love old school metal but I also really like some of the new stuff that’s out at the moment. Biomechanical's music is the fusion of the two styles. Probably that's why it comes out the way it s.
How do you find inspiration to make music, everyday events or anything else that triggers the song writing?
I use the same work ethic as film music composers do: Turn on the Cubase and start writing. Of course you have to have the main building material. To me it's best to build up a story and this will indicate what the album needs in terms of texture speed and aggression. The main thing as usual is a good riff. I take this as the main material and then I go from there.
Will you introduce us to your lyrical universe?
The lyrics are written by Jon Collins our bassist and I have also written 3 or four tracks on the album too. Jon and I agree about many things and it's a pleasure to work together
Where is the inspiration for the lyrics found?
From everyday life. I think there is a lot of misery, death and destruction within the human race for it to be unnoticed. These are issues that have at least personally troubling me for a long time. It's great that I had the opportunity to express these ideas through music and that I found four other guys who want to do the same too.
What are your thought and idea behind the rather cryptic album title "The Empires Of The Worlds"?
The main issue that this album deals with is the violent nature of humanity and our endless search for power. The Empires represent the result of such desire, the inspiration came from the fact that most nations have at some point through history created an Empire with the goal of spreading their genetic code throughout the world… very much like a disease… or they probably wish they had the power to do so. We used a futuristic story as means of interpretation so that the story would carry the things we wanted to talk about.
Will you pull out 3 tracks from "The Empires Of The Worlds", and tell us about how the music and lyrics were created and what inspired the tracks?
Sure, best thing to do is to get 'DNA Metastasis', 'Surviva’l and ‘Existenz'. Those 3 tracks were written so that they would represent and expose the core of what "The Empires Of The Worlds" is all about. They are mentally meant to be one thing, 'DNA Metastasis' = 'Survival' = 'Existenz'. We didn't write it like that in the end, on the album as it would complicate things but that was the initial idea.
'DNA Metastasis' is a mid paced track as it comes out of 'Regenerated' which is a faster track. I always like to have variety of tempos and keys on the album. The track starts with an intro that will later on be used as a tempo shifter for 'Survival'. It wasn’t difficult to write as I had the chorus already in my head. The middle eight was a bit of a bitch though. It took a while to realise that the track didn't needed a middle eight but instead it needed to break with a solo after the second chorus. The change came after the last chorus with repeats of the last words of the chorus over different chord changes bonded with orchestral writing.
With the lyrics as I said earlier this would be the first part of a song revealing what this album is all about. There were no subliminal writing but on the same time we didn't want to go for lyrics like "people are dying everywhere, how evil is the human race?" or something like that. We wanted it to talk about all the issues I talked about earlier, but with a better use of words.
With 'Survival' the tempo goes up and the aggression is more apparent. This song is collaboration between me and guitarist Jamie Hunt. The song carries on where 'DNA Metastasis' left off. This song was written by Jon Collins and lyrically is about the beginning of the realization of the true scale of horror we call everyday life as we have shaped it to be. The defiance against what is laid down as the normal way of life.
Musically this track has also lent it self for a change after the second chorus. It went down to a heavy groove and ends up with fast picked guitars synchronised with the final lyrics.
'Existenz' is the final part of these three tracks and it's the full realization of the truth. Musically it's a mid paced track with two main riffs. The opening riff is also used for the bridge and the second main riff (written by Chris Webb) is the verse riff, which is also used for the solo section. The first main riff was in my mind for a very long time. I always wanted to use it and this song was the perfect opportunity. The meaning is self explanatory and I think it's best to get you a part of the song: "Boundaries of strength, unbroken strand of fate, predetermined life, unspoken is this truth, consumed by ignorance our spirits ceased to be, depressed, incinerated". The middle eight shifts in to a ¾ rhythm and the lyrics take us back to the chorus from "Eight Moons". This way the album ties in with our debut "Eight Moons" and continues further with the next track 'Truth Denied'.
How great a future do you think Biomechanical has and what is waiting just around the corner for you?
I have no idea to be honest, I hope great things will happen but you know what? You can only do your best and take it from there man. So far Earache has been great to us and we hope things will be good in the future.
Will you share your 5 all time favourite albums with us?
Queensrÿche - Operation Mindcrime
Judas Priest - Defenders Of The Faith
Metallica - Master Of Puppets
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Pantera - Vulgar Display Of Power
Thanks a ton for answering my questions! If you have anything to add feel free to do it now!
No worries dude, check out our album and Metal On!!!!
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