by Vpower
The Band: Gatekeeper
Country: Canada
Answers by:
Jeff Black (guitar)
Originally formed in 2009 as a solo project by
guitarist Geoff Blackwell, their new album “East Of Sun” boasts a mixture of
older, unreleased material written by Blackwell which are complemented by live
staples that have recently been updated. A band to follow by every epic heavy
metal maniac. All the details in this cool conversation with boss Geoff.
Hi Geff! after some splits and eps this first
full-length album "East Of Sun" takes us totally by surprise with its
magic, kind of an unexpected appearance, do you have that same feeling?
Thank you!
I'm glad to hear that people are enjoying the album. This lineup of the band is
relatively fresh but we spent about 6 months working on this album so it felt
like it has been in the oven for a long time. However, the positive reaction
we've been getting to the album has been very exciting and helped bring some
more immediacy to how we want the band to run.
Cruz Del Sur Music, that has a special eye to
reveal new bands, were quick to sign you?
Yeah, it
was pretty quick process I think. We only emailed a handful of labels, some
were ones that we'd worked with before. Cruz Del Sur gave us immediate interest
and requested some demo songs right away. After some discussion we settled on a
deal that we were both satisfied with and we've been working with their team to
come up with the strongest album release possible with our music. It goes
without saying that we're very pleased to be a part of Cruz Del Sur Music as
they have released a ton of music that we enjoy from bands who we consider our
influences and others we consider our contemporaries.
As far as I know this "East Of Sun"
is a collection of old compositions never released before and some songs you
just played live, right?
There is a
mixture of stuff on the record. Some of the songs I wrote years ago that I
pitched to the current lineup. Some are older songs from previous releases that
we were still playing live, and a couple are brand new songs written by the
whole group. Most of the songs have my writing stamp on them in some way but
the rest of the band brings their own style and attention to detail into the
songs which makes them more interesting I think. Our singer JP wrote all the
lyrics in the newer songs and also re-wrote all the vocals in “North Wolves”,
which is from the first EP from 2013.
That nature can be percieved in the variety of
styles, from the speed metal of Blade Of Cimmeria to some more heavy songs as
Warrior Without Fear or the doom of tracks as Oncoming Ice, what do you think,
Jeff?
I think
you're correct. The song “Blade of Cimmeria” definitely caught some people
off-guard, which is what we wanted. We did our best to write an album where
each song stands on its own and says something different from the others while
still making sense in the context of the band and the people playing in it. I
really don't want to fall into the trap of playing every song in the same
tempo, the same key, the same themes. I want to see how far we can stretch the
“Epic Heavy Metal” tag that we've been associated with.
That array of sounds takes us to the next
question, what can we expect for your next work? Do you have any trend already
clear in terms of style?
We're
already working on new material and there is definitely a lot of the Epic Metal
stuff in there. I would say that there's more of a US Heavy Metal sound
happening too. I've been listening to a lot of non-metal stuff lately
too—British folk rock, jazz fusion, Indian classical music and prog rock for
example. I don't plan on releasing a smooth jazz album anytime soon but I think
it's healthy to listen to stuff outside to metal spectrum to keep your perspective
fresh and down to earth.
I agree with you and your words just arises
high expectations for your next work. The songs on "East Of Sun" were
re-recorded altogether or it was more a process of picking up material from
different stages?
The drums
and rhythm tracks were all recorded in the span of 4 days and the rest of the
record was tracked across 6 months. We had to spread out the recording due to
the studio schedule as it was also a recording school, so we had to work around
the student schedules. Also, our singer JP lived in Portland until earlier this year so we had
to work with the long distance. I did almost all the guitars in the summer of
2017 and I would usually get into the studio at 9pm, record until 6am, then work from 8am-5pm, then take a nap at home and do it
all over again. It was tough but I don't mind making sacrifices and pushing
myself for the art. So everything you hear is taken from the same studio from
the same sessions, it's just that the sessions had lots of time between them.
In terms of lyrics, “East Of Sun” is inspireed by a book of Scandinavian folk tales, right?
The title
was inspired by this book, yes. However the lyrics come from a variety of
places. JP wrote most of them, but in general they are songs about things going
on in his life but with fantasy imagery and metaphors used to represent them.
JP would tell you that Dio is his biggest influence there. I wrote a song about
Beowulf (“Swan Road Saga”) and another based on the Robert E. Howard story “The
Hours of the Dragon (“Bell of Tarantia”). Of course, some of the songs are just
about fun, cool things like swords, snake cults and overcoming adversity.
If you pay attention to the cover design by
Duncan Storr even before listening one single note, epic music is what comes to
my mind
That's
exactly what we wanted! We knew we needed top quality artwork for the album in
order to catch people's attention. Duncan listened to some demo tracks, went
into his vault and came back with the painting that you see on our cover. We fell
in love with it instantly. Duncan was also kind enough to add in a
few details for us, such as the sword and the tattoo on the character's
shoulder. It was one of those lucky things—it was as if the painting had been
sitting there waiting for us.
Your music can be compared to some classic
bands such as Omen, early Manowar, Manilla Road… But if we think of
more recent bands I guess Atlantean Kodex is the nearest point… Have the German
guys got a strong competition from the other side of the ocean?
Haha, well
it's no secret that I've had a musical relationship with the Kodex guys since
the early days. Manuel was a supporter of the band at the beginning and their
drummer Mario even played drums on a few demo tracks, which can be heard on the
CD split we did with Eternal Champion on No Remorse records. I had started
writing some songs before I discovered Atlantean Kodex so I didn't mean to
sound like them, but when I heard them it was definitely an inspiration to hear
a band doing something similar to what I wanted to do. We also got compared to
Solstice a lot too, which is fair.
Now that
I've had some time to develop my skills on guitar and now that the other guys
in the band are contributing musical ideas, it's definitely blossomed into
different areas. We've been getting lots of comparisons to Omen and Manowar and
even 90's Bathory which makes a lot of sense to me.
Top names. Geoff Blackwell, that’s you, is the
guy responsible for the creation of the band, that was born as a solo project. In what moment
did you give the step to a full-members band?
Aye aye,
that's me. I decided to bring other members into the picture when the demos I'd
put online started getting some attention from people in the Epic Metal
community. Manuel from Kodex and Pilgrim from Funeral Circle in particular urged me to put a
band together and start playing gigs. I believe the first gigs happened in
2011. In late 2014 I moved to Vancouver, BC and after about a year I put
together the new lineup that you hear on the album.
The display of riffs and solos in the
"East Of Sun" is absolutely devastating!
Thanks a
lot! Glad to hear you're enjoying it. I wrote and recorded the majority of the
riffs you hear but only two of the guitar solos are mine. Our lead guitarist
Kenny tore up his fretboard in the studio and came up with a lot of really
badass leads and solos. He's got a fantastic ear and a razor-sharp sense of how
heavy metal guitar should sound. I hoping that some of his own riffs will
appear on the newer material.
However, I would like to remark also the
overwhelming performance by Jean-Pierre Abboud, again, the parallelism with
Atlantean Kodex and his great vocalist Markus Becker is unavoidable
JP brings a
lot to the table for sure. He and I have been in touch for many years and his
old band Borrowed Time started about the time as Gatekeeper did. He's always
had a pretty unique, dynamic style and it's been great to watch him grow and
develop over the years. To be honest I hear more parallels with David DeFeis
(Virgin Steele), Hansi Kursch (Blind Guardian) and even John Arch (Fates
Warning) than Becker, but that's just me.
You are right, Jeff. You have included two covers
as a bonus tracks in the cd version, Omen’s “Death Rider” and Savatage’s “Hall
Of The Mountain King”, any special reason for that?
Our drummer
Tommy is a total animal behind the kit and finished his drum tracks in half the
time we expected, so we decided to go ahead and use some of the spare time to
record a couple cover songs that we'd played at our gigs. We did the rhythm
tracks live off the floor with no click track and just had fun with them. Omen
and Savatage are favourites of ours and we'd gotten some great feedback from
playing them live so we figured they would make good choices. We thought it
would be interesting to cover these songs than other more popular
crowd-pleasers songs that we play.
A good move, I love both bands. After listening
to "East Of Sun" the question that arise in my mind is clear: when
will you seat and start composing new songs for what should be the confirmation
of this great appetizer that is "East Of Sun"?
We're
already working on it! We've got a couple new songs totally written and demo'd
and we've got piles of new ideas that we're chipping away at between gigs and
rehearsals. The stuff we're working on now is mostly written by the group as a
whole but some of the other guys are spear-heading their own song ideas and a
couple of them might come from my vault of older song ideas too. I'm hoping we
can end up with maybe a dozen songs and them pick out the best to use on the
next record.
Excellent. What are your immmediate plans?
Gigs, gigs,
GIGS! Our album release party is April 27th at the Keep It True festival in Germany and we will do a local release in Vancouver on May 12th, plus a slew of other
appearances across Western Canada. In 2019 we will return to Europe for the Hell Over Hammaburg festival and other
dates surrounding that. There are so many things in the works that it's hard to
remember everything sometimes.
Bigtime, ya! Thank you very much Jeff for the
interestoing interviedw and congratulations for your great album, if you wish
to add something…
Thanks so
much to everyone out there listening, reading and watching our stuff. The
support means the world to us.
Cheers,
Geoff
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