ELKAPATH (Synthetic Gothic Metal – UK) – Interview for KICK ASS FOREVER via Angels PR Music & Promotion
Interview conducted and submitted by Marian Nicolaou via – thank you!!!
(answered By AJ MARIO and TEVOR ENGLAND)
Welcome to Miami…all the way from UK, right?
Greetings from the UK Miami!!!
Let’s begin by introducing Elkapath. Give us a short bio.
Elkapath was started in 2004 by Carla as a solo artist project. In 2018, Carla decided to invite live musicians to join Elkapath, making it the band it is today. There have been a few changes in the line up along the way. The final line up consists of professional and dedicated musicians, all with previous experience in the music industry. The current line up, Carla, Chris, Marios and Trevor, has a very strong bond, which we believe can be heard in our debut band album, Black Spiders.
What image do you think your music conveys?
We do like the term, Synthetic Goth Metal. In our music you can hear a lot of different elements from electronic music in the background (hailing our big influences to prodigy), to classic style metal riffs, to more extreme black metal influences, low tuned guitars, screams and operatic vocals, all in a Tim Burton Gothic cloak.
We do believe that we have created something unique that can be enjoyed by every heavier music lover.
Υou have just released a fantastic album “Black Spiders” how you feel about it?
Thank you so much for your good words! We did our very best to archive the best results possible and we area glad you liked it! To us, it feels amazing, I have been playing it in my car for the past few months. (sorry, have the privilege to all ready have it!)
Was it a long way to finalize this album?
We did work remotely with Bob Katsionis.
It was a fun process, we were passing to him the first editions of each song, then we were recording here in the UK, sending to the cloud new takes, then another takes, then more songs, some different ideas, and then more takes!
Bob directed the recordings and he set the standards really high, he has lifted this album to an even higher professional level.
Of course it was quite daunting to pass our material to a producer who was asking us to make changes to our original songs, but we trusted Bob and are very happy with the outcome. The changes are incorporated into our upcoming live shows where again, the level has been significantly raised.
It was an incredible experience that we can’t wait to repeat, it took about 4 months from day one to the last Master!
Describe the approach to recording the album.
We had practice the songs so much and been working on them so much.
Our approach and vision was to sound big and real, there is a lot of one take tracks there to give you that feel, Bob took for example some raw direct signal and he use his real amps to reamp rather than using digital in the box amps and you can hear the difference there!
What is the message of “BLACK SPIDERS”?
Black spiders has a message of how you can be controlled and influenced when you are in love, you become like them without realising. If you listen to the lyrics, the story is a about a woman who gets drawn in by gifts and she becomes like him in the end.
She becomes his queen because, he has the power to control, that’s why in the video you will see the dark character with voodoo.
In what do you base yourself in order to write the lyrics?
Most of the lyrics are coming from past experiences or from stories from Carla’s dreams and imagination.
Who is responsible of Album’s artwork, I have to say I am impressed
He is a Greek artist called Chris Petrakos! You can find his amazing work on instagram @Chrisstonerart
He is a really talented man that we cannot recommend enough.
Bob Katsionis, I must say he did an amazing production, was it easy as you are in UK and he is Greece?
In the modern days everyone can have a little recording studio in their home.
Bob has the headquarters! A very high end fully equipped studio in Greece and a ton of knowledge, while he was mentoring and directing us on how to get the best possible sound.
We were recording tracks here and send them there, I can tell you that he put even himself in there, each track been produced carefully and each song has a few dozen of those tracks.
What was your worst nightmare from the day you started as the Band till the release day?
It has to be not to loose ourselves in there, to stick to the original idea and vibe, to what Elkapath was about in the first place and I believe we did achieve that.
What is your view on technology in music?
Well, I remember back in the mid 00’s where all this equipment start to being available for everyone, it sounded awesome at the time… Well today it is almost at the professional studio level if you use it correctly!
But there is the mistake, you need to know what is your limits, where the home recordings have to stop and when a real professional producer has to join, a lot of people mistake that.
Our way is that we will do it ourselves to the best of our abilities, and then once the whole album is completed we will then start working with Bob again!
How do you see things in 2022 due to pandemic issues?
Most festivals in the UK this summer still went ahead and bands have start to play again.
Traveling abroad is an issue as in Europe, every country has different rules, so for now we will focus in the UK and will hope that only better days are ahead of us!
What are your plans for the future?
We want to play as many gigs as we can and hope to be on tour at some point!
We have slowly started working on new ideas, but at the moment the ideas are very young. Even so, we are already excited to be starting on the next album!
Give us your last word as we close, to all our readers
Thank you very much for your time!
To all of your readers… Keep it loud and alive!!!
Band Links:
https://www.facebook.com/elkapath
https://www.instagram.com/elkapath
https://www.youtube.com/c/elkapath
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