Only founder and bassist Ronnie König remains from the early years of Signum Regis. He has dedicated himself to Power Metal since 2007. The band from Bratislava (Slovakia) has been releasing new albums regularly ever since. Although there were four long years between “The Seal Of A New World” and the current album “Undivided“. In between there was only the live disc “Made In Switzerland” from 2022. Why it took longer this time and many other questions about the band were answered by Ronnie.
Hi, I’m Rainer and I write for the Metalheads Forever Magazine. Thank you for letting me do this interview with you. How are you?
Hi Rainer, I am doing fine! Thank you. Hope you are doing well too.
Despite more than 23,000 followers on Facebook, Signum Regis is less well known over here. Please introduce the band briefly.
Before we started Signum Regis, we had a band called Vindex which was an old school, true metal band. It was fun for that time, but later I started feeling that it was not a band (or rather music genre) that I would want to keep doing for the rest of my music career. I still like that genre, but I wanted to broaden our horizon and extend our range, musically speaking. We started Signum Regis where we were able explore other music directions. It started as a studio band with Göran Edman (ex-Yngwie Malmsteen) behind the microphone. The debut album turned out really great and it was our first experience where we had a chance to work with a professional singer and were signed to a real label, doing interviews for magazines, reading reviews and all that. After that experience I knew that I wanted to continue with Signum Regis and luckily, Filip (our guitarist) felt the same way. We did the second album with Göran and then we wanted to start playing live. That was not possible with Göran, therefore we started looking for a live singer. We found Mayo Petranin, who was with us for something like 5-6 years and since 2018, our singer is Jota Fortinho who already recorded with us “The Seal Of A New World” album, an EP called “Flag Of Hope”, a live album “Made in Switzerland” and a remake of the “Chapter IV” album. The journey since 2007 was exciting for sure. A lot of trial and errors, a lot of learning, a lot of memorable moments, ups and downs and all that.
Although you are the only remaining founding member, the list of former members on Encyclopaedia Metallum is not very long. Nevertheless, how do you manage these line-up changes?
I think the way it’s written there is a little bit confusing. Actually, Filip Koluš (guitar) and Jan Tupy (keys) have been in the band since the beginning (2007). Jaro (drummer) joined the band in 2010. The busiest position has been the singer. We started with Göran Edman (ex-Yngwie Malmsteen), then continued with Mayo Petraning and our current singer – Jota Fortinho – has been with us since 2018. With this little additional explanation, it’s not so bad.
The aforementioned website Encyclopaedia Metallum classifies your style as Progressive/Power Metal. How would you describe your music yourself?
I think we are progressive in a very different way than people would expect when they hear the word “progressive”. People automatically think of Dream Theater, of weird beats and key changes, industrial keyboard sounds and all that. We are not very progressive in that way, but we try to sound fresh while doing a classic genre. We include different elements from here and there and we are quite open minded. If it was just me, I would just say heavy metal, because that category is a big umbrella that can shelter a lot of things, but when you say heavy metal, many people think of Manowar and we are nothing like Manowar, so again: that would be a wrong category. I guess it’s ok to say Melodic Metal because we are melodic, and we are also Metal. Power Metal is probably OK too.
You released your seventh studio album in November, four years after its predecessor. Why did it take a little longer this time?
It was quite a long gap between new studio albums, but in reality, we were busy the whole time. We managed to record and release a 7-song EP during the covid era called “Flag Of Hope”. We also recorded and released a live album called “Made in Switzerland” and as if that was not enough, we partially re-recorded the “Chapter IV – The Reckoning” album and released it digitally.
You’ve obviously been working with Jacob Hansen as a producer for a few years now. How much does he influence the songwriting and the sound of your songs?
We have been friends with Jacob for a long time. He already worked on our 2014 EP called “Through The Storm” and also on some other releases, but never as a real producer, but rather as the mixer or mastering engineer. We have never worked with a real producer before. We wanted to try something new, we wanted to get this kind of experience and we wanted to hear how it would sound, if we had someone involved during all steps of the recording process, so we picked Jacob. I think that Jacob felt that we didn’t need him to hold our hands and lead us through every little detail. He wasn’t involved in the songwriting process. We followed his technical advice. For example, he recommended what kind of a vocal chain we should use for the recording of vocals (what mic, preamp, compressor, etc). He worked on the mix on his own, he mixed the first song and sent it to us for approval. He nailed it right-away and then he mixed all songs in that same style/setup. He is a nice person and working with him is always great because you know that the result will be great. And when you have this kind of confidence, you don’t have to worry. You just know it will all turn out great. He is very consistent!
How does your songwriting work? Are you the main composer or are the songs written by the band together?
Filip and I usually work alone to a point where we have some concrete piece of music ready. In most cases we finish our songs from start to the end and the rest of the band gets to arrange their instruments. However, we have written a couple of songs, Filip and I, together. For example, Filip had a cool riff, and I was missing a cool riff in something that I have written. We then combined those two things together and the result was a full song. Sometimes the singer improves a vocal line so significantly that you can’t call it an “arrangement”. When it’s more than that, it becomes a part of the songwriting.
How pleased are you with your latest work?
Absolutely! We believed that this album was going to be good from the very beginning, but we didn’t know if the fans would feel the same way about it. Luckily, now as we are getting a lot of feedback from fans and the metal community, it’s easy to recognize that this album was received very well.
How were the reactions of the fans and the press to “Undivded”?
Rock Hard France declared this album “the album of the month November”, we got 10/10 from the UKs Powerplay magazine, we got many, very, very positive reviews, our statistics on streaming platforms went up like crazy, so we really can’t complain. It’s been fantastic so far.
Will you also be presenting the new album live to a wider audience outside your home country?
We plan to add new songs to our live setlist, of course. Some shows are being booked, but I don’t have more info to share at this point. I invite everyone to the “Elements of Rock” festival in Switzerland in March 2024 and I also invite everyone to subscribe to our newsletter. That way you will stay in touch with us and receive info about the live shows.
Speaking of live. Last year you released “Made in Switzerland”. The recordings are from a show in Wiedlisbach (Switzerland) in 2021. Why did you decide to record a performance in Switzerland and not, for example, from your hometown of Bratislava?
It was a special situation, a very weird time – the covid era. We couldn’t play many shows. Almost nothing. However, we were invited to Switzerland by our good friend Samuel Hug. Since there were not many opportunities to play for an audience, we thought that uploading something from this show on social media could be a nice thing to do for our fans, who couldn’t attend any of our shows. It just happened that, now, when almost every soundboard has the option to record everything to separate tracks and save it on a USB stick, we listened to the tracks after the show and started messing with the idea to mix it all properly and publish even more songs than just one or two. At the end of the day, we mixed the whole thing and released it all as a live album. Some bands do a live album after 3-4 studio albums. We already had 6 studio albums and EPs and never a live album, so we figured it was a good time to finally do it. Fans are much more interested in new studio albums, but for those people who will never see us playing live, they can at least listen to this live album. I think the feedback was all positive.
The re-release of “Exodus” from 2013 also dates in 2022, which is actually a year too early, as the tenth anniversary isn’t actually until this year. How were these tracks re-edited? Because some of the former members are no longer active in Signum Regis.
Unlike on the “Chapter IV” re-release, we have not re-recorded anything for Exodus. We just added a couple of arrangements here and there, on top of everything that we had backed up from the original recording. We sent it all to Jacob Hansen to make it sound better than the original. Once again, Jacob was the right person for the job. He did a fantastic job, and the album now sounds twice as good as before.
I would like to thank you once again for this interview. Is there anything else you would like to say to the fans at the end?
Thank you for your interest in our band and your support. We appreciate it! My recommendation for those readers who haven’t heard about us before: check out our new album UNDIVIDED. It’s the best introduction to our band.
Signum Regis are:
Jota Fortinho – Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals
Filip Koluš – Guitars
Ronnie König – Bass
Ján Tupý – Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Jaro Jančula – Drums
Diskographie:
Signum Regis – Album (2008)
The Eyes of Power – Album (2010)
Exodus – Album (2013)
Through the Storm – EP (2015)
Chapter IV: The Reckoning – Album (2015)
Decennium Primum – Album (2017)
Addendum Primum – EP (2017)
The Seal of a New World – Album (2019)
Flag of Hope – EP (2020)
Exodus – Album (Remixed, Remastered) (2022)
Made in Switzerland – Live-Album (2022)
Undivided – Album (2023)
Social Media:
Homepage https://www.signum-regis.com/
Bandcamp https://signumregis.bandcamp.com/
Deezer https://www.deezer.com/en/artist/168753
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SignumRegis/
ReverNation https://www.reverbnation.com/signumregis
Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/signum-regis
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/signumregis
