Desert Interview
By Gothik Divaa
The Israeli Metallers “Desert”, will be with us in this issue of “Metalheads Forever Magazine”, talking about their career and their next album that is still a secret.
Hello guys ! Greetings from Mexico City… How are you today?
Hello there ! 😉 We are just fine – very busy with the crowdfunding campaign for our upcoming album which we’ve launched in late June. At this moment we’re putting a lot of our time and effort into it, along with our life in studio, finishing our album.
You have been in this journey for 16 years, How has the evolution of the band been in this time?
DESERT started out as a garage band, covering Edguy, Stratovarius and Manowar songs we liked. After a short period of time we’ve decided to write and compose our own songs, which were much influenced by the bands I’ve mentioned before. During the recording of our first EP, “The Way To Honor”, we realized that my voice isn’t right for a usual high pitched power metal vocal style, so we started developing our own thing. This is how Dark Epic Metal was born – with influence from dark, goth and even death metal.
Thru the years we were on this process, constantly searching for cool ideas and improving our skills, losing and gaining band members, and everyone brought something of his own to the table. The band is evolving and sounds different on each album, and the new one won’t be an exception.
You are a Dark Epic Metal band from Israel … I´m curious about the metal scene in that part of the world so tell me about it and of course I want to know, How it has been the reception of the scene with you?
Currently we are the only really active Heavy/Power metal band in Israel. There were few of them in the past, most haven’t survived… The scene in Israel is pretty big, but most of the bands are playing in more extreme/modern styles. The metal scene in Israel only started developing in the late 80-s, with huge influence of then-new thrash/death/black metal scene. At the beginning, we were kinda strange to the local crowd – because of my non-growl singing. After a while more and more people got into our style and songs, so at the moment we are grateful to have a sizable and loyal local fan base, same as abroad.
On the other hand you have several musical influences such as: Helloween, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Testament and many more. If you could collaborate with any of them with who it would be and why?
We have been blessed to be able do some cool stuff already, having worked on stage and in studio with power metal legends Joakim Broden, Ralph Scheepers, and Chris Boltendahl, among others, and it’s awesome to make music with someone who we’ve been fans of for years. You never know what the future brings… We constantly meet new friends, get inspired by new stuff. Maybe someone from the modern metal scene?Playing with the greats like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest is still a dream, and of course we’ll be very proud if one day we have a chance to do work with them.
Talking about your upcoming album, we know that you are working intensely on this project, I would like to know if you can give us clues about this album I mean, How was the creative process ? … What is the difference with the previous albums?
The process is a little bit different from our previous sessions. We decided to involve Alex Zvulun – our live second guitarist, as the producer. Alex brought in his sound and even some material, and those complement our sound and style very well. As a result, the new stuff sounds much more modern and with a lot of energy, with very complicated guitars work. It is still a DESERT album, just better – we took care of our weak points.
You will have guests on this record? and the most important detail You already have a release date?
We can now confirm that we have Chris Boltendahl from Grave Digger and Georg Neuhauser from Serenity as special guests singing on our new album. No release date yet – we are unsigned at the moment and looking for the best record deal to release it. It’s important to us to do it right. The album will be available in a variety of formats, and we’ve done some extra work to make things interesting for our fans – just look at the Indiegogo thing we’re running currently, it’s not just pre-ordering CD’s, there’s some unique content in there!
In terms of the concerts that you have performed and participated as guests in different parts of the world … for example with Sabaton, Catharsis, Blind Guardian and recently with Elvenking, How has this experience been and what is most satisfying thing about this situation?
It’s an honor and a gift, sharing the stage with the bands that have been a huge influence on us as musicians. The band became very good friends with most of them, keeping in touch not only during the gig or tour. We run our own booking agency, so often we produce their shows here in Israel. Naturally it’s always fun and you gain a lot of experience when working with such professionals.
If you had the opportunity to play with a musician or band with whom it would be and why? by the way … In which country would you like to play?
We really want to play in the Americas –never played there and only heard best feedback about the local metal scene. So if you know any promoters in Mexico do not hesitate to contact us – Desert would love to play in your amazing country!Regarding your other question – playing with metal gods like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest could really fulfill our dreams.
Finally … What is next for Desert in this 2018?
Finishing the work on our new album is the most important point for us for the moment. Then we need to work out a good record deal. The 2019 tour schedule is already in planning for the next year, that’s gonna be very intensive for us. There are plans to shoot a new video, too. The plans are huge 😉 !
Well I want to thank you for this interview for “Metalheads Forever Magazine”, we wish you the best with the upcoming album and we hope to see you soon on the road, have a nice day, Gothik Divaa.
MHF Magazine/Gothik Divaa
