What was the beginning point for your music career? How did it all start?
Well, we started Revenge Of The Fallen, as a band, at the end of 2017. Had a slow start, as most of us had other musical projects, just making enough songs to make a live appearance early in 2018, in a club in our hometown, which was the spark we needed. From then on, we fully focused entirely on this project, and in the same year we released our first EP “Pareidolia”. From there to here, we recorded in 2019 the “UnBroken” EP and this year’s “Echo Chambers” album, released last April. All of them, plus a one-off single called “The Ballad Of The Saints”, which was released on the first day of 2021, are available on every streaming platform.
Were there any bumps on the road? What kind of challenges did you have to deal with?
Like so many bands out there, we found ourselves a bit adrift when the Covid Pandemic started. During the first lockdown we were constantly meeting on Zoom, and just talking about life and what we were d oing, if everyone was ok. Because that’s what a family does – taking care of one another.Like everyone else, we were in the dark, we didn’t know what the future held for us, or even if we had one in the first place, everything was so confusing and so chaotic. After some uncertain time, we thought “ well, since we are stuck at home, at least we have time to work on some music”. First we thought about recording the songs we had and were left from the first two EP’s, but we realized we had precious time in our hands that we could use for something more meaningful and more immediate. Something new, fresh and up to date, with lyrics written with contemporary issues. That’s when we decided to start working on new music, which would lead to the recording of our very first album, “Echo Chambers”.
What was the most fulfilling and satisfying moment so far?
We’ll have to say the recording and release of “Echo Chambers”. As we mentioned before, it took us some time to manage it, because we were in the middle of the pandemic, and the lockdowns kept us systematically at home. If by one hand it would allow us to further write new stuff and develop the ideas we already had, it wouldn’t allow us to brainstorm them all together in the same room. So that would take some time, more than what we would generally take. Nevertheless, we can all agree that in the end, we did quite alright and we couldn’t be more appreciative of the effort and sacrifices we made in order to see it all happen.
How would you describe the music that you typically create?
Our music is massively influenced by whatever life throws at us. Very much like every artist or musician out there, it’s very pleasant to take an instrument and let it speak our emotions out. It’s very rewarding to see something get created by a feeling or a will to speak out what we have inside, good or bad. The heaviness in our music comes, of course, from growing up listening to metal. It’s a genre that lives in you, not something temporary. The melodic parts or the more clean parts of the songs, it’s something we find necessary to balance the music. Like life, we all need balance, even in the music we produce.
What is your creative process like?
Usually, and this is the recurrent dynamic of the band, it all starts with a sketch or demo of a song Fábio writes. Then Cláudio adds his lyrics and André, Martin and Carlão add their flavor and their input. It’s a very organic way of working that led us to this place and we’re pretty happy with the music we do, and the way we create it. The inspiration might come from a bad situation you had, and you just want to purge it out of your system, or in a very opposite direction, it might be the best day of your life, and you just want to share your joy. Most often, the results are quite interesting: on a bad day we write cooler and more downtempo riffs, sort of in a way to easen yourself, while when you had a great day we write heavier licks, just to pump you up.
If you could change anything about the industry, what would it be?
Well this is a very interesting question! We’ll make a three part answer:
1) The music industry should be more diverse, after all there’s a world out there. The major labels only care for numbers and results, so they measure the quality of an artist by the sales they project to that artist or album.It could be different, and it would be awesome if the artist had more freedom to do his thing and had more respect from the labels.
2) Then, there’s also a great amount of responsibility on the artists that let themselves be changed, musically and visually, in order to sell more. It’s all good if you want and try to sell more, but that doesn’t necessarily mean selling your soul and what you project yourself as a musician or artist to be ignored. That implies that for selling more, all artists “should” do just that. And that’s where the rope breaks, because it’s not good to meddle with the purity of art. It becomes dull and frivolous.
3) It’s ok to like the music that the music industry delivers us through the usual channels – radio and music televisions – but it wouldn’t harm people if they were a little bit more inclusive and more curious about other artists, unsigned, or underground bands. There are so many great artists out there, that would blow people’s minds. So, our suggestion would be: discover by yourselves, not by labels, mainstream media or algorithms.
If you were asked to give a piece of advice to upcoming bands, what would that be?
Make music that you are proud of and let no one change it. Rehearse until you play said music with your eyes closed, playing upside down and in reverse. Put the necessary amount of thought and plan ahead of every move. Brainstorm everything and deliver it all when you step on stage. Even if you never “make it” the feeling of owning it will always be there and will always propel you forward.
What has been the best performance of your career so far?
We’ve had some amazing shows in the past, but we feel, in all honesty, that we’re still on an upward trajectory.
We try to make our next show always better than the previous one. We have fun on stage, laugh, feel the good energy we get when the five of us get together and we always try to link people, who have paid their hard earned money, to us. The communion we get is a rush like no other. It’s the most important thing when we play live: to have fun and to connect with people, in a way there’s this huge positive energy. Everyone must go home feeling tired, but feeling great!
If you didn’t become a musician, what would you be doing now?
Honestly, and we’ve said this in another interview, we’re all great cooks, so we could all have been great chefs!
That or oenologists. We do love great wine!
What is new with the band at the moment? What are you currently working on and would like to share with the world?
We’re still promoting the album, live in Portugal, until the end of the year. That’s the main focus of the band right now. Even still, we’re working already on some new songs that may be the starting point for the next album. And there’s a lot of enthusiasm about the new music, which makes it so much easier and organic.
For the next year we’re trying very hard to play abroad.
That’s a very interesting move, and we’re trying to make it happen. Let’s see where it goes!
The Band
Cláudio Santos (vocals)
Fábio Gil (guitar and backup vocals)
André Seia (guitar and backup vocals)
Martín Gaspar (bass)
Carlos Araújo (drums)
