Greetings! From Metalheads Forever Magazine, How are you guys?
We are great! About to start another tour this time with Children of Bodom.
Can you please introduce the Band to the readers?
We are a six piece prog band called Oni, which has a Xylosynth player.
In Japanese folklore, the “ONI” is a malevolent shape shifting demon, able to take on many guises as it spreads pain and misery, can you tell us a little about this and it’s relevance and significance to the band themes or concepts?
It represents our music perfectly. We are a progressive metal band and a shape shifting demon really represents what we do. Shapeshifting can seem very prog and themes of pain and suffering can be very metal, we try to use these elements when we write both lyrics and music. Our influences vary, with that said our music moves and changes constantly which musicians way of shapeshifting.
Your debut “Ironshore” Is scheduled to be released on November 25, which will be in 3 weeks from now, is everything set, how do you feel about it?
Feels great, we are all super excited. Can’t wait for people to finally hear it!, Metal Blade has been awesome.
How do you feel about working with Josh Wilbur, are you guys happy about the outcome?
We couldn’t be happier with the outcome. Josh’s ear for mixing is unmatched in our opinion. He also helped a lot with arrangements and vocal ideas.
You will be touring with Children of Bodom, Abbath and Exmortus starting the last week of November, how do you feel about sharing stage with these bands?
We are incredibly honoured we have been huge Bodom fans for a while now some of us have seen them many times live. Whether you hear it or not we have been influenced by them greatly so it’s amazing to be able to open for them. We are so stoked about Exmortus and Abbath as well. The line up is so heavy and I think that our styles will complement each other well.
You have taken Progressive metal to a new level, with growling vocals and amazing music, I greatly enjoyed the songs “Eternal recurrence” and “Barn Burner”, the guitar riffs, the vocals on the soft and growl was perfect, what was your thoughts when you first decided to make something so raw and epic like this?
We wanted to make music that would stand the test of time and represent ourselves as musicians. It can be hard at times to do that with so many people in the band all wanting to have their ideas heard. The final outcome was from the push and pull that came naturally from those sessions.
Is “Ironshore” released through the official “Oni “webpage, or do you sell through any other modes of retailers?
You can grab a copy from us at our merch table, through Metalblade.com or at your favorite record store as well as on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon.
It was a pleasure talking to you guys, We hope to see you soon on the road, do you have a message for the readers of Metalheads Forever Magazine and fans all across the World?
Hold your heads up high and believe in yourselves.
We would like to take a moment to thanks you guys immensely for taking the time out of your busy schedule to sit and talk with us. At a future date we would love to sit and talk a little further, as there are a million other questions we would loved to have asked. All the best to you and your future endeavours.
Anytime thanks for having us.
Keith Clement / Metalheads Forever Magazine
