Interview with Personal Signet

Have any of you played in other bands? All of us had or currently have other projects or music activities. I play in trash-death metal band Scenery and have some solo project tooJ. Our singer Peter Aristone has his own solo project as well. Our drummer Belki currently enjoys playing cover songs from famous bands from 60´s and 70´s with a band called 4WD. And our bassist Mumlay plays only in Personal Signet now but in the past he had many other music activities.

How is it that you started playing music? Belki started playing the drums when he was 6 and I started playing music little bit later, when I was a teenager.
We met at primary school and when we were16 we found a school band called Anthracit playing hard rock songs from 70´s and 80´s.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you?
Peter Aristone –vocal (34)
Lerry – guitar (43)
Mumlay – bass (47)
Belki – drums (43)

Have you had other previous members? Yes, we had bassist Mirek on first demo TRY-OUT but unfortunately due to his health issue with his hands he had to stop playing the bass for some time. During his absence we had been looking for a new bass-player and finally we met Mumlay. I think it was a fate because he is absolutely the best member we could ever have had.

Did you make music even when you were young? Yes, of course. For all of us music is our lifelong activity and way of life.  As mentioned before, Belki and I played in a school band Anthracit and later we found thrash-death metal band Section Brain. After three years playing together we split up and I found a new band Scenery.

Where are you from? Belki and I are from Mohelnice, Mumlay is from Svitavy, which is only 30km from Mohelnice. Both cities are in the eastern part of the Czech Republic.
Peter was born in Bratislava – Slovakia, but now he lives in Prague, which is 230km from Mohelnice.

What year did the band from? I think we started playing in 2003, it is such a long time, isn´t it?J.

What's your style of genre? We make some experiments in our music but we can say it is close to progressive – rock / metal or art rock /metal.

What inspires you? We try to do our own music and we enjoy it. We are really happy when we arrange a new song and it sounds very well to us. But frankly speaking we are influenced by famous bands such as Dream Theater, Fates Warning and many others.

How often and where do you rehearse? We meet in our rehearsal room in Mohelnice. Currently, our rehearsal frequency is quite low due to the fact that our drummer is living abroad but he visits his home country regularly, so we have approximately three rehearsals in two months. In this situation it is the most important to have a good self-preparation and thanks to new technologies it is now much easier.

How have you developed since you started with the music? Hard to say I think that it is a question for someone else. Generally speaking there must be some natural development after more than 20 years of playing music. At the beginning, when all of us started with pure trash metal, we can say that our music now is more sophisticated with a wider range of music genre and a higher level of composition.

Are you looking for a booking agency or label and what are your thoughts around that? Yes, actually we are looking for both but not so much intensively because we have some limited cooperation with one Czech label/agency called BrainZone.                               

What made you decide to make this music? We want to be famous and respectedJ It is a jokeJ In fact we love to do our own music as it gives us a lot of energy, positive feelings and it is the best way how to relax and mitigate all negative aspects of daily life.

What are your songs about? Our songs are mainly about every day troubles of human beings and an attitude of life. 

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics?
Peter and I usually bring new motives or sometimes even almost complete songs, and we do together a final version in rehearsal room. In many cases it is a long-term process.
Peter and his two friends write lyrics. So, actually our band is bigger and bigger.                                       

Do you start with the music or the lyrics? Good question, in my case the music is the first but Peter might have a different way of working.

Do you compose in a certain environment? Yes at my home studio in front of my PCJ.

Have you done any covers live? We as Personal Signet do not. Playing our own songs is enough for us!

What language do you sing in? In English – it seems like the best language for singing.

What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs?  Quite a big range, from numbers counted on the fingers of one hand up to 300 people in clubs but we also played festivals attended by several thousand people.

What ages are most of your concert attendants?  It is hard to say – from 17 till 50?? It could be.

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary?  We usually play all songs from the latest album and in addition to that one or two older songs, it depends on available time we have. But we are able to perform all our songs.

Do you have a regular place you play live often? We have one place where we play every year, it is a club called Tyjatr in Svitavy. By the way it is a home town of our bassist Mumlay. There is always a fantastic atmosphere and great fans!

What was your first gig like?  I really don’t remember.

What was your latest gig? It was quite recently. We played in Rock Club Brooklyn in Brno, supporting our new CD.

Where have you played live this year? We have had 6 gigs in our country supporting our new album Fundamental Human Instinct.

Where do you plan to gig the coming year? Our plan for next year is still under negotiation but there is already one fixed date. In Germany – Reichenbach 1-2.4.2016 – Art rock music festival.

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? I think it was when our first CD was released. Currently we can offer T-shirts, wristband and buttons. Actually we are preparing new T-shirts, which will be available soon..

Where can people buy your merchandise? Here is link: http://personalsignet.bandcamp.com/merch   

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? If you do music for money it could be a big problem but if you do it for pleasure – it is not a problem. Recently downloading is a kind of advertisement and if the whole CD is good and you have a good life performance, your die-hard fans will buy your CD, anyway.

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Yes, it is a very good question – and you called it correctly “industry”!!! I think it is similar to sport when big money is involved then real talent is out and money is driving all decisions.  I think that music should be about art and feelings and not a tool for earning money. I know it seems like utopian or naive idea but we believe it and it is our attitude.     

What do you think of my work? You are like us, if you like it, you do it. Thank you and people like you that you do it for us, musicians! 

How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? Every little helps.

Do you have any role models or idols? When we are older and older all role models and idols slowly disappear. Now it is time to be role models for others.

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? It is all about the basics. When you compare old and modern bands I would say that today´s bands have a great sound which seems to be more important for many listeners rather than real content and feelings. We believe that the old interpretation of music will exceed most recent trend in music and it will revert to the basics.

What have been your biggest obstacles?  There is a lot of big and small obstacles.For someone it could be many for someone unfair people. But up to now we are able to fight with them.     

What advice would you give other bands or artists?  It is absolutely easy – do music for you and stand up for it!!! The music never let you alone but you can only leave the music!!!

How do you get psyched for a gig?  We are always looking forward to it! It is a part of our life, we do music for playing gigs.

Do you have any new material? We have about 4 to 5 new half-songs and actually we are composing them.

What are your web sites?
www.personalsignet.com
www.personalsignet.cz

www.facebook.com/personalsignet
www.bandzone.cz/personalsignet

How can people reach you?

My e-mail: [email protected]  or people can visit our website.

If people want to support us they can buy our CD http://personalsignet.bandcamp.com/

What are your plans for the future? To play more and more our music not only for us but also for our fans.

Do you have something to add?  Thank you very much for being placed on your website and interest in our music.  So, good luck and a lot of good quality music on your website!

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