interview med FAETHOM
What is the name of your band? FAETHOM
Name of the band-members?
David Diacrono (co-founder/co-composer/Lead guitar/Studio bass/Drum programming)
Mariela Muerte (co-founder/co-composer/Lyrics/Vocals/Keyboards)
Hermes Reyes (Live drums)
Fabian Lopez (Live Second Guitar)
Julian Guillen (Live Bass)
Where did you grow up? David was born and raised in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Hermes was born and raised in Cali, Colombia. Fabian was born and raised in Santiago, Chile. Julian was born in Colombia as well. I (Mariela) was born in Cochabamba, Bolivia, raised in California, USA, moved back to Bolivia for high school, and moved to Florida in 2001.
How old are you? We are all in our mid 20s to early 30s.
Who started the band? David and I stared the band and wrote and recorded the music for our debut album “In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Unholy” over a period starting 2006 and ending 2011. It was a long, hard road because we did it all on our own. We released the album in November of 2011. In 2008, when we saw that we had enough material, we started searching for musicians to perform live. We first contacted an Argentinean bassist named Federico Vidal, who joined the band in late 2008, and shortly after we contacted our current drummer Hermes who also joined the band in late 2008. We started rehearsing but sadly we parted ways with Hermes before we could play our first show, and we recruited Californian drummer Thomas Wittig, who played with us for many shows. We parted ways with Thomas in 2011 and as fate would have it, Hermes returned to the band, and we have been happily playing with him since. We recruited our 2nd guitarist Fabian in late 2011. Unfortunately, in early 2013 we parted ways with our bassist and long-time friend Federico, who still remains a close friend of the band. We enlisted the help of Julian Guillen who for now he is helping us out with the next couple of shows we have lined up.
Where have you played 2012/2013? In 2012-2013 we have played at many great venues such as: Culture Room (Fort Lauderdale), Grand Central (Miami), The Brass Mug (Tampa), MVP Sports Bar (Alabama), Mickey’s Bar (Pompano Beach), Beelzebub’s Cave (Miami), Club Eve (Miami), Area 7 (Oakland Park), to name a few.
Where can people see you? We are currently playing mostly in Florida, but we hope to be able to tour south of the USA at least in the next couple of months, if money allows. It’s always an issue with money and time. We all work full-time jobs and don’t have the money to set off on a tour yet, we don’t even have reliable transportation. But, if you want to check out our music, and see live videos of us, you can check out our you tube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/faethom
Do you have a web-site?
Yes. Our website is: http://faethomweb.com/
Please LIKE us on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/faethom
What is the name of your best song? That’s a really hard question to answer because every song we have written is like our child and we can’t really choose between one of our children. But, we can name a few of the songs that we have gotten most feedback from the fans of our music. “The Letter” has always been a song that gets a lot of positive feedback; we released a video for this song in July of 2012. You can see it here: http://youtu.be/IU6QPD28QYg
We have also received great feedback for: Thou Shall Follow (we are currently working on a video for this song), Beware the King, A Lifetime of Emptiness, Live in Dread, and Lullaby for Heathen Spawn. Recently, we released a song that will be on our 2nd concept album called “Héroes de las Minas.” It’s a song that is in Spanish and little bit of Quechua, the native tongue of Bolivia. We have received AMAZING feedback on this song and we can’t wait to play it live. You can listen to it here: http://youtu.be/h3E7qI_tSR8
Who plays what? Well, here we must clarify who plays what instrument in the studio and who plays what instrument live. David and I compose and record all the music for Faethom. We have a small home-studio set up where we do the recording. David and I compose the music together then David records all the guitar and bass tracks. He also arranges the drums with a drum program. We would love to eventually record Hermes playing the drums especially on the new album but it’s a matter of being able to afford the studio time and have the proper gear to record the music at its best quality. Live drums are the best thing for any Metal band, we know this very well, but David did a superb job arranging and mixing the drums with the program so it worked for us on the 1st album. Also keep in mind that we started recording most of the songs off our first album when it was just the two of us. David and I collaborate during the mixing and then he works on the editing and mastering. David started off not knowing much editing, mixing, and mastering and now he is incredibly knowledgeable, which I must commend him for because it took a lot of hours of reading, learning, blood, sweat, and tears for him to get the right sound for our music. I play the keyboards, sing, and write the lyrics. For the live experience: Hermes plays the drums, Fabian plays the second guitar, and Julian plays the bass. We are very fortunate to work with these incredibly talented musicians. We can’t perform our music in front of and audience without them and we are very grateful for all the time and dedication they invest into this band, as we are grateful to all the past members of the band who have worked with us.
What kind of music are you into? David and I love Traditional Heavy Metal, Blackened Metal, Black Metal, Blackened Thrash, Speed Metal, Power Metal, Death Metal, METAL, METAL, METAL! Bands such as Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Rotting Christ, Necros Christos, Satan, Hell, Unleashed, Witchery, Sigh, Emperor, Ancient, Darkthrone, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Helloween, Sabbat (Japan), Urn, Absu, 1349, Candlemass, Lucifer’s Friend, Pentagram (USA), Rata Blanca, Santa, Angeles del Infierno, Baron Rojo, to name a few. But of course, one can get inspired by different types of music. For example, apart from Metal, David and I listen to Gothic music, Blues, Jazz, Gypsy Swing, Big Band, Rock & Roll, New Wave, to name a few. Now I am answering for the rest of my band mates from what I know of them. If I am wrong, they may massacre me he he. Fabian loves New Wave music just like we do as well and Traditional and Power Metal. I know for a fact that he adores Rush and Iron Maiden. He likes powerful vocals and epic guitar riffing. Hermes has a very varied and eclectic musical taste which is great for a drummer because he can bring so many different flavors to the table. From what I know and learned from him, he likes many different rhythms ranging from blast beats to Latin beats, which is very complicated music to play, to Jazz rhythms, just to name a few. I know that he loves Black Metal, bands like Ancient and Emperor, Death Metal, Thrash, Power and Traditional Metal, but also appreciates the diversity and complexity of bands such as The Muse and The Mars Volta. Julian, is the most recent member, but, I know he is very much into Black Metal, Doom, Stoner Metal, Grind-core, and Death Metal. But, the common denominator for all of us, is that METAL RULES!
Have you been on tour this summer? No, sadly we are unable to tour because of money issues but we hope to be able to soon.
Do you have a planed tour anytime soon? Possibly we may do a small tour in late 2013 or early 2014. We shall see.
Who came up with the band name? I did. I was reading a book and a word kept catching my attention: Fathom. But, when we saw that a few bands had that same name, we decided to spell it the old English way like this: F-A-E-T-H-O-M. So that is how FAETHOM became our band name.
Who writes the songs? David and I compose all the music for Faethom.
What song do you play the most? We always try to play THOU SHALL FOLLOW, THE LETTER, and LULLABY FOR HEATHEN SPAWN. We have been closing our set with Lullaby for Heathen Spawn for almost three years now! It is a very powerful song and great to close with.
Do you play the same songs each performance? Our album has 13 songs, so we are able to switch up our set list at every show, which is a good thing. We try to keep it diverse.
Have you released an album or single? Yes, we released our debut concept album in November of 2011: In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Unholy. It is a concept album based on a story I wrote. If you get the album, you can read the lyrics as you listen to the music to experience the whole story, much like all of King Diamond’s albums. We are huge fans of Mercyful Fate and King Diamond and we love that King Diamond always tells a story in his songs. That is what we strive to do with our music. We are going to release a demo with 2-3 new songs soon in anticipation of our 2nd concept album which we hope to release by the end of 2013. This one will also be based on a story I wrote and is set in a fictional Bolivian town, another Metal tale of terror! In my opinion, Horror and Heavy Metal go hand in hand.
Are you working on any new songs? Yes, we are currently writing new songs for the new album. They have a very traditional feel to them and we are incorporating some of the music styles of Bolivia. “Héroes de las Minas” is the first song we have released so far and we just finished another song called “School Day Terror” which we will be releasing very soon. We will release a 2-3 song demo in the next couple of weeks to promote the new album and then we hope to be able to go into the studio to record the album in its entirety.
