Interview with DIAMOND FALCON
Have any of you played in other bands? Savage: Yes, we have all played in bands before. Vin and myself were playing together long before in a Thrash Metal band named “Thunder Rise”. When “Thunder Rise” split up Vin was starting a Progressive Death Metal band, “Absinity”, while I was continuing with the band “Dark Signs” who were mixing Southern Rock and Thrash Metal.
Roxy was playing in an Experimental Black Metal band called “Pantokrator Incestus”.
F.K. also had several musical experiments before he joined DIAMOND FALCON.
What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? Savage: We are a five piece, all aged between 25 and 30. The guitars are done by me and F.K. Vibrato. Roxy plays the bass, Vin does the vocals. Currently our drummer is Beef Supreme.
Have you had other previous members? Savage: Vin and I had the idea of a Heavy Metal band already 2011. Since then we had other bassists and drummers, the original line up with Vin, Roxy, Beef Supreme and myself was completed by Hurricane Höms, who gave up making music for family and a solid job.
What year did the band form? Savage: DIAMOND FALCON was founded in 2012, but the idea of forming a Heavy Metal band was already given in 2011. This is where I started collecting all kinds of ideas and concepts for the songs.
What's your style of genre? Savage: Heavy Metal.
What inspires you? Savage: Vin writes his lyrics all about historical stuff, like the crusades, ancient mexican stuff, or future visions. When I’m writing lyrics it’s either personally or just some story I think might be interesting.
How often and where do you reherse? Savage: We rehearse as often as possible at, can you guess it, our rehearsal room!
How have you developed since you started with the music? Savage: We became even worse alcoholics as before we started the band. But, we’re trying to increase our songwriting all the time, and I think everybody can hear this development on our second album which we’re going to record this year.
What made you decide to make this music? Savage: Heavy Metal was pretty dead in Austria for the last years. Everywhere you were looking you found just Metalcore here, Metalcore there... That made us sick. Nobody was taking care of people that can actually really play their instrument or sing (screaming your lungs out and playing brainless breakdowns all the time has absolutely nothing to do with music!!!), so we decided to found a traditional Heavy Metal band to show the people, that there is something else than ‘everyday’s stuff’.
Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? Savage: I write most of the music and Vin writes most of the lyrics.
Do you start with the music or the lyrics? Savage: I always start with the music. After that I can write lyrics. Otherwise I am not able to write a song.
Have you done any covers live? Savage: Yes, we play some covers at our shows, and the most famous are “Aces High” by Iron Maiden and “Die by the Sword” by Slayer.
At the moment we’re also trying to play Grim Reaper’s “See you in Hell”.
What language do you sing in? Savage: English.
Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? Savage: We are varying. At the moment we increase playing new songs which will be on our second record to promote it a little bit in advance.
Do you have a regular place you play live often? Savage: There are several locations in Vienna we could play every second weekend, but we try to keep it as variable as possible. DIAMOND FALCON is one of the bands that wants to come out of their hometown to see a little bit of the world.
What was your first gig like? Savage: Our first show was together with Screamer from Sweden in early march 2013. It was a pretty solid show, but of course we developed so it’s not easy to say.
But we all had live experience before so it was not that everybody was shitting their pants before the concert.
What was your latest gig? Savage: Dragon’s Cry Festival in Vienna with great austrian bands and some bands from abroad. That was total mayhem, especially the after show party!
Where have you played live this year? Savage: This year we have played some shows in Austria, in fall we are planning to tour Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic and other countries in Eastern Europe.
Where do you plan to gig the comming year? Savage: We’ll be on a 5 days spain tour in March 2016, further dates are in the making.
When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? Savage: I don’t know, I think we started when our album ‘Heavy Metal Combat’ was released in the beginning of last year. Since then we have CD’s, MC’s, T-shirts and stickers. By the way, the album is for free! All that has to be paid are shipping costs. At the shows it’s a totally free-of –charge giveaway.
Where can people buy your merchandise? Savage: Our offers can be found on our website. If somebody would like to buy something, you can just write a mail to [email protected] and we’ll take care of it. And of course our stuff is available at our concerts.
What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records nowadays? Savage: I’m not a fan of downloading music. If you want to support a band, come to the shows and get their records. Especially underground bands that are not able to play big shows are living from the sellings of their merch.
How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Savage: Music totally lost it’s value because of all the download sites. Thousands of bands are giving their music away like it would be worth nothing. Everybody has to decide on their own what they want to do with their music but you should never forget that there are still costs and huge amounts of work behind it.
Do you have any role models or idols? Savage: Our biggest influences are definitely the old Heavy Metal heroes from the 80’s, Iron Maiden, Tokyo Blade, Tygers of Pan Tang, the list can go on endlessly.
Vin is totally into Iron Maiden, and my heroes are Slayer in the time from ’82 to ’90. These are the most formative influences you can hear in our music.
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? Savage: I take my inspiration from the above listed bands, bands nowadays are also more or less copying their styles. I don’t want to be a copy of a copy.
What have been your biggest obstacles? Savage: I think the biggest obstacle for a band that wants to become greater is the music industry in general. There are so many mediocre bands out there that are way too big so nobody will even recognize a small band, you can be as good as you want nobody will ever give you a chance.
How do you get psyched for a gig? Savage: When I enter the location, I am totally in it. This is the point where I switch over and think to myself: ‘Now I’m going to rock your asses off’. There’s no special ritual needed. And with lots of alcohol of course.
Do you have any new material? Savage: Yes, we’re going to record our second album sooner or later this year, so we already have some new songs that just are waiting to be launched.
What are your web sites? Savage: Our official homepage is: diamondfalconmetal.wix.com/ridethefalcon. You can also find us on Facebook (facebook.com/DiamondFalconMetal) and YouTube (youtube.com/user/DiamondFalconMetal). I think these are the main platforms we use.
How can people reach you? Savage: If somebody wants to contact us for general questions, booking inquiries and interviews, we have the mail adress [email protected]
For merchandise orders, we have the mail adress [email protected].
What are your plans for the future? Savage: Rockin’ and rollin’ and getting as far as we can with our music.
