interview with SEMBLANT

What´s the name of your band? SEMBLANT

How was the band formed?

The band started in 2006, the only original members left are Sergio Mazul (male vocals) and Guto (keyboards).

I entered the band in 2010, I remember I had a concert with Hawthorn at Opera 1 (an old club in Curitiba), and there I met Sergio Mazul. At the same day he invited me to join Semblant. It took us a while to find the right members, but I believe the present formation is the most solid one.

Can you tell about your band? The big difference among other bands is on the two vocalists. Sergio Mazul sings in a lot of different styles, like growl, drive, screams and clean, and Mizuho Lin joins him with the more melodic parts. I believe this makes the songs not boring. Another great difference is in our songs. It’s hard to label the band as only Gothic Mtal, there are other elements that can be considered Black, Thrash and even Heavy!! I like the lyrics a lot too.

Where are all band members from?/Who does what in the band?

There are seven members on the band, and we all live here in Curitiba, PR, Brazil.

Sergio Mazul - Male Vocals

 Mizuho Lin – Female Vocals

Sol Perez - Guitars

Juliano Ribeiro - Guitars

Guto - Keyboards

João Vitor - Bass                            

Welyntom Sikora “Thor” - Drums

What was the ambitions of the band when you started? We had the dream of recording a CD, and to make a living out of music.

Could you explain your music to someone that haven't heard you? We are a seven piece band, with two seven string guitars. Our songs are heavy and at the same time we mix aggressive and melodic vocals. Our lyrics talk about the dark side of humanity.

Where was your first gig? My first gig was at school, i believe I was around 15 years old.

Where was the latest gig? My last show with Sembland was in a rock bar named Blood here in Curitiba. It was the releasing concert of our second studio album (Lunar Manifesto)

Who writes your songs?/Who writes the music who writes lyrics? I usually compose some songs, and Sergio and Mizuho write the lyrics to it, and usually Juliano writes full songs and lyrics himself.

What's good/bad with the band?/What genre do you feel you are? One of the hard things is that we have a lot of members, so its hard to make a rehearsal schedule that matches with everyone’s availability. The good thing is that everyone is very close and focused on a same goal. We still label ourselves as Ghothic Metal.

Why did you pick that particular style?/What are your songs about? I Always liked Gothic metal, but our songs have a Strong influence of Black, Heavy and Death metal.

Do you write your own material or mainly covers? Semblant plays only songs we wrote, but I have side projects like Diabolus Intervention, a Slayer Tribute, and Aidaime, a band that plays covers from the 80’s and 90’s.

Have you made any albums?/If yes what are they?

EP SEMBLANT – BEHIND THE MASK

Full Length SEMBLANT – LUNAR MANIFESTO

Do you have any clips on YouTube?

Our music vídeo will be released soon, we have the following lyric vídeo available.

Semblance - The Shrine (Official Lyric Video)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzpTKXPBZkA

How old are you?/What got you started in music? I am 31, and my father started teaching me. I loved it since the very beginning.

At what age did you start playing? I was 13.

How old were you guys when you first stood on stage? My first gig with Semblant was on 2010, on “Medievil” on a club name “Ego Club” in São Paulo, so I was 27.

What year was the band started? 2006

Best/worst gig you've played?

Our best gig i believe was our last one, releasing our full lenght, Lunar Manifesto.

The worst one was doublessly “Metal Open Air”. We crossed the whole country for the show, and the event was a complete disaster.

A lot of bands would play on this festival, like Venom, Megadeth, Slayer, and a bunch of others. But it lacked security, structure, what led to the cancellation of all these bands.

What places will you be playing in in the imidate future? With Semblant we don’t have any gigs scheduled. With Andaime, on January 31st.

Where have you played from then till now?

- The band has already played in some of the main festivals in Brazil, such as;

* VAMP FESTIVAL 2007 – 11th Edition (São Bernardo do Campo/SP)  * NATIONAL FINAL WACKEN METAL BATTLE 2009 (Campo Grande/RJ)  * RIVER ROCK 2010 – 12th Edition (Indaial/SC) * PALACE OF SIN –2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Edition (Curitiba/PR) * NIGHT METAL FEST 2010 (Adamantina/SP) * ORQUÍDEA ROCK FESTIVAL – 6th Edition (Lages/SC) * BROTHERS OF METAL 2011 – 8th Edition (Timbó/SC) * LADY LETHAL 2011 (Curitiba/PR) * OTACILIO ROCK FESTIVAL 2012 – 6th Edition (Otacílio Costa/SC)

*MATANZA FEST CURITIBA 2012 (Curitiba/PR)

* OTACILIO ROCK FESTIVAL 2013 – 7th Edition (Otacílio Costa/SC)

*MATANZA FEST CURITIBA 2013 (Curitiba/PR)

*LIVE METAL FEST 2013 – CURITIBA (Curitiba/PR)

*INFERNO METAL FEST 2014 (Criciúma/SC)

- Opening act for TRISTANIA in Curitiba/PR (2007);

- Opening act for NIGHTWISH on the “Dark Passion Play Tour” in Curitiba/PR and Fortaleza/CE; - Winner of the WACKEN METAL BATTLE in 2009;

- Opening act for THE AGONIST in Curitiba/PR (2011);

- Opening act for REVAMP in Curitiba/PR (2014);

-Opening act for ANGRA in Curitiba/PR (2014);

Witch band is the best you´ve seen? SEPULTURA

What has been the best/most promising gig so far? Hard to answer that. The biggest one was na opening act for Angra. The most importante i really don’t know.

Have you had any bigger tours from start to now? Not yet, we had trouble finding the present members, and as we released our first álbum now, we are starting to think about bigger gigs.

How big crowds do you usually play for? In festivals, usually 600 to 1000 people, and in smaller gigs for 200 to 300 people.

What are the plans for the rest of the year? We just finished recording our new music vídeo, that soon will be released, and our plans are to play as much as possible.

Where do you usually play? In Curitiba - PR(Brasil),Santa catarina (Brasil), São paulo (Brasil)

How do you get psyched up for a gig? We usually stay in the dressing room warming up, and we make a all-together moment before going on stage.

What are your goals with your music? Tour around Europe.

When did you decide to go all in for the music? I play since i was 13, but when i was around 21 I started to really put myself into it. I even taught guitar in a music school and i had a recording studio for about 7 years.

Is it easier to get your inspiration from older bands or from bands more modern? I like bands like Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Guns ‘n’ Roses and others, but bands that fit more to our style are Epica, Nightwish, Evergrey, Moonspell, Cradle of Filfth, etc.

What are your sources of inspiration? I like Science fiction and horror movies. I always wanna write something after seeing a movie.

What's the first step when making a new song? I Always think about na opening part, and i start writing the keyboards.

How do you feel about the downloading of music instead of buying albums? It’s interesting for you to know new bands and styles, but it’s fundamental to buy the merchand to help the band make a living out of it.

What would be your dreams for the band? A tour around Europe, Japan...

Besides your own music, what genres and bands do you listen to? I like bands like Textures, Sepultura, Cradle of Filth, Angra, Almah, Cavalera Conspiracy and etc.

What would be your greatest fears for the future? Give up on everything.

When you are on stage, what do you fear most then? Our greatest fear is that our sound live is not well “soundchecked” for the audience.

Have you been part of any other projects? “THE CLEANERS GANG BAND” will be realeasing a EP at the second half of this year.

Have you been in any other bands? I played in “ALBRA” (produced by Felipe Andreoli – Angra), Hawthorn (Black Metal), Vulture of Corpse (Black Metal) and K.H.I.L.D. (New Metal.)

What do you work with outside of the band and the music? Solder Teacher, Musical Producer, Free-lancer.

What would you do if there was no music? Sports. I’m graduated in Taek-won-do. Love Sports.

How important are your fans? It’s a very special moment when someone says he/she is our fan. We feel great. A dream coming true.

What's the funniest/most memorable thing a fan has done for you? I have seen a girl crying because of our music, and i Always get compliments.

How often do you rehearse? I study guitar 1 hour a day, and we practice all together once a week.

Where do you rehearse? Estudio M-Audio - Curitiba

Name 2 of your own songs you like at the moment? The Shrine, 11:11 The Door is Open.

What do you feel is the best live band you've seen? Sepultura

What drives a band that isn't all that famous and renowned to try to make a living on their music and to keep playing? The dream of getting somewhere. We believe in that.

Do you have any webpages?                         

www.semblant.com.br

https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialSemblant

https://www.youtube.com/user/solguitar

Any pearls of wisdom for all other bands out there?      

We consider ourselves a new band too. What we do is to try being professional 100% of the time, like in photos, recordings, graphics, websites. But above all we do what we love.

How do you view the musicindurty of today? In Brazil the underground scene is huge. We have loads of new bands, but living from metal is almost impossible. I believe the majority of bands that play metal here in English want to release an album outside, like in Europe.

What are the biggest obstacles for a band? Make a living out of it.

What is best/worst with playing the clubs?        

There are clubs well structured, that is awesome.

But sometimes the structure sucks for the band AND for the audience.

Until this moment we haven’t playd in a bad place, that is luck.

Tell us about upcomming gigs and why we should be at them? We still haven’t scheduled our next gig this year. You should all be there, cause all this time we spent in studio, we developed the band and each one of ourselves. We feel we are 100% ready to perform a perfect show.

Whats your Pre-show ritual? Normally i just warm up.

Do you have anything to add? Thank for the interview, who knows someday the dream to tour around Europe comes true and we get to meed Sweden!

Kommentarer:

1 Mizca:

Svar: Åh, tack! Det värmer!

2 Ronja knutsson:

jisses vilket häftigt hår hon har! :)

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