Robex Lundgren

Have any of you played in other bands? Hello, I am Adrian Benegas, keyboardist of Pergana. Thanks for the interview! Yes, Angela and Matt played in some local cover bands in the past. I played and recorded in local bands as guest and actually have another band called Abracadabra, where I play the keyboard and write songs too.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? Adrian Benegas (Keyboards, composer. 26 years old), Angela Aquino (Vocals. 19 years old), Matt Martinez (Guitars. 20 years old), Seba Ramirez (Drums. 27 years old).

Have you had other previous members? Yes, on the first EP. Singer Audrey Laure, guitarist Mauro Mercado, Alex Holzwarth on drums and Oliver Holzwarth on bass.

Where are you from? We are from South America, from Paraguay.

Everything started in 2007 when, having written many musical ideas, melodies and lyrics, I felt it was time to start a personal project. After the first half of 2008, I started talking to Alex and Oliver Holzwarth (musicians I always admired) about having them in for some demos. They liked the songs and the idea, so we started working together. At the beginning of 2009, the project was complete, when Mauro and Audrey came along with the very same ideas, goals, music influences and dreams that I always had for his project, so we started working on the songs I wrote until then, and decided to record an EP with the ones we liked the most. We really loved the results and decided to release one of the songs as a single in November 2010. That single received outstanding acceptance in the local press. 

After that, we released the EP on June 20 of 2011, receiving a lot of good comments and excellent reviews too. In 2012, the singer took a step aside for personal reasons and due to that situation; we were forced to stop the activities of the project.

After a long time looking for the right singer, I met Angela in June 2015. She surprised me with her beautiful voice so I invited her to join Pergana. After that, Matt joined as the new guitar player, replacing our friend Mauro who took a different musical direction forming his own band.

Since then, everything went fast and smooth and the result of the good vibe into the project was the completion of a new EP that we will release this November 5.

What's your style of genre? I think you can place Pergana somewhere between “Symphonic Metal” and “Melodic Metal”.

What inspires you? Life.

What made you decide to make this music? When I was younger, I felt the desire and need to express my feelings and canalize some experiences from my life through music so I started Pergana.

What are your songs about? Most of the songs are about dreams, spiritual stuff and positive or negative experiences from life that inspires and teaches me.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? Pergana is my personal project so; I compose all the songs and lyrics.

Do you start with the music or the lyrics? I always start with the lyrics, I write it about experiences I lived or something that inspired me, then, I compose the music for it. I just follow my feelings according to the lyrics I wrote.

Do you compose in a certain environment? I usually feel more comfortable writing late at night, when I’m relaxed and no one is around. That is because to me, silence is essential to keep my mind focused on what I want to express.

What language do you sing in? All the songs are in English for the moment.

What do you think of my work? I think it is great; thanks to you, many people get to share their thoughts and art. You give other people the chance to make their work known. I really appreciate your work!

What have been your biggest obstacles? Maybe the biggest one happened when the former members left the project after the release of the debut EP.

Yes, we are releasing a new EP called “THE VISIT”. We’ll share the official audio + lyrics video of all the songs on Pergana’s YouTube Channel. The first one will be released this November 5. Soon after, the EP will be available in all major digital/online stores.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the process of making this new EP too. All the recordings were done at BlindOwlStudio (Paraguay) except the drums and bass for the bonus track that was recorded at Angels Cry Studios (Germany) by the Holzwarth Brothers, who were invited again as special guests. The bass recordings of the other songs and mixing was in charge of our producer Aldo Benegas and the mastering process took place at Finnvox Studios by Mika Jussila. The graphic artist Jonas Jödicke made the wonderful artwork, the photographer Iván Astigarraga took the promo pics and Luis Mendoza made all the official video lyrics.

I hope I’m not forgetting some people here, haha… So then, I would like to invite you and your readers to listen to our new EP that will be available on our YouTube channel from November 5!

What are your web sites? You can contact us at info@pergana.net and find our stuff on facebook (www.facebook.com/pergana), YouTube (www.youtube.com/perganaband), and Instagram (@perganaofficial).

What are your plans for the future? First, we have plans to release a music video of one of the songs and perform a few local shows but on 2016 our priority will be the production of our first full-length album.

Do you have something to add? I would like to say thank you very much for the interview, wish you all the best and say thanks to the fans for their priceless support!