interview with Falanstèr
Have any of you played in other bands? Before Falanstèr we played in other bands of diverse genres. Also, we all have simultaneous projects nowadays.
What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you?
Ligia Ishitani – Vocals. 30
Renan Fontes – Guitar. 31
Marcos Lima – Keyboards. 26
Nikolas Thorun – Drums. 27
Bruna Terroni – Guitar. 21
Have you had other previous members? We had two former members that had to leave us, Carlos and Igor. Igor, specially, played a crucial part in the development of the band's conception. He was one of our former composers and everything started with Marcos and him.
Did you make music even when you were young? We all started young in music.
Where are you from? Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. Brazil.
What year did the band form? 2016
What's your style of genre? Symphonic Metal.
What inspires you? We are inspired by bands like Angra, Nightwish, After Forever, Rhapsody of Fire, Avantasia and Symphonic Metal in general to create music wich can tell stories and share good messages. So, in addition to the usual rock instruments, we try to use all the resources we can explore to make music, like choir, orchestra, sound effects, etc. Therefore, we believe we can bring an entire experience with a great connection when you are listening to the full album.
How often and where do you rehearse?
We rehearse according to the recordings and concert demands.
Sometimes we have three rehearsals a week, and sometimes we spend one month without rehearsing.
We rehearse according to the recordings and concert demands.
Sometimes we have three rehearsals a week, and sometimes we spend one month without rehearsing.
How have you developed since you started with the music? We think music is an always developing path. So it's extremely important to be always studying music theory and technique, researching and listening to all genres. When you have the chance to record and play your music, you can learn and develop even more. So it's a beautiful unending process.
Do you have other interests of work outside the band? We are all music instructors and work outside the band with other projects in other areas of music, like soundtracking, arrangements, recording, producing. Nikolas also works in a software company.
Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? We think it could be good, because we would be able to share all the work that has currently been made by the band itself. In this way, we could occupy ourselves exclusively with the musical aspects of the whole work.
Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? Since we are in the Internet Era it's not too necessary to have a label, because we are in direct contact with the public. But we are aware that it should be easier to reach more people if we could signed with one big and famous label.
What made you decide to make this music? Three of us have studied classical and orchestral music at the University and at the same time we have always loved heavy metal and rock in general. There aren't many Sinfonic Metal bands in Brazil, but being influenced by bands of the genre around the world we have decided to make a band that could merge our academic knowledge with our heavy metal experience. Later we called Bruna and Nikolas to complete the line up.
What are your songs about? “Dark Matters” tells the story of a character called Pathfinder who is suffering for a great evil that she creates inside by herself. The story of the album, that you can follow throughout the songs, is the path she coursed in search of a mystical energy called Starfire. With this energy she could surpass that evil called Angst, but she ends up figuring out that the power she is looking for lies just inside herself.
Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? In our first album, Marcos made most of the music and lyrics. Some work in the lyrics was also done by Ligia and David (a friend of ours).
Do you start with the music or the lyrics? In the “Dark Matters” album all the songs were first composed from the music prior to the lyrics.
Do you compose in a certain environment? Marcos and Lígia composed almost the entire “Dark Matters” at home.
Have you done any covers live? No. But we want to include some covers in our future concerts.
What language do you sing in? English. In the song “Dark Matters” we have some Latin and French parts.
“Personally, I’d love to sing in any language. I think the sounds of diferent phonemes and accents really enriches the music.” (Lígia)
In the future, Portuguese is also a language we would consider writing on, because it’s our mother language.
What ages are most of your concert attendants? Between 20 and 40.
What was your latest gig? At “A Autêntica” with Forbella Spanca and Agents of Havok.
Where have you played live this year? Only in our home city Belo Horizonte.
Where do you plan to gig the comming year? Europe and Japan
What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records nowadays? It's very good that nowadays people can have more and faster access to music.
How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? We are in a transition process and maybe in the future not even downloading will make sense. Probably, some years ahead a new way to share, buy and listen to music will emerge . We can't fight against that natural process. CDs beated Vinils, and dowloading is beating CDs, all we can do is try to adjust ourselves according to the changes in the world.
How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? It's very important. With this interview we will be able to reach more people and spread our music throughout new places in the world.
Do you have any role models or idols?
Paul Gilbert, Michael Romeo, Nili Brosh, John petrucci (Bruna)
Freddie Mercury, Tarja Turunen, Angelina Jolie (Ligia)
Freddie Mercury, Tarja Turunen, Angelina Jolie (Ligia)
Andre Matos, Tuomas Holopainen (Marcos)
Martin Axenrot, Gavin Harrison, Dave Weckl (Nikolas)
Kiko Loureiro, Rafael Bittencourt, Mana-Sama, Yasutaka Nakata (Renan)
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? We don't think that there is such difference. We are inspired by both.
What have been your biggest obstacles? We think our obstacles are in general the same as all the new bands in Brazil which are not inserted in themainstream music industry have to deal with. Maybe the biggest one is to find producers and places interested in the genre to invest in our concerts. Since we have made everything by ourselves, it's too expensive and exhausting to produce a concert. But it's worth it in the end.
What advice would you give other bands or artists? Do what your dreams say and never give up. We'll all die in the end, so enjoy the travel.
How do you get psyched for a gig? Besides the fact we love Sinfonic Metal, we are good friends out of the band as well. So, it's a great pleasure to play in a gig together. When we are connected to the public, we gain even more liveliness and will, and the energy ends up flowing in a good mood.
Do you have any new material? We have just released our first album called “Dark Matters”.
What are your web sites?www.facebook.com/falanster
What are your plans for the future? After the end of the promotion of our álbum “Dark Matters”, we are planning to start recording a new album with new compositions.
