PHARAOH

for Painkiller Mag #8
July 2003

Interview with Chris Black - drums

by Yang Yu/Wooqu

all pics are linked from www.cruzdelsurmusic.com
by any problems refer to webmaster

US Power/Heavy Metal

What backgrounds do all your members have? Played in any former bands? PHARAOH is a hopefull new comer but you all certainly are no beginners!

Not everyone in the group has been in other bands. Of course, Tim is best known for his work with Control Denied and Psycho Scream. I have recorded and gigged with Superchrist, Dawnbringer, and Tug. As for Matt and the other Chris, they don’t really have experience playing in other bands, but they both have been playing music for many years. Chris Kerns has written hundreds of songs on his own. You might know Matt’s name from Metal Maniacs.

Tell us more about the background of your band name PHARAOH. Were your lycris with Egyptian related themes? Is that an inspiration of your music/lyrics?

Actually, it isn’t. We chose the name just because it looks good and it has a connotation of power and cruelty. We haven’t been looking to Egyptian themes for inspiration, but I understand that Chris Kerns has a new track that perhaps touches on that world.

What are your lyrics dealing with anyway? (We didn’t get any lyrics) Any special topics that you are interested to bind into your music?

In our music, you can understand the words, so it’s important not to have shitty lyrics. The best ideas for lyrics come from everyday life. For the lyrics I wrote (about half of the album), I was looking for some kind of scene, and definitely some characters. That way you can have a narrative lyric that actually tells a story, rather than a mere sequence of images. The title track is about the lone survivor of a violent war. Everyone is killed except for him. Or her, come to think of it. Other themes you can find on the album are treason, alienation, determination, things like that.

When PHARAOH started in 1997, how did you come to the style of heavy/power metal that experienced a great comeback later?

We were listening to Saxon’s Unleash the Beast at the time. All of the members of Pharaoh have musical value systems that are deeply rooted in traditional heavy metal, so it was natural for us to play this kind of music. In 1997, the power metal revival had just gotten underway, but we don’t really see ourselves as a part of that.

Do you think that death/thrash metal had any influences on you?

Sure! Anything you listen to will influence you somehow, whether you want it to or not. It doesn’t mean I’m thinking about Dismember when I’m writing a Pharaoh track, but it’s all part of the same consciousness. As for thrash metal, maybe you can hear a little more of that in Pharaoh. There are some big Sadus, Sodom, and Coroner fans in the band. Matt and Chris love Overkill. I’m probably the biggest death metal fan in the band. I like Malevolent Creation, Deranged, old Entombed, etc.

Beside of SAXON or IRON MAIDEN, did you also listen to earlier US Power Metal Bands, who were equal important to you?

Yes, lots of them. Bands like Omen and Savage Grace, Cirith Ungol, Sacred Rite, SA Slayer, as well as more mainstream acts like early Metallica, Riot, Manowar, and Metal Church.

Your music sounds a little different to the European genre, which of ourdays European bands do like or listen to? I don’t think that you are sounding that typical US-Metal.

No, I suppose we’re a different breed from Iced Earth, Kamelot, etc. We like a lot of the German bands, like Helloween, Blind Guardian, Gamma Ray, Running Wild, Scanner, etc. Some Scandinavian groups too, like Tad Morose and King Diamond, if you can still call him Scandinavian. I also recommend Wolf and Lost Horizon. The other guys really like Soilwork, but I prefer Dark Tranquillity. Chris Kerns and I are Bathory maniacs too.

Tim Aymar is certainly one of your highlight person. How did he come into the band? Is he a steady band member now?

Tim was introduced to us by Jim Dofka, the guitarist of Psycho Scream. Originally, Tim agreed to perform on our tracks for the Maiden America compilation. But after he heard the rest of the album, he was eager to participate. Tim is Pharaoh’s vocalist. I can’t imagine it any other way.

You do not use the power metal typical dopple bass drumings, in fact your drumming is quiet traditional, is that for any special usages to perform your music?

I’m not too keen on the double-bass style of playing. My drumming on After the Fire is indeed very conservative. I have a background that includes the hard rock side of metal, so I concentrate mainly on timekeeping rather than flair. Perhaps this isn’t the best approach for a band like Pharaoh. I only wish the drum sound was more powerful on the album, and then this style of playing would sound more logical. See, I listen to things like Motörhead, Misfits, and Zeke, so I have a great appreciation and desire for simplicity and clarity when it comes to drumming and to music in general. Maybe next time I should be more aggressive.

Was the agantian economy crash the main reason for you to leave the label Icarus? Cruz del sur is a new started small company from Italy, how did you get in contact with them? And what was the reason that you decided to sign with them.

Yes, that was the main reason, although it wasn’t really our decision. Here’s what happened. The label had some troubles with the government around the time of the economic crisis in Argentina. The staff at the label kind of split in half, and one half became Cruz del Sur. Our deal migrated with the personnel, since they were responsible for signing us to Icarus in the first place. Both labels have been 100% supportive of the whole process, and we’re all happy with the current situation.

I think your music has the ability to come out with great success if you have promotional, distributional, and touring support to push you strong enough. What do you think of your future?

I agree that there is great potential for Pharaoh. As you said, it takes a lot of support from a large network of distributors, press, retailers, etc. And that will come only with a lot of hard work and a lot of patience. Oh, and a lot of luck! Of course a tour would be the best possible help, but we’re not in a position where it is possible. This may change in the future, but for now we will concentrate on the present and making the most of that.

Cruz del sur is a small new label and your first deal with them is your debut and also their first release. Do you have any concerning about the effect of your first album?

No, I think it’s a great opportunity for the band and for the label. A release like After the Fire should be a priority, and this way it can be. If we were on a bigger label, it would be one of five releases for the month. We’d get our shot in the promotional machine, and then they’d have to go back to their priority acts whose records cost five times what ours did. I’d much rather be with Cruz del Sur, where we can have the kind of ongoing attention that is so important. I think where the company is concerned, it is a strong first release that will help them get noticed.

From your band info we know that the recording process of your CD was quiet a hard task, do you have any experiences that you can share with young bands to these matter?

The studio process wasn’t so much difficult as just long and drawn-out. And there are a number of reasons for this. When we started, there was no label involved. We had an album’s worth of material, so we just went ahead and started laying it down on tape here and there, whenever it was convenient. No big deal. Then Icarus came along, and we knew what we were making, but it still was this slow progression. One month we’d go in the studio for a day or two and do the bass. A month later we’d record some guitars. And so on. The band lives kind of spread out from each other, and the studio we used was very difficult to schedule, so it just took a long time to get everything finished. I can’t say how the album would be better or worse if we had done it in one concentrated shot. But I can say that the next album will be done much more quickly.

What is your opinion to the CD Cover Artwork that was created by Jean-Pascal-Fournier, what is the main thought of this picture and is it what you wanted to have?

J.P. followed our design exactly, except it was his idea to add the glowing “heart” in the middle of the picture. The idea was to have a destroyed city, a civilization reduced to rubble. It relates to the lyrics of the title track, where there is only one human survivor of the final war.

Any future plans after this album? How is the reaction to your debut sofar? Where do you get more responds?

I’ve done a lot of interviews for Italy, which is our label’s home. The response has been great from the press in Germany and the US in particular. I haven’t heard from too many regular headbangers what they think of the album, so I can only go on the reviews I’ve seen. And those have been satisfying. Now we’re working on writing our second album. Cruz del Sur wants us back in the studio by the end of the year, and that is a reachable goal.

Do you play often in the states? Are there that much power metal fans like in Europe? Do you have a strong fan base at home?

As I said, we haven’t done any gigs. So I don’t think there’s a concentration of Pharaoh fans in any particular area. Perhaps in Pennsylvania where the bandmembers have been selling CDs to friends. But there are a lot of fans for this type of metal in the US. The ProgPower festival in Atlanta is always packed with maniacs. The problem is just the size of the territory. Fans are spread out, maybe a pocket of activity in each big city, but mostly a lot of lone soldiers all across the country. You get an appreciation for the numbers, though, when you attend something like the ProgPower festival that brings everyone to one place.

Due to power/heavy metal I think the European market is a very important area to start with. ICED EARTH/NEVERMORE are gods there. Do you prefer to succeed more in the US scene?

Our label is concentrating on Europe at the moment, Germany in particular, since that’s the biggest market for traditional metal. But our sales have been good in the US as well. Metal is a universal language, particularly our kind of metal. So it’s important that the CD be available everywhere there is a metalhead who wants to buy it.

What do you think is the differents between US and EU power/heavy metal?

If I can generalize somewhat and also include British metal in a category with US metal, I would say that this is the “classic metal” sound. It is built on hard rock musical ideals and then geared toward the live presentation and hit singles. But the Europeans (Germans and Scandinavians in particular) developed the “power metal” elements of sterling production, virtuoso musicianship, and bombastic imagery. Maybe there is more of a “high art” attitude within European metal whereas the American and British stuff still has some of its wild rock and roll lineage evident. Again, these are generalized observations with obvious outliers. But Pharaoh certainly has drawn from both sides.

What is your opinion on the Iraq war? Especially the fact that the us army didnt protect the iraqian national museum so that too many ancient artifficial items were lost or even destroid. A huge loss for all human civilization!

But the oil is safe, and that’s what matters most...I’m being sarcastic here. What can I say? Religious maniacs with money will naturally attack each other. They are blinded by faith in things that do not exist. Bush and his whole klan should be dropped into a vat of crude oil. Let’s see how much their snake-handling divinity helps them then! At least the rest of the world doesn’t associate the US government with the citizens—who, by the way, didn’t elect the current regime. They will be gone in 2004 and the world will become safer and saner as a result.

Thank you a lot! Stay metal!

Thanks to you too, from me and the rest of Pharaoh. If your readers are curious to learn more about the band and see our ugly faces, they can check out www.solarflight.net and see what our label is up to at www.cruzdelsurmusic.com.