Interview with Friedhof Magazine

1-Greetings from Friedhof Online Magazine! How is all by the moment in FOE camp?
Greetings to you, as well, from everyone in the band. We thank you so much for the interview and appreciate your support! Everything is going great with the band at the moment, as we continue to keep busy following the release of our latest album. The reviews and interviews are still coming in. Meanwhile, we are working on setting up more shows in our hometown and throughout the US to promote the new album, and do hope to hit Europe sometime soon, as well. We are also hard at work on new material for the next album and have most of it written already; we hope to get back into the studio sometime early next year to record it. So, things are going good. We hope to stay busy and will continue to work hard.

2- Since "A life spent dying" has been recently been released, Friedhof Magazine redactor Usagi, calls it to be one of the better 2010 Doom Death Metal albums. Ho do you valorate it?
Wow, that is such great praise! We are honored that someone thinks so highly of our release. We really like the release, although being recorded a few years back, we feel it is a little outdated, style- and production-wise, so it is great to hear that it is still valid today. We have been pleasantly surprised with all of the good reviews we have been receiving. Now, as far as how it holds up to the other death doom albums of 2010, we are really unsure about that, mainly because, strangely, most of the band doesn't even really listen to metal. If we do listen to metal, it is usually something old from the early '90s, so we are a bit out of the loop when it comes to new releases. I can tell you that my favorite death doom release from this year hails from your country, and that is from our good friends Helevorn; their new album "Forthcoming Displeasures" is amazing!

3- "Catharsis" song is one good example of variations in the vocals. Which idea is venid that?
As far as 'Catharsis' goes, we really tried to do something completely different, something you don't hear on most death doom albums, basically to throw off the listeners and show a very different side of the band. Not only are there variations in the vocals, but every instrument got a chance to show something different. Being that it is much more of a straight-up death metal song, I tried to make the vocals a lot heavier and to give it a more guttural sound. It's funny, though... people still don't know what to make of it. They don't understand why we threw that type of song on a doom album, but we really did it to give the listener some variety and to show that this band can do different things. This is the reason we threw the acoustic songs on there, as well. The biggest complaint about death doom bands is that they don't mix things up and always sound the same, but then when you do something like this, people find it odd. But, we couldn't be more happy with the way it turned out and wouldn't change a thing, and there are people that really do like it and find it refreshing. We have even played it live once. Not sure we will ever do a song like that again on our future albums, but if we don't, we'll find some other way to give the listener some variety.

4- "Breathe Deep The Cinders" and "The Air Is Still" in our opinion describe your music on "A life spent dying". Melancholic and melodius riffs at the same time. How do you by yourself these songs?
Although we feel that 'Vast But Desolate' is our best song on our album, those two songs are very good as well. 'Breathe Deep the Cinders' is one of the last songs we wrote for the album and we feel it is such a great opening song, especially the way the opening riff was written. In fact, we do play it live at every show and it is normally our opening song of the set. It is also one of the songs, along with 'Vast But Desolate', that is played on the radio shows that received our cd. So, it is definitely one of the top songs on the album. As for 'The Air is Still', we think it is good song, but strangely, we don't pay much attention to it. Not too sure why; it is just one of those songs on an album that really doesn't get much attention and that you don't plan on playing live. In fact, aside from the intro and acoustics, which were not meant to be played live, 'The Air is Still' is the only song that we haven't played live off of the album. We did practice it for a while so that we could play it live, but ended up taking it off of the set. In any case, we appreciate you thinking so highly of it; it is a good song, regardless of the way we use it.

5- You began to work in this new album in 2007. Why 3 years until release "A life spent dying"?
Well, the main reason for the delay at the time had to do with our financial situation; we just could not afford to release and distribute the album ourselves, as we had already spent a great deal of money recording it. So, we really tried hard to shop the album to labels so that they could release it and could give it the proper distribution it deserved, but we had absolutely no luck in finding one. A year had gone by, then, finally, in late 2008, Grau Records had contacted us and wanted to sign us to a 4 album deal, so we gladly accepted and were happy that the cd would finally see the light of day. We ended up signing in early 2009 and 'A Life Spent Dying' was to be the first of the 4 releases. But, shortly after that happened, Grau decided to part ways with their partners, Prophecy Productions, and that basically put the album on hold for another year as they had to work through the legalities of the separation. So after all that was taken care of, Grau was finally able to release the album in May of this year. It was really just a lot of things that were out of our control, but now that the label is back on track, there should not be another delay like that again.

6- Which is the idea behind incluiding two acoustic songs?
Ever since the band started, Justin, the founder and main songwriter of the band, had always worked on acoustic songs on his own time and even started an acoustic project as an outlet for the material he had written. But, nothing really came of the project, so we decided it would be a good idea to include some of these acoustic songs on the Fall of Empyrean albums, as they were equally as depressing and fit well with our style. We put one acoustic track on our first album 'Anhedonia', decided to not put one on our second album 'A Darkness Remembered', but felt it would be beneficial to include two of those tracks for our new album. Mainly to show the versatility in our songwriting, but also to break up the monotony that plagues a lot of death/doom albums. One of the biggest complaints on our second album was that it was too long and drawn out and became monotonous as you listened to it, so we really wanted to try some different things on the new album so that we could mix things up a bit and keep the listener interested. That is the main reason we decided to include the acoustic tracks, as well as the last song 'Catharsis', which is more full on death metal. And, even though it seems like it may be an "every other album" type of thing, we are not sure we are ever going to include acoustic tracks on future albums, but we'll see.

7- Tell us more about "A life spent dying" cover art!
The cover art was done by our good friend Robert Hoyem from At The Ends Of The Earth Designs. He also designed both of our shirt designs, as well as the artwork for some of our side projects. He is such a great art designer and we plan to use him for our future releases, as well. As for the cover, it is basically his representation of 'A Life Spent Dying', we really didn't give him any input or direction, and we think he did a great job and feel that it fits the album well. You see an image of a man who looks like he has been deteriorating for years, you see stakes coming out of his back, his flesh decaying, and then he is looking at his hands as they begin to burn away; it really does look like he has spent a life dying. So we really feel it represents the album well.

8- This new album has been released through Grau Records. Are you happy with their work in the band?
Yes, we are very happy with Grau and look forward to doing our next three albums with them. Things were a little rough at first, as their partners Prophecy Productions held them back from doing a lot things, but ever since their separation, things have been running much more smoothly and efficiently. They were able to get our new album and shirt released soon after the separation. They work with Sure Shot Worx, who has heavily promoted our new album all throughout Europe. They recently signed a distribution deal with a US distributor, and continue to work on other deals to ensure the success of their business and bands. And, the best part is that they are very hands on and deal with the bands directly. They even ask our opinions on things, which is very refreshing; most labels couldn't care less about what you have to say. So, we are very happy with the way things have gone so far.

9- Any plans to tour Europe to support live "A life spent dying"?
Yes, we definitely plan on touring Europe, hopefully in the near future, as that is where our main market is. We have been working with Lugga Music, which is actually in Spain, and they have been trying to get us out there, but now it seems like they may be taking a break on setting up tours for a while, so the label is working at finding us a temporary solution until they are ready to go again. We hope to work out a deal with another agent soon so that we can get out there by early next year, at the latest, and properly promote the new album. We do enjoy working with Lugga Music and hope they could start putting tours together again really soon, but until then, we have to try and work out something else so that we can get out there for this album.

10- Thanks a lot for you time! Last lines for spanish readers!
We would just like to thank you and your readers so much for the support. Since the album was released, a lot of our better responses have come from Spain and we do hope to play there live someday soon. And if you do want to see us live there, please message your local promoters to let them know that you want to see us on tour there, as well as messaging the organizers of the Madrid is the Dark Fest to let them know you want to see us play it. Also, we want to let you know that there will no longer be any delays in our releases like there were for this last one. We are hard at work on the next album, have most of it finished, and hope to get into the studio early next year to record. We look forward to heading out your way and meeting all of you soon, thanks again for your support! Richard and Fall of Empyrean.