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PYRAMAZE
just started to compose their forthcoming album and Michael
Kammeyer (guitars and song writer) has nicely agreed to be
disturbed by a HARDROCK80 journalist, who also happens to
be a great fan.
First
of all, thank you Michael for sparing me a few of you precious
time.
You’re most welcome.
Let’s start with the hottest news :
5 months after the band parted from Lance King, you officially
announced Matt Barlow as the new PYRAMAZE singer. You attracted
him after a few email exchanges as it seems : was it really
that simple ?
Well, almost that simple – but there was a little more
work to it of course (LoL)!
First I had to track down exactly where Matt was working (Editor’s
Note : after he left Iced Earth and the Metal scene, Matt
Barlow has joined the Georgetown Police Department, Delaware).
After that I had to figure out how to contact him, and the
first attempts of communication were actually per phone call
directly to the police station where he works.
I talked to the lady at the desk, and she passed me on to
Matt’s voice mail because he was not present on the station
at that time (he was on patrol). So I left him a message quickly
explaining what this was about, but since I was talking to
an answering machine I guess my message was kind of vague.
I never received a reply to my message, and so I called the
police station again. The nice lady at the desk told me that
I could eventually try e-mailing Matt through the common mail
system of the station, and so I tried that.
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It then afterwards
turned out that my mail went through city hall, through
the captain of the station and then in the end landed on
Matt’s desk – so my e-mail was on quite a journey
ha-ha! Anyway, in my e-mail I was able to tell Matt a lot
more about what I wanted, and I could explain in details
who and what Pyramaze are...
An amazing
adventure indeed. When did you finally manage to talk to
Matt ?
A few days later I got a response from him to my great and
pleasant surprise. He was curious about the offer and wanted
to hear more about the band and our plans.
So we agreed to talk on the phone, and I then told him everything
about Pyramaze and our plans and expectations. I then sent
him our latest album “Legend of the Bone Carver”.
He absolutely loves this album, and told me that he was
definitely interested and that he would like to “audition”
for the band. We then sent him a few of the old tracks for
him to sing on. He just received the guitar and drum tracks,
and he then spent some days singing his version of the old
songs with the music he had received.
It sounded great, of course (LoL) and so we started making
plans and agreements and Matt said Yes to become a part
of Pyramaze.
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You are presently
in the song-writing mode, before the studio session expected
in early 2008 : can you give us some details on this forthcoming
album ?
Sure – it will be epic and heavy as usual. I’m
experimenting a bit more with a contemporary style versus
very heavy. And of course melodic parts. I think this album
will turn out a bit more raw, but still very melodic. We
will record the instruments in October this year, and then
we will do the vocals and the mixing early spring 2008.
Hopefully the album will be in stores before summer 2008,
but we still need to find new labels after the record is
done.
You often mentioned Iced Earth in
your musical influences. Could you say the third PYRAMAZE
opus will sound a little less Prog and a little more Heavy,
using the great Matt’s vocal possibilities ?
Well, I was never of
the opinion that we sound like a Prog band in the first
place. I mean, sure we have some technical riffs and stuff
every now and then, but if you compare this with real Prog
bands like Dream Theater for example, we are pretty far
away from Prog. Anyway, our technicality remains to a certain
degree, but judging from how the song writing is going right
now, I would say that we might turn out just a bit more
Heavy than usual.
But
you won’t change your style due to Matt’s coming
in the band ?
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We are not aiming to sound
like Iced Earth though. We are Pyramaze and we will stay
Pyramaze, the only change is that Matt is doing the vocals
now. People should NOT expect an Iced Earth clone. I really
think Iced Earth is a great band, but that doesn’t
mean that I want to copy them. Some of my riffing techniques
might sound a bit similar to Jon’s (Editor’s Note :
Jon Schaffer, Iced Earth’s guitarist and leader) simply
because my metal taste matured during a period where I listened
a lot to bands like Iced Earth. But my song-writing style
is different, and therefore Pyramaze still sounds unique.
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Except Toke
(lead guitars), you all have professional occupations. Thus,
Jonah (keybords) is an Italian food distribution Specialist
; Morten (drums) is a Network Consultant ; Niels (bass)
is a music-teacher ; Matt (vocals) works within the Georgetown
Police Department and you, Michael, are a Shipping Manager.
What will happen to your jobs when, no doubt, PYRAMAZE will
become the world’s famoust Metal band ?
Ha-ha, well thanks for your faith in us (LoL) !
Well, of course our name will continue to grow, especially
because Matt has joined our fellowship. But not much is
going to change about our lifestyle even if our popularity
increases a lot these days. Not many metal bands (not even
the big ones) can make a comfortable living from their music.
However the ones of us with steady jobs make a pretty good
living, and we are used to a certain lifestyle now.
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And like
ordinary people, you have personal occupations...
Some of us have children, houses and cars and lots of bills
to pay of course, and the money in this kind of music business
just isn’t a lot. On top of that the ones of us with
children and a wife and what not don’t feel
like touring for months and months anymore. So
you see, even if we catapult into the major league of metal
we don’t want to change our lifestyle a lot for it.
So the future will be spent with recording great albums
of course, and then something like 6-8 concerts after the
release of an album – and that’s it. The concerts
will mainly be for big festivals, to reach as many people
as possible with one slam. So I guess we will keep our jobs,
and continue to live out our metal dreams in our spare time
(LoL) !
In 2004, Pyramaze
played at the Raismesfest before performing in Paris : what
memory do you do you keep from these concerts?
The memories from Raismes are very good. We had a great
reception from the fans, and we feel the show went over
awesome. Meeting the crowd afterwards for a bit of
chatting and some autograph signing and photos was very
nice too. We were pretty tired before the concert in Raismes because we had only
been sleeping for like two hours the past two days, but the crowds reactions and the
whole aura surrounding the festival gave us new energy.
Paris was fun too, but unfortunately there were not many
people in the audience. We played together with Primal Fear, and i would say that
most of the audience was kind of quiet and just standing there without letting out
too much energy. We still gave them a blast, but of the two concerts I definitely
feel that Raismes was the best experience all around. I would love to go back to Raismes
some day. Maybe they will invite us sometime soon...
Now an indiscreet
question to end this interview : Did you have another singer
in mind, in case Matt refused to join PYRAMAZE ?
Well, I did – but I’m not going to say who (LoL) !
However Matt was my Number One choice, and fortunately he
joined our ranks, so I did not have to worry too much about
finding someone else.
Again, thank
you for your precious time. No need to tell you that all
the HARDROCK80 members are longing to discover the new PYRAMAZE.
Thank you too, it’s been a pleasure.
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