Interview с Almah : DARKSIDE.ru

Hi, Edu! My name is Ksenia, I’m a journalist of Russian Darkside E-zine. Probably you remember me, you invited me to Brazil with you (laughs)

Oh, yes, now I remember you! Hello, Ksenia! Well, I must be talking to an angel. And the interview will be for heaven!

Well, well… I guess it will be vise a versa. Not for heavens, but for DarkSide! (everybody laughs) Well, let’s start! When we talked two years ago about Almah (it was in “Apelsin” club before Angra concert), could you imagine that Almah will turn into a real band and into your main project?

Actually, when I released the first album, it was in 2006, and I was working with Angra at the same time, and I thought that probably in the future Angra would have some problems, actually even in 2006 I knew the problems in Angra, I was trying to look to the future and I was imagining that probably Angra would stop. And then Angra really stopped in 2007 in July. And then when I released the first album, it was the solo album, I knew that maybe in the future Almah could be a band. And when Angra really stopped, we didn’t know about Angra future and we didn’t know when we would come back with Angra. I decided in December 2007 to create a new Almah album, but as a real band, as a full time band. I did it and we recorded the new album last year, and that’s the history.

What does it mean for you to be a real band? Does it only mean that the band releases Cds, new albums, gives concerts or is it something more, something different from giving concerts and making albums? And what’s the difference between a real band Angra and a real band Almah?

In my opinion having a real band is stronger than having a solo album, because when you have a band you have five or four people working for the band, you have five people giving their faith and fighting for the band and realizing dreams of the band. It was one of the reasons to create a real band, I wanted to have a real metal album I really wanted to do. I’m sure that we got it, because the album in quality is very good, it is very nice. I know that if I had made this album alone, only by myself like a solo album, the album would have been definitely weaker, it wouldn’t have been so nice. But now we are five guys playing very well, we are

concentrated, everybody in Almah has a focus on the album. So that’s why the album is very strong. So this is my opinion.

The forming of Almah line-up was very long and dramatic, because for a short period of time your brother Tito Falaschi and a guitar player of Dr. Sin Eduardo Ardanuy in Almah. It seemed that in the autumn 2007 the permanent line-up was formed – you, Felipe Andreoli, Aquiles Priester, Marcelo Barbosa. But where did the previous line up disappeared? For example, Aquiles. And how did it come about that 5the new musicians appeared?

Actually when I decided to have a real band I needed to have the right person, and actually I needed to have the right people in the band – people that really wanted to work for the band, people who really wanted to create something new and make a real band. But those people – Aquiles (Priester - Bass), Fábio (Laguna - Keyboard) – were not in the same atmosphere that me, Felipe and Marcelo Barbosa were in. That’s why I decided to invite another drummer, Marcelo Moreira, and another guitar player called Paulo Schroeber. I invited these guys, because they are specialists, they are very happy with the band, they are working very hard and they love this music. They are just living in Almah. That’s why I decided to invite these new guys. Although they are not famous, they are amazing musicians. And in my opinion this final line-up is the best line-up I could ever have in Brazil. The drummer is the best power-metal drummer we have in Brazil nowadays and Paulo Schroeber is playing perfectly together with Marcelo Barbosa. So we have very nice playing guitars. That’s why I believe that I have a great team, I have a great band, so I invited these people, because they are the right people.

Aren’t you worried about the fact that all your musicians have a wide range of projects, their own projects? For instance, Andreoli has Time Out, Bittencourt Project, Barbosa has Khallice and some guitar institute, Marcelo Moreira has Burning In Hell, Paulo Schroeber is planning to release his solo album… Aren’t you afraid that all these musicians will pay less attention to Almah due to their own projects?

Actually, when I invited everybody to join the band Andreoli already had this band Time Out, Marcelo Barbosa already had Khallic

e and our drummer already played in Burning In Hell… But of course I don’t like to be like a dictator (laughs) , and I wouldn’t like to say to the guys, “O’k, you are mine, so don’t play with anybody else” (laughs). I didn’t want to say that and I told the guys, “You have your projects, but I would like to have you guys to help me with Almah and to create it. Do you want to do it?” And everybody now is very concentrated on Almah and those projects Time Out, Burning Hell and Khallice totally stopped. They are not working for those bands. Sometimes they do something for them, they play concerts, but they are really working for Almah. And we had many concerts in Brazil in December, in January, we are very busy and at the same time I have Angra as well, we didn’t quit Angra. Angra just stopped and is having a rest, but probably in March I’m going to come back with Angra. I will try to work with both bands at the same time – Almah and Angra. But of course I know that it will be a little bi difficult, because I know that Angra is a big band, it is very famous, and a very demanding band, but in the end it is not so difficult – if you have time, you do something. When I have to do another step with Angra in March, probably I will do many Angra and some times Almah. When Angra stops again, maybe in a year or in a couple of years, I will come back with another knew Almah’s album, and then what?... That’s the musician’s life! (laughs)

And what about you? What will happen if tomorrow Angra will come back and Almah will again turn into your side project? Aren’t you afraid of this?

Actually I don’t have one main band, and I spoke to the Angra guys, we had a meeting in December, and they said, “O’k, we’re gonna come back in 2009”. And I said, “O’k, very nice, I love Angra, I like to go to Russia again, and then with Angra everything is very beautiful, I love to go to Russia with Angra again, to meet Ksenia again” (laughs). But Almah is growing up, Almah has a future, Almah has objectives in a short time – I want to do it so. The main idea is to work together, but of course Angra is bigger than Almah, it’s natural and moreover Almah is a new band. I am famous, Felipe is famous, but the name Almah itself is new. We rally work a lot to make more concerts, to make more albums, so it would take more time

, but Angra is a big band, with a big history, so I can’t compete with Angra and with Angra’s history. And actually I don’t have one main priority, I just have time, for me it’s just a matter of time. So if Angra stops, I will be working with Almah, if Angra comes back and if I need to work more with Almah, I’ll tell the Angra guys to wait, because I have to conclude everything in Almah, and then I will come back to Angra. But actually we released the Almah album in September, and we did some promotions in October, November, in December and January we gave concerts in Brazil. Of course I’d like to play in Europe, but Europe is getting more and more difficult to reach for the new bands. Hopefully I will be able to go to Europe and Japan with Almah. For me this album sounds like the first Almah album, I consider it the first Almah album, because it’s the first album that we recorded as a band. Maybe I can go to Europe in April, because we have some people inviting us there. So I will tell to Angra guys, “O’k, I want to go to Europe with Almah, and then I’ll come back and start working for Angra.”

So, now Almah is your top-priority?

Yes, absolutely, but still when Angra comes back, Angra will be my top-priority. Angra stopped, and I got involved into another thing which became my top-priority, yes, but when it comes back, I will pay Angra much attention. But I wanna say that I have these two bands and I’m not gonna make or create ant other projects, these two are quite enough for me. I have a lot of things to do and I want once to have Almah and Angra, and that’s it.

When Angra performed in Moscow in March, 2007, nobody could imagine that there were some problems in the band. Almost a year later we got to know that there were some problems with management, that the setting was iron-hot, and even at the beginning of the tour there was a battle among musicians. In what moment did the situation get out of control? And what steps did you make to get out of this crisis?

I was pretty new in Angra, because I joined the band in 2000, and about in 2002 we were very sad, because of the problems with the manager, but then we said, “O’k, we have a great future with Angra, let’s forget everything!” But in the course of time everything was getting worse and worse. And then fin

ally it was very difficult for us to continue with Angra, and certainly the situation inside the band between the musicians was getting very bad. Maybe because of those problems with the management. Everybody was very nervous, everybody was very angry all the time, very sad, so the situation was not like playing for enthusiasm, everybody was playing for money, like a job you know. But I don’t like that, I am a musician, I play with my heart and I put my voice in the songs with all my emotions, so I can’t play only for money. And actually the other guys, too. They decided to leave the band, they said, “O’k, it makes no sense to play concerts only for business, we want to be happy, we want to be musically satisfied with the band.” We had many problems inside the band, everybody was like fighting all the time. So we decided to stop, to solve the problems with the manager, and solve the problems inside the band. We stopped one year and a half until now, and then Angra wants to come back in March.

In Almah you and Felipe proved your ability to create songs, to be producers, to be big bosses. What role do you see for yourself in Angra when it returns?

I’m very satisfied with my position in Almah, because I created Almah. Everybody fits my voice, I have no comparisons with any singer, because I am the creator of Almah, so for me it’s better to play in a band like that, for me it is more comfortable. But in Angra (I joined the band in 2000) the band was already existing, for about nine years before me, everything was already settled and set there. So it was difficult at the beginning to prove to the people, and one of the main difficulties in Angra for me is that I need to sing very high all the time, and then the composers, the main composers, duty vocal melodies – well, sometimes I need to sing vocal melodies that I really don’t feel comfortable to sing. But in Almah I do everything with my voice, and for my voice. So it’s very natural for me. If we take some change in Angra it will be a possibility to create in every song my own vocal melodies. But it’s impossible, because Kiko (Loureiro) and Rafael (Bittencourt) are great composers, but sometimes it’s difficult for me. But I need to combine, at least to try to combine my style with their styles and then try to find something cool in Angra. But the main difference be

tween Angra and Almah is that in Almah it is more comfortable for me to sing, but of course I like to sing the Angra songs, it’s very nice. But when I need to sing all the songs, from the previous singer, for me it’s quite strange, because the style if totally different from mine. I don’t sing very high, for example. I sing in a different style, my voice is lower, stronger – it’s just different. So that’s my idea.

Almah is not the first band that was created around you, as far as I remember the first band was Mitrium and with this band you came to Sao-Paolo, with this band you went to the contest for the plays of the vocalist of Iron Maiden. How was it like? Why did you have to stop the activity of this band and to have a break in rock career?

Well, it was a long time ago, it was in 1993 or 1994, I don’t know. I was very young, and then I had another band, it was my first band Mitrium and then I was promoting the album, because at that time we recorded a vinyl, because in 1994 we didn’t have CDs, of course. So I recorded a vinyl and I was promoting in here in Sao-Paolo, and then I was invited to take part in this and I decided to be part of this contest, because it would be very nice for my band. And it was really good for my band, because I did many interviews, I did many promotions, here in Brazil and then I became famous here as a singer. And my band was going pretty well. And then it was my career, I started singing metal and this contest with Iron Maiden helped me a lot. And then I had another band called Symbols, until the Angra guys invited me to join them in 2000, so I sang in Angra almost 10 years, until 2008.

I managed to find it out in your biography that you studied law. And how did you learn to sing? And are you going to work at your singing techniques further?

Oh, it was a looong time ago (laughs) I started singing when I was about 16 years old, and I had very many bands and actually I started my career with playing drums. But I was a bad drummer and then I decided to play guitars and I play guitar very well and then I had a band in Brazil playing guitars. But the singing was going very bad. And then the band decided to put me in the vocal place. I started singing and everybody in the band said, “O’k, that’s nice, you are singing very wel

l. Don’t play guitar any more. You just sing!” I started singing and I was singing all the time, after it I started composing and making my own songs. And then I decided to have some classes with teachers here in Brazil for them to help me sing correctly and healthily. I was studying all the time and I still do it, because for a vocalist it’s very important – you need to practice all the time. That’s my life!

On the new Almah album “Fragile Equality” you sing differently. The way you sing on this record differs greatly from the way you sing in Angra and the way you sang on the first Almah album. What is the reason for such a change? Is it due to the fact that you were working much at your singing techniques, or is it just because this time you were responsible for the production and you could do whatever you wanted with the record?

I believe that every album is a revolution. I always try to do many things and develop as a singer, as a producer, as a person. And then I am always trying to improve in everything. And of course making the production of this album “Fragile Equality” adds to this transformation. I was the producer of the first Almah album as well, by the way. For me it’s very good, because when I compose the song, when I composed this album even at the very beginning I already knew which kind of voice I would put in the song. I did everything from the very beginning, I had everything in my hands. I had everything over control. So for me doing the things like that is better as a singer, because I can make everything in my own way. It’s easy, because nobody else can understand more about my voice, than me. It is important to be very deep in the job, and to know everything you gonna do in the future, because you can do it perfectly. And I am really satisfied with “Fragile Equality”, because I think that this is the best album I recorded in my life. And to my mind “Fragile Equality” is the best metal album in 2008. I mean the power metal album. So I am very happy.

Many people consider you voice on the title track of “Fragile Equality” to be strange, it sounds like the voice of the vocalist of Metallica, but not as the voice of the vocalist of Almah (laughs) What did you do with your voice to sound like that?

Yeah, this is a kind of trash metal song, and then I decided to sing with more power, to combine different ways of singing in this song. But the course is very melodic, so I tried to sing very softly to combine with the part. But the main idea was to make a very heavy vocal, vocal line. In Angra it IS good to show this kind of voice, despite the band is totally different. But you we look at my other band, before Angra, you will hear something like that, something more aggressive, more strong. But then, in the first Almah album there is a song “King”, and there you can also hear the vocal like that – very very strong and very heavy. So for me it is natural, it is not difficult.

Interview by Ksenia “Wolfin” Khorina
18 фев 2009 the End

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