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24 авг 2025
HERMAN LI On DRAGONFORCE Being A Self-Managed Band: 'The Creative Control Is Very Important For What We Do'
Regarding why DRAGONFORCE chooses to not work with an outside manager at the moment, Herman said: "The creative control is very important for what we do. And I think if you manage it yourself, you can pace yourself in how much you tour, not burn yourself out and not do things you don't wanna do. It's not the best way to do it, because, obviously, I have lot of other things to do. But for now, it's good. I enjoy it. I'm not like a control freak too much. But you see the stuff on stage. These [stage props] are not built by someone else. Sam [Totman], the other guitar player, built them himself. He made it himself."
Li added: "Yeah, it's good [to manage the band myself]. I do have a help. I do have an assistant to help me with the day-to-day stuff. So, yeah, I cannot complain. We get to do what we love to do."
This past April, Herman was asked by The Candid Mic With Fran Strine podcast if he and fellow DRAGONFORCE founding guitarist Sam Totman are essentially the only actual members of the band, with the other musicians performing and recording with the group as mere "hired guns". Li responded: "Well, Sam and I started the band, and we always did pretty much all the work for it. So, in a way, it hasn't really changed. It's just some people's lives change, and that's what happens [to cause lineup changes in a band]. And every time we make a change in a band, it's because we're trying to make it better. Someone here isn't happy — they're not able to give it a hundred percent. They have other things they need to do or they just want a change in their life. And that's kind of what happens. And it's normal. It's like a company. If you're buying a Nvidia graphics card, someone, an engineer, decides they're gonna do a different job, are you gonna say, 'Wow, what's going on? This GPU is not gonna work.' Or this camera, someone making this camera. But in a band, because of what you see, who performs, sometimes you think, well, you might have some ideas."
Regarding how he and his DRAGONFORCE bandmates have adapted to the changes in the music industry over the last couple of decades, Li said: "It has changed a lot. And because the industry is changing… So the story is this: in 2018, we got rid of management, we got rid of everything. Our old business system that was put in place by our old manager, we just kind of got rid of it because it's, like, 'Well, this needs to be changed here. This is not working out.'
"I managed the band up until basically the third DRAGONFORCE album [2005's 'Inhuman Rampage'], our big hit album. At that time, the band exploded, so me managing the band wasn't even possible anymore. Especially if someone's gonna come to me and say, 'Well, I can manage the band. I work with these other bands.' Who am I to question to say, 'I know better than this guy'. So we did that for a number of years, and then I realized, 'Well, this is not actually any better.' So now I have the experience, I'm gonna do it. I've been doing enough, and I'm sure I can do a better job. So that was the big change. So I can say we had the downtime, unfortunately, through, I believe, mismanagement, because the music hasn't got worse. And now, luckily, we're more successful and popular than at that time [during] the 'Guitar Hero' explosion. And now we are actually doing better. And funnily enough, that song 'Through The Fire And Flames' [from 'Inhuman Rampage'] just got released on probably one of the biggest video games in the world right now, Fortnite. It came out last week and it's been an absolute hit. It's been crazy. I mean, how many people play that game, Fortnite? It's insane."
Herman recently confirmed that there are tentative plans for him and his DRAGONFORCE bandmates to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their most commercially successful album, "Inhuman Rampage", by performing the LP in its entirety on a 2026 tour.
This past June month, DRAGONFORCE unleashed a new official music video for an alternate version of its recent album track "Burning Heart", featuring ARCH ENEMY frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz. Originally released as a bonus track on select editions of DRAGONFORCE's celebrated 2024 album "Warp Speed Warriors", the special version supported by White-Gluz's distinctive vocals is now out as its own single.
Formed in 1999, DRAGONFORCE has earned their reputation as the world's fastest band via its power metal anthems filled with spectacular guitar solos, including the iconic platinum-selling hit "Through The Fire And Flames". Several of the songs on "Warp Speed Warriors" have already gained over a million streams on Spotify.
This summer DRAGONFORCE will finish the last European leg of its epic "Warp Speed Warriors" tour, playing several massive festival dates and selected shows together with POWERWOLF, before joining the German metallers on a North American tour, ready to deliver breathtaking shows to their ever-growing fanbase.
In May 2024, DRAGONFORCE teamed up with "Brawl Stars", a hit multiplayer mobile game with over one billion downloads, to celebrate a brand new character entering the game with a new song, "A Draco Tale", and music video.
"Warp Speed Warriors" was released in March 2024 via Napalm Records.
On "Warp Speed Warriors", DRAGONFORCE — composed of of guitar virtuosos and founding members Li and Sam Totman, singer Marc Hudson, bassist Alicia Vigil and drummer Gee Anzalone — explore a wider range of varying musical styles than ever before, evolving their sound throughout the exciting musical journey while still staying true to their roots.
"Warp Speed Warriors" was produced, mixed and mastered by Damien Rainaud at Mix Unlimited in Los Angeles, California with Sam Totman and Herman Li.
DRAGONFORCE's platinum-selling single "Through The Fire And Flames" brought the London-based Grammy-nominated extreme power metal group international acclaim and was featured as the most challenging song on "Guitar Hero III".
In March 2019, the "Through The Fire And Flames" music video reached a new milestone: it surpassed one hundred million views on YouTube — DRAGONFORCE's first music video to do so.
"Through The Fire And Flames" is the leadoff track from 2006's "Inhuman Rampage" album, which was officially certified gold in July 2017 by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) for sales in excess of half a million copies.
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