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Well, has it been a while since you listen to a new band that really amazed you? The answer for me is yes! I was listening to many new bands but none of them made the difference to me... and then I listen to ASKA. There I was! My sound! American heavy/power metal with great vocals. And as I am talking about vocals lets leave some free space to the singer of the band George Call to introduce as this band. Enjoy!!! 

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GEORGE CALL:  Well, I started the band about 10 years ago as a five piece with the initial intention of playing a certain type of metal music. Not the typical L.A. glam stuff that was out there, but more the kind of metal music that your average radio listener really wasn't aware of.  When we started this band we'd go out and play covers from bands like Celtic Frost, Manowar, Exciter, Omen, while everybody else was doing Def Leppard and Guns N Roses. Our singer in those days didn't like it. He wanted to go in the same direction that everybody else in town was so our compromise to him was that we wrote our early songs in a more accessible vein to keep him happy. He ended up leaving the band anyway and by default I ended up with the frontman spot as I was the only one in the band back then that could halfway carry a tune.  Our first cd, ASKA, featured these commercial type songs and we followed it up with an international tour for the U.S. Military and a second disc, IMMORTAL, which I'd say was also heavily slanted toward the commercial  style of the period as it was quick and fairly easy to write.  I'd always wanted to do the heavier, power/true metal stuff and you can see that  on IMMORTAL where I wrote songs like "Immortal", "Dream In Color" and "As Far As I'm Concerned". Unfortunately we were limited in what we could do back then because, frankly, we were still developing our skills as musicians. Our guitarist at the time didn't quite have the neccessary chops or ability to play the more complex riffs required for that kind of metal and I wasn't singing anywhere near capacity. I didn't have the ability. It was a simple case of us having to walk before we could run so we tried to stay within the parameters of what we could do. It was later when I began to develop my  upper vocal range and I noticed that our guitar player's licks were getting more formidable that I decided I'd concentrate my written material squarely within the true metal realm. Anyway, we toured Europe, the Mediterranean, and Japan in support of IMMORTAL and then in late '97 we recorded NINE TONGUES which garnered us some good airtime on Hard Radio and got the underground metal press to finally start noticing the band in a more dignified fashion. For the first time we had a disc that was more heavy and power than it was commercial and it seemed to pay off. Fans and critics alike were responding very positively to the record. We sold an enormous amount of discs. I'm not sure but I think it's still our best selling title. It was sometime after that that Energi records in Italy asked us to contribute "Flight of Icarus" to their Iron Maiden double cd tribute disc, "CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED".  We decided then and there that our next record would be an all-out tradtional/power metal assault; We called it AVENGER. And that's really when the floodgates burst wide open for us in terms of people discovering the band .  Not only that but AVENGER is also where I feel the band finally hit 100% on everything we did. Performances, production, songwriting, everything was just dead-on right. Not to detract from our past work but we totally hit the mark with AVENGER. 

GEORGE CALL:  I'd describe it as traditional/power metal.  If you're looking for the latest trends and rapping and stuff, might as well put the ASKA disc down, put it down, because we don't do that.  I have nothing but respect and admiration for bands like Manowar and Virgin Steele, you know, bands that could give a fuck about trends.  Sure it'd be great to have all of that radio play and the money that comes with it but not at the cost of my musical integrity.  I can give you an example; How much money would I have to offer someone for them to have sex with my dog or how much would I have to pay to get somebody to inform to the police everything that goes on in their family's house or to sell their country's secrets to a known rogue government regime?  Some people have a higher sense of self and purpose and would never sell themsleves for any amount. Others, well, you know.  This is how I feel about my music.  It's not a problem for me if other bands want to crossover and adopt all the latest fads in their music, Dave Mustaine and Metallica come immediately to mind, but it holds no appeal for me personally and it's not a direction I ever see ASKA heading in. 

GEORGE CALL: Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. KISS and Manowar. Virgin Steele. We could be here all day. 

GEORGE CALL:  The name came from a gang that an ex-band member and myself used to run with when we were in high school. ASKA means "ash" or "ashes" in several of the scandinavian, viking tongues.  It was easy to choose that as a band name as we already had it tattooed on our arms anyway. I remember calling a couple of the old ASKA gang leaders, Steve McAllister and Mike Woods, who were living in different parts of the U.S. at that point, and getting their blessing on us using the name. I didn't want them getting pissed at us or anything. 

GEORGE CALL:  Well, to be honest we really don't have any one preffered method of writing.  We're very open.  Sometimes the music comes first followed by lyrics while other times it's just the opposite.  I'd say typically the music comes first and I'll have certain words or phrases and melody lines that I place in the appropriate spots.  The rest I'll scat at rehearsals until I have a full opportunity to sit down and work on lyrics, but like I said, it's pretty much anything goes as long as we get a finished, usable, song.  Whatever works.  The only problem we've had with this methodology was an ex-member with great talent but rather limited vision for songs in progress. He'd bitch about how something sounded when we'd only fleshed out maybe 30% of any given piece.  That was irksome.  It's like going to a Star Wars Hollywood movie production shoot and complaining that you really can't see the lasers and the spaceships. He couldn't quite see the finished picture. Ever. Afterwards he'd be like "Yeah! This rocks dude! You guys were right!"  He was never quite visionary enough to look ahead and see the end result of what we were doing, which sadly for him I think applied to more areas of his life than just songwriting. I think his lack of vision is also why he's no longer in the band but that's another story. 

GEORGE CALL: Well. Hmm... I guess you could say that Keith Knight, who plays bass in the band, and I are the leaders by default because we're the vets of the band. And by "vets" I mean that we are the only original guys in the band that have been on all of our cd releases.  We both handle different aspects of the band's affairs so in that sense we're the leaders. Administratively. We also have final say musically but we're certainly not overly authoritarian or anything.  I'd say things operate very smoothly. 

GEORGE CALL: We actually started the band as a complete democracy right from day one.  Each guy had an equal say and an equal vote.  We had also established that since we were a four piece, any two versus two voting ties would be arbitrated by looking at both sides of the issue in question and deeming which was most beneficial to the band as a separate entity. Individuals were simply not as important as the band.  As that goes, some of us are better politicians than others and someone would invariably feel like their thoughts were continuosly being dismissed, but the fact remains that for most of this band's tenure everyone really has had an equal say. When a couple of the original members fell by the wayside, we maintained our equal vote system but it's now more that Keith and I basically have the final word on things.  If he and I have a disagreement we can't resolve on our own then we can always call for the swing votes. I guess I wouldn't consider ASKA a full democracy anymore but nobody's thoughts or opinions are ignored or dismissed.  We attend everyone the courtesy of listening to what they have to say the same as we'd expect if the roles were reversed. 

GEORGE CALL: Oh yeah. 

GEORGE CALL: Several in fact but it's probably a bit early to discuss the details other than I can tell you it's going to do to AVENGER, what AVENGER did to all of our previous works. And it will be 100%, no-compromise, heavy-fucking-metal. 

GEORGE CALL:  I'd say I was being too optimistic if I told you that you could expect a new ASKA disc by the end of the year but that's what I'm hoping for.  I think once we actually start recording it shouldn't take too long. As for what label, at this point your guess is as good as mine.  We've had several options. It's just a matter of us deciding who exactly it is that we want to let screw us over.  We've already secured the rights to the album cover which will again be by fantasy artist, Luis Royo, unless of course we have a change of heart which would be costly as we've already paid Mr. Royo for the rights to the work. 

GEORGE CALL:  It's definitely our intention to do so, but when you don't have a well established label behind you it's harder than you would imagine. We do have Greek distribution through Eternal Shadows and a few other companies there but it's nowhere near as widespread or invasive as we'd like. We've had many, many great reviews in the Greek magazines, God bless 'em, and that's about the extent of the promotion we can do there.  Well, we've also been two or three times to your country on tour. That always helps. As small as our promotion is in Greece it doesn't stop our cds that make it to the store shelves from disappearing almost overnight into fan's collections.  Our discs don't sit on shelves for too long. The word of mouth is there and spreading and sometimes that's the best promotion of all. EMA Records, which is our own label, gets big wholesale distributer orders and steady reorders, usually from the same sources. Though we can't track every single store individually out there that carries our music, they wouldn't be reordering if they were sitting on unsold product so as long as discs keep moving and the orders keep coming in...  It's almost a testament to this band that we can sell cds in a quantity that places us squarely among our signed metal peers and we don't have anywhere near the budget to spend on promotion that the established metal labels do on their bands.  Either we're awesome and doing phenomenal work or some of these labels aren't doing their job properly. 

GEORGE CALL: Well, when I first started writing songs back when I was in high school I was motivated by girls and relationships. Real or imagined. It really wasn't as happy as it sounds now. For example; When the first girlfriend I ever had dumped me for some college guy asshole that I didn't like, I'd write songs about killing the guy or being in a fight with him or whatever.  You know, teenage, wish-fulfillment, fantasy stuff.  Now as an adult, I still write fantasy but it's speculative, historical, and epic stuff.  I write about Roman legions, the Crusades, alien abductions or conspiracies, cool stuff like that that stokes the fire of the listener's imagination. Not that kicking your ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend's ass doesn't stoke the fire as well but that's not what inspires me as an adult. What inspires me are these movies that I have in my head.  I'm not a filmmaker by any stretch of the imagination so my stories come to light in song. I've got a vivid imagination and am quite enamored by the earlier, and I'd say future, periods of man's history. Imperial Rome, ancient Greece, nordic mythology, colonized space, the unexplained, any and all of these things you'd conceivably see in ASKA music today. 

GEORGE CALL: I think metal music works best when the song's scenarios are based in the realities of this world but spiced with fantastical elements that help the song "transcend the mundane" as magazine editor Brett Van Put might say. Look at the song "Metal Gods" by Judas Priest. It takes place in the future. Man's machines have reached a point where they are now self-aware and busy usurping the world from their creators.  And just so there's no confusion, this came out several years before the "Terminator" film series. It's compelling because, yes, man has made huge strides in computers, robotics, animatronics, what have you, and though nightmarish and improbable, what if such a thing came to pass, you know? What if? The events presented in the song are extremely stimulating to anyone that enjoys a good story in lyrics and that's why I think ASKA will pretty much continue to write songs that could easily be made into films if one were to follow the lyrics. Of course the flipside of that is that there's a sizable portion of music listeners that couldn't care less what the words are as long as the song rocks.  ASKA strives to deliver both . 

GEORGE CALL: I got into this because I love music. Metal music in particular. Everything else that comes with being in a band was icing on the cake. Once I learned to play the guitar it was only natural I think, for me to then attempt to write my own songs. After a baby learns to crawl, and they've done that for a while, it's expected that next they're going to want to walk.  Had I not learned to play guitar I might have been like many of my friends and filled notebooks with lyrics that never got put to music and that would have been that.  I would have concentrated on probably art and drawings, which is what I was into before music, instead of pushing it aside for music so I guess being creative has always been a part of my personality. 

GEORGE CALL: Oh I was definitely aiming for something more. Music is fun anyway but way before I could play a lick, back when it was still just something I was aspiring to do I knew it was serious for me if you can understand that.  I was very certain from early on that this was something I wanted to dedicate my life to. 

GEORGE CALL: Well music is my life's work anyway so I know I wouldn't think of it as only a job. It's my passion. I totally understand Eric Adams when he sings " It's more to me than just a job and while I'm playing you won't get robbed" on "All Men Play On 10".  Music or the music related is pretty much the only work I do. ASKA does make money for us but unfortunately, I don't make my living solely from the band.  I do studio session work, I play the lead role in a christian musical, I write a monthly column for a rock magazine in the U.K.,  years back I used to be the booking agent at a rock club in Fort Worth, Texas. All of that supplements or has supplemented my income and keeps me from having to work some meaningless day job doing something that nobody cares about in the first place.  We recently lost a founding member to the corporate world.  He wasn't making the money he felt he should have been making in ASKA, his wife left him, he admitted he was using drugs after putting up a front for years, and he'd become passionless when it came to the band and playing music. It was clear he had to go. To be fair we gave him every chance to see if he could regain his footing but when you put in 12 hour days at an office and your passion for making music goes you might as well call it a day.  I'm not dismissing the desire or neccessity to make money in life but It's been my contention that money is a means to an end, something that allows you to pursue your dreams with greater ease, not the end itself. 

GEORGE CALL: It'd be cool to be the band that brings true metal to the masses but at this point I'd be happy if I could make a living doing this for the rest of my life. 

GEORGE CALL: I'd say "Hey, you better listen to this or I'm going to kick your ass!" I'm kidding. Well, I guess I'd show them what the rock press has written and tell them matter-of-factly "They can't all be wrong."  The press we've recieved on AVENGER has been just overwhelmingly positive. 9 out of 10 hammers in METAL HAMMER magazine, inclusion in ROCK HARD's "Best of the Unsigned" issue and cd,  testimonials from notable industry luminaries like David Defeis of Virgin Steele, Johhny Stoj of Pegazus, and John Perez of Solitude Aeturnus.  What we have to offer is music done with integrity and conviction.  It's not written around drum loops and sampling machines. We're not trying to ride the latest waves and we could care less about conformity or being the next Oasis.  A lot of bands will pay lipservice to this same thought but their actions are incongruent with their words.  ASKA's music is crafted on real instruments by live musicians. And I won't say anything else about it because I think that statement speaks volumes. 

GEORGE CALL: Just about anything off AVENGER would do.  The rock press has included "Crown of Thorns", the album opener, on all of the compilation cds and cd samplers out there, so maybe that one. On the other hand METALLIAN magazine in France and several radio stations here in the U.S. used "Lethal Injection" instead as their favorite so who's to say. 

GEORGE CALL:  Not really. I don't care how great a vocalist somebody is, if the music doesn't do it for you to begin with, who cares about the vocal performance?  Sure I can be impressed with Mariah Carey's natural talent but I honestly couldn't give a damn about her music, much less her.  What about Halford's Two or Dickinson's Skunkworks project or any of Geoff Tate's post "Empire" output?  All giants in the field with voices gifted from the Gods but did those voices save those records? Hell no.  Even a God's voice won't help a lackluster song. 

GEORGE CALL: I'd be happy hearing anybody doing an ASKA cover because that's incontrovertible proof that you've had a positive impact on a fellow musician. If I had to pick one band, I'd love to hear Manowar do ASKA. God, just saying that feels somehow sacrilegious.  I'm curious to see how Eric Adams would interpret my parts. 

GEORGE CALL:  Well, I'm constantly on the lookout for new bands.  The only way this music genre will survive is if people support the new bands along with the old.  I am so impressed, taken even, with Falconer's debut. I love that record. I also like In Extremo, Primal Fear, Agathodaimon, Veni Domine, Goddess Of Desire... there's a lot of new blood out there right now. It's a good time for heavy metal. I write for POWERPLAY in the U.K. so I keep my ear to the ground.  In fact any metalheads reading this interview that need coverage for their bands feel free to send me your demos or cds for press or reviews. I'll supply an address at the end of this interview.  Just mark your submission to my attention on the envelope. 

23 DO YOU LIKE PERFORMING LIVE?

GEORGE CALL: That's one of the best parts. I love playing live. I love touring. Everything about playing live is a thrill except sound check. If we didn't play live I don't think there'd be an ASKA today.  It's as essential to a band's well-being as sex is to a healthy marriage.  We play as much as we can. Over the band's career we've been on 13 international tours spanning 36 countries to date and everybody's got a story or two. 

GEORGE CALL: Hmm....Again, if I had to pick just one it would have to be Manowar's "Metal Daze" from the BATTLE HYMNS record.  I'm not going to give an accounting of the lyrics here 'cause those that know the song know, and those that don't know should run and get a copy of one of the essential, must-have, metal albums of all time. "Metal Daze" for sure. 

GEORGE CALL: I'd like to and whatmore, I think I could do it well. 

GEORGE CALL: Well, no doubt one that hasn't been made yet. I don't see myself redoing an existing film's score or soundtrack when there are so many new films being made every day. I think it's something I'd certainly enjoy doing . 

GEORGE CALL: I'm an avid reader. I like speculative fiction best. 

GEORGE CALL: Well, I like Anthologies best so I don't know that I'd have a favorite book per se. Favorite stories maybe. I do enjoy L. Ron Hubbard's "Writers of the Future" series. White Wolf publishing had an anthology series going called "Borderlands" that I enjoyed tremendously but I think they ended it after four volumes.  My most beloved book would probably be my autographed copy of KISSTORY but that may have something to do with the fact that it cost me $150 bucks.  I also enjoy the hell out of my art books.  I've got all of the good stuff; Frazetta, Gieger, Kelly, Royo, Sorayama.  For an author, I'd have to pick Robert E. Howard for creating my favorite fictional character of all time, Conan the Barbarian. 

GEORGE CALL: Without a second thought I'd be Conan. He's got a vast array of weaponry, never gets into anything he can't fight his way out of, always gets the girl, and was king by his own hand until he abdicated the throne in his 70's giving it to his son, Conn, so he could set sail for the new world on one final grand adventure.  Sounds like a good bet to me. 

GEORGE CALL:  Ok. Thanks to you Christine for taking the time, "HAIL!" to your BEHIND THE VEIL readers and I invite everyone to visit ASKA's website at http://www.askaband.com/ or order a cd by sending $16 per disc in U.S. funds to: ASKA/EMA Records PO BOX 181144 ARLINGTON, TX 76096-1144 USA I personally guarantee your listening satisfaction or your full money back. That's an offer not everybody will make.  Strength, Honor, and Metal forever. 
Christine  Parastatidou