CAGE
Cage
could be easily introduced to the heavy metal audience as the carriers
of the 80s heritage and of bands that paved the way and set the pillars
to what was to become the strong heavy metal force. So, after the release
of their latest album “Darker Than Black” Cage approach their target some
more and this is what Sean Peck the band’s singer told us…
1.HELLO AND MY CONGRATULATIONS FOR
YOUR NEW ALBUM! NOW TELL ME WHAT HAS OCCURRED TO CAGE FROM THE RELEASE
OF “ASTROLOGY” TILL “DARKER THAN BLACK”?
Thank you! Well we had the last
guitarist leave the band and that was actually the key to our new success.
He was kind of a negative influence in the band. He was the guy that always
had the trauma and the problems. He left and he allowed me and Dave Garcia
to write these really aggressive mean metal songs without having someone
else draw us back with his bluesy rock. We added more attitude and I think
this is the key to our success and then we got Anthony in the band he is
a new guitar player who has a great ear for melody and it’s very easy working
with him and get along with and it’s been a very happy environment since
those changes.
-IS THAT ALL?
Oh ok! We played some shows in
California…
-I THINK YOU ALSO PLAYED IN WACKEN…
Yeah we did the Wacken and then
we did Melodies in Switzerland and so we got some more European experience
which was fantastic. At the Wacken we played “Kill The Devil” so we kind
of debuted some new material, which was well received and there’s a lot
of shows we did here in the United States since then and a lot of live
playing and now we are working on a live DVD from the Switzerland show,
but the writing and recording of the album was something that took a lot
of time obviously.
-WHEN WILL THE DVD BE RELEASED?
Probably…it’s almost all done we
are just trying to get some extra footage from the first show Cage ever
played in the beginning and it good be released probably in 3 months.
-THAT’S GREAT NEWS!
Yeah we are trying to get footage
of things like as a fan of another band I’d want to see, rare footage even
though the audio is not good for some of the rare clips, we still put it
on there. The sound of the show we have edited is fantastic, it was a great
performance by us and then we are doing interviews in our studio, we have
a big warehouse and people are actually gonna see that, see what
kind of gear we use, singing technics and we’re gonna make it a little
more interesting. We want it to be good because fan should value their
money.
2.IS YOUR NEW ALBUM A CONCEPT STORY?
No it’s not a concept story. Just
the theme of the album was to be a little more sinister, a little more
malicious, little more aggressive, of course darker than “Astrology” which
kind of had some more spiritual vibe to it, its songs and lyrics. This
album has taken similar metal themes that I like to do, part fact part
fiction, I like to educate and entertain at the same time and then we have
songs with dark topics like “Eyes Of Obsidian”, you know shadow creature
phenomenon, chupacabra, blood sucking monster, white magic, witch religion,
even a song that it’s not really that dark “Blood Of The Innocent”. The
title sounds pretty mean though! Hahaha! Then the graphics…I don’t know
if you’ve seen it…
-IT’S FANTASTIC YES!
Do you have it? Don’t you just
have the promo?
-NO I HAVE IT!
Have you seen all the images we
have in there?
-YES!
I think it’s one of the best looking
cd packages I’ve ever seen and the whole thing came together, it’s magic!
We wanted to write an album that would stand the test of time that 30 years
from now people would be buying it and so far so good!
3.HOW IMPORTANT ARE LYRICS FOR YOU?
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SUGGEST WITH THE ALBUM’S TITLE?
Well he lyrics to me are very important
from the standpoint that...you know number one we have an advantage from
the European bands that English is our native language. I think a lot of
the European power metal bands fail when it comes to the lyrics. In my
songs I don’t want to be really vague or have a lot of poetry, like you
write the lyrics and you don’t know what the whole song is about, so I
like to entertain and educate at the same time, as I said earlier, taking
a different look at things that have already been done like “Blood Of The
Innocent”. You know there’s already been “Run To The Hills” by Iron Maiden
or “Indians” by Anthrax, but no one really took it from the standpoint
of how we suckered in the Indians with alcohol and jewellery and now in
America the Indians are the major gabbling and casino owners. It’s come
to full circle, now they are the ones in control and taking the money
from us. That is one angle and then there is the song “White Magic” that
is a song about burning witches but no one has ever looked at the wicked
religion, a white magic religion based on nature and mother Earth, which
has been twisted to misunderstanding and was considered to be something
black and evil. I like to take themes that have been done before and make
them more interesting and give a more intelligent approach to them and
then songs like “Chupacabra” Philadelphia experiment talk about those kind
of mysterious conspiracy theory topics that are part fact part myth and
open eyes to a lot of people on things that exist, just like secrets of
Fatima which I a fantastic story and I don’t think a lot of people know
about…just something to keep it fresh and entertaining for the listener.
4.YOUR NEW ALBUM FOLLOWS THE JUDAS
PRIEST TRADITION LIKE YOUR PREVIOUS 2 RELEASES. I’D LIKE YOU TO TELL ME
WHICH OTHER NEW ELEMENTS YOU HAVE ADDED IN “DARKER THAN BLACK”? WHICH OTHER
BANDS OR MUSICIANS HAVE INFLUENCED YOUR SOUND?
Well again the songs to me are
a little more aggressive. You know “Painkiller” is always the model but
I think we went beyond “Painkiller” with the different vocals we’ve added
and we did a little more experimenting and cross the black with the death
metal vocals which to me those vocals to black and death metal albums get
so monotonous, going through a whole 50 minute album and listening to the
same voice over and over, but thrown in, in segments carefully like we
did really makes an interesting thing and we got a very positive feedback
about that and I’ve never really heard the same vocalist sing and then
drop in the black and death metal voice, like I was able to do. There’s
no special effects on the album regarding the voices. Nothing was used!
Everything you hear are all my voice! So, I am really proud of that and
also working with Richard Carl who did the Halford and Dickinson albums,
the vocals on this albums got me motivated as a singer to really push the
envelope and then he and Roy Z. was were really blown away with the different
sounds that I was creating. So, not only did we add new sounds but
we also managed to make the album sound varied and then I also did a totally
different approach to each song whether it was the clean voice or the Metal
Church rusty voice, I think that really makes it sound varied…
-THE ALBUM AS A VARIETY…
A variety exactly! That makes us
like…you know the great albums of the past “Screaming For Vengeance” and
“Number Of The Beast” didn’t have to skip any songs. You just pushed play
and let it role along, cause the songs had variety and they were
all good and that’s one of the things we wanted to do and another thing
we wanted to do is create song more catchy, every song having a hook, not
being too abstract or progressive, we wanted them to be really listener
friendly so we put “Fist In The Air” and “Kill The Devil”.
-YOU WANTED TO MAKE SOME STRAIGHTER
HEAVY METAL COMPOSITIONS…
Yes! We’ve always done that but
“Astrology” didn’t have enough hooks on it for my even though I think it’s
a fantastic record. This new album is more easily accessible like when
we played “Kill The Devil” at the Wacken festival no one had ever heard
the song but at the time the chorus came around, the whole crowd was assisting
me to kill the devil! Hahaha! So, it was a good song to sing along, the
first time they listened to it!
5.IN YOUR NEW ALBUM YOU HAVE 2 FAMOUS
GUEST APPEARANCES, ROY Z. AND JOE FLOYD. HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO COOPERATE
WITH THEM? DID THEY ALSO HELP YOU IN THE PRODUCTION AREA?
Yeah! Joe didn’t have anything
to do with the album besides show up and collect the money for the studio
I guess and then helped on a small part on the song “March Of The Cage”.
Richard Carl and me are the main producers. Roy Z. helped a lot though.
He did some great leads, we wanted some really fast leads on “Wings Of
Destruction” and he also did a nice thing at the beginning for “March Of
The Cage”. He was able to come in and spend a lot of time with us, just
lending a gear and listening to the overall sound and making a couple of
comments and making some moves on the computer fixing for the vocals. He
helped out a lot with the vocals and that was very important to me being
the singer and the producer, so Roy Z. helped us a lot in the production
but in the end it was me and Rich who did the final thing come true. Joe
came and played, that’s all he did!
6.THE COVER ARTWORK IS ONE OF THE BEST
I’VE EVER SEEN AND THE BEST YOU GOT AS A BAND. HOW IS IT CONNECTED WITH
THE LYRICS? WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR IT?
Well, you know I am a comic book
collector so I’ve always wanted a cover artwork like this, but I could
never find the right person to do it. My manager got me in contact with
Mark Sasso (note: I didn’t listen to the name properly), who did the “Killing
The Dragon” Dio and saw in his website some of his other stuff, what he
was capable of doing. We then started talking on the phone, he was like
really into metal and we liked the same general stuff, talked about the
comic books all together and it made a perfect fit and then I sent him
the album and he absolutely fell in love, we are his favorite band right
now. You can see all the extra artwork that he did inside of the booklet
that was bonus. Inside the booklet you can see the initial concept sketch
for the album cover and we decided to put that on the inside and then we
talked about all things, how the gates would be, he sketched out the devil
guy coming to the gates and then we added the winged angel warrior on the
front to kind of continue the angel character from “Astrology” album, then
we were also working on some other artwork involving the character to it,
initially his armor was a little bit too pretty and we had him put up all
those heads and make him look more mean and you can see what it looks like
and then we saw it finished on the Cd which is even better. Finally we
have some artwork that matches our style and he did sketches for each song,
“Eyes Of Obsidian”, “March Of The Cage”, “Wings Of Destruction”, “Kill
The Devil”…it’s one of the best looking cd packages I’ve ever seen. The
American version has 2 additional art pannels that the European version
hasn’t along with 2 bonus tracks.
7.THERE IS SOMETHING LIKE A SCORPION
ON THE ANGEL’S SHIELD AND ON THE DOOR. DOES THIS SYMBOLIZE ANYTHING?
That was the Cage symbol from the
“Astrology” album… Is this what you are talking about?
-YES, YES THIS ONE.
Yeah that is like a Cage sign.
Our Cage cross if you will and we’ve been incorporating this more and more
into our artwork and imagery and the tshirts have it on it and couple of
fans have it tattooed on their arms so you know they are serious fans when
they have the symbol tattooed on their arms.
8.AFTER THE RELEASE OF 2 SELF FINANCED
ALBUMS YOU FINALLY FOUND A CONTRACT. WHY DO YOU THINK IT TOOK YOU SO LONG?
I AM SURE THAT AS A BAND YOU MUST HAVE HAD MANY PROPOSALS. WHY DID YOU
CHOOSE MASSACRE? DID YOU SIGN A CONTRACT WITH MASSACRE ONLY FOR EUROPE?
WHO WILL RELEASE YOUR ALBUM IN THE U.S.?
You know we left “Omega” records
from “Astrology”. They just weren’t big enough to take us to the level
we needed to be and Massacre was a strong label with strong bands on it.
They signed us without even hearing anything from the album. I’m gonna
give them a lot of credit for that, but you can imagine their surprise
when we’ve actually sent them the record and they heard how good it was,
they were blown away and then when we’ve sent the artwork they couldn’t
believe how fantastic the whole package was and they’ve been very supportive
and this is their largest promotional campaign in 2 years for this album
because of the reviews and the response of the press. We are very pleased
of how they’ve done so far, you know we’ve signed for 3 albums with them
and we are working on the second album for the Massacre 3 and we’ll see
how it goes. So far, so good. They’ve done really well in advertising and
spending extra money. We are very pleased with them. We are on a label
called Fugitive records in America, a newer metal label with all the financial
backing. We’re gonna be on MTV here in America and all across the radios.
The United States is gonna be finally blowing for us too. Everything is
looking really good for Cage and if you take the time and write a fantastic
album, you’ll get rewarded, instead of putting out an album every 13 months
and expect them to think this is the best thing you’ve ever done. It takes
time to write a masterpiece.
9.A FEW DAYS AGO I WAS CHECKING OUT
YOUR SITE, WHICH IS NOT FULLY FUNCTIONING AND I SAW THAT YOU HAD A BUTTON
CALLED PROJECTS/BANDS. SO, DOES ANY OF THE BAND’S MEMBERS ALSO PARTICIPATE
OR HAS PREVIOUSLY PARTICIPATED IN OTHER BANDS AS WELL? IF YES, WHICH ARE
THESE? ARE YOU PREPARING ANY PROJECTS FOR THE FUTURE?
I’ve had a lot of offers after
this album to do different projects. I’ve turned them all down and I’ve
been offered some good money too, to sing for some very well known bands...but
you know Cage is I think something special and I want to concentrate all
my best materials for Cage. I don’t really need to be doing all these other
projects unless I want to have some crazy money thrown at me, but you know
I heard some of the material that they wanted me to contract on and it
was good but it just wasn’t fantastic, it didn’t blow me away so I think
the fans would feel a little cheated. When the Cage album comes out everyone
gets excited and if I am doing 3 other projects it just won’t have the
same impact. The drummer…you know he does a few other projects here
and there but all underground stuff. That’s a major! But everybody else
is really involved in the Cage exclusively because we have so much going
on and I don’t need to sing in any other projects to satisfy a particular
urge. I don’t feel I am missing out on anything that I want to experiment
on. All the things I want to get out on a musician and as an artist I get
out in Cage and it makes Cage something special.
10.RECENTLY HERE IN GREECE WAS CREATED
THE OFFICIAL CAGE FAN CLUB. ARE YOU AWARE OF IT? WHAT WILL THIS FAN CLUB
OFFER TO THE FANS THAT WILL SUBSCRIBE? IS IT POSSIBLE TO SEE YOU LIVE HERE
IN GREECE?
Well we are working on a tour right
now for September which is looking really good. We had another tour with
Kamelot but we can’t do it because we weren’t able to go to Spain, Italy
or Greece, so I said if we’re gonna go there we need to hit those countries
too, Greece and Spain are very important to us and so we are putting on
something together right now that will cover a lot of territory. The fan
clubs to me are very important. I try to write once a week for the fan
clubs so they can come and see the inside and what’s going on. Just a little
mail like all the other bands, like we are in the studio working on another
new songs for the next album and I write stuff about that. We provide the
fans with the autographed cds and also provide them with some materials
that you can’t get from anywhere else, like we have this stickers, the
Cage army stickers that we send out and then a lot of other promotional
material that the normal people don’t get to see and the fan clubs distribute
for us so it worth’s it for the fan clubs for the people involved to get
the extra materials and the extra songs that are being released and it’s
great to be able to connect to people like that and give them the inside
information that they can’t get from anywhere else.
-WELL THEN I’LL KEEP MY FINGERS CROSSED
AND HOPE TO SEE YOU LIVE!
Well Cage is a fantastic live band
and like the other great bands that we grew up with they are always some
much better live than even on the albums and we get that a lot too. I hope
to see you in September when we go out there!
11.CAGE IS A BAND THAT, HERE IN GREECE
AT LEAST, HASN’T GAINED THE SUPPORT AND TRUST OF THE MAINSTREAM METAL PRESS,
HOWEVER, YOU MANAGED TO WIN THE LOVE AND SUPPORT OF THE METALLERS. HOW
DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS? DO YOU THINK THAT THE FANS HAVE DIFFERENT CRITERIA
THAN THOSE WHO WRITE IN THOSE BIG METAL MAGAZINES?
You know we’ve always been a band
of the people since we won that Rock Hard contest that was voted by the
people and we are used to playing shows with all kinds of metal bands all
death metal, all nu metal and we always stand out because the style of
music we play was the foundation of all others, so no matter what kind
of audience it is they appreciate us and love us. There is something
for every metal fan to find, to enjoy in the Cage sound and that’s one
of the secrets to our success.
12.THERE IS SOMETHING CONTRADICTORY
IN THE U.S. ON ONE HAND YOU HAVE EXTREMELY PROMISING AND GOOD BANDS AND
ON THE OTHER HAND IT SEEMS AS THE FANS OVER THERE HAVE LACK OF METAL EDUCATION,
THUS THEY FOLLOW EVERY TREND. WHY DO YOU THINK THIS HAPPENS? HOW DIFFICULT
ARE THINGS FOR A METAL MUSICIAN IN THE U.S.?
Right now metal is at the best
point it’s been since the late 80s. The television, the MTV shows many
heavy metal videos right now and they are slowly branching near the traditional
sound. It’s becoming hit and cool again and some of the shows we played
we see a lot of young kids show up wearing Iron Maiden and Judas Priest
tshirts. I saw this 12 years old kid had this Sad Wings Of Destiny tshirt
he said he got of the internet. I think they become more educated on that
style of heavy metal and it becomes more popular again. It’s definitely
going on the right direction right now.
13.WHICH ACCORDING TO YOU IS THE BEST
AND MOST RECOGNIZABLE ELEMENT IN YOUR MUSIC? IS THERE A FIELD WHERE YOU
THINK YOU NEED FURTHER IMPROVEMENT?
Hmm…improve? You know we are always
trying to improve. We are working on our live presence, trying to improve
that as far as our visual presentation. That’s what we have been working
on lately. Usually I just like to keep not experimenting but branching
out to the different styles of metal like we did on “Darker Than Black”,
so when you hear the next album you’ll be able to tell it’s the fourth
album. Unlike some of the other bands where you can take their all 4-5
albums on the table and they all sound the same. This new album that we
are working on right now, has more thrash elements, some different tuning.
Some songs are really heavy and we haven’t really embarked on the thrash
dimension yet, which we are going to and I am also doing a song, which
is all King Diamond vocals. I sound exactly like King Diamond. I think
the fans appreciate that we are always upgrading our sound and style and
allowing all our various influences to finally blossom and come out, to
show that we are a band able to maintain the classic Cage sound and not
get lost in to much experimentation and we managed to do it good so far.
14.WHAT TITLE WOULD YOU GIVE TO YOUR
CAREER WITH CAGE TILL NOW?
I think we have to see what happens
to the rest of this year… we haven’t done a full tour in Europe, which
is obviously something that we have to do. We always get great response
from the media and the sales figures are up really nice and as long as
we keep climbing the ladder, we keep motivated to do it and we are very
enthusiastic about the future especially with this album and now we are
going for a really big push in America so I think it has to come Christmas
to really evaluate how successful we’ve done and see what we have to do
to keep becoming even more successful. I think we are on the way to being…I
think we set the standards for all the classic, true heavy metal albums
in the future with this record with the different vocals and the songwriting
and I think all the bands out there all it needs is to take a close look
at the cd and see how they will be able to top or even match “Darker Than
Black” because with all the elements you find in it I think it definitely
sets us apart from a lot of the other bands that try to capture the magic
of what heavy metal was, but they’ve never been able to really capture
it. A lot of great musicians out there but be able to provide this kind
of songs and this kind of package is something that you don’t find very
often and I think a lot of people would agree with that. That’s why this
record is doing so well right now!
15.IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION, WHAT
WOULD IT BE?
Ha ha ha! Emotions are key to heavy
metal sound and that’s what I was attracted to heavy metal about. The emotion
is positive aggression. Our music you don’t want to go out and throw a
music out of the window, you want to put your fist to the air and band
your head and just go “yeaaahh!!!”. You know when you go into a moss pit,
you want to enjoy the performance and watch it and put your fist in the
air and band your fist in the air and at the end of the show grab a pretty
looking girl and grab a bottle of beer and talk about how great the feeling
was. That’s what I was attracted to heavy metal in the first place. All
this positive aggression feeling.
-IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD
IT SHOW?
I think it would show what our
album cover was, the very vicious looking, evil looking situation with
the glimmer of hope defending the realm so to speak. The evil is everywhere
but the light always seems to have an edge over the darkness.
16.IF YOU COULD TRAVEL IN TIME, WHICH
HISTORICAL PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHAT WOULD YOU MISS THE MOST
FROM OUR TIMES?
Well these questions!!!! Hmmm…If
I could travel in time…I would like to go to the future of course. The
past…I would like to have seen what pre world war II, the late 30s was
like but I’d rather travel to the future to see what wonders technology
will create. What would I miss the most from our times? Probably the freedoms
that they would be eventually taken away from us as technology creeps further
and further to our lives.
17.WHICH ALBUM YOU WERE LOOKING FORWARD
TO HEARING AND IT FINALLY DISAPPOINTED YOU? WHY?
There are so many bad ones that
it’s hard to take out anything. These bands that sound so much like Helloween
and these singers with the voices that you can’t distinguish any of them…I
get virtually almost every album out there and this is so much…I wouldn’t
say it’s bad but I’d say it’s average. That’s why the critics and the fans
will love this record, there’s nothing weak about it. We are an authentic
group and not a super group that was thrown together tin six months to
make a record. We all practice and play in the same room together 4 days
a week and we’ve been together 10 years and that’s something magic about
that, that you can’t get from a super group trading tapes in order to create
an album. So, there are so many weak albums out there to name one…hahaha!
-HELLOWEEN COPYCATS BORE ME. THESE
ARE ALBUMS YOU GET TO FORGET THE VERY NEXT MINUTE YOU TAKE THE CD OUT OF
THE CD PLAYER.
Absolutely! You know I am a heavy
metal fan and I want to find an album that will kick my ass. That’s why
we started Cage in the first place, to write our own songs because there
was nothing good we could find out there and now we are the leaders of
the musical genre.
-I THINK THAT THESE KIND OF BANDS ARE
CREATED BY THE LABELS…
You mean the Helloween sounding
bands?
-YES.
I guess so! It just doesn’t have
the balls that the true heavy metal had before. It just doesn’t have the
magic and so many people try to capture the magic and it doesn’t mean you
have to heavier than everybody or play faster than everybody, doesn’t mean
you have to sing higher than everybody. It means you have to write a good
song and so many people argue on what a good song is that’s why there are
so many rubbish out there.
18.WHICH IS THE STRANGEST QUESTION
SOMEONE’S EVER ASKED YOU?
This guy just asked me what is
the question I hate getting from journalists the most and I couldn’t answer!
Hahaha! I like talking to the journalists cause they are interested in
the music, a lot of hard work went into creating this album so someone
wants to talk about it and I want to talk to them also, so I couldn’t really
answer to that one, but I liked your time machine question a lot!
-THANK YOU!
19.THANK YOU! THIS WAS ONE OF THE BEST
AND MOST INTERESTING INTERVIEWS I‘VE DONE TILL NOW! HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO
ASK YOU ANYTHING AND YOU’D LIKE TO ADD?
No! I think we’ve covered everything!
We’ve always been a band of the people and I think and it’s really coming
through you know fans starting to be able to tell with this 3rd album
that Cage is something special, that we may be the ones to carry the torch
forward from the greats of past, as we are one of the few bands that can
capture that fantastic heavy metal sound that we all grew up with and I
think people started to realize that we may be the protectors of this musical
genre, to protect its integrity, to show that the music style is still
relevant and it still can be done in the year 2003 effectively and everyone
will like! Thank you so my friend!
-TAKE CARE! BYE, BYE!
Nick “William_Kidd”
Parastatidis
|