ZANDELLE
U.S.
metal scene offered us in the 80's some of the most precious releases in
the epic heavy/power metal genre. Classic album that we still listen to
them and adore them. Albums that make us proud. However, in the 90's many
new genres (not in the metal scene only) appeared and the U.S. heavy metal
was a little bit forgotten and put aside. Thank god these past few years
with bands like Zandelle we are able to say that not only it's not forgotten,
but on the contrary great albums are presented to us from over there, lighting
once again the fire in our hearts!
1.FIRST OF ALL TELL US ZANDELLE’S STORY
UP TO DATE IN A FEW WORDS. WHO ARE THE BAND’S FOUNDERS AND HOW MANY RELEASES
DO YOU HAVE TILL NOW?
Zandelle was started back in the
beginning of 1996 as a solo project of mine (George Tsalikis). I
got together two friends of mine, Kirk Passomonti and Amit Lahav to help
me record some material I had written over the years. The material
was heard by Denis Gulbey of Sentinel Steel who offered to distribute the
6-song album which was simply called “Zandelle”. At first I wasn’t
planning on forming a permanent band, but the project seemed to take on
a life of its own. The debut album seemed to be well received among
the Metal community, which lead me to seek out permanent members.
The first full-length album, "Shadows of Reality" was then recorded and
released in 1998. Since its release the band began to take on a more
serious attitude. This unfortunately resulted in us having to replace
some of the members who were not looking to take the band any further than
it was at the time. Once the line-up changes were finalized we began
work on material for the album which was just released.
2.ZANDELLE IS A STRANGE NAME! WHAT
DOES IT REALLY MEAN? WHO IS THE “GODFATHER” OF THE BAND? DOES THIS NAME
HAVE A SPECIAL MEANING TO YOU?
This is definitely a question I
get asked often. As I mentioned earlier, I (George) am the founding
member of the band. When the first recording was made and I needed
something to call the band. I chose to use a name that I had created
for a character of a role-playing game I used to play years earlier. The
character was an Elven Warrior by the way. The reason for using the name
basically has to do with trademarking. Too often I’ve seen bands use names
for years, only to find out that a band with the very same name already
exists and owns the rights to the name. Since Zandelle was a word I made
up, I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about it being taken. Plus I
like the way it sounds.
3.YOUR NEW ALBUM, WHICH IS YOUR 3RD
RECORDING, IS RELEASED UNDER A BIG METAL LABEL AND I NOTICED THAT IT’S
MORE AGGRESSIVE THAN THE PREVIOUS TWO ALBUMS. WHICH OTHER DIFFERENCES CAN
YOU POINT OUT AMONG THIS ALBUM AND YOUR PREVIOUS ONES? DID YOUR LABEL FORCE
YOU IN ANY WAY TO CHANGE YOUR STYLE AND MAYBE BECOME MORE AGGRESSIVE?
A very good question and a very
good observation. I’ll start by answering the last question first.
The guys at LMP were very cool with us right from the start. We had
actually finished the entire recording and mixing of the album before we
were put in contact with them. Fortunately for us, they liked the
way the album sounded and only asked that they master it. The main
factor in the advancement of the overall sound since the first two recordings
primarily has to do with two things. First, I was exposed to a greater
variety of Metal since the first two recordings which greatly influenced
my writing. I was exposed to bands such as Iced Earth, Gamma Ray,
and Blind Guardian, just to name a few. Second, the new members played
a greater role in the writing process for this album than in the previous
two. In addition, we had decided that we were not going to independently
release this album. We were determined to get it released through
a label, so instead of splitting the budget between production and printing
of the copies, we through everything into the production to get the best
possible sound we could with the budget that we had.
4.IS YOUR NEW ALBUM A CONCEPT? WHICH
THEMES DO YOU LIKE TO “HURT” THROUGH YOUR LYRICS?
The new album is not a concept
however most of the songs are in the realm of high fantasy. This
happens to be a theme that I’m greatly drawn to. I read a lot of
high fantasy books as well as enjoy movies of the same genre. So
basically I like to write songs involving this theme as well. We
are however broadening our themes for future songs to include historic
events and battles, as well as horror.
5. THE COVER ARTWORK IS EXCELLENT.
WHO IS THE DESIGNER AND HOW IS THIS DEMON CONNECTED WITH THE LYRICS AND
THE MUSIC IN YOUR NEW ALBUM? THIS DEMON REMINDS ME A LITTLE OF THE CARTOON
HERO OF THE SERIES “GARGOYLES”. ARE YOU AWARE OF IT?
Thank you very much for the compliment.
The artist is BROM. He is well known throughout the art community.
He has done covers for quite a number of video games and books. The
rights to use the piece were purchase. This was not a custom job
basically due to budgetary as well as time constraints. The guys
at LMP were eager to have us use a piece from BROM, so we looked through
his collection of what was available and between the label and us, we narrowed
it down to the one you see. We felt the gargoyle could be a good
representation of the title-track which involves a world of high fantasy
colliding with the mundane world and basically taking over. It has
been mentioned to me once before that it somewhat resembles the cartoon
character. That is actually a pretty funny observation.
6.YOUR SINGER HAS GREEK ROOTS. I’D
LIKE TO ASK HIM IF HE KNOWS ANYTHING FROM GREECE AND IF HE HAS EVER VISITED
IT? HAS HIS ORIGIN EVER INFLUENCED HIM TO WRITE ABOUT THE ANCIENT GREEK
MYTHOLOGY?
I was actually born in Greece (Piraeus)
and lived in Athens until just before my 2nd birthday. That’s when
my parents and I immigrated to the United States. I had visited there
many times. The last time was in 1988. I never actually thought
to write about ancient Greek Mythology but it’s definitely a good idea.
I’ll keep that in mind as we work on new material.
7.YOUR SINGER, BEFORE JOINING YOU,
USED TO BE A MEMBER OF A GREAT U.S. POWER METAL BAND, GOTHIC KNIGHTS. WHY
DID HE LEAVE THEM? HOW ARE HIS RELATIONS WITH THE GOTHIC KNIGHTS GUYS?
My relationship with the Gothic
Knights is good. We didn’t part on bad terms. Basically, at
the time of the departure, I was in college completing my education and
did not have the time they required to dedicate to them. So in an
effort not to hold them back I chose to leave. It was pretty much
a mutual decision on both my part as well as the rest of the band.
Now we even book shows together and do all we can to create a true Metal
scene here in the United States, primarily in the New York area.
8.IN YOUR NEW ALBUM YOU HAVE AN AMAZING
BALLAD CALLED “ETERNAL LOVE”. IT’S A VERY ROMANTIC SONG. DO YOU THINK ROMANCE
AND HEAVY METAL CAN BE TOGETHER HAND BY HAND? TO WHOM WOULD YOU LIKE TO
DEDICATE THIS SONG?
I’m pleased that you like the song.
Although it’s definitely different from the rest of the songs on the album,
we felt it is very strong musically and would be a great addition to the
album. To me, Metal is about passion, whether it’s about war, death,
destruction or even love, it has to have real powerful emotion behind it.
So, if it is done right, I think the two can work well together.
As for the dedication, let’s just say that writing a song for someone does
not guarantee a long-term relationship. So I’ll dedicate it to all
the fans that enjoy it.
9.I’LL GIVE YOU A LIST OF BANDS AND
I’D LIKE TO TELL ME BRIEFLY YOUR OPINION ABOUT THEM: WARLORD, MEDIEVAL
STEEL, MANOWAR, AGENT STEEL, QUEENSRYCHE, HELLSTAR AND OMEN.
To be completely honest, I do not
as of yet have any albums by Warlord, Medieval Steel, Agent Steel, Hellstar
or Omen, so I really would rather hold off my opinion of these bands until
I become more familiar with their material. From what I have been
hearing however they are all great bands. As far as Manowar, I truly
respect the fact that they have stuck to their guns throughout the years.
They’ve always been true to their fans and their music. Queensryche
on the other hand started out as a great band. Up until and including
Operation Mindcrime they were one of my most influential bands. Goeff
Tate’s voice was simply amazing. But since Operation Mindcrime, they
have gotten progressively worse with each album. To me the direction
they took was a great disappointment.
10.WHICH DO YOU THINK IS THE BEST AND
WHICH IS THE WORST PART IN YOUR MUSIC? IN WHICH FIELD DO YOU THINK YOU
NEED FURTHER IMPROVEMENT?
I don’t really look at it in that
way. The way I like to see it is that everything can be improved
and one should always try to get better all the time. This is what
I really like about Zandelle. No matter how satisfied we are with
the level we’ve achieved, we always feel we can be even better. We’re
always looking for ways to improve our playing, writing, and performing
in all aspects.
11.WHICH SONG OF YOURS DO YOU THINK
IS THE MOST IDEAL TO REPRESENT YOUR WORK? IF YOU COULD MAKE A VIDEO CLIP,
HOW DO YOU IMAGINE IT TO BE?
As of this moment I would have
to say that the title track itself, “Twilight on Humanity” would be that
song because it encompasses just about every style of the genre that we
have done. If I were to shoot a video for the song, it would have
to be one of epic proportions. It would have to have the majesty
and grandeur of a movie like “Lord of the Rings”, mixed in with clips of
the band playing live.
12.WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THE FANS TO
CONVINCE THEM BUY YOUR CD INSTEAD OF ANOTHER RELEASE?
If they buy it we’ll be their friends
for life. Seriously, I would say that the album has a lot to offer.
Each song contains a special quality that we think will appeal to just
about every true Metal fan out there. We put a lot of work into each
and every song we write. We worked really hard to create and album
which would inspire people to want to listen to it in its entirety without
skipping over any of the tracks.
13.WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU COULDN’T
COMPOSE OR INVOLVE IN ANY WAY WITH MUSIC?
That is just too horrible to think
about. I would probably go on a major killing spree, starting with
the person or persons responsible for this.
14. IF SOMEDAY YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO
MEET THE CREATURE THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE, WHICH WOULD YOUR BIGGEST QUESTION
BE?
That’s easy. What is our
purpose for being here, besides the obvious one of spreading true Metal
throughout the world?
15.IF TIME TRAVEL WAS POSSIBLE, WHICH
HISTORICAL PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHY? WHAT WOULD YOU MISS
THE MOST FROM OUR TIME?
I would love to visit the medieval
era. I was always fascinated with that time period. There is
nothing more interesting to me than riding on a powerful steed and wielding
a mighty sword in a place where honor dictates ones actions.
I would however miss indoor plumbing,
electricity, my X-box, my television, DVDs and all the other great things
technology is responsible for.
16.THANK YOU! HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK
YOU ANYTHING AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?
I just want to thank you for the
opportunity to promote Zandelle. I hope your readers find the interview
informative and enjoyable. We look forward to seeing everyone one
day at a show where people will be able to experience the music of Zandelle
live. TRUE METAL FOREVER!!!
Nick "William_Kidd"
Parastatidis
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