This Fall, Unleash the Archers embarked on the Apex North American tour, with fellow Canadians Striker and Helion Prime out of the U.S. as special guests along the way. When they reached their stop at the Kingsland in Brooklyn, I had the chance to sit down with Unleash The Archers’ frontwoman Brittney Slayes, where we covered a lot of ground, from Apex, influences, and Unleash the Archers’ evolution over time, to playing the upcoming 70,000 Tons of Metal Cruise, and Brittney’s excitement over the band’s recent visit to NASA. 

Some of the latest news from the band is the “Ten Thousand Against One” lyric video, Apex was released last year, but what made now the right time to revisit that particular track?

It was just kind of a celebration for the North American tour in support of Apex, we had done Europe but not the States in support of the album, so Napalm was kind of like, “Why don’t we have a little fun and release another single from the record?”, so they actually suggested doing “Ten Thousand Against One”, and they put together a really rad lyric video for it that we’re super proud of. So really, Napalm was just like, “Let’s do something!”, and we’re like, “We’re not going to argue with that!”.

Well, I think it worked out, because it’s awesome. Now, Apex marked the 10th Anniversary for Unleash The Archers, looking back now, how do you feel the band has changed or developed over this time? 

Well, it doesn’t feel like ten years, that’s for sure. I feel old now. But, the band has definitely changed a lot, we had a huge lineup change in 2013 where we lost one of our main songwriters, but we brought Andrew on board, and it just kind of created this shift in the whole sound, so we have a much more traditional Heavy Metal sound now, and I’m excited with the direction that we’re going in. I’m always down to change and to grow, and to let the music take its course and just see where we are. Like right now, I’m listening to a lot of Black Metal, so you never know what the next record could hold, right? So having a kind of change in lineup and influences is always a good thing, I think. 

Absolutely, changing and developing your influences as well. 

Exactly, you don’t want a band that just writes the same record over and over and over again, and I mean, as much as there are some bands that I love where I’m like, “Yes, please continue to write the same record over and over again”, but I always find myself going back to that first version of it. So, you know, you’ve got to try and change it up a little. 

You have such a powerful voice and wide vocal range, I really admire you as a singer. At what point did you discover that you could sing in this style? Had you been singing all your life, did you have vocal training?

Well, I’d always been a really big fan of Heavy Metal, since I was eight years old and I was listening to Megadeth, Pantera, Tool, White Zombie, whatever I could get my hands on, or whatever my brother had in his CD player, actually, is what I would listen to. But I’d also been singing since I was very young, like really, really young. There’s a photo of me when I was six or seven, I think, with my Dad’s SM-57, not plugged in, of course, because I didn’t know about those things…and I’m on this weird little stage thing that we had at our house, it was actually the fireplace mantle, but it was my stage. And I’m up there with the microphone at a pretty young age, so I’d always kind of been a musician, I’d always been a singer. But it wasn’t until late high school, when I kind of rediscovered Heavy Metal…you know, I had the early high school *laughs* Britney Spears, S Club 7 time of my life. Got past that, and then got back into Heavy Metal and realized that I wanted to sing Heavy Metal. It wasn’t just about listening to it, it was about it being a bigger part of my life. So when I started dating Scott, he was actually in a different metal band, and I would go to their shows all the time, and I was like, “Wait a minute, I could totally do this!” So when that band broke up, he and I started Unleash The Archers together. 

Awesome, so it was always there and you just kind of developed into it, I like that. 

Well, at the same time, 3 Inches of Blood was really big, and they had just released Advance and Vanquish, which was their big album for me, and I went and saw a few of their shows and I was like, “Yes, I need to perform live like they do”, and it was a really big click, you know? 

And about Apex, a specific track I wanted to ask you about, as a bonus track, you guys covered “Queen of the Reich”, so what led you to choose that particular song to cover?

Well, I love Geoff Tate, he’s a really big influence for me. Actually, in the early years of Unleash The Archers, I was trying to figure out my voice, because I was still very much influenced by classical at the time, you know, I had been a choir singer my whole life, but I didn’t want to be that same symphonic operatic vocal that’s out there, so I was just trying to discover my sound and what I could do differently as a vocalist, and Geoff Tate was a really big influence for me. Listening to how he does that falsetto, it’s kind of like a midrange falsetto, there’s still so much power behind it. So I listened to a lot of Queenrÿche, especially the Best of, which of course, had “Queen of the Reich” on it. When we had the chance to do another bonus track for the Japanese edition of Apex, I was like, “Why don’t we do that song?”, because I love Geoff Tate, and it’s called “Queen of the Reich”, and the whole album is kind of about this badass sorcerer queen, so I think it fits. And the band was down with it. 

Since you are a Geoff Tate and Queenrÿche fan, I’m curious to get some of your thoughts on the recent days of Queenrÿche…you know, the split, new singer, Geoff Tate doing his own thing, just your thoughts on what you’ve seen as a fan.

Well, it is unfortunate that they’re not together anymore, but musicians, you’ve got to change and you’ve got to grow and do your own thing, and sometimes people grow apart, and that’s totally fine with me. I think that Todd is doing a killer job, I listened to their new album front to back millions of times, the last Queenrÿche record, it was constantly on in my car, it was so rad and such a great album, and I loved it just as much as I love Operation: Mindcrime. So I’m okay with growth and change. 

Another big point of news for Unleash The Archers would be the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise, it was actually just announced that you guys are going to be part of that next year, so how are you feeling looking toward that, and had you been part of that event before? 

No, I kind of had this weird secret pact with myself that I would never go until I was playing it, because I’ve got so many friends that are part of it, and are just like, “It’s amazing!”, “Such a rad time, you need to come.” And I was always like “Ugh! I want to so bad”, but I just felt like I would jinx it or something, if I went on the cruise before being an actual artist. So, I’m really excited to be able to finally go, so then maybe now I can go as a fan as well. 

There you go, a fan checking everything out, then get on stage yourself. 

Exactly! And then not have the stress of having to perform, because I know I’m totally going to be just stomach in knots the whole time. I’m going to try and enjoy myself, but like you can’t enjoy yourself too much, otherwise you — *laughs* I don’t know, it’s going to be a good time. 

*laughs* It will be, definitely! There’s a sort of Canadian/US connection happening with this tour, because there’s you and Striker of course, but then you’ve also got Helion Prime, a US band – and this is actually not the first time you’ve been involved with Helion Prime, right?

Right, I did a guest vocal with them on their newest album with them, and then sort of the mastermind behind Helion Prime is Jason, and he has another band called Dire Peril, and I did a song with Dire Peril called “Queen of the Galaxies”. So Jason and I have been friends for a really long time, so when we had this opportunity, Helion Prime was actually my first choice to be the opener of the package. So when he was like, “Yes, we can do it, but we’re not going to have enough time to get our singer on board, but we have Mary Zimmer, who’s willing to do it”, I was just like, “Yes. Just yes. Just please come on the road with us”. The whole tour has been super rad so far, and really great people, so no issues! *laughs*

That’s awesome – now, you also have a new bassist on board for this tour, so can you talk about how he came to be involved with the band?

We actually know Nick from when we toured in 2015 with a band called Crimson Shadows, he was filling in on bass for those guys. So when we knew we needed someone who could spend five weeks in a van with us, he was our first choice because he’s such a rad dude. He’s just a ball of positivity and positive energy, so he was definitely our first pick, we knew that. He’s a guitar player, actually, but he plays a rad bass. He’s just a fill-in, he doesn’t play bass full-time, so it’s kind of a one-off thing, but he was definitely top of the list. 

Yeah, you need that kind of positive energy around you when you’re going to go on tour!

For sure, I mean, you’ve got to be careful. Touring is not easy, and it’s not for everyone, and a lot of times, you get a new member, and then you go on a couple of tours, and maybe they learn that the road life isn’t something for them. So, we knew that Nick was well-seasoned. 

There you go. Something else I definitely want to ask you about, because I saw it on social media, and now seeing you today has just affirmed it, you guys had a visit to NASA recently – you’re even wearing the T-shirt there —

NASA swag! 

Yeah! NASA swag. *laughs* Can you talk to me about that visit?

Oh, it was just the coolest thing ever. A fan actually reached out, who works at NASA, and said, “Hey, I see that you guys are coming through Houston, do you want a tour of NASA?”, and I was like, “Yes! No question!”, like is this real? And he’s like, “You get VIP passes, and we’ll take you behind the scenes and everything”. So yeah, it was pretty incredible. We started in Mission Control, but they were very busy actually, we didn’t know who the special guest was coming the next day, so he was just like, “I’m sorry, we can’t bring you down the floor, but normally we could go and see all those cool desks where people are working and see what they’re doing”, but we couldn’t that day because Ivanka Trump was coming the next day, so we didn’t get to go down and actually see it, but it was really cool just being there and seeing them all. And what’s really neat is that they’re not allowed to leave their desks except for this five minutes of darkness when the ISS is not in communication range, it’s like this really weird dark spot over, I think it’s Southern Europe, or Southeastern Europe, and so they all get up, go get their coffee, get their food, go to the bathroom, and everything, and then they have to be back at their desks in time. So that was really cool to see. And then, we got to go to the actual mockup of the ISS, which was life-size and real, everything except for on the ISS, all their tools are just hanging from the roof, from everywhere because there’s no gravity, right? So you’re just floating, and there is no up and there is no down – but on the real one, we couldn’t really have that. *laughs* So that was super cool, and then what was really neat is when we were standing outside of the Orion capsule, which is going to be replacing the shuttle program, that…everyone was all kind of upset when Obama shut down the shuttle program, but then Trump was like, “We’re going to start something else”, so it’s Orion. And we were looking in and getting to see everything, and there was a whole gallery up top of all the regular tourers, watching us get to be down there in the capsule *laughs*. I felt really bad, but I was also like, “Okay, this is legit. This is really cool”. And then we got to go to the neutral buoyancy lab, which was freaking rad, because there’s actually live astronauts down in there. And what it is, is just the outside is the same, and so it teaches them how to do spacewalks, and how to work on the space station, and Canadarm and all that stuff, so they can run through it before they have to actually go up and go out and be out in space, in that vacuous abyss. So we got to watch them working down there, and it was really neat, and then I have a video, I haven’t posted it yet but, of the actual astronaut emerging out of the water, and then we got to take pictures with him and everything, and it was probably the coolest thing ever, and I totally cried because I was like, “Oh my God, I’m meeting an astronaut, this guy’s going to go into space and see Earth from”…*tearing up* …It’s just the coolest — I love space. *laughs* I fucking want to be an astronaut so bad, but anyways, yeah. 

No, I love your enthusiasm for this, it sounds like you’re really into it. 

I read a lot of science fiction. *laughs* Just going to be honest. 

Nothing wrong with that! I love how excited you are about it.

Dude, NASA is rad! And like, NASA does not get enough love out there in the world, I’ll tell you that much. For everything they’ve done, and the ESA too, the European Space Agency. And even freaking China and Russia, all the work that they do, and how they’ve progressed human life, I mean, think of all the things that exist now, probably because of NASA and all their scientific leaps and stuff that they come up with. So, life as we know it, is the way it is because of how hard those scientists work. 

That’s an awesome way of putting it, too. You said you read a lot of sci-fi, what’s the latest thing you’ve been into?

I’m actually in the middle of The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb, it’s fantasy, but probably my favorite science fiction writer is Alastair Reynolds, who is an actual Astrophysicist, so he knows the things that we can and cannot do with current technology. And so he writes very realistic science fiction, so things like faster than light travel is not something that we’ve been able to figure out, or something that we think we’ll be able to figure out in the near future, so he’s come up with ideas for getting super close to that, but not quite. Just super rad books to read when the science is real. 

So I guess that fills the downtime in the van then, while you’re traveling around. 

It does, yes. *laughs*

Jumping back to today, you’re playing the Kingsland in Brooklyn here tonight, it’s a relatively new venue, intimate vibe, cool place. How are you feeling about tonight?

Oh, I’m pretty stoked. Apparently, there’s a lot of tickets sold, and it’s going to be a hot one, so…I’m fine as long as the crowd is singing along, it’s a good night for me. 

And just to wrap things up, can you give your thoughts on the rest of the tour, and what’s on the horizon for Unleash The Archers?

Well, we’re going to do 70,000 Tons in the winter, and release an EP probably, in late spring, and then we’ll take a bit of a breather, and then start writing the next record. 

Sounds great. Well, I’m looking forward to the show tonight, thanks for sitting down and talking with me, Brittney. 

Thanks for having me. 

Keep up with the latest on the band via http://www.unleashthearchers.com

The unveiling of Striker’s latest full-length Play To Win is almost here, with a release date of October 26th bringing the latest chapter in these Canadian Heavy Metallers’ discography to the world next week. The band has been on tour for the past month or so alongside fellow Heavy Metallers out of Canada, Unleash The Archers, and when the Apex tour brought them along to the Kingsland in Brooklyn, NY, I was there for all the action. I sat down (well, stood in a hallway/stairwell, technically…hey, it’s Brooklyn.) for a quick Q&A session with frontman Dan Cleary and guitarist Tim Brown.

I’m just going to kick things off by talking about your new record, Play To Win, coming out in just a few weeks – can you start by talking about your approach going into the new record, coming out of the self-titled?

Dan: I think we kind of approached in a way where we wanted to sort of focus on what we were really good at, we thought that our wheelhouse is more like a melodic Heavy Metal style, little bit less full-tilt on the Speed Metal thing, and maybe try a few more different types of songs, stuff like that. So it’s a little different, I mean, in the end, with every album we aim for something and then it’s totally different by the end. 

Tim: That’s about it. Lots of shred – shred harder than ever. 

All right, that’s a good approach when you’re doing a record like this. And this record is being released independently, just like the last two, so what was it like for you to venture into that initially? 

Dan: It was kind of nerve-racking, I mean, it’s a lot of work. But at the time, when we split from our last label, we just thought it made more sense with the style of music we’re playing, it’s maybe not as commercial and stuff, it’s harder to make money, so we figured no one’s going to work harder at it than us. So we thought that’s probably the way to go, but at the time, we were sort of like, flip a coin and be like, “Which way should we go with this?” but so far it’s been really great for us. 

And in terms of the actual logistics of how you went about doing it independently?

Dan: Well, we just started contacting as many people as we could about how we could do it, whether they were willing to work with us, and we were actually pretty surprised at how many people had already either heard of us, or were just willing to work with us just based on us emailing them. So it was like, the doors are there, you just have to knock on them and see if anybody will open up. 

Tim: That’s pretty much what happened, as a band, your money’s as green as anyone else’s. 

For the new record, “Heart of Lies” is your first single, can you talk a bit about what went into that track in particular?

Dan: Yeah, that’s like sort of more of a classic Striker sound, what we found is a little bit of heavy metal, speed metal and thrash metal and hair metal, sort of everything melded into one track. That was sort of our flagship one, because we didn’t want to put out…well, we’ve got a variety of songs on the new album, so we wanted to make sure we put out something that was in line with what we’ve done in the past, and then we’ll sort of sucker the people into listening to the rest of the album after *laughs*. 

There you go – grab and pull ‘em in, right? *laughs*

Dan: That’s right. *laughs*

So then, the songwriting for that one is a traditional approach for Striker, you would say?

Dan: Yeah, I think we’ve always approached the songwriting in kind of the same way. This time we were trying things a little bit differently, different instruments and stuff like that. But primarily, we’re a guitar-driven band, so that’s where we start everything is with the riffs. 

All we’ve heard of the record so far is the single, but once everyone gets a chance to hear the full thing, what would you want someone listening to the album to take away from it?

Tim: We always like to say that if you’re coming out to a Striker show, if you’re not having fun, we’re not doing our job, so that’s kind of what we want to convey on the album as well. It’s a really fun album, gets you going. 

Awesome. Anything to add, Dan?

Dan: Nah, that’s pretty much it. We’ve got a juicy ballad on this one so get ready for that! *laughs*

*laughs* All right! But, it sounds like it’s all about the classic heavy metal fun, which is cool. So both of you being in Striker for a while now, obviously there’s a traditional classic kind of influence on Striker, you guys make that pretty clearly known, but have you discovered any other kind of influences along the way – something that’s come across your path that’s affected the way you play, the way you approach your own writing?

Tim: We listen to all kinds of music, I mean, we’re stuck in a van or a bus for like, way too long every day so one of the easiest things you can do to occupy your time is put music on and it gets kind of boring listening to the same stuff over and over and over, so we listen to all kinds of weird stuff in the van…from like Hawaiian ukulele music to you know, Ultimate Shred and super brutal stuff. You name it, we’ve listened to it. 

Dan: I think when we were young, we had like that sort of Elitist Old School Metal vibe, and we’ve sort of shaken that along the way. Because you really box yourself in if you’re only wanting to listen to, like,  albums from 1984 or whatever? There’s only so many. And like, new music is pretty exciting right now. I think there’s so much going on, there’s lots to listen to.

And there is like a classic, traditional sound as a style that’s very prominent now on the metal scene, especially from bands out of Canada. Do you feel this is, as a lot of people are saying, a “New Wave of the Traditional Metal”, or just that it never really went away to begin with? 

Dan: I don’t know, really, because it’s like a “new wave” that’s been happening for like 10 years now. So it’s kind of just like a thing that’s going on, I think there’s always a palate for that. When we were kids, or like when we were in High School, what we liked to listen to was like, Metallica, Megadeth, Testament, stuff like that. So we got into it sometime when we were kids – I don’t exactly know how, but it just happened that way. So there’s probably just cycles of people just finding out about that music and it just keeps rolling. 

I just want to ask you guys about you personally, for each of you, tell me about the first time you picked up each of your respective instruments. 

Dan: When I picked up my first voice, it was when I was…no, I’m just kidding. I started with guitar, actually, and my Dad had an acoustic guitar, and they were like, if you play this for this many months consistently, we’ll get you an electric guitar. And I did, and so that was the end of piano lessons. Gone, only electric guitar. And then, I started singing because nobody else wanted to sing in the band, which is, I think, a common problem. Nobody wants to sing, nobody wants to play bass either, but singing is the hard part, especially when you’re in High School and stuff, you’ve got to push yourself out there a bit. 

Tim: I actually started out as a vocalist in a band before Striker, in high school. We were writing songs, playing music, whatever, and the guitar player in the band at the time was like, “Hey man, here’s a guitar, I’ll show you how to play some songs”. I had no idea, had never touched a guitar in my entire life, and I said “What the hell? This is really fun”. I just had a lot of fun, like your first time you touch a guitar and you’re like, “What the hell is going on? How do people even play this??” So I just thought it was really interesting, and I started playing it, and then I got a guitar for my 17th birthday, and I just couldn’t stop. 

And jumping to the modern day, you guys are here at the Kingsland in Brooklyn playing alongside Unleash The Archers, just your thoughts on the show tonight?

Dan: I think it will be really good, this whole tour’s been like, crazy. We weren’t sure what to expect, two Canadian bands, but we just got off two sold-out shows in a row, so hopefully tonight is a similar experience. But this tour’s been really, really good.  

Lastly, just to wrap things up, what can we expect on the horizon for Striker?

Dan: We have a European tour with Skullfist starting in November, and all of November, we’ll be in Europe. And then we’re starting to book our next European tour after that, as well as another North American tour, while trying to book our other little tour, we’ll also have new music videos and all kinds of fun stuff coming up. 

Lot of good stuff to look forward to and you’ll be on the road a lot, so plenty of chances to catch Striker out there. Thank you guys for talking with me, it’s been awesome. 

Keep up with Striker via http://www.striker-metal.com

2018 has been a big year for Kobra and the Lotus so far, with the highly-anticipated Prevail II completing their double album series and kicking off a North American tour in support of the release. When the band came through the East Coast and made a stop at The Kingsland in Brooklyn, NY, I sat down with Kobra Paige before the show to discuss what’s behind the Prevail I and II records and the band’s latest unique music videos, as well as Kobra’s background as a lyricist and musician, digging into what it is that motivates her in studio and on the road. 

Just to start things off, you recently released the completion of your Prevail series, Prevail I and Prevail II, just a couple of weeks ago. What made you set out to do the double album series in the first place?

It was actually a cast away idea my father had, he said, “You guys should do a double album, I was just hearing Bruce Dickinson talking on a podcast about how your generation doesn’t do it anymore, so why don’t you guys?”, and I really rejected it hard immediately…but then after five days, I wanted to do it, and I asked the guys and everyone jumped in. So here we are, with the double album finally released for everyone to hear as one piece. 

And I heard that it was actually all one body of work that you created a couple of years ago at this point, so did the fact that it was all there already build a lot of anticipation for you guys when you were stretching it out over all this time for the two records?

I mean, I know it did for me, I couldn’t wait for the second record to be out, and I couldn’t wait for us to play the new songs that I knew we had. I was dying to just refresh the setlist, period. So it was wonderful to finally have Prevail II out. I did find it hard to sit on our material for that long, but at the same time, I’m very grateful that it happened that way, and it was very smart that Napalm had suggested that. Because it would have been a lot of great work that we had worked so hard on lost in the shuffle of a big body.

Right, so spreading it out had everyone appreciating it a little more is what you’re saying. 

Definitely, definitely. People are really vibing with Prevail I or Prevail II more than the other in some ways, they’re finding their songs that speak to them the most, and I think that that also has been aided by them being separately released, so that they can digest the first one, and now the second one is there for them to have space with. 

Nice. I want to dig into the songs a little bit, one that was a great and very unique music video, I thought, was “Let Me Love You” – you had that Anime music video thing going on, so where did that whole concept come from, why’d you guys decide to do that?

Well, Japan always gets a special track, or a bonus, and there’s no way around it in the industry, so I thought, “Let’s do it in Japanese as a bonus”. The video just turned into something that was a really fun idea, and also a way for us to share it with the rest of the world, because the bonus track for Japan will never be on an album for sale in any other country but Japan. So people that do want that single are going to have to import someone selling their album off of Kijiji or eBay or whatever, which sometimes they do, but this video provides the opportunity for people to actually hear it everywhere without taking away the special aspect that we were trying to give to Japan.

Do you actually speak Japanese, or did you learn just for the song?

Neither, actually, I worked with a coach for around a month specifically for this song, a Japanese woman, and she was amazing because we had to rewrite the song so that it made sense for people in Japanese. It still doesn’t flow quite normal, I’ve heard, even from her, but she finds it interesting because you can hear that I’m not Japanese. So the most important thing was that the words made sense, and that they were still beautiful and convey the right message. So we worked really hard on that and I worked really hard on making sure I pronounced it as best as I could. We did several Skypeing sessions for weeks, I was very diligent about it, and when we did record the track, I had her on Skype in the booth with me for six hours. So we stopped, we did several takes of the song and we stopped after every like, half line, making sure it was making sense, that everything was right, then going through it as a full line, making sure there were pieces that were right…yeah.

Sounds like a really intense recording session there! 

It was very tedious, but it was well worth it. 

Now, is that along the lines of how you do typically record vocals, that stop-and-start, or do you prefer to just go in and streamline it, how does it usually work with you?

It really varies, actually. Sometimes I’ll do four takes only and that’s all I’ve got – songs like “My Immortal”, basically I just did four takes and we just cut from that stuff. It puts a little bit of mental pressure on you too, if you know that there’s four and you’re not going to do any more on that during that day. Of course you can come back, but we usually don’t, and I appreciate having a producer for the very reason that they are objectively telling me, “No, we really got it”, because sometimes I won’t know myself. I could keep going and beating a thing to death, when it really is there, I got something that is presentable enough and representing me. 

Something else I thought was very unique for you guys to be doing was your cover of “The Chain”. I love the video, it’s also a little out of the ordinary for Kobra and the Lotus, but very cool. 

Thank you!

So why that song? What does that song mean for you guys to have covered that, and how did you approach putting your own unique twist and spin on it?

Well, “The Chain” was picked by me, I’m massively in love with Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, and I wanted to have a really fun and strong closer for the Prevail II chapter, and something that unified both albums together, just ended on a note of unity and oneness. That was very, very important to me with the messages that I was conveying on both albums, and in music in general, with this band. Martin Wolff knew that we wanted to do this, he’s a Danish songwriter that we were in the studio working with, so he really worked the ideas around musically changing it, and he made a different riff. And that was it, we had that and Jasio recorded that, then I went and basically just cut up the shit out of it with Pro Tools in my kitchen in Denmark, and made this crazy-ass little blip that was just like a song you couldn’t recognize “The Chain” from, and Jacob thought it was nuts. He thought it made no sense to his brain at all and he said, “This makes no sense, blah blah” and I’m like, “Just record it, it’s going to make sense as soon as we do this and you see how the layers are actually going to come together”. It’s pretty much like there was dough, and I came back with a decorated pizza with candy, popcorn, and he was like “What the hell?” and I’m really happy that we stuck to it. And Napalm ended up loving it, so they suggested we do a video, so I thought the synopsis would be really cool if it was very, very natural, the guys were dressed in their natural state, like how you’d find them on the street any day, and just a big feeling of community and bringing it back to what the true nature of the music is about. 

So now, of course, you’ve been on tour with Texas Hippie Coalition, which track from Prevail II would you say you’re having the most fun with bringing from studio to stage?

I think everyone is really vibing with “Velvet Roses”, actually. And we’ve noticed that it really does get people going in places, which is really cool because it’s the next video. 

Ah, good to know! Nice little preview there. 

*laughs* Yeah, little tidbit. So that should be pretty fun to see how people respond to that. But otherwise, yesterday we heard people at the top of their lungs singing “Let Me Love You” and “Light Me Up”, which was really cool.

Awesome, and it’ll be cool to see what people vibe with tonight as well.

It will, it certainly will. Actually, a girl came yesterday dressed in my outfit from the “You Don’t Know” video, so it’s been pretty interesting, people have different stuff that speaks to them. 

Yeah, definitely. And in terms of things speaking to people, I think from the lyrics point of view, you’re very proficient in expressing stories and emotions and things like that. There always seems to be a message of some kind that comes across. So I’m curious, before you were doing Kobra and the Lotus and being a professional musician signed to a label, were you always writing stories and lyrics, or is that something that developed for you over this time?

I guess when I was younger, I would write short stories…but not really. I was into musical theater, but I think the most relational thing to this feeling that I have in music, for me specifically, is that I was just involved with a lot of volunteer work of different kinds when I was growing up. Just getting involved with different communities and seeing what their walks of life were, my parents also exposed us to a lot of new cultures that didn’t have what we had in our first world culture, and that was very impactful on me. So that is really the reason that I’m in music now, because I think it’s something that is really necessary for connecting people in a separated world. That’s the strongest purpose I find within this. Everyone has their own thing, but mine is definitely how it connects people together. 

And I think that shows, it comes through clearly. Also, during the recording process for the albums, I think especially for Prevail II more so, you were blogging during the process…so how was that for you to be opening up and showing people that inside look? 

I mean, it’s great. I wish we had time to do more, it actually was a ton of work, so we couldn’t keep up with it. We have a ton of GoPro footage that will never see the light of day, but I think it’s great, I wish that we could show people more, I wish we could actually show them what the road is like, and just see what it takes to even get here, where we are at this point. Just to see the lives and the work and everything, it’s just interesting. I am all for authentic experiences, as much as possible, so I am definitely the opposite of the artist just trying to make things look cool when I just want them to be seen for what they are. *laughs*

That’s great though – genuine, I like that. And fans like that too.

It is, and I’m not sure, but it makes me happy. *laughs*

And speaking of getting a look into life on tour, I know you have to be getting ready to go in there soon, so I will wrap things up now by just asking you your thoughts on the show tonight and just an outlook into the near future of Kobra and the Lotus. 

Well, I’m really excited. We’re in Brooklyn, New York, I think it should be a really good show. It’s really tight and hot in there in the Kingsland, so I think it’s going to be pretty packed, pretty warm, and make for a really fun time. And I expect to see a lot of familiar faces, we’ve always had a good time in the New York area, yesterday at Dingbatz in Jersey was really great, and probably one of the strongest crowds we’ve seen on the tour so far, so I expect it to be similar tonight. It’s going to be really fun. We’re still working on tours because we have a lot of promoting to do for this new album, Prevail II, and we are definitely looking at plans for a sixth album to start on.

Wow, already in the works.

Definitely! We’re young, there’s a lot of ideas floating around, everyone’s got a lot of energy, I think it’s time to just harness and take advantage of it while we can.

Awesome, and sounds like a plan. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with me. 

Thank you for having me.

You can keep up with the latest on Kobra and the Lotus via: http://kobraandthelotus.com.