D.A.M is a Melodic Death Metal band from Brazil. They have released a new album called “Premonitions” so we talk to Guilherme & Edu from the band to find out more on the album, the Brazilian metal scene and what the band name stands for.
Metal-Roos: To start this interview could you guys tell us what D.A.M stands for?
Edu: For me D.A.M always meant a kind of ideology, a style and a kind of band that I always dreamed about to have. I love the compositions, they make me wanna practice for many many hours just to play them perfectly. It´s something really hard to explain to those who are not addicted to play everything perfectly; you become addicted to this sensation, it becomes an obsession. Also the meaning of the words and D.A.M´s proposal with the occult is something that always called my attention to, so I could unity both the playing aspect and the ideology of my life. For each band member I believe there’s a personal meaning of D.A.M like me, about the meaning of the letters it’s a secret.
Metal-Roos: Your style is at the moment Melodic Death Metal, has it ever been different?
Guilherme: No, D.A.M was created as a melodic death act. However, there’s many different influencies to simple call it “melo death”. In other music projects we also played different styles, but D.A.M’s intentions was to be a melodic death metal act.
Metal-Roos: You just released an album called “Premonitions”, how the public reacted?
Guilherme: Very well in general. There’s a lot of progressive behind it so it’s more complex to hear it and understand what we are saying, the previous releases have much more “listen to easy” songs, but people liked it.
Metal-Roos: What was the idea behind the cover for “Premonitions”?
Guilherme: All artwork we released until now, express events from the lyrics also some connection with the Trilogy.
Metal-Roos: Where do you put yourself in the Brazilian music scenario?
Edu: D.A.M conquered many fnas in Brazil in a very quickly way. Many guys thought that we were not Brazilians, but it’s important to realize that every single place has their own most popular styles and you have to understand and adapt to got good results. Brazil right now is passing a very instable moment both politic and economic speaking, and that makes hardier for musicians to have access to good equipment because the high taxes with dollar affects the whole country in all aspects. Due to that is really hard to musicians and band to invest and the big music companies end putting their money in the most popular styles in the country so no popular style have no investment. I believe, however, that there’s other ways and strategies that one can adopt to succed and D.A.M has something that I believe to be very important that is very close so Aristoteles’s path to success: “First have a very defined ideal and off course, a goal, an objective”.
Metal-Roos: How do you think your music evolved since “Possessed” in 2013?
Guilherme: Talking about evolution is always complicated because the word “evolution” sometimes gives the impression that what we make today is better than what we use to do, and for me both styles are great, like it or not – it’s a matter of taste. We have more complex songs in Premonitions, but that doesn’t mean that the songs are better than “Tales of the Mad King” for example. I believe we evolved in both production and technical aspects and we have a stronger identity today. In the beginning everyone was saying “great it’s like C.O.B”, and that is good but you get tired after sometime passes and people keep saying that because you know that what you are doing it’s different from them. Any high pitched plus keyboards seems to be a “like CoB band” so we moved a little away from that and searched more elements to put in the songs, but in the end they keep saying it’s a C.O.B like band so we are not worrying about that anymore. There’s lot of technical terms we could discuss here that means an evolution but the truth people don’t understand it, it´s very theorical and the important is the sensation we are giving to people with our songs. So let’s guys that listen to us how they believed we evolved!
Metal-Roos: Have you ever planned a tour around Brazil or maybe abroad?
Edu: We had a very complicated year in 2016; there was some plan changes and we are putting everything together yet. We are improving what has to be improved before doing any tour. But for the future we will have lots of good news.
Guilherme: We planned to go to USA and Europe this year, but I got really sick and everyone got some issues to solve. Also the crisis we talked before made us focus in getting some money to survive, instead of planning some tours… because they are expensive by the way.
Metal-Roos: What are your biggest influences when it comes to music?
Edu: Absolutely Iron Maiden and then Arch Enemy. And what made me keep playing was the guitarist Jason Becker because for me he is an example that everything is possible.
Guilherme: The techniques I learned at Music College, it’s divine man! Talking about metal there’s Nightwish, Ensiferum, Maiden and lots of bands.
Metal-Roos: I heard you’re planning a trilogy of albums to be released, can you tell us about it and what links can we find between them?
Guilherme: Yeah, it is what we released until now! Every album has an EP that works like a prelude to the album and the there’s lot of musical connections. If I tell you all the links there’s no fun at all playing the game. It’s interesting to see interpretation of people about the story, so I prefer to let people answer this one!
Metal-Roos: Taking into consideration that D.A.M is a pretty new band comparing to those with decades on the road, how do you see the band in a long term future?
Edu: I believe we have the most important thing – that is good quality music material and like Aristoteles said we also have “a goal and an objective”. But now is the time to make some stuff to improve us even more. Besides the administrative part of the band, we also have a strong care for our fans they are what keep the flame alive and always when we play a concert, we try to bring to them an unforgettable event to keep forever in their memories.
Guilherme: We are waiting for the best, however, we are not young and naive anymore to believe that “sucess” is something that will come just due to our songs. I remember one guy from media that one time said that he could see us reaching the top of Brazilian metal scene, but that we would never be a band like Arch Enemy and Amon Amarth. The truth is that we as a Brazilian act face challenges that those bands will never know what is about, both to travel and to promote our songs and even to get paid in a foreign country, is really hard to do metal when you are born in South America. We have good songs, we have some aspects to improve and get even better but the truth is that we have to work a lot non musical stuff. If we want to make our way as a “successful” international metal act, so let’s do it!
Interview Date: 2016-06-16
Interviewer: Douglas
