Exposed Vocals Interviews Heavy Metal Band Indomite from Medellin, Colombia
So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Well we started around 5 years ago as a project to have fun on weekends and hang out with friends, we used to make heavy metal in that early stage, and as time went by and we got to know each other better, the styles of each one started changing the direction of the music, only three of us remain now from that time. We started to develop our own identity which led to the band becoming more Progressive; and Theater of Time is a display of that work.
We all grew up in Medellín, Colombia, which is the second major city in the country, it’s a very nice place, although it is not the best place for a metal band because there’s not many metalheads in our country.
It’s hard to answer what made us decide to become artist, we all come from different backgrounds, but one thing we share is the love for music, the joy of listening and creating; the idea to put our thoughts and feelings out there to be heard.
How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Actually the name was the idea of one of the early members of the band, Indomite comes from Latin and it means “not tamed, wild” (it actually means exactly the same in English haha), how he came up with that will remain a mystery for us all.
What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Online music sharing is the most important tool for us, consider we make music in a place where it is hard to stand out as a metal artist and even harder to be heard outside, so we started showing our music to everyone who wanted to listen to it, and we did it online, that’s how we ended up working with Leif at Norse Music, it’s an amazing thing we can do now, show what we got and listen to people making their own part miles away.
Also, we give our music away for free most of the time, we are constantly looking for blogs, bookers, magazines, everything, and we send them our music to be reviewed, played in radio stations, we also shared some songs on our soundcloud and youtube to be heard for free anytime, and last… we occasionally give away CDs at our shows and to people we see they connect with the band.
Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
We are still start-ups and what we do is work hard, there’s no magic formula, just work and work hard, set up goals and try strategies to achieve them, always put quality first even if it takes more time or effort. Reach out to people for help, advice. Consider all the aspects of your work: music, lyrics, artwork and try to tie them together. And well we don’t actually know if any of that works, but it’s how we work and we believe it is the best way.
Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Everybody makes mistakes and that’s part of the experience, when we perform we have a blast, we enjoy ourselves, so when someone makes a mistake we look at him and smile, it is part of the fun…. Then we get to the studio and work our ass off to prevent from making mistakes again.
Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
We haven’t had a proper tour yet but we have traveled to concerts a couple times, we had a fun time in one of those.
It was about three years ago and we had a show at a town near our city, turns out our vocalist at the time had a country house near that town so we decided to go the day before, and relax for the show. Turns out the transportation to the area wasn’t the best and we ended up walking half of the way loaded with clothes, groceries and instruments, we even got to ride in a chiva bus (common mean of transportation in the countryside) along with lots of bananas, carrots and other vegetables, I’ll trow you a pic so you see I’m no liar.
Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
We use to talk a lot about virtually anything and some of that ends up mixed in our music specially in the lyrics, Theater of Time is a mix of feelings, thoughts, our own philosophy.
The songwriting process is also a mix of a lot of things, sometimes we just jam for hours and come up with 30 seconds of a song, sometimes one of the guys writes something by himself and we later work over that, sometimes we are just playing a verse and when it ends we keep playing and the new part sounds nice. In the end we make a few (or a lot of) arrangements and it’s done.
Do you have a band website? Do you have a Facebook or Twitter? Do you use Bandcamp, Spotify, ExposedVocals or SoundCloud to share your music?
We frequently update our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/indomitemetal) and twitter (@indomitemetal) and it is our main mean of communication with our fans. The online sharing goes mostly trough SoundCloud or YouTube, and Norse Music manages all the other sites like amazon or iTunes
What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Well we like diverse music styles, and I can’t say anything is embarrassing, maybe unexpected, for example some soft rock, folk music from our country or even some electronic music.
If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
That is a no brainer; we would upgrade equipments and lock inside the studio (well not literally since our studio doesn’t have a bed or a kitchen) and produce the best album we can make, just practice, write, record. Along with the occasional hang out to take some beers.
Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
We have many upgrades planned but those are a little far along the road, now we are focused in the new album which is very far ahead and we hope to start recording in early 2014. This month we are also making the first PowerProg Festival in our city which we hope we can make annually to help the scene grow.
How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
We try to use as many ways to promote our music as we can, the one which works best for us is the internet, also Norse Music does it’s part in promoting our music, and very important as well, we try our best to engage our fans, show them that we are working hard and making them the essential part of the band they are.
If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
I think one of our major goals is performing alongside Angra; those guys are one of our greatest sources of inspiration, both musically and personally. As for location I would say a metal cruise loaded with chicks, beer and fun
So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
The next for us is a new album, we started writing music a few months ago and it is coming out really nice, we are eager to show it to everyone.
If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
We all have other stuff besides making music, most of us are college students and we have a Physician among us, which also plays the bass.
Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
It was metallica’s black album and I remember thinking “How the hell can this many kick ass songs fit into one CD??!!”
How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
That might be the hardest part, we do not live from music, so most of us have to study and some have to work (Santiago studies dentistry, Juan Carlos Bulding construction, Carlos Andres Electric Engineering, David International Bussines, Mauricio studies and works as music producer, and Josue works as a physician) to be able to keep the project running along with the rest of our lives. So we are understanding with each other if they miss a rehearsal but each one knows that he must invest as much time as he can to practice and build the band; playing metal and being able to earn a living out of it is our dearest dream.
What should fans look forward too for the rest of 2013 and beyond?
We have a great festival coming along on Nov 30 in our city and then it is time for us to focus in the next album. We hope our fans are eager to hear what we’ve come up with, I’m sure they will be surprised!.
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