INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTIAN BOTERO (VOCALS/GUITARS) OF † CEREMONIA †
Ceremonia was born in 2011 with the idea of creating a cold, dark and melancholic sound to explore the deepest, sad, negative and morbid feelings of the human being through the music. After multiple line-up changes,the band officially released their self-produced debut album called “La Existencia Humana Debe Ser Un Error” in October 2015.
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
- Botero: I was born in Bogota, Colombia (South America) but I moved to Paris, France during adolescence, the three other members of CEREMONIA they were born in France.
Concretely I cannot say what made me decide to become an artist but I remember at the end of nineties when I discovered bands like Sepultura, Black Sabbath, I was blow away by the power of their sound and the mystic/scary sound of some songs, that pushed me to change my musical tastes forever, I remember thinking “that’s my thing!”. Like a lot of musicians all started trying to emulate your idols, with the time all became more and more personal to finally became an artist who writes and express their own ideas, creatively and honestly.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
- Botero: <a href=”https://www.facebook.com/ceremoniaband/”>CEREMONIA</a> (Ceremony) is a word that speaks for itself. At the beginning of the band I had this one in mind because I always loved simple band names with a direct word. The name was chose mainly by the style of music that we play and the idea that we had to express our music, we want it to be like a ceremony.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
- Botero: I think online music sharing is a positive thing only if the sharing is legal and helps an artist to promote himself without affecting his sales. We have put some of our music for free only limited time just to promote our band and expand our audience but at the same time it’s a negative thing because a lot of people thinks that music is free, they forget all the work and effort to record an album (rehearsals, gear, studio, mix, etc…).
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
- Botero: The songwriting inspiration can come from any factor, it’s more like a day-to-day thing and the state of mind where I am. I don’t have an usual songwriting process but I love to write after midnight, it’s something mystical and everything flows. After that I record some stuff and worked with the band, trying new ideas, drum patterns, arrangements, etc… each member brings something.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
- Botero: We are working on a website but today people prefer to go to Facebook and social networks.
To streaming our music we are using Bandcamp and Soundcloud, to post news about the band Facebook and Twitter and to sell stuff Bigcartel.
https://ceremoniaband.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/ceremoniaband
https://soundcloud.com/ceremoniaband
https://ceremoniaband.bigcartel.com
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
- Botero: It’s something really hard to say because you can’t answer a thing like this until it happens to you. Thinking on musical terms, first, to build a great recording studio to work with different artists and record the band releases, second, to do a marketing plan with a solid company to live of music to one hundred percent.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
- Botero: The best way to promote our music is to mainly to contact extreme music websites, and of course do shows. It’s a hard work and you have to work everyday to achieve attention of people contacted. Fortunately and without being egocentric the music speaks for itself but you have to work besides of only playing music.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
- Botero: Actually CEREMONIA are promoting his first full length called “La Existencia Humana Debe Ser Un Error”. We are booking some shows in France and other european countries. We have some offers to go to South America but nothing fixed yet. At the same time we are working on our first video clip for the song “Existencia Humana” and writing stuff for another release in 2017.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
- Botero: For sure and without hesitate, something about music, possibly writing about bands or producing artist. A world without music isn’t possible for me!
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
- Botero: As I said above, do shows, shoot our first video clip and of course write new sounds.
Thank you very much for the interview and your time!
† La Existencia Humana Debe Ser Un Error †
CEREMONIA