Interviews: ABSTRACTED

We have had the opportunity to interview the Progressive Death Metal band ABSTRACTED from Brazil. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1.Where did you get the idea for the band name, you planned it or came out just like that?

The band name comes from a song by Scar Symmetry, which I (Rosano - Vocalist, and Guitarist), was listening to a lot at the time and I think it fits perfectly with what we try to do music-wise.

2.Why did you want to play this genre? 

We had some sort of genre shift, I could say, from the first EP and our new upcoming record. I guess it all started with all the member's appreciation in general for progressive music. I've been jamming Progressive Metal records since I was a little boy due to my father's influence, such as Threshold, Pain of Salvation and Evergrey, and when I got into more Extreme Stuff, like Obscura, Opeth, Death, I knew that that's what I wanted to do!

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed? 

Yeah, most of us are long date friends! I used to have an Opeth cover band with Alexandre back in 2012, have played with Riverton since 2009, Guilherme about 2011 and we met Caroline, our Keyboard player, in 2020, that went to music school with Riverton and we have all been good friends ever since!

4. Each band member favourite band?

Rosano: Evergrey

Riverton: Tesseract 

Carol: Epica 

Guilherme: The Mars Volta 

Alexandre: Opeth 

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs? 

That's a tough question to answer because we are very free to write what we want. We do have influences that go through classical music all the way to J-Rock, Trap, Death Metal, etc. But I could say that the guys that inspired me the most as a musician would be Ihsahn, Dan Swano, and Mikael Akerfeldt (Yeah, I do like Scandinavian music haha).

6. Where was your last gig?

That was a long time ago, but it was at a club in downtown São Paulo. Very nice place, with awesome bands.

7. Where would you like to act?

I think that almost every metal band looks forward to playing in big festivals, but I could say I'd like to play on Euroblast or UK Techfest because of the awesome bands that play there every year.

8. Whom would you like to feature with? 

I'd love to have Ihsahn, Dan Swano, or Tom Englund in one of our songs someday!

9. Whom not?

Varg Vikernes. You know, not the best human being around.

10. Any of you has ever suffered from stage fright? Any tip for beginners on how to beat that? 

Yeah, I had a few episodes of stage fright before and I deal with them, not in an exactly healthy way. I like to drink a couple of doses of Whisky before going to the stage. (Works for me, but don't do it, kids). Also, something that really helped me, being a vocalist mostly, was to make a couple of jokes between the songs to help break the ice with the audience. Mikael Akerfeldt does that a lot on Opeth Concerts and that really inspired the way I interact with the people watching us. So basically: Do not take yourself too seriously and get drunk, I guess.

11. What bands have inspired you the most? 

Death and Opeth are basically the reasons why the band exists, but right now i could say Monuments, Tesseract, Meshuggah, The Contortionist, Between the Buried and Me, Edge of Sanity, Porcupine Tree, and stuff like that.

12. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for? 

Actually, not lots of weird stuff, but we have a fan from California that really enjoys our music and asks frequently for new material and we love that! Thank you, Jesus Rodriguez.

13. What do you think of your fans? 

I am always very humbled to people that say they like our music. It's an unexplainable feeling to have people so passionate about things we create with all our hearts. I hope people get to know us better so we can be part of their lives in a way.

14. What do you think of our site? 

It's great! Very nice to see serious people working to sustain underground artists! I saw in your artist roster some bands from our country, such as Dorsal Atlantica and Torture Squad and it's dope to see you guys giving Brazilian bands a space to show their music!

15. Something to add? 

We'd like to thank you guys for the invitation! We are about to drop lots of cool music via M-Theory (Thanks, Marco. You're great) and we'd like to invite all the ones who are reading this to follow us on social media to cause things are about to get INSANE from now on. So, stay tuned! Cheers!