Syzoz – Fresh Act September 2018
Syzoz is a German band I incidentally discovered through a post by a friend. I listened to the music and found it absolutely worth to listen more. Thus I immediately got into contact with the band members and asked for an interview to find out more about the band than what those three videos on YouTube (links in the text) can express. Via Skype I finally got the chance to ask some questions.
First please introduce yourselves, who is who and what is your job in the band?
Marc: Ok, I will start. My name is Marc and I am the singer of the band. I wasn´t in the band from the beginning, I joined like 2 years ago. Now I let David go on.
David: My name is David and I am the guitarist and audio producer of the band. I founded the band with the idea: I want to do such music and I need people to join me with that and so we came together. I let the next one go on.
Raoul: I am Raoul, 2. leadguitar and I am the co-founder with David.
Leroy: My name is Leroy and I am the drummer and the last member who joined the band.
Andi: I am Andi and I joined the band 1-1,5 years after founding and I play the keyboards.
Lars: I am Lars, bass player of the band and I was the 3rd member who joined the band.
Where is the name coming from?
We had a lot of beer and no idea how to name ourselves, as we had several months of brainstorming behind us and somehow nothing was working, so Lars had the brilliant idea: why not just roll the dice. He suggested a system with letters to each number, which were then picked with a normal dice, we had a lot of fun.
How do you describe the style of your music?
Originally David had the idea which lead to the band we are today: he wanted to do some death metal, which is epic, apocalyptic and an orchestra. It’s supposed to be death metal which is not just old school death but mindblowing. For that reason we have Andi in the band, he is doing this keaboard part and I think we did a good job so far. Even though our songs are a bit mishmash, we have published three videos on youtube so far, and although they are similar they are still different in terms of songwriting; you just cannot say it’s 100% this or that style.
Everybody of us is involved in the songwriting, composing and developing and everyone of us is bringing his own style in and so there can be influences of doom, fast parts and slower parts. Everyone of us is coming from another side of death metal and other music styles, therefore it includes even jazz and black metal influences, which you can maybe hear in our songs.
Who are your idols and influences?
Wintersun, Shade Empire, Whispered. But it does not really reach this level, as these are all geniuses in their music and they are doing nothing else than spending all winter in their cottages and composing and playing guitar. This kind of workload we cannot reach and of course it depends on the person who is working on the song and that person’s particular influence, for example Cannibal Corpse or from Andi it’s the classical music, as he has the most knowledge of that.
How is it working with the songwriting, is everyone collecting ideas and then you meet to compose?
We are all working on the songs, usually one of us is presenting the others with an outline, lately it was Andi, but generally we are all working on the composing together.
What topics do you have in your music?
The lyrics are all written by me, which is in my opinion very important as singer of the band, usually I am very intuitive. It is a lot personal stuff, so the lyrics are difficult to grasp and this is very important to me that they are like this, dealing with personal, psychic and mental depths. In Frontlines for example, it is about the relationship between people in a war situation and in Infamy it is more about the pathologies people are carrying within. It is important to me that the lyrics are full of content and well made and I am always looking for better expressions to improve my English.
You have already published 3 videos on youtube to Frontlines, Infamy and Ressurection, do you have enough material to make an album or is it maybe already in progress?
We have definitively enough material and songs done to make an album. It´s all about the quality, which means more material. The already published songs should be recorded and remastered again for an album. The songs on youtube are more like a demotape showing what is our music about and to get the people interested in our band, so that we build a fanbase which is eagerly waiting for an album, so we don´t have to start from zero.
You have an audio producer in the band, so do you record it in private or do you already have a record company?
I am a professional audio producer and I am doing all the technical stuff at home and I know how to deal with a drumcomputer, because I don´t have a drumkit at home. All productional steps we did ourselves. For the album we will perhaps need to rent a studio, because we want to record with real drums and not with a drumcomputer, this is without question.
We are also searching for a rehearsal room, as we were concentrating so far only on composing and producing and when we are playing the songs at rehearsals it may happen that we find out this or that is not working so well and change some parts, but all together the demo songs are staying as they are.
When are you planning to finish the album?
Best would be yesterday! It would be nice to be finally on stage this year and have enough material to record the album with real drums. If it goes as planned it should be done by next year.
What plans do you have in the near future?
Composing. Developing the songs to have the length for an album and finally playing live on stage!
A thanks you to the band for their time and patience to answer my questions, it was a lot of fun and I can only recommend to listen to their songs and share it!
Band website: www.facebook.com/syzoz
Text: Tatjana Tattis Murschel
Photo: Band
