Albums of Purgatory interview Kalisia

Firstly, whats the band up to right now?
Right now we are finally recording our long awaited (at least from our
point of view) first album. It's a concept album composed of only one
hour long song. We've just finished recording the drums yesterday, and
will soon start to record everything else during this summer. We will
produce the whole thing ourselves.

How would you describe the Kalisia sound?
I would say that this is a mixture of progressive sounds with extreme
music. We could call it Progressive Extreme Metal, but as for a lot of
band, this is too reducing. There are very different atmospheres during
the song (by "the song", I mean the album), with influences going from
Pink Floyd to Deicide, Rammstein to U2, Dimmu Borgir to Cynic, Meshuggah
to Dream Theater, Yes to Soilwork... In the past, we have been described
as the Death Metal Version of Dream Theater, or a mix between Dream
Theater and Cynic. Though I've always thought that we've been highly
over-estimated, it was an honour because we were great fans of these
bands. But I think that these bands name will not come a lot in our
future reviews... The music we play now is definetely Progressive Metal,
this is the essence of our music, but with a much more powerfull and
extreme way of playing. Anyway it's better for the people to make their
own opinion when listening to some band, so come to our website
(www.kalisia.com) and download some mp3. A song means so much more than
a thousand words trying to describe it.

How did you get involved with the band?
I co-founded it with Loïc (guitar) and Laurent P. (keyboards) at the end
of 1994. The three of us were playing in a local band called Insanity
and decided to leave it to create our own band. We found our drummer and
bass player a few months later, and until now, the line-up is still the
same.

Can you remember your first gig (how did it go)?
Well actually it was a very small gig, in a bar in our home town. We
played about one hour, with many covers (because our first demo lasted
32 minutes and we had no other songs) of bands like Emperor, Loudblast,
Tiamat and Amorphis. It was quite cool but the barman was a real
rip-off, and he did not want to pay us at the end. It was very tense,
and we almost had a fight, but finally, thanks to some friends
(including the drummer of our former band) we got what we deserved.

Are you involved in any other projects and if so how do they compare to
Kalisia?
Thibaut plays in one of the major french black metal band but I shall
not give away its name or he would hang me draw and quarter. Loïc also
plays in Chrysalis, Aurelie's (Thibaut's girlfriend) melodic death metal
band, and is involved in an electro-pop project called Eilera with that
same Aurelie. As for myself, I play with Fairlight, an atmospheric death
metal band. Also, Loïc and I are getting more and more into the
production stuff, with a few demos and albums produced.

What are your favourite Kalisia tracks?
Hehe, that's a tricky question, and I will answer by a tricky answer :
our upcoming album ! Since this is just one song, I'm not breaking the
rules ! :o) Concerning our demo, "Skies", I would definitely say that it
is the track "Tower of Vanities".

What are your favourite all time songs?
Another tricky question indeed ! I would say "Metropolis Part I" by
Dream Theater, "How Could I" by Cynic... and a lot lot more !

What the first record you ever bought?
Oh, I don't remember ! This is so old !!! It think that the first album
I ever bought was Madonna "True Blue"... Hey, come on, I was 12 !!! =)
Moreover, I still like Madonna, so I'm not too ashamed...

Which album was it that got you into metal and can you explain why?
This will certainly not give people a high opinion of me, but this is
Guns n' Roses "Use your Illusion II". Actually, it was the song "You
could be mine" of the Terminator 2 movie soundtrack that interrested me.
Then, "Don't cry" was playing on radio all day long, so I finally bought
this album, and it did not leave my cd player for about 4 months. Then I
bought "Use your Illusion I". I then discovered Iron Maiden, Metallica,
Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, Sepultura... It was too late already, I was a
Metal Head before I realized it :o) Mmmm, when I go deep back in time, I
remember buying my first metal EP long before that... it was Europe "The
Final Countdown" !

What would be your dream band line-up?
Mmmm, this is another very difficult question ! I would put Russell
Allen, Devin Townsend, Roy Khan, Peter Gabriel, Tori Amos and Floor
Jansen on the vocals (hey, this is my dream band, it has as many singers
as I want =), Steve Vai, Tommy Baron, Fredrik Thordendal, Andy Laroque
and Tore Ostby on guitars, Sean Malone and Tony Levin on the bass, Sean
Reinert, Jason Rullo and Richard Christy on the drums and Kevin Moore
and Tori Amos on the keyboards.

If you could do a cover for a tribute album to any band, which song of
which band would you pick and why?
There are two choices that come to my mind : the first one is to cover
one song of Death, in hommage to Chuck. We were supposed to play to a
Tribute Concert in France before he died (but we finally had to cancel
it because it was reprogrammed too far away from our city), and we
worked on two songs : "Bite the Pain" and "Without Judgement". So this
would probably be one of them. The second choice would be to cover a
song of Cynic (check out my answer about my favorite songs), the
absolute cult band. In fact, we are planning to do it one day...

What do you think of the position of metal and music in general today?
Music is evolving very quickly, with and without the help of technology,
and the success of some non-commercial bands (Tool, Meshuggah...) is
rather encouraging. We're in a time where heavy rock, nu-metal and
violent music seem to be favored by the medias, so I don't complain much
(anyway, I don't listen to radio so I don't really care what's on the
air :o).

Which other bands stand out for you at the moment?
There are a lot of great bands out there that it would be very hard to
name all those that stand out. In the (still) underground bands, I'd say
that my favorites are Disarmonia Mundi (ita - melodic death metal), Akin
(fr - atmospheric metal), Malmonde (fr - cyber metal)...

Do you have any funny stories about the band you can share with us?
I'm afraid not... Or at least not any without making fun of a member of
the band in particular... :o)

And finally, what do you see in the future for Kalisia?
In the very near future, we'll be very busy recording our first album.
Then, hopefully, we'll find some labels to release it worldwide. And if
we're lucky enough, maybe we'll play some concerts and festivals before
we split.