As Light Dies is a Spanish band from Madrid and Guadalajara that plays dark-oriented metal in a different way than usual, far away from streams and trends. They recently put out their third album The Love Album Volume 1 (see our review here) so we caught up with guitarist/singer Oscar (also known as Nightmarer) to find out a bit more.
You recently released your new album The Love Album Volume 1. How did you approach the writing and recording process for it?
Well, the writing process of The Love Album Volume 1 started even before than recording our second album Ars Subtilior from Within the Cage, more or less in 2008. Since them we have been working hard with it, creating an emotional concept. When we had all the songs composed we recorded a demo for us in order to produce the music better, when we had everything clear we entered into Geek Records studio (in Madrid) to record all the tracks, and then as last time we sent the tracks to Dan Swäno to mix it. After some months we had the final result which is what TLA vol.1 is.
Were there any tracks that were more of a challenge to get down or did everything go to plan?
All the tracks have the same level of difficulty generally, anyway maybe Orpheus Mourning could be the track with more tracks. Maybe almost 90 guitar tracks, 40 violin tracks and in one part 16 vocal tracks. This doesn’t mean that the recording of this track would be more difficult. It just needed more time to record.
Which track on the album are you most proud of?
Not sure at all, it depends of the day because each song represents different kind of feelings. If I have a gloomy day then I may choose Nemesis, but if I had a melancholic day then I may choose Farewell From Distant Shores.
One of my favourites is Your Wake – what can you tell me about that one?
Well, this song is about all those broken relationships which make people think deep about the meaning of life, the wasted time and the nonsense of love. It is a heap of feelings which many people could have felt. The music tries to transmit these feelings too.
When it comes to live shows, what can fans expect from them?
I don’t know what a fan may expect about our shows, but we had always the trend to do the opposite of what people expect about our shows. In spite the emotional music we play we are used to do really violent live playing which sometimes made us even bleed over the stage. Also during last alive shows we projected really disturbing videos with an evil robotic voice talking about what’s next song about. The aim is to rub the salt into the wound. Anyway we don’t play live anymore because here in Spain things are going bad speaking of live music audiences and conditions. We have been playing live during more than ten years and we are not going to afford shows treated as noobs.
What is the best show you’ve ever played?
I know that the rest of the band may differ with my opinion. My favourite show ever played was in Bourges at France back in 2008. I really enjoyed that show because this was the last show in a tour we did so we were really trained with the rest of the shows. Some of the other members of As Light Dies may say that the best was “Costa de Fuego” because it was a really huge open air festival, other would say “Madrid is the dark III” which was really crowded.
And perhaps the strangest or weirdest?
May be the show we played during my bachelor party where we improvised a stage playing in a dining room with an uncompleted drumset, a not high distorted amp, a non-amplified violin, with no keyboards, and no bass, each one disguised different: the drummer Pablo as a 80 punk, the violin player as a ghostbuster and I as Michael Jackson; this was more a noise band but playing As Light Dies songs for an audience not familiar with extreme metal.
If you could collaborate with any artist or musician, who would it be?
I have the pride of having collaborated with many really great artists as Slo from Smohalla, Camille from Stagnant Waters, Phlegeton from Wormed, DP from Wrong, Alessandro from Alien Syndrome 777, Gary from Signum, Victor from Bloodoline, Chus Maestro from Hybrid, Cecilia from On3ric4, my own wife and more… but anyway I would like to collaborate with nice open minded artists to create something great. I know that it is almost impossible but I would like to collaborate with people as David Bowie, Enya, Anneke van Giersbergen, Brendan Perry, Lisa Gerrard, Dan Swäno, Carl-Michael Eide, Vitconit… so much people.
Similarly, if you could get another band to cover an As Light Dies track, which band and song would you choose?
Never though anyone would be interested in making a As Light Dies cover. Anyway I would choose anyone of the people mentioned above. I know that they could do a really mind blowing cover of any As Light Dies song.
And finally if As Light Dies could put their name to a product, what would it be and why?
That’s not a typical question, are you a psychologist maybe? Because it seem the kind of question which tries to reveal some hidden concerns. This question is really difficult to answer because As Light Dies itself is not a product and never pretended to be one. But I accept the challenge and I say that could be used for an energy drink as Monster in a really exotic and blue-violet pack. “As Light Dies is time to get your new energy wrapped in grape, raspberry and watermelon flavors”.
