Passion! Passion is a word that comes to my mind when I think of the beautiful country that is Argentina. The people there are passionate about their heritage, passionate about their darned soccer, passionate about family, and passionate about the music they make. I found this to be true when a friend of mine introduced me to a band named Kyrie Eleison. This band is powerful vox with melodic metal. It's very epic sounding and worth checking out. Recently they took the time out of their busy schedules to talk with us and let us know more about the band...

MUEN: What was it like growing up in Argentina? Is music and the arts a big part of your educational curriculum?

KE: We are all from what is called the "Great Buenos Aires" area, which is the name given to the suburbs of the capital city of Argentina. Basically, it is not too different from life in the suburbs of many important cities around the world, but there is one thing that affects us more often; and that is the economic fluctuation. Anyway, to sum it up, you start kindergarten at 3 or 4, primary school at 5 or 6, after 7 years, you start high school for 5 more years. As a boy, sports are an important part of your life, and soccer is the most important sport in this country. It is very common to make friends by playing soccer in a club, squares, or even in the streets. Music and plastic arts are part of our educational curriculum throughout both primary school and high school, but they are not taken seriously. Music class in school is mainly watching a guy in front of the class strum some chords from a song that everyone knows for an hour, hoping that the students will sing along, which I find a little sad.

MUEN: Kyrie Eleison translates into Lord have mercy. Does the lord influence you when writing? What is the reason for choosing this name?

KE: The idea of choosing that name comes from Mozart's 'Requiem'. His requiem K. 626 in D minor was dedicated to 'his own death' and �curiously- he passed away when he was about to finish it. The Kyrie Eleison is one of its best-known sections. We think the name fits our music and has a strong message. It is like humanity looking for help from someone. As for the Lord being part of the name, no, the religious aspect of it does not have to do with the message that we try to send. Each one of us has their own beliefs, but none of us actually follows any religious practice of any kind.

MUEN: The style of your music is very technical, almost neoclassical, are any of you professionally trained?

KE: All of us have taken lessons at some point in time. I took singing lessons from the renowned professor Osvaldo Moreno for about 3 years when I started to become really serious about making music, but I never really took guitar or keyboards lessons. Diego took keyboards, piano, and Spanish guitar lessons in different academies for several years, and electric guitar with Carina Alfie and the renowned Claudio Marciello (of "Almafuerte"). Sergio and Horacio took lessons too with personal coaches.

MUEN: Lyrics in your songs are very poetic. Do they come backed with personal experiences? How do you come up with the lyrics? Who does the writing?

KE: Most of the lyrics are basically focused on the way we see today's world. So, it is a mixture of personal experiences, impressions, and just reality put into words. It is easier to write about these things, because you can get something that bothers you out and show it to the world. This means that we have an endless source of topics to talk about when writing, and it's just a matter of listening to the "mood" of the music to see what we are going to say in that particular song.

MUEN: Do you release your music in both English and Spanish?

KE: Not for now, at least. The project was conceived in that way... all lyrics are, and will continue to be written in English until we decide to do something different.

MUEN: "In The Arms Of Decadence" was your last cd and it is very progressive even epic! How well has that CD been received? What is the name of the cd suppose to represent?

KE: The reception has been amazing! The fans, the media, other musicians, everyone who is into this style of music (and many who are not) seem to love it. Some people here in our country do not believe that we are Argentinian sometimes, because it is not normal to see bands take so much time to produce their music and sound as we do here. We have seen great reviews from all over the world, and we receive emails and comments from fans from countries we didn't even know existed!! haha... It's incredible what the internet can achieve sometimes. Of course, we have found some people who criticized our work, and even a couple who were pretty malicious about it (but fortunately, no more than a couple)....In The Arms Of Decadence" is a line taken from "Children of Pain", one of the album tracks. It sums up the feeling we have about society in general today. The way in which humanity is destroying their own world: wars, insecurity, greed, pollution, carelessness... all of this of course makes us a little not too optimistic about life, but we feel that if more people see what we see and try to change at least a small part, we have a chance to stop it.

MUEN: Whats the music scene like in Argentina?

KE: It's really hard to be a musician here. Especially if you try to make music that is not ridiculously easy to listen to by the vast majority of the public. It's pretty sad to see the so-called musicians that are at the top of the sales charts. I think there is good and bad commercial music, and most people here seem to love the latter. Latin rhythms, pop, some folk-influenced or low quality Rolling Stones kind of rock are the most popular genres. With this prospect, only a few of us crazy people dare to try to go into metal. There are only a couple of very popular hard rock / metal bands (Rata Blanca and Almafuerte), but their style is not really close to ours. So you have hundreds of really talented musicians that may just never be heard by more than a very small part of the public. Other countries are more art-oriented and make it easier for musicians to have places to play live, record, and try to make a living out of music. Still, we love the challenge...

MUEN: Do you think there is a big future and demand for more progressive metal overall? Does it seem like the style is unappreciated? Do you think people even realize all the hard work, dedication, and extreme discipline that is needed to execute this music?

KE: I would definitely love that, however, I'm not really sure if there is a big future for it. But I do think that the youngest people who get into metal are appreciating the style, and of course we have the older people (like us, haha) who have heard so many different styles that have found a new color in metal music by seeing its progressive and symphonic influences. So, there is -and will be- a market for our music; it's just a matter of getting enough promotion to be heard by that potential market and being confident in your own work. The style may be unappreciated by many people, but we can't focus on that. Of course, it takes a lot of hard work to write, arrange, practice, record, and play live this music style, and I'm sure that only a small part of the audience realizes that, but we do this for ourselves, for the people that appreciate it, and for those who simply enjoy our songs.

MUEN: Are any of you involved in any side projects? What do you do when not playing in Kyrie Eleison?

KE: No real side projects at this time, but we are often invited to participate in different projects. Diego used to play live as a guest keyboardist for Jezabel, and I have sung live with Dominus Inferi, Angel's Tears and some other bands. However, since we don't really have much time, they are guest appearances, and not side projects. We are all really focused in Kyrie Eleison.

MUEN: Who did the artwork for the Decadence cd? What is it supposed to represent?

KE: It was done by a great artist called Pablo Aschei. He's very talented, and he really likes the band, too. It represents the "Decadence", incarnated by this beast who destroys our world, and you can see that it was created by humanity, and also feeds on humanity itself. It is a way of saying that people destroy their own world.

MUEN: Would you like to be signed to a label some day? Why or why not?

KE: We currently work with Black Medusa (independent label) in Argentina, and with Stay Gold in Japan. The good part of it is that you can focus more on the musical aspect of the band, and not so much on the business part of it. However, it is always difficult to decide whether you want to sign with a major label or not (if that opportunity ever comes, of course). I think that in the early stages of a band, having a supportive label is very important to get enough promotion, and unless you can quit your day-time job, it is something necessary. What happens if your band makes it big? I really don't know yet... I guess it's a matter of finding the right manager so that you can get to the best agreement with a label.

MUEN: "Pull me under" Is one of my favorite Dream Theater songs. You cover this song beautifully for the tribute cd. Why did you choose that particular song to cover?

KE: Black Medusa, the label that was producing the CD contacted us when they already had most of the bands who were going to record for it, and they showed us the list of songs that they had chosen. When I saw the list I was almost shocked that none of them had chosen Pull Me Under, since it is their greatest hit, and of course it needed to be on the CD. I suggested recording it to the rest of the band, and after only a few days we were all working on arrangements for it, to give it our personal touch.

MUEN: What kind of element do you think all the strings and choirs bring to your music? Do you often have a female vocalist that accompanies the band?

KE: The orchestral strings and instruments and the choir are an essential part of our music and its character. They are what differentiates us from most of the other bands here in Argentina. We want to make songs that mix metal and classical music, and that can be appreciated by different audiences. Some people who only thought that metal was "noise", actually changed their minds after listening to us. We always have guest musicians when we play live, and the amount of guests depends on the occasion. Normally one our two female vocalists, a male vocalist, and a keyboardist.

MUEN: Have you ever worked with any really big names? What was it like?

KE: No, we haven't. And there's a reason for that. Most of the times, when any of the important international bands come to Argentina, the producers of the show may contact some bands to act as supporting acts. The problem is that normally, the arrangement involves a quite high fee that the band that agrees to play has to pay, and the sound quality for those bands is far from being the best. We do not agree with this kind of arrangements, and we do not feel that it would be of any profit for us to do it, so we actually turned down a couple of offers for that reason.

MUEN: What would be your dream venue (where you always wanted to play)?

KE: It would be great to get to play in legendary stadiums or places like Donington Park, or Budokan. Or headlining festivals like Wacken or ProgPower USA. Here in Argentina, a great venue to play in would be the Luna Park Stadium, as long as we manage to find the right sound engineer, because it's not too easy to get a good sound in there.

MUEN: What does the future hold in store for Kyrie Eleison?

KE: We are currently evaluating options for band T-shirts and some other merchandise. As for touring, we have been contacted by people from different towns in our country, and we are trying to find a way to be able to play there, since there are certain conditions that need to be met. Apart from this, we have just recorded a metal version of the song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for an upcoming compilation CD of metal bands covering old pop songs. We came up with a quite interesting and tempo-shifting version, that I'm sure our fans will enjoy. And we are also working on new songs for what should be our next CD... but that will take some more time.

I'd like to thank you Jet on behalf of the band for taking the time to come up with this interesting interview, and for all the nice compliments. I really enjoyed answering it. People like you and MUEN Magazine are really important for underground bands, and be sure that we appreciate it. For those who want to have more information on the band, they can visit our official website at www.k-e.com.ar and our myspace sit http://www.myspace.com/kyrieeleisonband and they can email us at [email protected]

Thanks!

MUEN: Thank you! We wish you much success!