Bilocate
This is the first time
I come across a band from Jordan and I was very pleased to find out that
there actually exists a metal scene over there. Well, things might be tough
at the moment for Bilocate, but I'm sure things will be better and the
future will shine bright for this Jordanian death/doom metal quintet! So,
read below our interview with Ramzi, the band's vocalist and meet with
Bilocate...
1. HELLO THERE! NOW SINCE THIS IS OUR FIRST
INTERVIEW I’D LIKE YOU TO TELL ME A FEW THINGS ABOUT BILOCATE. GIVE US
A SHORT BAND BIO.
BILOCATE is a Musical Project, Doom Death
Metal Band that was created by the 2 brothers Ramzi(Vocals) and Waseem
(Keyboards) with their friends Hani(Bass) and Baha` (Guitars), after
recording 3 of BILOCATE`s Songs (A Deadly Path, 2nd war in Heaven and Days
Of Joy) Rami(Guitars) Joined the band to take on the rhythm guitars and
drive it into his own creativity while baha` focused on lead guitars, during
the recording of Dysphoria Waseem composed and recorded the drums as well,
depending on his past experience as a drummer and the band was very satisfied
about his work. First full length album “Dysphoria” was released on 27
– Dec 2005 by the band’s own efforts with 8 tracks and soon will start
the recordings of the next album.
2. WHICH ARE YOUR MOST IMPORTANT ACHIEVEMENTS
TILL NOW? HAVE YOU GOT MORE DREAMS YOU WANT TO REALIZE THROUGH YOUR MUSIC?
IF YES, PLEASE MENTION SOME OF THEM…
It’s hard to answer this, coming from a nearly
dead metal scene releasing Dysphoria is considered to be an achievement,
but I would say our biggest achievement was the release celebration on
Jordan’s Official Radio Station (Radio Jordan 96.3 FM) and the band was
interviewed live for 5 hours and the full song list of Dysphoria was played
during that night, when we finished that was one of our best moments as
BILOCATE… I don’t know if the band members agree ?
3. YOU COME FROM JORDAN, AN ARAB COUNTRY THAT
HASN’T GOT ANY INTERFERENCE IN THE METAL SCENE. HOW DIFFICULT ARE THINGS
FOR YOU OVER THERE? AREN’T THINGS DIFFICULT FOR METAL BANDS IN YOUR COUNTRY?
ARE THERE ANY OTHER BANDS YOU THINK DESERVE OUR ATTENTION?
In Jordan it’s very difficult for us to have
a metal community, metal fans, live concerts even support it’s very hard
to get, no labels, no studios, no good equipment, bands always have to
suffer to get anything even no jamming places sometimes… the metal scene
just died for the past 5 years, Jordan had a strong scene before the year
2000 but then some authorities just decided to kill it because of some
small accidents that happened by a bunch of kids so now we are called satanic
just because of the music, and then the Jordan Metal became Zero Activity
Scene everybody minding their own business, last 6 months the 2nd half
of 05’ some activities happened and the metal scene in Jordan is
starting again but in a very small trend.
Bands from Jordan… yes there are some like
the thrash metal band ESODIC deserve your attention and also AUGURY the
black metal band from Jordan, as I see the scene is becoming live again
and hopefully other bands will come under the light I only wish the best
for the Jordanian metal bands as I surely know how hard it is.
4. YOU SAY YOU PLAY DOOM/DEATH METAL, SINCE I
HAVEN’T LISTENED TO YOUR MUSIC, WOULD YOU BE KIND ENOUGH TO DESCRIBE YOUR
MUSIC FOR US? WHICH WORDS DO YOU THINK ARE IDEAL TO PRESENT YOUR SOUND
IN PUBLIC?
Hmmm, it might be a little weird describing
our style as Doom Death metal but honestly I don’t see anything else than
fits our sound. It is DOOM DEATH METAL, the music consists of a death metal
atmosphere in 70% of each song and then comes the DOOM part to change the
whole feeling and give it a spiritual mood. I am a fan of doom metal music
since a long time ago and my brother Waseem as well and as a keyboardist
you will find keyboards everywhere in our songs backing and lead so for
myself it’s a weird mixing we did in Dysphoria being very close to Opeth,
very close and now after releasing their album “Ghost Reveries”, we could
say it’s the same style because they used keyboards on this album and it
had a lead role as well for the first time and you know if you look at
Dysphoria and our music in general I think the historical albums Crimson
1 and Crimson 2 from Edge of sanity had the same feeling. Nowadays a lot
of genres and styles are mixed together so for BILOCATE we think that doom
death metal is a good description.
5. HOW MANY RELEASES HAVE YOU GOT? PLEASE MENTION
THEM AND COMPARE THEM. ARE YOU CONTENT WITH YOUR EFFORTS UP TO NOW?
Until now we have our first full length album
DYSPHORIA, and we released a demo with the same title before with 3 tracks
but the demo was just released locally and we don’t consider it an official
release due to the plans made for our debut full release. We knew in the
first place that it was only a matter of time but you know we had to let
people get the idea and feeling of BILOCATE’s music. And yes we are pretty
satisfied with Dysphoria as an album from the first second and until the
end and there is the song “A desire to leave”. It’s a 5 members’ effort
and it was released under very bad circumstances as I work in another country
so basically vocal recordings had to be done in a 3 weeks time and producing
the album in the 4th week so I can say it’s the best that can come from
Jordan atmosphere considering the situation and we dream to have this album
recorded and mastered and produced in a professional studio with professional
staff. Then it will surely be a hit!
6. YOU WROTE IN YOUR EMAIL THAT BILOCATE HAS CREATED
THE LONGEST SONG EVER WRITTEN BY AN ARAB BAND. I’M TALKING ABOUT “A DESIRE
TO LEAVE” WHICH LASTS 20 MINUTES. WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS SO IMPORTANT
TO MENTION IT IN YOUR PRESS INFO?
"A DESIRE TO LEAVE": you tell me what you
would feel if you where in my shoes listening to you own music and get
surprised that it’s you who did it, this is how I feel when I hear this
song… All my life I was a BIG fan of long tracks I could listen to the
album THE WALL (PINK FLOYD) as one track a lot of times without getting
bored, my favorite play list is Crimson, Crimson 2 (Edge of
Sanity) , Black rose immortal (Opeth) and other long tracks by great metal
bands so the idea about “A desire to leave” was there from the beginning
and we never thought it will be like this and a 20 minutes song is not
easy to create especially a song that has a lot of music variation, long
lyrics, a strong story, above you asked me about our achievements and I
think that “A DESIRE TO LEAVE” is one of our best achievements because
it reflects all what are about, A Desire to leave simply reflects BILOCATE.
7. TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT YOUR LYRICS. WHICH
ARE THE THEMES THAT YOU MAINLY DEAL WITH?
I wrote most of the songs in the album and
2 tracks were written by my brother Waseem (keyboards). These songs are
“A Desire to leave” and “Shrouded”…Lyrics mainly describe life and death,
the tragedy in life and misery which we all taste and the struggles that
we have to go through day by day until the end of our life this is the
main idea and message that lie in between the lines…
8. HAVE YOU GOT ANY PLANS FOR LIVE SHOWS? HAVE
YOU EVER PLAYED LIVE OR IS IT DIFFICULT OVER THERE?
We never played live as BILOCATE, as I mentioned
I work in another country so it’s very hard to gather the band members
all together for live performance and we all agreed not to play live until
we finish what we started which is the album Dysphoria and now it’s done
so the next step will be playing the album live in the very near future.
We are hoping to have 2 or more tracks from the new album ready to play
them as well… this year we have plans to play live in a lot of places so
let’s hope it will work… and yes in Jordan it’s very hard to play live
at least death or doom or black metal music. It’s somehow restricted and
even there are no proper stage or sound systems for such a live show…
9. IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION, WHAT WOULD IT
BE? IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
If it’s an emotion it will surely be ANGER
coming out from too much depression. If it’s a painting it will be a spirit
screaming and the veins on its neck very stressed and clear, so basically
it’s a spirit with veins, try to imagine that!!
10. BY THE WAY, HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THIS
BAND NAME? WHAT DOES BILOCATE MEAN? DOES IT DERIVE FROM THE WORD BI, THAT
MEANS TWO, AND LOCATE OR NOT?
Yes, seems that you got it all figured out…
BILOCATE comes from the word BILOCATION which is the act of being in 2
different places at the same time…
And the idea of the name came from my older
brother (Isam) as he played a big role in the metal education if you can
call it this way for me and Waseem.
11. LET’S SUPPOSE THAT YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO INVITE
FAMOUS MUSICIANS TO PARTICIPATE IN YOUR LIVE SHOWS. WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE
AND WHY?
This is hard as the list would be so long,
but for me I would invite Dan Swano (Edge of Sanity) and Mike Akartfield
(Opeth) and there are others that surely the band members would like to
invite but those 2 had an effect on me with their work, talent and creativity.
12. WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF THERE WAS NO MUSIC IN
THE WORLD? HOW WOULD YOU CHANNEL ALL YOUR CREATIVE ENERGY?
I don’t know ? I can’t imagine the world without
music so I will not think about what I’d do. Humans can cope that’s why
we have minds.
13. THANK YOU! IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE
TO MENTION AND I FORGOT TO ASK YOU?
I would like to thank you and behind the veil
webzine for this interview and am looking forward to reading your review
about Dysphoria. I would like to say that as Bilocate we are so satisfied
and proud of what we produced. It could be made better I know and we all
know but considering Jordan and the situation we are in, it’s a great step
ahead and again we are looking forward for a professional recording and
production of the album as it will be a real doom death metal piece of
art…
Thank You.
Christine Parastatidou
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