Opposition
Party
I think this month, was
the most exciting as far as the interviews are concerned. I have done an
interview with a band from Russia, then from Italy and now we travel to
Singapore to talk about the new album of Opposition Party, a band that
exists from the mid 80!
1. First of all congratulations on your
newest album, can you tell me your first reaction when you heard it?
Thanks! We are excited because this album
represents a culmination of sorts of we've been doing after all these years,
and while it's far from perfect, we think it's a fitting introduction to
us for the world!
2. You are in the music scene from the mid
80s, tell me your thoughts and experiences throughout all these years?
Genres like metal & punk in general, which
were once considered 'alternative' and outside the mainstream, has now
become very much a part of popular music over the years; exposing more
people and making them more open to heavier and more aggressive sounds
but at the same time it has meant a proliferation of 'throwaway' bands
with 'throwaway' looks dominating the scene in the whole world. The age-old
problem of good bands not getting heard because they don't fit into the
latest 'metal' or 'punk' trend has worsened due to this - but on the other
hand the internet is definitely helping to create awareness for bands no
matter where they are located in the world. 'Underground' definitely took
on a whole new perspective with the internet boom and a lot of old practises
like tape-trading or having a bunch of band flyers together with your snail-mail
has more or less died out.
3. Can you give us some details from the recording
sessions of your new album?
As we haven't really been pleased with the
sound quality of our previous recordings, we were determined to come out
with the best results we can have so far. The drums were recorded in proper
professional studio and the other tracks were recorded in a much smaller
room with some instruments going direct into a computer. We mixed most
of the vocals and instruments (apart from the drums) ourselves in the smaller
studio before mixing the drums, adding sound effects and touching up everything
again in the bigger studio. Mastering was done in the US by John Scrip
from Massive Mastering whose clients include Manowar, Testament and Eidolon.
4. You are from a country that here in Europe
we don't know a lot of things about your metal scene. Is it difficult for
your all these years that you come from Singapore?
After making our debut to the world out there
in the late 80s as Singapore's first punk band through a lot of international
fanzines, our releases especially the French 7" single have been available
through mostly underground distros in Europe and we did get a lot of people
writing to us from Europe at one point. The difficult part was for us to
follow up with any European tours back in the 80s and 90s as it was financially
impossible. So that meant we could only focus our energy in Singapore &
other countries around Asia, where we could travel easily to perform and
bring our music to the people.
5. Can you describe to us the music direction
of Opposition Party?
Opposition Party started out playing punk
rock influenced by UK hardcore punk bands like Exploited, GBH, Broken Bones
and slowly evolved into what people described as a 'thrash' metal band;
now I think we've settled comfortably into a sound that's a blend of all
our punk/metal/rock/whatever influences. But as always, our music will
remain hard, fast and heavy!
6. About the lyrics now. Do you have any specific
theme or has every songs its own story?
We sing about social issues, things that affect
our lives here in Singapore and also the lives of people all over. We sing
about issues that we feel people need to be aware of, and about what we
see happening around us. Sometimes it might seem like we have a slightly
'horror' theme like zombies and stuff but that's just an analogy comparing
people around us to movie zombies and also because we like horror movies
too!
7. Are you satisfied with the help from your
label?
We definitely appreciate all the help that
Pulverised Records has given us in the making of this album. We do wish
things could move faster though, as we feel this is looooong overdue. Right
now we need bigger and better distribution to get our music out to the
world - so if any distribution labels out there are reading this - please
contact our record label!
8. What do you expect from your new album?
We hope that it will expose us to a wider
audience globally, and help to bring us to Europe & possibly the Americas,
and at the same time reinforcing our fan-base in Asia.
9. Any plans for live shows?
We'll probably be doing some gigs in Asia
first, and like we mentioned before, performances in the US and Europe
would be the ultimate goal for us!
10. So far how are the reactions of the press
for your album?
Glad to report we've been getting some good
reviews around the world and it's good to know people like what they hear
so far.
11. Thanks a lot for your time and close the
interview as you want...
Thank YOU for the interview! And to everyone
out there - after you read this, go listen to our music, visit our website:
www.oppositionparty.net
and hope you would come see us if we come to your town! Cheers!
Antonis Maglaras
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