ECHOES OF ETERNITY Is 'Much More Metal-Oriented' Than Other Female-Fronted Groups

Mark Carras of RockMyMonkey.com recently conducted an interview with guitarist Brandon Patton of ECHOES OF ETERNITY. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Rock My Monkey: You guys may have kind of had the idea and the concept of this before all the bands like LACUNA COIL and EVANESCENCE and LEAVES' EYES and all these others, but now that you do have a little bit of competition in this style, what do you feel ECHOES OF ETERNITY offers fans that maybe none of those other bands do?

Brandon Patton: First of all, I think that the female-fronted metal thing is a bit, it's no longer a novelty. It's its own little sub-genre now. At first it was somewhat of a novelty and a shock to hear a clean female voice over heavy music, but that's not the case anymore. I get asked this question a lot, "How do you feel about all the other female-fronted metal bands?" My question is, how do all the bands out there with male vocalists feel about all the other male-vocal-fronted [bands]? How do you feel about those bands, which there are far more of? I think there's a perception that there's a glut of female-fronted metal bands, but there's also a glut of metal bands period, male- and female-fronted. In answer to your question, what we have different than those bands is… First of all, I'm a big fan of those bands. I love LACUNA COIL, I love LEAVES' EYES, I love EVANESCENCE. Where we differ is the fact that our music is much more metal-oriented. It's a lot of riffs, a lot of guitar solos, a lot of double-bass drumming, and a definite thrash and death metal influence. I think that's what separates us from those bands is the fact we're just way heavier and way more technical and aggressive, from a music standpoint.

Rock My Monkey: I also think you guys have a little bit… How can I say it? I hate to say it, because it's kind of a cliché, but you guys seem to have a little bit more darker, a little bit more gothy kind of a sound, as opposed to the bands that have a little bit more of a mainstream, commercial sound. You guys seem to go more of the darker route.

Brandon Patton: Yeah, I think that's somewhat, that's definitely true to an extent. There's certain songs on the album that wouldn't be radio singles necessarily. It's not intended to be commercial. And then we have a few songs on the album that are, for lack of a better term, power ballads. So there's a lot diversity on the record. There's a lot of acoustic guitars, there's a lot of really heavy electric guitars, there's a lot of really aggressive drumming, there's a lot of laid back and traditional rock drumming. It's a hell of a soundscape, because instead of using a keyboard — which is another thing that kind of separates us from those bands, it goes back to your other question. Instead of using a keyboard, we decided, we made an effort to use the vocal layers in place of the keyboard. It kind of creates the same effect as a keyboard, but it's just all Francine's vocals, so it's like a little Francine choir on the record.

Rock My Monkey: Cool. Now, how do you actually pull that off live, then?

Brandon Patton: That's a good question. (both laugh) Basically, what it boils down to is, if you want to hear the record, you sit at home and you hear the record, and if you want to see us live, then come see us live. The heart of the song, and the heart of the vocal track is there. It's not unrecognizable. It doesn't sound exactly like the album. Well, I don't know a lot of bands that sound exactly like the album. It's a different experience. It's way more energetic. It's way, way heavier. It's way faster, and more aggressive. The vocals fit in very nicely. You don't miss that. I don't know how many people will show up to concerts expecting to hear an exact replication of an album. You know, if you want to go to a venue, and they put the cd over the PA, then you're hearing an exact replication of the album. With the live experience that we offer, it's heavier, it's more aggressive, it's more energetic, and it's the heart of the song is absolutely there, and it's good.

Rock My Monkey: What inspires a CD title like "The Forgotten Goddess"?

Brandon Patton: That song was inspired by "The Da Vinci Code", actually. I read that book four or five years ago. I liked the concept of the Sacred Feminine and the idea that in order to be complete, that we should honor both the masculine and feminine aspects of our humanity. So, I presented that concept to Francine. I also wanted a song that was sung in French, because she's from Quebec, and she's a native French speaker. So I just thought it would be really cool to have a song sung in French. And so that turned out to be the ideal song for that, for that concept to be realized. So basically she wrote the lyrics in French, and I'm not sure of the precise translation, but they allude to the fact that in order to be complete human beings, we have to respect our male and female aspects of our humanity. That's basically what it's a bout.

Rock My Monkey: You recently filmed a video for the song "Voices in a Dream". When do you think fans will be able to see that?

Brandon Patton: It's actually in the process of being edited right now.
The director is still working on it. He may have finished it. But I was just checking out a rough edit of it a week ago, and it looked really good. In answer to that question, the short answer is I don't know. But I know that it will be in the next few weeks. We were hoping to have it coincide with the release of the album in the United States on Tuesday. So hopefully it won't be long after that. From what I understand, it's supposed to debut on "Headbanger's Ball".

Check out the entire interview in text and MP3 format at this location.