Former DRAGONFORCE Singer Is 'Back With A Vengeance'

Metal As Fuck recently conducted an interview with former DRAGONFORCE and current I AM I singer ZP Theart. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On his split with DRAGONFORCE:

ZP Theart: "It's still a legal matter, so I'm not really prepared to talk about it just yet. It was just a completely different setup, mate, [to the current one]. It wasn't personally for me very comfortable. It's like any office job: if you can't stand the people around you, or you know you're not happy in your job, fuck, you gonna stay there and be unhappy or you gonna move on [and] get a new job? So there you go — I got a new job."

On whether he has ever regretted leaving DRAGONFORCE in the two years since his exit:

ZP Theart: "Not for a second! I seriously needed the time off, I think, for myself. We had been crazy busy for the six years before that and I needed time off for myself, to find myself again and to know what direction I wanted musically to have with my life. Yes, that was a year well spent and I made up my mind... I'm back with a vengeance!"

On I AM I's debut album, "Event Horizon", which is being released this weekend:

ZP Theart: "It's a big departure from my previous work. This time I've had 100 percent input in everything that went down, from all the melodies, all the lyrics. Everything is done within my comfort zone, and it sounds kick-ass, I think!"

On releasing "Event Horizon" entirely on USB:

ZP Theart: "Mate, the world's moving on very, very, very fast; everyone's trying to keep on top of the game. But we're also trying to get our feelers around being in front of the game...everybody's on the computer these days and USB is just a very handy little thing."

On the I AM I band concept:

ZP Theart: "It's a period of the human history where a lot of people are starting to wake up to a lot of shit these days. Everyone is very much concentrated on the self and a lot of people are waking up within themselves, seeing shit going on around them and waking up to it and the I AM I whole thing is pretty much a culmination of that, just people waking up and... standing your ground, standing up for yourself. I think a lot of people can associate with that whole thing so that was the whole idea: to give people something they can associate with."

On the musical direction of "Event Horizon":

ZP Theart: "There's influences of every different style you can probably imagine [on the album]. My reason for being really into the '80s music was the catchy melodies and they were all bands with balls, even if they looked poofed-up with fucking make-up and the hair standing on end. It was still ballsy and it had attitude and energy. You could feel the music. That's the whole reason I'm still really big time into '80s music is just for that reason. But 'Event Horizon' has some catchy, catchy, fucking catchy melodies, mate! There's some progressive bits in there; it caters for a wide variety of personal styles. I think we will convert a hell of a lot of people with this album. This will be the one to cross the divide...it's heavy rock, it's not 200 miles an hour, it's not 100 miles an hour, it's somewhere in between! It's got energy, it's got the attitude and it rocks, man! Fuck, I can't wait! May 26th feels like years away and I just want people to hear this shit now."

Read the entire interview from Metal As Fuck.

"This Is My Life" audio stream:

"Silent Genocide" video: