SYMPHONY X Guitarist On 'Paradise Lost' And Possibility Of New Solo Album

June 25, 2007

AvanzadaMetallica recently conducted an interview with SYMPHONY X guitarrist Michael Romeo. A couple of excerpts follow:

AvanzadaMetallica: What does the mask that always appears on the SYMPHONY X album covers mean?

Michael Romeo: "It was an idea that we did for the first album cover and in the beginning it wasn't a concept thing, but for the second album we put those mask somewhere on the wall, and we thought that was fun, a cool little thing, and we took it like a mark for the band."

AvanzadaMetallica: What can you say about the lyrics on [the new SYMPHONY X album] "Paradise Lost"?

Michael Romeo: "Well... it's not a concept record. This is a kind of inspiration and a kind of vibe of what we wanted to do, you know, a lot of the music was written based in all we are and in these basic ideas. We decided that we wanted more guitar stuff, pretty heavy, pretty dark and we started to look for ideas for the lyrics, and that's how came with the idea of 'Paradise Lost', we wanted to tell the stories and follow everything exactly with ideas of betrayal, revenge, corruption, innocence, angry, emotional... We wanted that kind of feeling for the material that we have."

AvanzadaMetallica: After taking almost five years to write and record "Paradise Lost" after "The Odyssey", do you expect [the next] SYMPHONY X album to take less time to be released?

Michael Romeo: "Yes. With those albums we had a lot of circumstances... there was a lot happening within the band... you know all those things happen, a lot of 'stop' writing the songs, 'cuz it wasn't in the same way that we've prepared our albums in the past, and that's why it took a little bit longer, and the longer we took, more pressure we had, but we did something that was expectacular."

AvanzadaMetallica: Do you have any plans to work on a new solo album?

Michael Romeo: "I always say that I do what I want to, but all this time I've been with the band, especially with this record, I'm with them every day. I did almost everything on this record because we decided that we wanted a guitar-driven record, so I've been creating in every minute of the day. And we did all the recording in my house, at my studio so for me all my time is devoted to the band, so is difficult to think in a solo thing, we have so much to think... the touring could be done, and thinking of the record could be done."

Read the entire interview at www.avanzadametallica.net.

Find more on

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).