This month at Metal Blessing Radio we bring you Seventh Reign, a power metal band hailing from Canada. Below you can read my interview with them.
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MBR: Hello, how are things in Canada? If you don’t mind, would you introduce the band members?

Seventh Reign: Things are fantastic here in the Great White North. The band is from the province of Ontario and we all in different areas but are within 3 hours of one another.
Our line up is:
Marios Panayiotis- Guitars
Adrian Robichaud- Bass
Jared Tomlinson-Keyboards
Johnny Roberts- Drums
And myself Brian Soulard- Vocals

MBR: I am surprised I had not known of you guys previously before receiving your material, how long have you been writing music as Seventh Reign?

Seventh Reign: Marios and I established the band in January of 2005. He had tons of material written from the past. We incorporated some of that material into songs for the 1st and 2nd album but there were also many brand new songs created specifically for 7th Reign. Our debut self titled album was released in April of 2007

MBR: I have not had a chance to hear your previous release, but I was impressed by “Fallen Empires”. Has the album release been met with as much success as you hoped?

Seventh Reign: The feedback for the material has been excellent. Of course being independent means that the music is not reaching as many people as you would like. But, this album has definitely been a stepping stone towards possibly having the band signed and seeing the music distributed properly. We feel that the music is very strong and the overall album can compete with anything that is currently out and signed to major labels.

MBR: You know, its easy to think to yourself, “if you’ve heard one power metal band…you’ve heard them all.” I had felt this way before listening to “Fallen Empires”, but I was proven wrong. In your opinion, what do you feel sets your music apart from other bands in this genre?

Seventh Reign: Well, good question! We really don’t consider ourselves as being restricted to power metal only. We are just trying to create passionate music through the forum that we Seventh Reign: know best, which is Heavy Metal. There are so many classifications under that umbrella and we don’t feel like we need to be stifled by one or the other. The music is varied as is our musical influences. Every musician tries their best to be original and unique but that is becoming harder and harder to do. I feel we are lucky to have a writer like Marios who to me writes very original material that sounds fresh with every new song.

MBR: You closed your new album with two nice epic songs; Deliverance, and Requiem for the Dead. Out of curiosity though why did you choose to have a child speak the spoken portion in Requiem for the Dead? No complaints here, I thought it was a different, but nice touch.

Seventh Reign: I am sure you know that the child speaking in Requeim is my daughter! This was Marios’ idea all the way. This particular song holds a strong amount of emotion for him and he was able to write the beautifully poetic speech. My daughter has that naturally sympathetic voice that just fits perfectly over the music. She did a great job…one take for those lines by the way!!

MBR: I have to say my two favorite songs on your new album are Unbeliever, and 7th Reign. I hear this was the 2nd time the 7th Reign song has been recorded. Why did you choose to re-record it, and were you pleased with the result? I have not heard your original version.

Seventh Reign: Haha, oh boy, 7th Reign, yes we have actually recorded that tune and mixed it etc numerous times. This was actually the very first 7th Reign song that was every written and worked on between Marios and myself. It helped us to establish an identity for the band. At the time though our recording and post production capabilities were just not at a high enough quality to properly release this song. Holding back on releasing this song on our 1st album was very difficult. We knew it would be well received and would help us obtain our goals. But, even though we knew people outside of the band would enjoy the song, we were not totally satisfied and that is what really matters. We need to be happy.
In the end we finally did the song justice and gave it the production value it deserved. In the future this will be a good reference point for us to work with as we write and record new material.

MBR: Do you guys do a lot of touring in Canada? Is there a usually a pretty good response from the audience?

Seventh Reign: No touring happening at the moment. However, when we have played the material live it is always met with a great reception. Our music resonates strongly live even to people who have never heard us before. As a band we have some unique individuals who make a live performance exciting and fresh to watch.

MBR: How is the metal scene in Canada? I don’t know of many Canadian metal bands in the Christian scene. The only band that comes to mind is Sympathy.

Seventh Reign: The Metal scene is probably the same as always, it is small but mighty. We put out some great bands up here. I am really not familiar with any “Christian” bands as a classification. We really don’t classify ourselves that way. We are just trying to write music that we believe in and write lyrics that inspire and send a positive message.

MBR: Where do you draw influences from and what bands inspire you to play music?

Seventh Reign: We like to say that our musical foundation is built on the roots of Metal, the godfather’s of the genre that created something unique; Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Queensryche, Black Sabbath etc. We are also very influenced by the European scene with bands like Startovarius and Nightwish at the top. There are so many artists and bands that can have a positive effect on you from around the world and from time past. We are all heavily influenced by classical and myself theatrical music too…….the list goes on and on.

MBR: Have you already started writing material for your 3rd album?

Seventh Reign: Marios has enough cool ideas floating around for 10 more albums!! Seriously though, Marios has been slowly constructing material and as well Jared has some created pieces that I am sure will find their way to the album as well. I have been writing lyrics and themes a bit as well. It will probably start taking some shape during the late fall.

MBR: Is there anything you can tell us about the next album yet? Do you have any surprises in store for us?

Seventh Reign: We will be keeping close the same format that we have established with epic like tunes and meaning to the lyrics. All I can say about the theme is that the “Gate is Narrow”.

MBR: I enjoyed the vocal layering near the end of Unbeliever, will we be hearing anymore of that in the future?

Seventh Reign: Thanks and yes I believe we will do some more experimenting with harmonies in the future. I actually love layered thick vocals but as it turns out the melodies are strong enough to stand on their own and we end up scraping ideas or tracks and just have me as the one voice narrator! Some of my favourite vocalist of all time are presented in a similar way.

MBR: Do you have any plans on touring outside of Canada anytime soon?

Seventh Reign: Not really at this point. Obviously that would be great as I believe there are many markets that would love to hear this band. But without some proper support we really couldn’t tour. There will likely be opportunities for playing smaller festivals and such though in the future.

MBR: Do you have a favorite Bible verse or passage you would like to share with everyone?

Seventh Reign: As was hinted upon earlier, right now there is focus on the gate and what we need to ensure we are on the right path.

MBR: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview, is there anything else you would like add for any of the readers?

Seventh Reign: Nothing really to add, good thought provoking questions and we really appreciate the opportunity to showcase our music with this great station.
Take care and God Bless,
Brian

ah i see. hope they will respond soon

Just posted interview in first post