Interview mit Miguel Espinosa Ortiz von Persefone

You don’t often hear about metal bands from Andorra. Is there an active scene in your home country, are there many Andorran metal fans?
Obviously in Andorra, although a very small country, we do have a music scene, but is mostly formed by local bands, cover bands, solo artists. Not a metal scene per se. But one thing that happens is that we are one of the most famous bands in the country and when people approach us about it they usually say “I don’t really listen/like what you guys do, but I respect it so much!”, which is usually a fun thing to happen!

Your last album „Aathma“ is from 2017 and thus five years ago. What has been going on with you in the meantime, apart from the re-recordings of „Truth Inside the Shades“?
Well, once we finished “Aathma” we started focusing on the promotion of the album. We have been touring as much as we could, doing two headlining tours in Europe, and another one in USA/Canada/Mexico. We also went to Japan and played in some of the biggest festivals around the world, including Wacken, Brutal Assault or 70000 Tons Of Metal. During that time, as you mentioned, we did the rerecording of “Truth Inside The Shades”, our first album, and we released a single called “In Lack’ech”, with Tim Charles from Ne Obliviscaris in the violin and singing. Those five years have been a blast for us.

After „Spiritual Migration“ and especially „Aathma“ you had a certain momentum in the prog scene. Do you think that after five years this is a bit gone and you have to build it up again and work it back?
Not at all. All bands move in waves. Now we are releasing a new album and we are back on the wave. Once we end the promotion of the album, we will be at the lowest part of such wave, but we have the feeling that every time, the wave is bigger and bigger, and the low is higher than the earlier wave. So in the end it’s a matter of keep recording albums and touring. Of course, with the pandemic we’ve had an impasse, but that’s nothing any other band hasn’t gone through.

Can you tell me about the exciting cover artwork? What does the glowing monolith stand for? What is the little person in the foreground thinking as he looks at it?
The artwork was created by Jon Ojibway who does this kind of realistic 3D illustrations. We loved that the image shows something that can is imaginary, like a huge light totem, but then it’s contained in a very real cave, earthy, with a very tiny person showing how small and insignificant human beings can be. The totem can mean actually anything to anyone as it’s part of a general image, but to us it means the moment of change, happening in “Merkabah” in the album.

Spirituality is an important theme in your lyrics, which is already noticeable in the few lines in the title track. The album is also about rebirth, self-knowledge and out-of-body experiences, among other things. What do spirituality and all these topics mean to you personally?
We all in PERSEFONE are spiritual persons in a way or another. Some of us have a bigger activity towards it and others just like to see it in the distance, but in the end, we all share the love for this kind of lyrics, because they are useful for the people that want to read them and think about them.

Sometimes it happens that people with a big spot from where to send a message, they send terrible ones, or simply, void messages with no content. From our point of view and our limited spot, it’s important to us to send a message of positivity, but not vain positivity. It’s easy been positive when you are happy, but it’s difficult when you are really low, as we explain in “Katabasis”. In that moment, when you are going through your personal hell, you have to stay positive that you’ll be able to move on and go through it, rising as a stronger person. That’s why we write these lyrics. We believe in it profoundly.

You have chosen David Castillo as producer this time. Why was he the right one for „Metanoia“?
When we think on producers, we always think on big names. I’m sure all of the names that we had in mind could have done an excellent work with “Metanoia”, but in this particular case we had a great vibe with David. He came to one of our shows in Stockholm back in the day, and we shared some chats about the album, what we wanted, and he got involved in it. For us he has been the perfect producer. He has managed to get everything in the right place, every sound, every particle, all is there. That’s something amazing to do, and we haven’t ruled out the possibility of working with him again in the future.

Before songwriting on a new album, do you reflect on your last album to avoid repeating yourself and consciously break new ground?
As soon as we finish an album we know the mistakes that we did in such album. It already happened with “Metanoia”. We know what we like, what we added, and what we want to change in the future. We like to learn new music, listen new musical styles, and incorporate elements from it to our music.

Your songs are very complex and multi-layered. How do the songs come into being? Are ideas collected and put together here or does a song emerge step by step chronologically?
We usually build the structure first, which can take us a long time to do. We need to be sure that the ideas in there work already by their own and don’t require of extra production to be functional or reflect what we want. Then we do the production, meaning, adding more layers, keyboards, extra guitars, sound design, voices, choirs, etc… it’s always long but we almost always get good results.

How did it come about that you recorded a third part to „Consciousness“? Was that already in the air for a long time, was it possibly already a possibility during the recordings of „Spiritual Migration“?
When we first released “Spiritual Migration” no one cared about it except for our die hard fans from back in the day. For some reason, the time passed and the album grew old really good. Fans love it, and the newer fans also love it. There has been a lot of video reaction, reviews, and some of the more acclaimed songs are both parts of “Consciousness”. So no, it wasn’t something we had in mind from “Spiritual Migration”. At some point between “Aathma” and “Metanoia”, we loved the idea of having an instrumental, because we couldn’t have it in “Aathma”, so we are all in to write that particular kind of song and we thought that playing with old melodies from Consciousness and combine them with the new ones in “Metanoia” could be fun. So we started working on it with that idea in mind.

With all your technical skills, do you sometimes run the risk of making the songs too complicated, so that they are no longer enjoyable to listen to? Is that something you think about and talk about when writing songs?
We play the way we play, we don’t think about it. Every riff, every melody, every solo has to serve the song and we need to feel that is in the right place at the right moment. One of the things that do happen is that we are working, for example, in a verse and the arrangement is too complicated technical wise. It doesn’t make any sense to have a really complicated riff if Marc is going to be screaming over it. No matter how important that is, the voice will always be on top of the mix, so at that particular moment we adapt the arrangement to fit better with the voice. That happens basically with every part of every song. There’s something that leads, and we need to make it stand out and everything will work to make that happen. If it’s complicated or not will be dictated by the part itself.

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You have a lot of soundtrack-esque orchestrations in your songs, for example in „Leap of Faith“ or „Aware Of Being Watched“. Which composers or film soundtracks have particularly influenced you?
There’s a wide range of film composers that influence us. Of course, Hans Zimmer or John Williams are always on top as they are probably the biggest ones alive right now, John Williams being in the more “orchestral classical” approach, and Hans Zimmer in a more technology-computer music side. But then there are other names that are important to me like Thomas Newman, Thomas Bergersen or John Powell. When it comes to sound cinematic, those guys are some of the biggest names out there and we only can try to be as the biggest ones, although of course we never do. (laughs) Not to that point.

„Anabasis“ is like a small symphony: a leisurely intro, the exciting and often changing and increasing middle section and finally a gentle conclusion, which by the way is also perfect as the last album track. How did „Anabasis“ come about, what does it mean to you?
I have never thought about it that way, in a symphony-esque mode and it makes sense. “Anabasis” was the first song we started working, and the last song to finish so it covers all the process in the album and all “eras” so to speak in that process (since we had the pandemic in the middle that stopped everything). I think it shows all the aspects of the way we were feeling, as there’s basically a lot of different stuff going on in there. Besides of all the different parts, we also have Stephen Kummerer, Angel Vivaldi and Merethe Soltvedt in there making the song a perfect ending for the album. It’s a very complete song. We also have the ending that we usually do that would be like the credits in a film. Every old PERSEFONE fan will love this three tracks.

„Metanoia“ feels like a cohesive journey from beginning to end. Is the album designed that way, do the songs all belong together?
“Metanoia” is a concept album, so yes. Although every song can be listened on its own and work perfectly, you can listen the whole album and have a feeling that parts, or melodies are being repeated all along the album. One of the things we like a lot when people talk about our albums is that they feel like a journey that you sit and enjoy. “Metanoia” definitely belongs to that.

Nowadays many listeners consume their music via streaming or download services, often listening to individual songs in playlists rather than entire albums. How do you see this regarding your music?
Well, I think playlists are a wonderful way to learn about new bands. You put the music and then suddenly a band blows your mind and you check more about them. Since bands like PERSEFONE can’t afford being aired in major radio stations or tv, playlists are a great way for us to reach new fans. So, it’s all good!

Let’s conclude with our traditional brainstorming. What comes to your mind first when you read the following words?
Current favorite album: Dance with the Dead – Driven to Madness
Vaccination: Confrontation, when it should mean health.
Nature: Home.
Religion: Respect for personal decisions.
“Metanoia” is the perfect soundtrack for this movie: I can’t name a single movie but the soundtrack from both versions of the movie Blade Runner has been always an influence.
Something that makes every bad day better: Waking up.
PERSEFONE in ten years: Same old guys, same philosophy to make music.

Thank you once again for your time! The last words are all yours.
Thanks everybody! We have just released “Metanoia” so I invite you to go and check it out! Also you can found us in all social media if you want to follow our recent news. Have a great day and stay safe!

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Publiziert am 21. Februar 2022 von Stefan Popp