London-based metallers Diaries of a Hero issue their second full-length album later this month.
The self-titled release is the follow-up to 2011s debut Behind the Mask and was recorded in Croatia at the tail end of 2013.
It shows a marked progression in songwriting and style, but keeps their intensity and will doubtless earn them more followers...
There is a Milton Keynes connection too - TesseracT guitarist Acle Kahney mastered the record.
Drummer Leonard took our On Track challenge.
The song that first awakened your musical senses:
I specifically remember hearing The Offspring on the radio for the first time ('Kids aren't Alright), and I just felt something special going on so I immediately went to the record store and bought Americana on a cassette. I'm not that old, but I only had a cassette player for some weird reason (we were a bit behind on technology at that time).
Physical or digital - how do you take your music?
There's is a nostalgic part of me that refuses to enter the digital era where tangible albums are becoming more and more obsolete, but the advantages of digital music over physical are overpowering. I have an iPod with more than a thousand albums, and I'm trying to imagine taking a bus ride and carrying more that one thousand cassettes. It'd be quite inconvenient. Having said this, I do, from time to time, like to buy a physical copy of a band that I really like, just to feed that nostalgic b***ard in me.
The first time you thought 'Music - this is the job for me'
After the first contact with my instrument I fell in love with it. Later on I realised that it can also be a 'job'. But, it's the best job in the world.
I guess every job is great if you really love doing it. And that's when you get really good at it 'cause you can't stop doing it every single day.
And when the day is over you can't wait to back 'go to work'.
Your best on stage memory...
The best on stage memory is when we played in a club in Austria, and everyone came on stage and started stage diving.
There were broken strings, sticks, a couple of bruises, but it was quite fun and memorable.
And the worst gig you've ever done
Although we played well, the worst on stage memory is when we played in Wolverhampton supporting Motorhead and Anthrax and someone threw ketchup on John (our guitarist), and I was quite disappointed 'cause I was expecting some fries with that. Bummer!
What made you take up the drums....
I started playing drums because where I come from there was nothing else to do really, so one day my friend invited me to jam.
I was awful, but I really enjoyed it. I was playing a horrible sounding snare drum for couple of months, and then my dad bought me my first drumset which was cheap and awful, but I'm extremely grateful for that.
Which song by another artist do you wish you'd have written
RATM - 'Sleep now in the Fire'
And one - by yourself - which holds special significance
Social Distortion - 'Angel Wings'
If you could step into the shoes of another musician, living or dead, who would it be and what would you do?
It would be Justin Bieber, and I would quit.
Jokes aside though, I'd be Keith Moon and I'd be playing Isle of Weight in 1970 in front of 600,000 people.
Are there any current musical influences that you might look to
There's a lot of good stuff happening on the music scene. The standard of playing these days has gone through the roof since The Beatles (although, there were jazz musicians who were killin’ it at that time but we’re talking about Rock), and people are just getting better at their instruments.
I'd say bands like Animals as Leaders, Periphery, Avenged Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage are the ones we like.
But, there's a lot of 'old school' bands that we listen to on a daily basis like Metallica, Black Sabath, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Slayer etc.
And any genre of music that you simply can't stand?
There's good music within every genre and I would say that I enjoy music that's played great in a live setting because everyone can sound good in the studio these days. Cut, paste, edit and off you go to the real world. You could throw a bin down the stairs and edit it in the studio so it makes rhythmical sense, but what's gonna happen when you go and watch that bin live?
It's just gonna stand there on stage and STINK !!
p.s. Psy-trance is the worst genre ever.
Finally, plug your album for us
I almost forgot we have an album out soon. Alright. Our second album was recorded in Croatia in a garage studio. Igor Rogovic was the producer who works in San Francisco as well.
It was mastered by Acle Kahney from Tesseract.
The album consists of 11 tracks and it's a bit different from the first album in a sense that it's more straight forward when it comes to songwriting. However, there are moments when we let loose and do some rhythmically more intriguing stuff. Lyrically there are themes that speak out about the world, universe, religion, solitude and taking things in your own hands and dropping the 'play safe' game 'cause it leads to an unsatisfactory life.
The album comes out on May 23rd and check out our single 'Solitude' that is out on YouTube.
We are having an album launch party on May 23rd in the Club 229 in London. Check us out on FB for more updates!
