Interview:	CRIMSON VEIL
Title:	Acoustic sculpting

When such dreamy, visionary Alternative Metal gets involved with such delicate melodies and floating, enchanting vocals with an almost shamanic effect, the result is multiple captivating music like this.

The exciting debut album by the British meaning seekers is appropriately titled „Hex“ - and as singer Mishkin Fitzgerald reveals, the eclectic style of her extraordinary band is primarily due to the fact that the line-up has quite contrasting musical interests.

So many musicians sheer despair of creating something really new in metal, but your compositions just sounds like you were all born for it. How did your eclectic style come about?

„I think we all have quite contrasting interests musically - Jazz, Classical, Avant-Garde, Prog, Experimental, World and even Pop. Metal and Progressive seems to be where we all crossover, so I guess that’s why it sounds unusual but also quite cohesive. As long as it’s dark and weird we can agree.“

You are pretty experienced musicians who know the scene, the styles and the trends - do you keep up with all the trends or do you prefer to stay in your own "world" so as not to be too distracted by your own unique and wonderfully individual art?

„I would say that Anna and Garry are generally good at keeping an ear out for new bands, and bring their discoveries into the group, where Hana and I tend to live almost completely in our own world, creating music more from an introverted or spiritual state of mind. Having said that we have all been to so many shows and played with so many artists over the years it’s difficult not to soak up something new. We all love to discover music so we’re always open to it, even if we’re not searching for it, but, we definitely don’t follow “trends”… that’s a dirty word in Crimson Veil.“

How can the readers imagine such an highly unusual band as Crimson Veil writing, developing and finalizing one of their songs?

„To write a song we usually just geek out over an unusual polyrhythm, maybe something from Meshuggah or Wheel. We’ll then create a drum + guitar idea of our own from the inspiration, with Garry and Anna forming it into a head-banging groove. Meanwhile, I am at the piano writing a strange and beautiful chord progressions, and Hana Piranha is with her violin, cello or harp, coming up with gorgeous and dark melodies. This is the beginning of a Crimson Veil song. We then meet as a group to structure the songs and split up the parts. Then we spend some time away from each other, recording individual ideas. I will usually assemble the final structure and then we have a finished demo. It could change many more times as we go through the recording process. One song could take a really long time… it’s like a sculpture, you can’t rush it.“

When I heard the first notes, I thought it sounded like Lana Del Rey on a diffuse and psychedelic Metal trip, which can only be interesting - what are your favorite artists and bands in the line-up?

„That’s so funny you’ve said that, we all love Lana. She’s always on our van stereo! Wouldn’t say no to some psychedelic trips either! Just kidding… our favourite artists collectively are Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Tool, Igorrr, Haken, Dillinger Escape Plan, NIN and Gojira. We would die to tour with any of those incredible artists.“

Who out of you guys did the lion's share of the new song material?

„It’s actually pretty even between us. I might start off the song, but everyone writes their own parts and no one is the leader so we always make sure that song just gets what it needs. More recently we’ve begun to write more as a group in the same room, which is new for us as we wrote ‚Hex‘ during the pandemic, when we were separated. Normally Hana and I do the chords, melodies and lyrics whereas Garry and Anna come up with the rhythm and groove. We couldn’t finish a song without each of us giving their part.“

How was the selection of songs for the upcoming album done - was it difficult or rather easy for the band?

„All the songs we had written we’ve put on the album, so there was no selection process. We already knew we just wanted 9 songs for this first record so that’s how many songs were written. Plenty of sketches were abandoned but we have many ideas in the bank for the follow up album. It’s easy to choose when the song begins to take shape, it feels effortless then. The effort begins when you have to finish the damn thing! The final song on the record called ‚Task‘ was such a fucking long process… that’s one of the reasons why it’s called ‚Task‘.“

Is there and in case yes, what is the o-n-e song with the most meaning for you on "Hex" and why?

„I would say the title track ‚Hex‘ is the most meaningful. It has everything that represents the band – polyrhythms, odd time signatures, soft ethereal vocals, hypnotic melodies, rich guitars, occult lyrics, ritual magick, death growls, beauty and terror. It’s everything we represent in the one song. A close second to that is the song ‚Opulence‘ which might be the most unsettling song of all time.“

How do you see and evaluate the new album within your musical journey so far?

„We’re immensely proud of the album. I think it shows that we are all at our peak musically but also a triumph as a group that we’ve been able to put together something that’s gone beyond what we could have imagined. We were just writing to have fun, but now we’ve become great friends through the process, as well as landed a record and management deal, a tour with Lordi and so much more. We’re not stopping, and very excited to see what’s next for Crimson Veil, the journey continues!“

Please bring the readers closer to the main lyrical content of your upcoming release! I like the fascinating Shamanic/Witching/Sorcery/Esoteric look and appeal!

„We like to retain a little mystery within our lyrics, it’s more for the listener to deduce what they want from our words, and make their own opinion with it. A song could have multiple meanings depending on who’s hearing it, so there isn’t much point explaining it all away. We can tell you that you need to come to a show to really see what we’re all about, and take part in the world we create while on stage. We’re looking forward to developing this imagery and mood further… so watch out.“

Are there any things, books, movies, etc. that can or have influenced you as musicians?

„For this particular album I was greatly influenced by the new version of ‚Suspiria‘. The dancing elements and strange unsettling tone of the film was incredible and stayed with me for months afterwards. I took some inspiration from this film while writing ‚Hex‘.“

Four own and individually thinking personalities in one crew - here and there difficult to handle?

„Only hard to handle for our manager! [laughs] Our demands are ridiculous! Only joking, to be honest we’re actually all pretty chilled out, even though our music might imply otherwise! We all like to work, play, exercise and laugh, so we have a lot in common. Getting on is easy. We did start our last tour with a group ritual, so that was fun.“

Anything you would like to add?

„Only to say thank you for having us on the interview, the questions were great and we’re very happy about! Love & Hex-es.“

© Markus Eck, 15.08.2024

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