A few questions - interview with death metal band from Mexico - SUMMONING DEATH.
Answered Ricardo, thank you!
Ricardo, can you introduce your band to our readers? – When was it founded and what style of music do you play etc.?
To understand a little where the band was born it is important that you know where we live, we are a band from Cancun which is a small paradisiacal place in southern Mexico, here there is a scene very similar to what the scenes of many other places was many years ago, where there are only few bands of various styles such as punk, heavy metal, black metal, death core, thash etc. for the same reason, most of the bands know each other and in fact we meet from time to time, starting from this we had the need to express our taste for old school Death Metal since no band around here played that particular style, gor those reasons I started working on some riffs and found another veteran named Francisco Aguilar who was at the time a drummer for the band Shub Nigurath in Mexico City, but he lives in here too, the idea was simply to make some songs and record a demo, play a little and have fun in local clubs with the tiny metal scene in that time, this was around 2012.
At the end we were able to record a demo in my home studio with a regular production that in fact served simply to start making ourselves known not only here but in other places,it is fun because we never sold a single demo so we had to give them away for free, the demo was called “Cadaveric Environment“.
After a while there was a change of line-up where, among others, Gray Lara, who is the current bassist of the band, entered, we began to work more in shape in a second demo that ended being called "A window from an evil place" which was also recorded in my home studio with a little better production (I had already practiced a bit and knew how to mix a little better hehehe), the second demo did not have much scope, again we dont sell a single copy, we sent all of them and gave them all away every time we play, but at least the band already had a little more recognition, these demos were sent to Victor Hernandez from Chaos Records Mexico, however, Victor was not convinced of the material, many years we were trying to get him to sign us, so I started working again on new material and with the help of Angel Santos who was the drummer for some years we worked on a demo of 5 songs where I ended up recording voice, bass and guitars, this was sent to several record labels, among them again Chaos Records that finally agreed to sign the band, from that pint we started the rehearsals for the recording of the album, this time it was recorded and mixed here in cancun in the Dark Sound Studios by Geiler Mai and mastered by Dan Lowndes at Resonance Sound which was our first formal work that had the name of “The House that Screamed“, the same had a good reception and finally we started to sell records hehehehe, it helped us to play in more places and to play at the Total Death Mexico festival wich is a great undergorund festival in Méxco City.
After that there were some line-up changes with the entering of Abigail on vocals, Sergio (Difer Nom Basta ) on guitars and Ivan (Delirium, Evil Entourage) on drums, this line up with a more professional vision of what we wanted to do for the second album.
Where and under what conditions were you recording the new album? Who was in charge of sound, production and mastering?
For this second album "One Step Beyond" Sergio and I were working on the material almost entirely in 2019, at the end Sergio made the final demos and it was recorded in Cancun, Quintana Roo which is where we live, this time we only recorded the drums at Dark Sound Studios, the idea was to reamp and record voices right there, but due to the pandemic we had to condition my house and work in my home studio again, for this time I had been working more serious in my mixing skills and did the mixes on my own and it was mastered again by Dan Lowndes at Resonance Sound.
How many copies were released and which medium was used for this new edition (CD, digital, vinyl, cassette)?
At the moment 1000 copies have been published on cd but we are in talks to launch the versions on cassette and vynil.
Who is the author of the lyrics and how were they created and about what do the lyrics deal with?
The lyrics were initialy worked by Melina who was our live vocalist during the “House That Screamed“ period but at the end we finished them between Sergio and me.
Basically the lyrics are based on a television show called “One Step Beyond“, which is the antecedent to what would become Twilight Zone, in general the theme of the band has been inspired by series and B movies and horror movies of the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, we felt that in that period people had to be more imaginative not only at the time of create but also from the viewer's point of view, in these times there are no limits, but that is not always good, people no longer use their imagination, they no longer read, they no longerget into the horror arts, they only consume what they see, that's what we tried to go a little back in time when your head did the magic.
Who created the logo of the band, and who took care of the graphics and the website? What about you and social networks? Do you consider these things important?
We have had 2 logos, the first one was created by a friend of mine Fabian Fuentes who was the one we used in the demos, he also helped us with the covers and their layouts, as the music evolved we wanted a logo that will be similar more to the sound we were creating, for this we were helped by another friend of mine named David who is the vocalist of a band called The Suffering from here in Mexico, an excellent band by the way, in the visual part the artist John Quevedo helps us, we believe he has the same vision of us and that he has done excellent work for us developing the vision that we want to reflect our music in an extraordinary way.
Regarding our social networks, at the moment we only have Facebook, Instagram and a YouTube channel, unfortunately it is the new way to spread music and it is important if you want your music to be heard elsewhere, we do not love the idea but we must adjust in the same way to modernity.
Which label did you choose for releasing your album and why this label? Are you satisfied by how your label represents you and takés care about you?
As I was telling you, we had always wanted to work with Chaos Records, in addition to the quality of the production, it also has a fairly strong international impact, so we always cling to the idea of working with them until it was achieved, we are very satisfied with how they have carried things and we have felt supported by the company at all times.
Which bands do you idolise and where do you get your inspiration?
Our musical tastes are mainly based on old school Swedish and Finnish Death Metal, mainly on bands like Grave, Depravity, Demilich, Demigod, Amorphis, Carnage, God Macabre, Crematory, among others, however I can tell you that in the previous material there are arrangements base in bands like Soul Asylum, Goo Goo Dolls, Rush and others.
Regarding inspiration, it comes from our daily life, from what we live, from what we see or hear, and in those series and movies we were talking about.
Did you send your record to some Labels - which are the labels? How was the response?
We have not sent the album to other labels, generally we are very sure of what we want and the direction we want to take, as I told you at the beginning we send many demos to many labels and we never had an answer, I think it is normal, every time there are more and more bands with incredible sound and it is getting harder and harder to get a contract with a label, so why risk the one we have hehehehe.
How many gigs have you played? Which type of gigs do you prefer, whether it's (clubs or festivals) and which of your performances would you consider as the best?
Since the formation of the band we have played a lot to be an underground band, personally we believe that it is better to play in small places than in big festivals, contact with people is always better when you play in small places, festivals help you to more people listen to you but you also run the risk of getting lost among so many bands.
What about your plans for the future? What do you want to achieve with the band?
At the moment we are waiting for the pandemic to pass, we already have a couple of dates for next year but we have to wait for all this chaos to end to have certain about the dates, for now we continue rehearsing and we are taking things slowly, I continue preparing in terms of musical production and I've started writing some new music, let's just hope that next year get better for everyone and we can be back on stage.
How and where can your fans contact you? Can you provide some contact information?
Sure!! It can be trough facebook or instagram, or vía email to the next adresses:
Thanx for the interview.
Thanks to you Jakub, for your time and take care and hope everyone is well over there, its great to hear that our music is listened from so far away!!
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