It only took four months of Retaliation sending out demos to be signed to a label and start work on their first studio album, Seven. Success in the music industry might have come quickly for the death metal band but it was not without long hours and hard work from each member of Retaliation.
Retaliation since their formation back in 2005 has released albums and gone on a variety of tours, but what they say is the most important is being able to play death metal music for fans night after night and fans haven't been able to get enough of Retaliation's unique sound.
"Our sound is very unique. Despite of the melodic and sometimes classical sounding guitar lines the band manages to maintain a fierce intensity within their songs. We do not play music to compete in a battle for the fastest, most technical or brutal band but want to give the audience an experience. Our music is filled with ambience that is supposed to build up tension and a climax for each song," said members of Retaliation.
I had the chance to interview members of Retaliation. We discussed everything from the how band came together back in 2005 and to get a glimpse of what life on the road is like. The entire interview with Retaliation is below.
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C: When did Retaliation come together?
R: Retaliation, previously named Invalid Injection, was established in 2005 by Julian Welsch and Seven Lutz.
The band as it is known today was formed after a row of several lineup changes between 2006 and 2011, and finally achieved a constant setting when Retaliation had to part ways with its founder Julian Welsch due to musical differences.
C: What would you consider to be some of your most notable music influences at a younger age?
R: Despite of the fact that every individual in Retaliation has its own background when writing and performing music we all share the same fascination for Metal in general.
Especially when it comes to songwriting one can recognize some similarities to the work of Chuck Schuldiner as well as a high variety of modern Death Metal interprets. Apart from that we are also very open minded to other musical influences (prog, jazz, funk, heavy, thrash, black metal, hardcore, grindcoe, a.s.o.) and are constantly striving to create an unique style of music.
C: Retaliation in a few words, how would you describe the band's musical sound?
R: Retaliation´s sound is very unique. Despite of the melodic and sometimes classical sounding guitar lines the band manages to maintain a fierce intensity within their songs. We do not play music to compete in a battle for the fastest, most technical or brutal band but want to give the audience an experience. Our music is filled with ambience that is supposed to build up tension and a climax for each song.
C: What musical influences do you pull from when you are performing or writing music?
R: Over the years, each member of Retaliation has gained experience thanks to a vast amount of musical side jobs and projects. This knowledge summarizes when composing and performing music and has helped us to gain ground in the music scene.
C: Retaliation has gained quite a large following in the Midwest, what was the process of coming up in the industry like?
R: After sending promo CD´s to various labels we decided to sign to Unique Leader Rec. Four months later our debut album "Seven," got released world wide and got the resonance we had awaited for a death metal release. It´s nearly impossible to achieve great financial benefits with this kind of music, but it is great when people tell you in reviews or personally how much they enjoy what you do. So the "industry" isn´t the main thing that matters to us most, but the pleasure of playing death metal and pleasing people.
C: How would you guys as a band describe the Midwest music scene?
R: To be honest, we don´t really know where most of the US extreme metal bands we like come from. If they are from the Midwest, Southeast, Northwest a.s.o. doesn´t matter as long the music is good! Even though we wish to, we never played a gig in the USA so we can´t say anything about the Midwest crowds until now.
C: How do you all as a band feel social media has helped and will continue to help your career?
R: Social Media has gained much importance since the last – let´s say – seven to eight years. We don´t remember exactly at which time myspace got up, but it grew really really fast and from then on you the internet forums were full of links to reams of awesome bands and many bands (like job for a cowboy) got really big or even quite famous with the help of social media. Same counts today for facebook. How else should you get noticed by people all over the world, if you haven´t got a deal that makes your music available worldwide? Even if you have a deal and released an album, social media remains very important. It´s just the easiest and most effective way to stay in contact with fans, give updates and reach new people. That´s why we will be active on our social media platforms in future, too.
C: What does the future of the band hold?
R: Currently we are writing songs for our second, yet untitled album. We hope to get it done and released this year and do quite a few shows to get as much new followers as possible. If we will do a tour for the new album? We´ll see what the future holds...
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