ROSE AVALON – INTERVIEW

ROSE AVALON

‘Northern Strengths’ (Album, 2013)

Barcelona, Spain
Symphonic Folk Metal

Hi Rose,

First of all, thank you very much for the interview! It's always a pleasure talk with new voices of European musical scene.

Les Fleurs du Mal: Tell us about the band. How were you born and when?

Rose: Hello, it’s a pleasure to be here answering your questions! Northern Strengths is not actually a typical CD, because I composed the whole thing working side by side with the arranger Marcel Graell from Nowhere Music, and once the mixes were done, I forged the band to start playing live, so oficially we’re together as a band since Dec 2014

LFdM: There are main groups from which you draw more inspiration for your music?

Rose: Well, there are many styles going on in this project, tracks like Capio Mea Fides (Take my fatith) or Seven Hundred Miles were influenced by pure Symphonic Metal bands such as Within Temptation or Nightwish but for example we’ve got My Northern Star with its celtic roots or even The Moon Over Avalon which is an adaptation from a British traditional march

LFdM: Could you tell us who inspired you to become a singer? And how did you first get involve with music?

Rose: I couldn’t say who inspired me to become a singer because I sang all my life and I always loved music!

LFdM: Throughout the album, we can enjoy your voice and its different shades: how do you train your voice? 
Rose: Well, first of all i don’t drink or smoke, I try to not damage my voice with unhealthy habits and of course the best way to train my voice is never stop singing.

LFdM: Your voice seems perfectly at ease in dialogue with guitars and keyboards, for each track seems to attend a meeting between lovers: how do you create this alchemy?

Rose: Feeling the music, just feeling the music and loving what you’re creating

LFdM: Do you define yourselves a symphonic metal band or try to create your personal style? I say this because I found many gothic overtones within your tracks, so tagging you only as a symphonic band would be a bit reductive.

Rose: Well it can be a little bit reductive, but we say Symphonic Metal because the style uses to include so many branches of the “Female Fronted Metal World” otherwise we could say we make... uhmm Symphonic Folk Epic Gothic Celtic Female fronted Metal? our style is definetly full of influences so it’s hard to describe for us!

LFdM: “Northern Strenghts” is your first album full of charm, interesting rhythms, songs able to make their mark. How would you describe it? What is the story behind this concept?

Rose: The album is a combination of my emotions and thoughts, everything that is inside me

LFdM: What perfectly binds your voice with the rest of the band are the keyboards. It seems that the album has been created mainly by the marvelous white and blacks keys, isn’t it?

Rose: Yes! Totally because i composed the whole thing using my piano!

LFdM: "Life" and "Courage and Pain" caught my attention: opposing in the lyrics, the two songs are extremely different and complex. Who wrote them?

Rose: I wrote all the lyrics in this album, life is a praise to the nature to what we are in this planet, Courage and Pain is something way special, you know... unfortunatelly there are places in spain that keep calling the bullfighting a tradition, and we’re totally against them, we do not support animal cruelty and we hope it will be banned soon, it’s a cry of pain and rage and tells the story of a bull that has been raised to be killed just to make enjoy some damn cruel people... how could a person enjoy with the death of another animal? it’s just crazy...

LFdM: When talking about new bands is important to build a good feeling with the fans. What is the relationship with them? 
Rose: The relationship with our fans is getting better every day, we send cd’s all arround europe and even U.S, Canada and Japan, it’s fucking great when you see that people arround the world orders your CD and enjoys with your music.

LFdM: How do you live the experience of the live show?

Rose: Pure energy and conection with the crowd we try to give great musical quality plus the best show we can create!

LFdM:What are your plans for the future? Are you preparing to show abroad, maybe some collaboration with other bands as support group in their shows or something else?

Rose: Yes! actually 5th of april will be our first show abroad, we play on the Quinphonic Festival in Birmingham there will be 5 stunning bands that you should definetly check out! we’ll share stage with Temperance (Italy) Seventh Sin (Holland) Divided We Fall (UK) and Rainover (Spain), we’re also planning an european tour for this summer but this is of “secret” hehehe

LFdM: In general, a balance of these months after the output of your album? Are you satisfied with how things are going? Have you achieved all your goals or there is always room to grow and evolve?
Rose: Every step is important in our music career, of course we’re satisfied we never imagined that everything was going to go as fast as it was, we started playing in spain for 50 people and we ended up playing with Graham Bonnet (Ex- Rainbow / Alcatrazz) in front of more than 500 so this year has been great for the band and we thank every single person that had support us and keep listening and enjoying our music and our shows! and of course!! there’s always room to grow, this is an ambicious project and we want to be part of the international female fronted metal scene in the future, that’s our dream and we’ll work hard to get it!

Thanks a lot for your time and good luck for the future!

All the best,

Dora for LFdM
Edit by Alessandra

The line-up:

Rose Avalon – Vocals

Oscar Lelina – Guitar

Jordi V – Bass

Sergio Gonzalez – Keyboards

Albert Agullo – Drums