TALES OF TIME released their debut EP a few months back; with its thought-provoking lyrics and emotional music, it received recognition from both fans and critics alike. Rock Out Stand Out’s Lotty Whittingham caught up with the band at their show at the iconic Cart & Horses in London. Here’s what happened.
Hello there, it’s great to speak to you again. Since the last time we spoke, you released your debut EP, The Journey. The reception for that has been solid, I see.
Anna Maria: Yes, it has! We saw we were added to 150 playlists or something along those lines, and we were like, “Oh my god, this is amazing! This has never happened before.” So yeah, people really reacted well to the EP, and it was well received.
We’ve had conversations outside this interview about the new direction of your sound; could you explain a bit more about that?
Anna Maria: I would say it’s darker power metal, but not really power metal.
Tom: It feels a lot more ethereal.
Anna Maria: Yes, exactly. I wanted to make sure there was some power metal in there but not overdo it, like, say, with a crazy lengthy song. I do structured songs with some symphonic elements, stripping back a lot of the orchestra in the songs.
I noticed that in this current EP.
Anna Maria: Yes, so The Journey has that punchy sound and the others have piano/synth played in some places. It makes it more poignant.
It’s got me thinking; would you write one of those lengthy songs we spoke about earlier? They go down well with the Power Metal fans.
Tom: It’s a cool idea; at the moment, we’re trying to start a new process of the three of us collaborating. A lot of song writing so far has been done by Anna and where the inspiration has taken her; that’s why the songs have a similar theme and atmosphere. Whereas I am excited to explore more.
I was also going to say that Anna, you’ve been through a lot. Did that influence much of the song writing?
Anna Maria: Absolutely it did; I mean, Dan is the master lyricist. So we write the lyrics together.
Dan: It’s mainly I write the lyrics and [to Anna] you said, “I can’t sing that; those words aren’t singable in that position. Let’s change it.” [both laugh]
Anna Maria: Yes, that’s partially what happens. I feel emotions through music, but I also understand that we didn’t want to go too power metal. The tracks The Journey and Chaos/Art are more power metal, but the others have more symphonic elements. There are moments in both Forgotten and Sleep where the music is very emotional; there are certain chord changes that can make you feel something, and that’s what I went for.
I also love with this EP that you can hear the lyrics so clearly from the word go.
Anna Maria: Diction is something that I have always made sure is at the forefront. You hear a lot of bands who slur, and that’s fine; it works for them, but I want to make sure we have clear diction.
Tom: I didn’t realise I slurred my words as much as I did until I stood in front of the microphone, and Anna’s is super specific on syllables and everything like that.
Does that apply to the growling as well?
Tom: Yes, it does; in some ways, even more so, as there’s the cadence and pitch of the growls where, whilst it’s not a melody as such, there’s the energy that goes back and forth. I am quite happy that you can hear the lyrics in the growls too; I really enjoyed the harsh vocals in this EP.
Anna Maria: [to Liam and Tom] You guys nailed it. It works really nicely with me coming in with a singing bit here and there, trying to blend it together.
Chaos Art was one of the ones I wanted to talk about. Especially the video; tell me more about that.
Liam: Dan and Anna had already bought the 360 camera. So many of the other music videos that were out were your typical, professionally looking metal band. That’s completely valid and that’s the sort of thing we want to produce, but we’re also human beings and we’ve got a silly side, so we wanted to do something to capture that. So Dan had the idea of setting up the camera in this area of the table; let’s just have dinner and go nuts with it. So we did. What was funny was we tried our best to rehearse it, but there’s only so much you can do as we were wearing suits and dresses that were going to be covered in food before we did the final take.
Tom: We were also incredibly hungry going into it; we didn’t eat anything beforehand. So we were in there doing these dry runs, and then halfway through the video, I realised I was just eating. I was not being entertaining in any way and was thinking I needed to do something.
Anna Maria: I think it’s really important that we have this closeness; we are very close and personal, so we feel comfortable doing these sorts of things. It’s important, as hopefully we can do this on stage as well.
Eat a meal on stage?
Anna Maria: You never know. Never say never.
Tom: A food fight in a mosh pit does sound interesting. [all laugh]
Am I right in thinking you add some of the growls Anna?
Anna Maria: I did yes.
Liam: All three of us did both clean and harsh vocals.
Tom: Some of my cleans mirrored Anna’s during Chaos/Art to thicken it up. As Liam said, the three of us were all recording both clean and harsh vocals; I think it was in the mix and deciding what sounded the best. [To Anna] Was it Chaos or Forgotten that you’re more predominant on?
Anna Maria: I think Forgotten, because it had that more gentle symphonic appeal. It’s only our first year being a full line-up still; we’ve done quite a bit in our first year, I think. We’re still finding our feet and discovering sounds that resonate well. From this point on, we have new directions for song writing and what we’re going to do. We wanted to get an EP out to help us get off the ground, as it were, and share the songs that are already written.
Liam: The number of times people at Power Metal Quest Fest came up to the merch stand and asked if we had CDs, and we said no.
Tom: No many people buy CDs these days; it’s singles on Spotify, but there are some who say they want a CD now.
What was the most challenging song/s to record?
Anna Maria: Sleep.
Tom: That got a full re-write didn’t it?
Anna Maria: It did yes.
Tom: It was completed two weeks before the EP was released.
Liam: I can’t remember what the original version of it was now.
Tom: I remember we recorded vocals for a specific structure and then we heard the new version of it that had been rewritten. Two weeks before the release of the EP, we were redoing a lot of the stuff to make sure it sounds good. I like how it’s come out.
Anna-Maria: Originally it was a semitone lower, and it was so low. Which is fine; these guys are very talented and can adjust very easily to key changes. Trying to fit an orchestra in for being so low didn’t sound right. When we put it up a semitone, it sounded so much brighter and cleaner. It took a whole new direction; at first it was meant to be screams for the entire verse, and it was going to be a battle between the two.
Dan: It was then a case of three voices, each with their own line of lyrics, and still making those lyrics out to be heard. It was a mission.
Tom: I like the stereo stuff we put in there too.
Anna Maria: Absolutely, a lot of power metal is heavy on the chorus, with a lot of choirs and loads of parts layered on top of each other. We wanted to keep it quite raw; we never want to go for too much. It’s usually one clean take of my voice, then add one harmony and then add these guys in. It might sound a bit different from your usual power metal.
Liam: That’s the thing. We didn’t want to write a power metal record; we didn’t want to write a symphonic metal record; we wanted to write a Tales Of Time record. We’ve said before how we have such different and wild types of influences. I don’t know if we could write a straight-up power metal record because we all have so many different things we listen to subconsciously.
Anna Maria: We’re open to experimenting still; we have a sound, but we don’t have a set structure for what we want to do.
Liam: Genre-fluid.
Anna Maria: Yes exactly, genre fluid.
Liam: That’s the thing, if you say you’re a specific genre, then there’s this expectation of how you should sound. So when you try anything different, people turn around and say, “well that doesn’t sound like them anymore.” It’s like if Iron Maiden did a disco track, people would be going, “that’s not Iron Maiden.”
One of things we like to talk about at Rock Out Stand Out is looking after your wellbeing. What’s the biggest lesson you have learnt?
Liam: Go to therapy, 100%. Speak to a professional. It’s also really important to have that support network around you; not everyone has one or family and friends they can rely on. Some people don’t believe in mental health; sometimes people try to speak to their family members about what they’re going through, but it’s met with “oh, you’re just being lazy,” “you just need to grow up.” So it’s great to try and reach out; it’s also great to speak to someone who is qualified to help. That’s from my experience anyway.
Anna Maria: These guys are like my family; they’ve heard far more about me than they perhaps wanted to [laughs]. I’ve shared my experiences with these guys, and I know they probably want to know as well.
Tom: For sure.
Anna Maria: It makes me feel like everything is OK.
Tom: Having that support network is so important and helpful. Having those people who can point out when you’re doing something wrong but also be there to bounce ideas off of.
Absolutely. Something I am learning myself is to be kind to myself when I have messed up.
Anna Maria: That’s why Momentai is special; it perfectly fits problems related to mental health. It’s a really powerful song, and there are powerful lyrics from Dan in there.
It’s a message that everyone can relate to. So going back to genres, which bands would you like to see do a track outside of their genre? Relating back to Iron Maiden doing a disco track.
Anna Maria: I would like to hear a power metal band do a black metal track. That would be interesting as a lot of power metal musicians are classically trained; they are excellent at what they do. The endurance of a black metal song is crazy.
Ed: And blast beats and a lot of double bass.
Anna Maria: There’s aspects of power metal in black metal. Like with the speed and everything. I thought of my band, Battle Beast doing a black metal track.
Ed: Battle Beast, Behemoth sort of thing.
Liam: If I had the power to bring this into existence, it would be a joint EP from Meshuggah and The Wiggles. I would give one of my legs to hear that.
Tom: Didn’t they have McFly at Download this year and they covered Master Of Puppets? I heard an anecdote that they got a mosh pit or wall of death going and then went straight into their song All About You as the wall slammed into each other. That’s my favourite aesthetic, a boy band meets absolute insanity.
Ed: Definitely something black metal like Bathory doing a folk song, the complete opposite. There’s a video of Behemoth and someone’s overdubbed the song with a Disney song.
Dan: Children Of Bodom doing Frozen.
Tom: Nanowar Of Steel do completely flawless impressions of other genres.
Dan: The definite answer to your question is Nanowar Of Steel.
Do you have messages for your fans?
Dan: Thank you so much for listening to our music, for coming and supporting us at shows across the country. Hopefully we’ll see you further afield soon.
Anna Maria: What he said.
Tom: If you can read lips, I hope you have a fun time watching the Chaos/Art video.
Anna Maria: You don’t want to know what we actually said. We were all just talking nonsense [all laughs]
Liam: A message to fans, thank you for supporting us. We absolutely adore all of you and we hope you’re excited for what’s next after The Journey.
The Journey is out now. Find TALES OF TIME here.
