We are very happy to present you the interview that Canadian heavy metallers Striker gave to Rock Overdose and Konstantinos Sotirelis. Enjoy!
Rock Overdose: Hello guys, welcome to Rock Overdose. How it's going on the band's side these days?
Striker: Things are going great! We have a new album coming out soon, and lots of touring to do. Looking forward to everything we are going to do in the next year or 2.
Rock Overdose: Your upcoming album, "Striker", it's going to be released on 24th of February. How do you feel?
Striker: It is very rewarding to release an album, especially when you are on your own label. We do absolutely everything, so when things happen and we see positive results it’s very gratifying. Everything we do takes months to get set up, so there is a lot of planning that goes into releasing an album and we are very thankful to have such a great team around us helping us out.
Rock Overdose: What should we expect to hear on the new album?
Striker: The new album is pure Striker. We cut out everything extra and focused in on what really makes a great song. We cut out all the bullshit, every song is straight to the point. The album is a mix of 80s hair metal, thrash, speed, and traditional metal with a touch of AOR and hard rock. Everything is fast, with nonstop guitar shred and thick layers of vocals. People want to shred, and this is the epitome of a shred album.
Rock Overdose: Your previous album, "Stand in the Fire", was released a year ago. Why did you decide to release a new album so far?
Striker: Get busy living or get busy dying! We are musicians, we create and perform music, that’s what we love doing. We are always making music, and we had some time off so it was the logical thing to do. Plus, with all these tours going on, releasing an album now was the best way to get new music to the most amount of people.
Rock Overdose: Is the new album similar to the "Stand in the Fire" or will there be differences?
Striker: I would say that this album is the most similar to “Stand in the Fire”, it was created in the exact same way and of course they were written with less than a year between them. That being said, the new album is a lot more concise and to the point. We really paid attention to what parts drag in certain songs, and looked at ways to cut those sorts of parts out of our new music. We wanted every section of every song to be the best they possibly could be and we are pretty happy with what turned out! We had a similar approach to "Stand in the Fire" but this time around I think we were more ruthless with our edits and cutting parts out.
Rock Overdose: You will release your new album via "Record Breaking Records", your own new label. Why did you decide to create a label?
Striker: We’ve been working with various labels for over a decade. In most cases in the modern music industry, you don’t need a label. You can literally do everything a label can do. Basically a label provides a loan, as well as some services like distribution and promotion. If you go to an actual bank and get the same loan, you get to keep your music, and most importantly your money. Hiring promo and getting online distro is incredibly easy as well, your money is just as green as everyone else’s. I hope more bands choose to take their future into their own hands and go independent as I believe it’s the future of the music industry.
Rock Overdose: Will you tour so as to promote the new album? Is Greece included in your touring plans?
Striker: We will tour as much as we possibly can! There are lots of places we want to tour, Greece included, and we are doing our best to make it happen! We have a US tour Jan 20 to Feb 11, and then we fly straight to Europe to perform for 7 weeks with Sonata Arctica for another tour. After that we are looking at booking some additional tours and really get touring across the world in 2017!
Rock Overdose: Why do you think that heavy metal is popular again and there are many new bands who play the traditional heavy metal?
Striker: The traditional style is just more focused on all the things that make a classic song, like melody, harmony, being catchy and having hooks, etc. Traditional metal takes a lot of cues from traditional pop music in terms of arrangements, and the reason it’s called pop music is because it’s popular. People like those classic sounds and you hear similar ideas in most good music regardless of genre. We like to experiment with new ideas though, but what everything comes down to is whether a song sounds good or not, and I think that is what roots traditional metal.
Rock Overdose: What should we expect from the band in the future?
Striker: Non-stop shred! We hope to be releasing lots of new music and having lots of great tours in the coming years. Like I said we are musicians and this is what we love to do.
Rock Overdose: Thank you very much for this interview. The last words are yours.
Striker: You can pre-order our new album and get your name in the liner notes forever, plus we have special edition merchandise including silver foil CDs and Vinyl which are exclusive to the pre-order campaign. We have our US tour and EU tour, so be sure to check out our website www.striker-metal.com!
For Rock Overdose,
Sotirelis Konstantinos
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