Interview by Michelle Henriquez
The Netherlands based band GOLD define themselves as “a contemporary rock band that’s heavy because of the songs, not the sound, but why? Let’s discover with us more about their music and their debut album “Interbellum” released via Van Records on 2012 with this nice chat happened few months ago with both singer Milena Eva and guitarist Thomas.
How did you experience the show?
Milena: Yeah, it went great we think, it is kind of hard to grasp the feeling 5 minutes after the show, but I think we did alright.
Thomas: We made a few mistakes but because we were a bit stressed playing a set of just 30 minutes and lacking the drummer for quite some time. Plus it was great to play a set for such a big crowd. We played some festivals in Holland and even Sweden but nothing this size.
Did that give you a special feeling?Milena: Absolutely! Playing for around 1400-1500 people gave us a special feeling and we hope the crowd liked us and we can play here more often.
GOLD isn’t a widely known band, and finding info also isn’t the easiest. What would you say about GOLD itself?Thomas: We made a small mistake in that indeed. Calling ourselves GOLD made it hard to be found as a band, something we never thought about, because when googling “gold”, you’ll find rings instead of us haha. We do want to make ourselves more well-known so people will know who we are. We started around 2011 and build everything up with Milena.
Milena: No no! That’s not how it went! Thomas and the drummer wanted to start a rock band with a random girl, and then I came in and demanded the spot and that is how we became GOLD. I claimed my rightful place. Me and Thomas write most of the stuff and then we all rehearse separately and mash it up perfectly. We’re slowly evolving into a great band I think. We love playing our new stuff to see the crowd’s reaction. For me it’s also a great experience doing the singing, because in the past I had the feeling I had to prove myself doing both very high and low vocals which was just too much for my voice. What we’re currently doing is more my voice and style and gives me so much more freedom.
What is changed since The Devil’s Blood since the split up?Thomas: We had to prove we weren’t like The Devil’s Blood, that we had our own style. The Devil’s Blood had very complex guitar riffs and writing. It was occult rock, very experimental with a definite, unique style. We raised the bar for ourselves because we thought everybody had extreme expectations so somehow we didn’t focus on our musical identity. We did not create what we wanted to create, but created what we thought we should create. We have learned a lot from then and we are following our own path now and a great reflection of who we really are.
So where do you get your influence from?Milena: We get it from everywhere, from contemporary music to classic rock. We have an extremely broad taste in music and try to combine it all. It’s not even only music, I’ve also let movies and TV-shows influence me and even art.
Thomas: A Russian artist, Kazimir Malivich, that had his art in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam even gave me vibes for writing music and just staring at the art made me hear music.
You guys have a new bass player, how did he get involved?Milena: When we started it was hard to find a good bass player and we really didn’t think of our friend Harm because he was very busy with other bands and his private life so we didn’t assume he would want in. However he wanted in and so it went on, unfortunately at some point he didn’t have the time anymore so we had to look again, which was very hard again. In the end Harm recommended his friend Tim, and he loved to join the band. He is a great addition to the band with an amazing extra vocalist and amazing bass-playing.
Milena: We didn’t really like our reviews that much actually, we get described as satanic or retro, while that isn’t even close to how we feel. We had retro on the old album, but in the we find ourselves more progressive.
Thomas: It’s very shallow thinking, many bands evolved around The Devil’s Blood. It was retro, female fronted and occulted. And since we still have a female vocalist and a link to The Devil’s Blood people just assume it. However we’re more open towards more music styles and not the past.
Milena: Also due to the album cover people assume it’s the 70’s instead of now. While if looking closer it is modern and people tend to look at it too simple. We should have played shows before releasing the album, because it made it much more creative.
What was the inspiration for the peacock present on your cover album?Milena: We wanted to photograph in extreme HD and show something that suited our feeling of the album. The album is named after the time between the 1st and 2nd World War. We had the feeling we were in another state like that and I still believe a 3rd World War could be very close considering the crisis and everything in Russia and Syria. So we wanted to show something very beautiful but also shows fright and anger. Everyone knows how a peacock looks like, but not how it looks like when flying. And a peacock only flies when it has a bad feeling and feels the need to flee.
You made several video-clips, how did these come together?Milena: We didn’t have a big budget, so two were made by Thomas which was really easy to do, and the other three were made by a lot of artists that we all knew. We asked all our friends to help out and everyone did in any kind of way. They really helped us out with actual art, and even in the video clip itself. In one clip all our female friends appeared naked trying to do a thing like Jimi Hendrix did, showing true beauty, no matter size or style.
Thomas: We really have to try to stand out unfortunately, because there are so many bands nowadays it’s hard to be noticed. We try to put as much creativity and vibes in every single way in it to be what we are.
Do you have any funny story to share with us about the videoclips?Milena: The funniest part for me was that when we shot our video with some naked women, I expected all the guys to be staring and trying to hit on the girls, but none of them felt that comfortable around them. And our friend Harm, who is a ladies men, actually took off his contacts just so he couldn’t see the women.
Thomas: For me it was extremely awkward to see some friends and a lot of woman I did not know naked. So it was a distraction for me, trying to focus on the camera. But I did enjoy it a lot, because we put out the message that we appreciated every type of woman.
You have released “Interbellum” on both CD and vinyl, which format do you appreciate most?Milena: I really don’t have a preference. I only listen to music on my PC/laptop. I don’t own any vinyl or CDs. I just go to shows and buy merch there. For me the show is the most important, the feeling I get when I am listening to music and feeling the vibe.
Thomas: To me it’s obvious, vinyl is much more special. It has better artwork due to the larger size and better quality music than a CD. Combined with the fact that the whole benefit of CDs is lost since MP3.
What are the next band plans for your future?Thomas: We want to play a lot more and we also are going to do some final recording for the new album with the hope to release it in February 2015. We want to do an album with post urban and put some songs about post materialism in it. People are pushed into scenes nowadays and obligated to fit in a picture. Same class and same race and even in music. You listen to genres, and we want to break those taboos. We don’t want people to be considered cool or not cool. That’s what we want to bring out on the new album, being your true self.
What’s the message you want to bring out?Thomas: Feel empathy for everyone around you, but also be critical on everyone and especially on yourself. Be kind when doing this, but try to encourage them by improving yourself constantly because nobody is perfect. If you have this tendency that “I am always right”, you will learn nothing new. Be open minded to everything and most important of all is keeping an identity of yourself instead of blending into the crowd. That is also what we want to bring out on our new album. We want to include everyone, whether you like metal or hip-hop. Like music because you get the vibe from it, no matter the genre. Our key is we are not exclusively for one genre.