Interview by Miriam C.
It’s an old Femme Metal Webzine tradition to take a chance on unknown but rather talented bands. Though, if the band in question comes from Japan, it’s a double win for a long list of reasons (mostly linguistical and logistical) but this, as you know, has never stopped us. After this little clarification, let’s focus on the interview. Think of Die Like a Mayfly of The Gathering “Nighttime Birds”-era meets The 3rd and the Mortal “Tears Laid in Earth” era and I was at once fascinated by their music so I’ve contacted them but I didn’t too much faith in their reply at my request but I was positely surprised by their feedback. We introduced them with our review of the debut debut EP “Dying Mayfly” back in 2014 and now their are back with their full-lenght “Kyrie Eleison” via their imprint Dark Crusader Records. The singer Rosiel took some time to reply to my questions and delve into the band’s history.
Hello dear Rosiel, welcome to Femme Metal Webzine, how are you? I’m very honoured to have you here, finally!
Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity. Hopefully you enjoy it. BTW, actually we have all 4 here to have this interview.
From the little bio hints that I was able to get ahold of about Die Like a Mayfly I know that the band was founded in 2012. Would you like to introduce the band to our readers with some details?
I was the last one taking part into the band while other members were looking for a vocal that can do a kind of more first-generation-like gothic metal, I raised my hand and that was it.
One year after you started the band, in 2013, you have released your debut EP “Dying Mayfly”. Are there any additional infos that you would like to add about this release? Would you like to add anything in particular about the songs?
After having studio rehearsal for months, we noticed that we need more people to know our music. So we decided to give something on purpose of promotion. The result was this EP.
For being a Japanese band, you have a quite distinctive European musical flavour, if we count that Die Like a Mayfly‘s band main influences are The 3rd and the Mortal, The Gathering and Theatre of Tragedy and I can truly confirm that, while I was listening to the EP, I was able to detect all the basic traits from these aforementioned bands. How and when have you discovered these band?
Our guitarist, Taguzu, writes most of our songs. Years ago, a band called Paradise Lost, known as a Gothic Metal band, happened to catch his ears. It was quite amazing and totally different from all those kind of metal music he had listened before. From then on he began to reach out to gothic metal bands that somehow he got to know. BTW, band introductions can be found on Japanese metal magazines.
Also, connected to the previous question, on top of that we must consider that you’re coming from Japan, so I was wondering how are you able to efficiently blend these peculiarities in your sound?
Well, we think it does nothing to do with the area of Japan or Asia. We are just playing what we like, no matter where the pieces originally come from.
Your first full-length “Kyrie Eleison” was released in April 2015 via Dark Crusaders Records. Taking a trip down memory lane, what can you recall about its genesis? When have you first started to collect the first ideas for this album?
At the very beginning we didn’t clearly decide what the title or the concept of this album would be like. We were only keeping on creating new songs. After writing the last song from this album, which is called “Kyrie Eleison”, we found that it could perfectly fit. Then here comes this album.
I’d like to spend a couple of words about “Kyrie Eleison”‘s artwork. Let me first tell you that I love very very much how you have depicted the church’s inside, congratulations! But, in which way does it relates to its contents? And I’m specifically referring to the lyrics…
First, we think that gothic rock music can give a kind of immoral feeling and it must be interesting to show the immorality in an opposite way. So we looked for something with a strong religious feeling. Then the result was a picture of a church. After that we added some threatening or tragic touch, with a malicious intent, it turned to be our artwork.
Although you’re a very young band, I’m be curious to know, from your point of view, how did the band musically evolve (and improve) from the EP to the recent album “Kyrie Eleison”?
In Japan the amount of REAL gothic metal band is nearly zero. If we confidently say that the releasing of our EP showcased that we do have genuine gothic metal here and our album highlighted it.
Until today, how was the feedback from the press for both EP “Dying Mayfly” and the full-length “Kyrie Eleison”?
Speaking about the feedback here in Japan, gothic metal fans a really a few and we only have few places that showed their interests in our music. However, fortunately, from those who listened to our music, the comments are very optimistic.
What are your next band plans? Where can your fans can catch you in the next days? Do you have any projects for an overseas tour?
We are now practicing some new songs. The time we have news for sharing, we update the Facebook page and official site. Regarding overseas tour, we will consider about it if we receive a nice invitation.
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