Interview: Death & Legacy

[gallery type="slideshow" size="full" link="none" ids="118567"]

What got you into music and if you had not gotten into music what you would be doing today? In fact I was always surrounded by music, we all are by somehow. However, in my case, my Mom is a pianist and one day she decided to send me to the music school, where I discovered I really liked playing music. Besides, my cousin used to bring me some CDs from time to time and by this way he introduced me Heavy metal. If I weren’t a guitar player, I would do the post production which is working with the sound anyway. 

What do you like to do when you’r not playing music and how does that influence your creativity. My free time is for my family. I often play or sing some lullabies to my little son who, btw, seems to be into music as he tries to follow me. Also, I am an audio engineer and run V3 Studios in Madrid. So even when I am not playing, I still working with the sound.

How long has your band been around? Death and Legacy was created in 2013 in Zamora, my home town.

Where are you based out of and how did that influence your music. I joined the band in 2016 and, to tell the truth, by that time I had some experience attained from other projects and had played many concerts. Therefore, it’s likely I was a new influence for the band and as we worked perfectly together, we managed to create some really nice singles and record an album.

Name of the band? What does it mean to you? Our lyrics talk about death and about what let for you, your family, etc... and we sing in english... so “Death & Legacy”

Tell me about the best and the worst shows you have played. The best show was in Fuenlabralla (Madrid) stadium with Jose Andrea’s band, which performed as a main voice in “Mago de Oz” band. It rained cats and dogs and it was so euphoric to see so many happy fans’ faces despite of the rain. The worst show was the worst cause we started to play at 6AM and there were only few fans left. Likely, it was in Toro, close to our home town.

Tell me about your favorite venue to play at, and do you have any places you want to play that you haven’t already. Oh, “La Rivera” in Madrid was really fun and I also like live festivals. It meant a lot for me to play in “Z-live” festival in my home town. Also I would ready like to play somewhere in Finland, which is a heavy metal country. In fact, that was one of the reasons we recorded part of the new album there and were happy to work with such professionals as Mikko Karmila and Mika Jussila from Finnvox Studios. Another place of my dreams is USA, of course.

If you could play any show with any line up who would be on the ticket. All, right, let’s dream a little bit. It would be “Slayer’, “Annihilator” and “Kreator”. That would be really cool!

What is some advice that that you would give to someone who is just getting into playing in a band? Observe, work hard and play, play and play. When you are a newbie, it’s not so important to get the best tools and expensive musical instruments, but to improve the playing technics. 

If you could go back in time and give yourselves advice, what would it be?  Play the guitar as much as you could, play everywhere and probably I would have moved to Madrid earlier, as here are always much more opportunities, means, influences and contacts in big cities than in little towns.

Of your songs which one means the most for you and why?  “Hellfire” is definitely one of my favorite ones. It’s not only because of its “burning” rhythm and fabulous solo guitar, but also due to the lyrics: “She’s infernal, her destiny is in her hands” as motivating as “Like phoenix she rises from ashes you will see” and “She’s the conquer of hell”. In my opinion, these are very powerful messages we send to the audience. It’s about a fight that we have to go on no matter what. And if everything becomes a hell, well, you must be a king or a queen of it. 

What is the creative process for the band, and what inspires you to write your music? Well, we all lives in different parts of Spain: Jesus and Charlie in Zamora, Cintia – in Leon, Hugo moves out to Basque Country and I am based in Madrid. Thanks God, XXI century technologies helps us to be always connected in spite of the distance. So, we send ideas to each other and finally, we really rock when we get all together. Speaking about inspirations, well, you never know what can inspire you, but I can assure you that it usually happens when there is no guitar around me and there is no way to play a melody that I have just composed. So, you can say I need to have a good memory, ha-ha.

What kinds of messages do you like to get across you music? “Never give up!” We live in crazy times but whatever happens, we all have to be strong and keep fighting. This is how life is it, after all.

Do you ever have disagreements in your band, and how do you get past them? Well, it’s hard to fight when you are far away from each other, so we really appreciate the time once we are together. However, we are all humans and sometimes it happens. Still, for me it’s nonsense to get angry with anyone from the band, as we are all friends and value each other’s opinion.

What are your plans for the future, and do you have anything that you want to spotlight that’s coming up? 

Due to the coronavirus situation playing a concert seems to become a real privilege. I have to admit that I can’t wait to play one. So, my plans are play everywhere as much as I can. And, of course, there is still a pending and so claimed presentation of our new album “INFERNO”.

Ansewered by Manu Acilu, guitarrist