Interview: Emerra

What got you into music, and if you had not gotten into music what would you be doing today?

Hey! Thanks for having us!

This is Fabian, singer and guitarist of Emerra. Actually for me it was an AC/DC DvD my father got for his birthday. Seeing Angus Young conquering that stage and thousands of fans losing their minds was mind-blowing to me. I already played acoustic guitar, when that happened, but that experience made me go on until I picked up my first electric. 

What do you like to do when you are not playing music and how does that influence your creativity?

Max and I are gamers, so we have our Discord community and love spending far too much time there. Stefan loves windsurfing, and Timo enjoys good food & magic card games. Since Max and I write most of the songs, the thing that boosts our creativity the most is getting away from it. Stopping the process of thinking and viewing your songs from a distance. 

That works very well for us. 

Playing competitive video games, you can’t think about your song at the same time. We often find ourselves cornered with our song ideas. Most of the times it’s because you focus to much on little details.

How long has your band been around?

We started as a rock band (Depart) releasing an album in 2017 called „Find yourself a light“. Since we didn’t want to continue making soft rock music, we had to do a lineup change and changed our name to „Emerra“ in 2019.

Where are you based out of and how did that influence your music?

We are from the western part of Germany. The Metalcore scene here is massive but there are also great rock bands to look up to like „The Intersphere“ or „Chaosbay“. I think the biggest influence from the local scene is that it’s so active. You see all the shows and releases and it pushes you to not take breaks. 

How did you come up with the name of your band and what does it mean to you.

We met in an online call to decide on a band name. We had two requirements. We didn’t want the name to already be taken, and we didn’t want it to be a long name. After lots and lots of writing down options, we came up with Imerra, which I think is a planet from the Star Wars universe. We thought it looked and sounded better with an E, so there it was… Emerra.

Tell me about the best and worst shows you have played.

The best show we’ve played definitely was our first „Emerra“ show where we also released our debut EP. We got great feedback and a great experience. Our worst show was, when we still were on tour with „Depart“. We played on a DIY stage in a small town here in Germany and we actually had to pray it wouldn’t collapse. 

Tell me about your favorite venue to play at, and do you have any places you want to play that you haven't already?

We can’t decide actually. We’re thankful for every stage right now and standards are actually pretty high in the German club scene nowadays. We would love to add new stages to our portfolio, but we rarely are disappointed with the venues. Thanks to all the people that make local shows possible!

If you could play any show with any lineup who would be on the ticket?

If we were asked to open a show for let’s say Nothing More or Karnivool, we could die happy. Even talking to these guys. Haha. Maybe someday.

What is some advice that you would give to someone who is just getting into playing in a band?

Invest as much time as you can preparing and practicing before you go in the studio. Don’t spend all of that money not being happy with the final results. Also, don’t sign any contracts you don’t understand.

If you could go back in time and give yourselves advice, what would it be?

Learn how to produce yourself at an early stage of your career. 

Of your songs which one means the most to you and why?

For me personally that would be Eclipse. It was the first song that led the path to our new band sound with Emerra. Everything fell into place so easily. Other songs are more difficult to finish.

Which songs are your favorite to play and which get requested the most?

For me the most fun one to play live is Pirouette, since right now, it’s our opening song and the hype when entering the stage is awesome. Eclipse is the most requested song actually.

What is the creative process for the band, and what inspires you to write your music?

Normally, either Max or I start with a simple idea. We show it to each other on multiple occasions and, after a few times, they either land in the „might work with this“ or „this one has no future“ folder. After that we continue working on the selected ideas and some of them grow to become songs. After the demo is finished Stefan writes his own bassline for the songs and we finish them up. Our biggest inspiration can’t really be defined. Song ideas and creative phases come randomly over the course of different scenarios.

What kinds of messages do you like to get across in your music?

We don’t want to be too obvious about our lyrics. Let’s say we like to paint a rough painting and the listener is invited to think about all of the details. 

Do you ever have disagreements in your band, and how do you get past them?

We have, and we talk about them. Actually we only had one single situation where we had to stop working on something because we couldn’t agree at all. Normally we can agree on most of what’s happening.

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

We’re using the corona crisis to work on new ideas for a second EP and to promote our music. We don’t see any shows happening this year, so we can’t present our EP „Monochrome“ on stage. Max, our drummer, is streaming on https://twitch.tv/rawtype and he’s accepting song requests, so go check that out if you miss music being played live. We’re also thinking about doing more videos, but nothing is decided in that regard yet. If you want to take a listen to our EP than you can find it on all the streaming & download platforms. You can start by checking us out here: 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6HqhEOGht8NcHuCo9H7nDv?si=qVi4hLUgTGyFX6f7CCuLNQ

Music Video: https://youtu.be/aSS00i2TcKo

Instagram: https://instagram.com/emerraband/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/emerraband/