Tina Sequeira - Ontario Metal
Ryan Durkin - NoOfficialCapacity
Tim Roth - Into Eternity(guitars)

Note: Pictures from the show can be found here:
http://morksjal.atspace.com/intoeternity-finals/index.html

Tina: Hi Tim! Thanks for taking the time to chat with me. A lot of people in the metal community are really digging Into Eternity's mix of brutal death and epic power metal. How did you guys come up with the idea to intertwine these genres?

Tim: Haha, thanks for the compliments! How did we come up with it? Hmm well, we tend to draw our influences from a lot of different sources and they can really form an interesting contrast when you combine… you know, you have that crushing death metal part of it and then the more melodic, epic sounding riffs. And it's the same with vocals… I guess a lot of newer listeners don't expect to hear clean vocals, but it works really well when you have such heavy music.

Tina: How did you manage to hook up with an awesome vocalist like Stu?

Tim: A few years ago, I was at this show and there was a band playing there, called Omega Crom. That was Stu's old band, he was their vocalist. We got talking after that and when we realized that things weren't going that well with our previous singer, Dean, we called Stu in to try out. I already knew that he had killer vocals and it just worked really, really great between him and the rest of us. …And now, here we are!

Tina: How has the tour in Europe been? And what differences do you see in the fans there, compared to here?

Tim: We really had an awesome time there, Europe is always fun to play!

Tina: And what about the fans there?

Tim: It's really cool to see them all singing along to our songs, it's like "Wow! These people actually know all the lyrics??" But I've noticed that in a lot of those countries, the mosh pits aren't as rough as they are in the U.S. or in Canada. I think they're also more open to you know, the prog side of it since there is a lot more of that going on in Europe than here.

Tina: So is it safe to say that European bands have had an influence on the direction that Into Eternity chose?

Tim: Well, there is definitely an influence from those scenes, you can hear it in some elements of our music. I think that's where some of the power or prog sound comes in. You know, you have the really melodic Gothenburg scene, and then all the power metal stuff

Tina: Blind Guardian, Rhapsody, Gamma Ray…

Tim: [laughs] Yeah and also some stuff that is more prog… but then we also have the death part of it, which comes from other influences… so yeah, we definitely do draw some influence from those scenes and then build on it with other elements.

Tina: On future albums, do you see yourselves incorporating any newer elements into the songs?

Tim: Yeah, we'll throw in some country into the next album! [laughs] Err, I don't know, we threw in nothing earlier haha! The main thing right now really is to focus on having as good songs as possible and making sure that all ten songs on the album are good songs, because we don't wanna have any filler on our albums. We don't wanna be one of "those" bands. And we also wanna have consistency in that… like, you can always buy a Death album and you always knew that it was gonna be killer. So our goal was to have some really good songs.

Tina: When you guys write for the new album, do you find yourselves trashing a lot of songs?

Tim: We trash certain riffs and if a song isn't working, I think we can tell right away. I don't think we can fool other members in the band. If someone in the band isn't feeling it, then we know. But usually, I wouldn't bring in a riff unless I felt really strong about the riff.

Tina: A lot of people I know are really surprised to hear that you guys are from Saskatchewan -

Tim: [laughs] Yeah so am I! I'm surprised myself! [laughs]

Tina: How did you guys find it, trying to break out into the scene?

Tim: Man, it was really hard. Like I said, no bands were coming to town. I always imagined that some A&R rep would come into town, see our band and be like "There ya go! I wanna sign this band!" But that never, ever happened. And we wasted so many years waiting and wanting something to happen, until we - for some reason we got smart enough to start sending out packages. And I took out loans, and out of my own pocket, we'd promote the band and pay for our own recordings. And then we set out, and we got signed! But it took years you know… I started bands when I was 17 and I'm gonna be 30 this year! So it took a lot of years to get known.

Tina: Yeah, it's hard enough for bands here, let alone out there.

Tim: Yeah, let alone in the middle of nowhere in Saskatchewan! And our city is like 180,000 people and that's like a major city in Saskatchewan! [laughs]

Tina: I understand you guys are coming back here with Stratovarious?

Tim: Yep, we're doing the Stratovarious tour and then I think we play like June 16th or something, with Hate Eternal and Krisiun. So we'll come back twice.

Tina: So that makes it pretty important to appeal to both the death and power metal crowds…

Tim: Yeah, that's exactly it! We wanna hit - umm I don't know if in the past we could do that, but we're pulling it off where we could do a death metal tour, and even if people hate us, it doesn't matter - we're gonna do it and try and hit that crowd. I think we're playing the Opera House with Stratovarious, so that makes it a little bit bigger than this place [Lee's Palace].

Tina: Yeah, it's a great venue. Actually Apocalyptica's playing there tomorrow night.

Tim: Oh wow! I'd kill to see them! Too bad we have a show tomorrow! [cracks up]