 |
| Interview by Burt Wolf with Bruno, founder & singer of THE FIRSTBORN. Interview done January 23rd, 2006. |
| THE FIRSTBORN HAVE BEEN AROUND SINCE 1995. CAN YOU PLEASE GIVE SOME OF THE BANDS HISTORY UP TO NOW? HOW DID YOU GUYS GET TOGETHER? ANY PREVIOUS BANDS MEMBERS WERE IN PRIOR TO THE FIRSTBORN? I came up with this project (back then still named FIRSTBORN EVIL) back in '94 or '95 & after some months of scouting for musicians, we started jamming & eventually found a stable line up, from which three people still remain...myself, together with Paulo & Gustavo. We've been the hard core of this band for 10 years & only recently did we find people who we can actually work with, on all levels. I guess the only significant bands anyone in THE FIRSTBORN has played in are our drummer Rolando Barros' other bands: SACRED SIN, GROG, NEOPLASMAH, FILLI NIGRANTIUM INFERNALIUM & NEPHTYS (where our lead guitarist Nuno Gervasio also plays). He's a busy guy, as you may imagine. WHO OR WHAT HAVE HAD SOME INFLUENCE OR IMPACT ON YOUR LIFE & MUSIC? Music drives my life forward, without it I probably would have gone mad sometime in the past...& life influences my music. So it's a pretty simbiotic thing, actually...as for external factors that influence any of them...I can't think of any. I pretty much live for music (although it isn't my only activity), so that's about it. WHY WAS THE NAME THE FIRSTBORN CHOSEN AS THE BAND NAME? Originally, still as FIRSTBORN EVIL, we were trying to hint at the intrinsically "evil" nature of Man, being that only through external concepts such as morality & sin/virtue did this nature end up subdued... WHY DID YOU DROP THE "EVIL" FROM THE END OF THE BANDS ORIGINAL NAME? Eventually, I changed my perspective in Man's nature & the band name started making little sense...also, it linked us almost directly with the cliches of Black Metal, of which we were striving to distance ourselves. So it was quite a natural change for us & one I don't regret. HOW WOULD YOU BEST DESCRIBE THE STYLE & SOUND OF THE FIRSTBORN TO SOMEONE WHO HAS YET TO HEAR YOU GUYS? That's tricly...I guess we play an extreme kind of Metal, with a lot of "old school" influences, mixed up with some more Prog/Avantgarde/whatever-you-want-to-call-it twists, all based on Far Eastern music & culture. I said it was tricky. YOUR LATEST ALBUM IS "THE UNCLENCHING OF FISTS", (THE ONLY ONE I HAVE), WHICH WAS RELEASED EARLY IN 2005. HOW WELL HAS THIS ALBUM DONE FOR YOU GUYS THUS FAR? WHAT HAS THE RESPONSE BEEN LIKE? Oh, the reactions have been overwhelming...a huge percentage of the reviews are very positive, some actually too positive & almost everyone who got the album from us got back saying they were really impressed & into it. I actually didn't expect such a response, given that this is a difficult album to "digest", multy-layered & full of subtleties. Fortunately people have spent some time paying the due attention to it, which is very rewarding. It was voted by the staff of LOUD! MAGAZINE (portugal's biggest professional Metal magazine) as the bets Portugues album of 2005, which was quite surprising for us. |
 |
| THIS ALBUM IS A CONCEPTUAL ALBUM DEALING WITH TANTRIC BUDDHISM, BASED ON THE BARDO THODOL (THE TIBETAN "BOOK OF THE DEAD"). WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO DO A CONCEPTUAL ALBUM & WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS THEME? Initially, we started experimenting with these more "exotic" influences out of an aestethic approach...we just tried to incorporate something different in our soundscapes. But, as I listened to more oriental music & eventually started reading a bit on the subject, it struck me as shallow & even a bit offensive to use these influences for merely decorative purposes. From that to a conceptual album, it |
| was a short step & the "Book Of The Dead" seemed a very interesting work to base it on, given it's purpose of transforming the experience of death into an oppurtunity to attain enlightment. This apparently was parallel to our musical direction thus far & so we went for it & got to work. WHY DID YOU TAKE FOUR YEARS WORKING ON THIS ALBUM? Well, I must admit that we didn't quite know what we were getting ourselves into...being the perfectionists that we are, writing a conceptual album meant hard, intense & at times insane work hours. That evolved into days, then weeks...& then months. We were constantly experimenting, trying new things & that, combined witht he fact that we recorded "THE UNCLENCHING OF FISTS" in this very under-equipped studio our guitarist Paulo had, led to such a long time preparing the album. WHICH SONG FROM THIS ALBUM WOULD YOU SAY BEST REPRESENTS THE FIRSTBORN & WHY? WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE THE FIRSTBORN SONG? I suppose the last & title song from "THE UNCLENCHING OF FISTS" sums up that album very well, as it was intended to...there's even a long, slow section halfway through the song that incorporates the main riffs from most others songs in the album, which is a detail most people don't notice. Which I take as work well done...it came out pretty subtle, I suppose. But my favorite song so far has to be "Of Time And It's Absence", because it's the one which still kicks me in the teeth everytime I hear it. I'm not nostalgic, so when we release our next album this will certainly change. CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE COVER ARTWORK FOR THIS ALBUM A BIT & WHO DID IT? The artwork, as well as the website, was handled by our friends from PHOBOS ANOMALLY, who did an outstanding job as per usual. The cover tried to represent the album title, both literally (the open hands, the fists unclenching) & conceptually (the image of the Illuminated One in the background, representing the non-clinging that "THE UNCLENCHING OF FISTS" actually refers to.) They worked with us in all the graphic aspects & even the photo shoot was handled by them. THIS ALBUM WAS RELEASED BY PROCON MEDIA. HOW DID YOU GET HOOKED UP WITH THEM? HOW HAS IT BEEN WORKING WITH THEM? The people behind PROCON are old friends of ours & they've been releasing quality music for quite some time now, with their main label EQUILIBRIUM MUSIC, devoted to other sonorities. When I heard they were thinking of releasing Metal, I got in touch with them & then one thing led to the other & we didn't look any further for record deals. Their work ethics are very close to mine, so it's been an easy going & relaxed cooperation, in which they have done their part very well & we try to correspond. IS THERE ANY NEW MATERIAL IN THE WORKS OR ALREADY RELEASED? ARE YOU STILL WITH PRO CON MEDIA & WILL THEY RELEASE YOUR NEW MATERIAL? I hope they're interested in releasing our future works, but I suppose it's a metter of the music industry surviving, meanwhile...these are hard times to release music of any kind & Metal is no exception. Particularly underground works such as ours, which are obviously not your everyday Gothenburg styled Melodic Death Metal albums & don't appeal to large numbers of people. Time will tell, I guesss... We re already hard at work on new songs for an upcoming album, with "ASCENSION" being the working title (although it will eventually change) & it seems it'll be the natural sonsequence of all the doors we opened with "THE UNCLENCHING OF FISTS", But it's still too early a stage to really judge that. |
 |
| CAN YOU GIVE US A LITTLE INFORMATION ON YOUR PAST RELEASES & THEIR AVAILABILITY? We released a demo tape back in '96, called "THE AWAKENING OF EVIL", which has been unavailable for years...then our first album, "REBIRTH OF EVIL" (originally intended as a re-release of the demo with some extra songs & then becoming an entirely new work) was released in '98 through the Portuguese label GAURDIANS OF METAL, which also released, in 2000, our second album "FROM THE PAST YET TO COME" (already as THE FIRSTBORN). Both these CDs are still available through underground distros worldwide, I suppose. However, if you have any hopes of these past release sounding anything like "THE UNCLENCHING OF FISTS", then don't waste your time looking for them. We're an ever changing band, for better or worse. |
| DOES THE FIRSTBORN PLAY OUT A LOT? WHERE ARE SOME OF THE PLACES YOU'VE PLAYED? WHO ARE SOME OF THE BANDS YOU'VE SHARED THE STAGE WITH? We've played a decent number of shows through out the years, mostly in our country...with this album we didn't book as many shows as we used to, because the intricacies of our music, nowadays, more than ever require a decent sound to be understandable. And more often than not, we end up playing in places without the minium required conditions...so we tried to avoid that, this time around, but we still managed to play some 10 concerts, or so. Recently, we've played some shows with PRIMORDIAL, DECAPITATED, INCANTATION, NARGAROTH, CATASTROPHIC, FILLI NIGRANTIUM INFERNALIUM, DECAYED & many more...in the past, we played with some well known acts such as DARK TRANQUILITY, MARDUK, ANGEL CORPSE, ENTHRONED, ANCIENT, YATTERING & many more I can't recall right now. ARE THERE ANY GOOD INTERESTING OR FUNNY BAND STORIES YOU COULD SHARE WITH US? Well, there's our near legendary bad luck, we're the living proof of the accuracy of Murphy's Law...if there's anything that can go wrong, it surely will if we're in any way involved. From several on stage equipment collapses, to the van breaking down when we're late for a gig, that's all common for us. There have been many funny episode, but you'd have to be there to laugh at it...describing it would kill all the humour. WHAT DO THE BAND MEMBERS DO WHEN NOT DOING ANY WORK FOR THE BAND? JOBS, HOBBIES, ETC? Everyone has to earn a living, so everyone works (some a bit more than others!)...I'm finishing my degree in Archaeology as well & Paulo is always recording bands. Our drummer has, as I said earlier, lots of other bands, so his spare time is mostly spent rehearsing & playing live. WHAT IS ONE THING PEOPLE WOULD BE SURPRISED TO FIND OUT ABOUT YOU? About me, in particular...I bartended for a couple of years in one of Lisbon's finest hotels, The Ritz Four Seasons. Regarding the band, I think it would be the fact that we hardly ever rehearse before concerts. If the concert's any good, people will be surprised, i guess. Then again, maybe it isn't that much of a surprise... WHAT WAS THE FIRST ALBUM YOU REMEMEBER BUYING? WHAT WAS THE FIRST CONCERT YOU EVER WENT TO? I know the first LP i bought was DIRE STRAITS "BROTHER IN ARMS", back in the day...the first significant concert was PINK FLOYD in '92, I think. But I had been to some local shows before, it's jus that I can't remember most of them. |
 |
| WHAT CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE NEXT FROM THE FIRSTBORN? A new album, hopefully taking a bit less time to write, this time...an album that takes our experiments in "THE UNCLENCHING OF FISTS" a couple steps further. I'd really like it if we could get some more musicians to work with us on this one, so that we have to rely less & less on samples. And we'll try to have someone else behind the mixing board this time, so that we don't forsake what's left of our sanity! |
| WHAT WERE YOU DOING BEFORE THIS INTERVIEW? WHAT WILL YOU BE DOING NOW THAT IT'S DONE? I was checking my email untill I came across your email...now I'm going to put on some relaxing music & work on lyrics untill sunrise (which gives me a couple of hours) & then, off to work. One more night without sleeping! THANX FOR TAKING THE TIME TO ANSWER THIS INTERVIEW. IF THERE IS ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO ADD, FEEL FREE TO DO SO. THANX! No problem, it was my pleasure...I just hope my answers aren't too long & boring. What can I add? If any of you reading haven't had a chance to listen to our stuff, drop our site a visit or check out our Myspace page. Our thanks for your support & divugation, best wishes! "As trees bear fruit, may these words bear the fruit of good Karma". |
 |
|
| ALL PHOTOS & GRAPHICS COURTESY OF THE FIRSTBORN INTERVIEWS MAIN PAGE |