EMQ’s with ADARRAK
Hi everyone! Welcome to another EMQ’s interview, with Singapore based Death Metal band, Adarrak. Huge thanks to them all for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play, and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
Zigor: I play the bass and very much enjoy hate memes about bassists.
George: I cover the guitars in Adarrak, and I do most of the diddly solos. It all started through an online music forum, to forming a casual death metal band, and out of the five, three of us came out to do some heavy duty album writing.
Gustavo: Growls, screams and a little bit of singing.
How did you come up with your band name?
Zigor: We had a few ideas, and George and I really sort of liked the sound and feel of Adarrak, which means “horns” in Basque.
What Country/Region are you from and what is the Metal/Rock scene like there?
Zigor: I am originally from the Basque Country in Spain, and we have a good metal tradition. Originally a ton of power metal, punk, and hardcore, but in the last decade or so there’s been more and more death metal and the like.
George: I’m from Singapore, a small country in South-East Asia. Although a small community, our metal scene here is very supportive and vibrant, with a nice mix of bands within many types of subgenres, like black, thrash, and death metal.
Gustavo: I’m from Colombia, South America. There are lots of metal bands in South America. There are lots of metalheads who enjoy all metal genres.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
George: Our latest release is our album “Ex Oriente Lux”, featuring 8 songs that had involvements from Dan Swano and Marty Friedman, and a nice little tick at the top of my bucket list.
Gus: “Ex Oriente Lux” is available everywhere now.
Who have been your greatest influences?
Zigor: A ton of bands really, from Queen to Brutal Truth – too many to mention.
George: The 3 that got me into guitar were Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi, and Randy Rhoads, so I would put them as that.
Gustavo: too many. As I have said before the list goes from Chuck Berry to Cannibal Corpse.
What first got you into music?
Zigor: I grew up on classical music, courtesy of my old man. I wanted to play the drums, but that was a no go given $$$ and space/noise. I also always wanted to sing, but I am terrible at it, so the next coolest thing in my view was a bass guitar. I started out at 12, and joined a few bands here and there, playing local gigs and what not. The whole picking up an instrument thing for me was “hey, there’s great music out there, let’s learn this so I can also speak that language” so to speak.
George: Originally, I was enrolled into guitar classes during my teens, because my mom wanted me to pick up an interest in music, to play some Christian and old music for her. I’m glad I found an interest away from that, and got to appreciate the instrument properly.
Gustavo: My brother’s tapes.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician, who would it be?
Zigor: Right about now I am keen to get Michal Lapaj from Riverside to do some work on the other band Gus and I are recording for at the moment.
George: Anybody who’s interested or has similar views on metal.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
Zigor: ha! I always get a kick out of this – Wacken of course!
George: Same sentiment as Zigor, and of course any festival would be a dream (Bloodstock, Ozzfest etc.)
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
George: Decent air circulation.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
George: Passion is as important as building stability on finance.
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Zigor: Sean Malone… no wait, Dio – why only one, man?
George: One is such a difficult limitation! I’ll have no choice but to pick Father Chuck Schuldiner.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
George: I enjoy being able to express myself and have an outlet to exhaust all my emotions. I hate not being able to express myself and not having an outlet to exhaust all my emotions.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
Zigor: maybe take a DeFi / crypto approach to ownership and distribution.
George: NFT tokens for music so artists will always get royalties for their art.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
Zigor: Hypocrisy- “Abducted”. Again, why one?! haha
George: Dissection- “Storm of the Light’s Bane”.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CDs, or Downloads?
Zigor: CDs all the way, followed by streaming/downloads
George: For convenience, online downloads and streaming. For memory and pride, CDs, cassettes, and vinyls.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
Zigor: none, really. COVID and the Singapore scene haven’t really helped.
George: We got the album out during COVID, and the Singapore government couldn’t make up their mind on playing hokey pokey with social measures… So, no Adarrak gigs under our belt at the moment.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
Zigor: ha ha ha, what I already do – my day job. We all have day jobs, it’s the only way to pull this off, man… but probably cooking for people as well.
George: I’d probably be a corporate lapdog for the rest of my life, dreading the fact that I didn’t have the capability to live my passion, and be filled with regret and agony. Thankfully that’s not the case now and I enjoy juggling my corporate job and writing music.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
Zigor: 5 strangers likely – keep the network expanding
George: Marty Friedman, Dio, Chuck Schuldiner, Alexi Laiho and Randy Rhoads.
What’s next for the band?
Zigor: We’re already working on our follow up album dubbed “Momentum” – Covid is not really helping, given restrictions and what not, but we continue to plod along.
What Social Media/Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
George: The usual outlets like Facebook and Instagram are the easy go-to ones, maybe TikTok but who knows for now? We even found some promotion on Reddit, perhaps an area we might try to get our hands dirty in!
www.facebook.com/adarrakbandwww.instagram.com/adarrakband
Jaffa Cakes! Are they a cake or a biscuit?
Zigor: Biscuit, or like the Yanks say, “cookies”, but that’s not the question. Question is why are they called Jaffa Cakes when they are not from Jaffa, Israel? Ha ha ha
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Zigor: Stay metal. Keep listening to music, and if you’re able to, come out to gigs – do!
George: Keep the metal alive and never stop headbanging.
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