Today, I am with Nameless Absolution for another Q&A Session. They are a progressive metal band – with some NWHM, hardcore and melodic death flair – from Dominican Republic. They are not signed yet and have two singles out as their debut into the realms of progressive. Daniel, the guitarist of NA found me on Twitter yesterday.. and here I am posting this Q&A. This has to give you an idea about how much I loved their work! Seriously, check these guys out!
Now, without further ado…
Lady Obscure: Hey guys! I’ll keep it classic – should we start with a little biographical and historical info? You know, how the journey started, what the members were doing before…
Nameless Absolution: Nameless Absolution began on early 2007 as an idea of college students and members of different Dominican rock/metal bands, with the goal of creating a music project for fun, founded by Frank Rojas (Guitars, Ex-Tephros) and Mario Hernandez (Drums, Ex-Earthnotes).
Afterwards, we began looking for the rest of the musicians for the band, and inside the same university we met met Amaury Diaz (AKA Moji), becoming the lead vocals, and Lai-Mi Joa as bassist. We decided to name ourselves “Nameless Absolution” After several rehearsals our band started to take shape, with a quite particular style, influenced by all types of rock, and several metal sub-genres as Progressive Metal, Melodic Deathmetal, Alternative Metal, Heavy Metal, Metalcore, and some others. After a while, due to how complex the songs were to be played live, we decided to add another guitarist to the band, making Hamlet Cruz (Guitars, Ex-Tephros, Ex-Nordic), an old friend of the band. The goal was to create an open minded style, aggressive and melodic at the same time. We got to play at several local concerts and TV shows. Through the years, we had ups and downs, between the downs figured the loss of 3 members (Amaury Diaz, Lai-Mi Joa and Hamlet Cruz) in late 2011, leaving only Frank Rojas and Mario Hernandez as the only members left. This left us inactive for several months until we started composing and doing rehearsals again. Here’s when on early 2012 we met the guitarist Daniel Acosta (DShred), turning him into a new member for the band. We also recruited our old friends Nestor Ramirez (Bass, Ex-Tephros, Ex-Pulso Sonoro), and Luis Anibal Robles (Lead Vocals, Ex-Tephros, Ex-Nordic).
Until today, we’ve released two singles called “Redeemer” and “The Nameless”
Our official Line-up:
– Luis Anibal Robles (Lead Vocals)
– Frank Rojas (Guitars)
– Daniel Acosta (Guitars)
– Nestor Ramírez (Bass)
– Mario Hernández (Drums & Backing Vocals)
I could say we were destined to meet from the beginning, the Dominican metal scene is something really small, and everyone knows each other. We all have seen ourselves together in different situations, concerts, rehearsals and random situations before starting playing together.
Frank and Mario became best friends since they were on college, and they’ve been playing together since then…
Frank had a past project called Tephros where he played together with Luis and Nestor covering their respective instruments. In late 2011, Mario met Daniel while he was playing on a Rock Show with an Alternative Rock band called “Estado Natural”, and got captivated by his skills and style, in that moment the band was practically disbanded, and as a result he suggested Frank (who saw videos of him via youtube/facebook) to audition him, adding him afterwards to the official line-up.
Afterwards we picked Nestor and Luis as trustworthy choices to complete the band line-up.
LO: So, you do progressive with influences from all over – what does progressive mean to you? Why did you choose it?
NA: Because it’s the kind of music that comes out naturally when we jam, compose and play together… Progressive for us is synonymous of versatility, the perfect equilibrium between groovy compositions, skills, heavy riffs, speedy and soulful solos, and long songs. We can express ourselves with no boundaries.
LO: OK, your themes then – how did you come up with them? How did your synergy evolve?
NA: It involves different kind of situations we all find in real life, and we decide to express ourselves about it, even if it’s against or for, and knowing what are our strengths and weaknesses.
LO: Are you happy with your singles? I mean, what aspect of them do you think you guys nailed, and what parts do you think you could improve upon?
NA: Yes!! We’re awesomely happy with it, since we released the 2 singles things have been going outstandingly nice!!
We have a great chemistry as musicians, and we know how to work together!
For the improving part, some of our members have been traveling for studies and we don’t have as much time as we’d wish for rehearsals, hanging out, composing and practicing, and we miss live shows chances as well.
LO: How has the overall reception been?
NA: It has been really nice lately, all the people that listened to the songs liked them and are supporting us, sharing, listening, downloading… The fans are really happy with them! I think we filled their expectations…
LO: How is the future looking? What are you planning to do next?
NA: Quite promising right now… Yet we live in a country with almost NO SUPPORT for Rock/Metal bands and musicians, the expectations we had for the rest of the world’s approval have been way more than we expected… We already made part of American podcasts… And we’ll be presenting ourselves with a new line-up and the two singles in the “Avanzada Metallica Metal Circuit” throughout Latino-America.
LO: So live shows maybe? Album? Touring? Any international tours?
NA: For sure it is!! We’re planning to finish recording our first EP, and afterwards working on the rest of our songs (about 20) and prepare to perform any of them live.
With the EP we’ll apply for some world-wide Record Labels and hope for a lucky shot!
We’d really like to get an international tour if the fans from the world really want to see us live!
LO: Who is composing the songs? Writing the lyrics?
NA: Frank’s been doing all that since the band began in 2007…
Since Daniel joined he’s been adding quite a package of things to the already made songs, new riffs, harmonies, solos, effects, tone changes and some groovy details, he also has compositions (lyricless) for the band we haven’t worked on yet…
LO: So what bands do you guys draw your inspiration from?
NA: Bands like Dream Theater, Soilwork, Killswitch Engage and others who archieved a position that we think it is the happiest lifestyle ever!
LO: What’s more important to you? Catering to the audience or music for its own sake?
NA: Catering to the audience is important, because unless the music you make is completely for fun and for you, someone else needs to like it, even more if you’re planning to “SELL” your music, the audience opinion definitely counts.
But I could tell you we do exactly what we like, we exceed ourselves with each song, and we really enjoy what we do.
LO: Which is more exciting? Being on the road or studio?
NA: Road! Definitely!
LO: When you look back your music career, what do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?
NA: Right now there’s no such accomplishment we could feel BIG or HAPPY for, nothing great…
But right now we’re positioned as one of the best quality recordings of the Dominican metal, and people’s eager to see us performing live. Metal in DR has fallen a bit due to lack of support and some other tragedies, and people haven’t been showing interest on joining concerts, festivals and events related to metal.
But we’ve been showing the country there actually ARE new bands, genres and musicians they should pay attention to…
LO: Thanks guys! Anything else you’d like to add? A message to the fans maybe?
NA: We’re really thankful for all the support we’ve been receiving since the first song was released, you really rock guys!
You’re one of the greatest motivations we have to keep going forward and working hard!
You can hear the Nameless Absolution’s singles on their SoundCloud or visit their YouTube channel to check out their recording videos.
And here is one of their singles, The Nameless…
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