ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 18 OCTOBER 2010
Embrace Eternity is a Brisbane band that’s gone through some ups and downs and disbanded at least once before. Now they’re on track with a steady line-up and an album that’s just hit, and vocalist Brad Swart had a chat to Liam Guy about what’s in store.
Embrace Eternity’s album is set for launch on August 20. After spending over a year working on it, are you happy with the end result?We’re definitely happy with the album. We had been held back a few times when came to the recording process, and it had taken a long time but we managed to pull ourselves together and accomplish this successfully. It’s been a long task that had just been hanging in our heads for more than a year or so. It feels good to get it out there.
So what kind of hassles were you guys experiencing during production?
We began to record the album at a studio in northern Brisbane, but the process was taking too long, and with both the band’s and producer’s ends I think the interest was lost along the way so to speak as so many errors had popped up in the recording of the drums, guitars and vocals, etc. We made the decision to start producing the album ourselves. We went down to a studio on the south of Brisbane where we picked up the pace very quickly.
The re-recording was handled by guitarist Gareth, correct?
Gareth and Alex [bass] produced the album together. I’m pretty proud of what they’ve done, and I think for a very not very well-known band like ourselves the recording quality we’ve achieved is very good. We’re very happy with the production, especially in the past month it’s been really hectic. We’d be up until two in the morning re-recording this, or retuning this…
Tell us about the filmclip you guys made for the song “Ashes in the Wind”…
Well we were approached by a company named Her Name is Murder Productions, who are a bunch of guys interested in making music videos. They invited us to put together a film. We went down to the Gold Coast and spent three days filming the video – it was a lot of fun, but also a lot of hard work. We enjoyed every minute of it!
So how did you get involved with Embrace Eternity?
It came about when I was looking around for a band when I moved here. I used to be in a band in South Africa, and after going to all the music places in the city some people suggested I look into the local street press, and there was an advert there from a band looking for a vocalist. So I decided to hit them up via Myspace, and they sent me five tracks to learn in the space of a week and a half. I then went to the audition and nailed all the five tracks.
Is there much of a metal scene over in South Africa?
This is something I could go on for hours man! The thing though in South Africa is that a lot of bands don’t seem to know the difference between hardcore and metal. In Brisbane however I’ve been amazed at the support all the bands get here, especially with international acts coming here. For the first time I’ve seen my own favourite bands from overseas come and play, and they don’t even go to South Africa. That goes to show how the scene is over there!
Tell us a bit about Embrace Eternity’s live shows…
The live shows are something we long for. One thing that annoys me is that a lot of bands out there, local and international, say things like “We promise you the most energetic live show”, or “We’ll rip your faces off”, but they basically just stand on stage and do nothing. We like to take a different approach with our live show… like if people can’t enjoy our style of music maybe they can enjoy our live show. The live shows are our time to shine.
So now that this album is finished, what’s next on the cards for the band?
Basically we’d love to do some touring, do some shows outside of our own town. We had a tour lined up but it was dropped at the last minute. For now we’d just like to get the album out all around Australia and just promote ourselves for the next year, play some shows, and just keep the band strong.
