Rockezine.com interview with Sonic Reign on Mar 23, 2007

with Ben on Mar 23, 2007

Hail Ben! A short history to begin with: Sonic Reign was founded in 1997 under the moniker Megiddo. In 1999 you adopted the current band name. After some demos you produced the mini CD The Decline Portrait in 2004 (though it was recorded already in 2001). In 2006 you’ve released your first full-length album Raw Dark Pure, which was re-released a short while ago.
		Correct me if I’m wrong… Hi there. Well we actually recorded just one demo called “A Journey” in 99 under the banner Megiddo. And the namechange was in 2000. “The decline portrait” was recorded in 2002. But besides that you are right hehe. These are all just numbers though so nothing of big importance.
		Why did you change your band name in the past? Though the meaning of the moniker Sonic Reign seems obvious, is there any deeper meaning with your band name? We changed it when we changed our style, thus paying tribute to it. The term “sonic” has a very modern touch while “reign” is a kind of an old-school metal word. So there you see the combination we are doing in our music. Combining the old Black Metal feeling with modern elements. The name reflects this very good that`s why we chose it.
		Your debut album Raw Dark Pure was originally released by your own label Sovereignty Productions in 2006. Why is there a re-release by Metal Blade in such a short time? For the vast majority of the Black Metal fans this “re-release” will be the first contact with the band. Only few know about the Sovereignty release at all so we are not talking of a re-release in the common way in which the term is used. As you can imagine having no big connections or budget for promotion it was very hard to get “raw dark pure” the attention it deserves. We had big problems in finding a proper distribution for the release of “raw dark pure” on our own label Sovereignty Productions. So that was why we accepted the deal offer of Metal Blade.
		Did you release anything else on Sovereignty Productions? Though now on hold, will you release anything with your own label in the future, if a band approaches you with an interesting demo? There were no other releases on Sovereignty. As I just mentioned we were not able to get our own album good attention, so right now we would not be a big help for other bands. Yeah, we hope to be able to restart Sovereignty, but it will take some time before this happens.
		On your website you refer to your music style as “Modern Black Metal”. Something modern is often liked by large amounts of people. Do you aim for a large audience, in contrary to most other black metal bands? I think in the Black Metal scene it is quite the opposite way. Bands with modern elements are often not seen as Black Metal bands anymore. We aim for nothing outside the band. We aim for creating quality, we aim far showing credibility, but nothing what we are doing is planned in a way to get certain reactions from others. That would not feel correct towards myself. Music should come from the heart and not be planned.
		Black metal is lyrically often about hate and Satanism. I read somewhere your lyrics are mostly related to greed and corruption. Is that, in your opinion, the modern approach of this music style? What are your thoughts on Satanism or obscure sects? It is our way to write lyrics. I don`t think the lyrics have to follow the musical style in the way you mentioned it. I write about what I am interested in and don`t feel myself obliged to some kind of Black Metal code. I think Satanism in the way of an evil god that is hailed is something for very weak people. Religion has no place in our lives. Some bands say that Satanism is a metaphor for individualism. I understand the idea behind this direction. But just the idea. The term “Satanism” is bound to fools for me so I would never call that Satanism. Our lyrics deal with the human character. What drives people to act as they act. What`s in the abyss behind the masks we all wear. They were also inspired by the philosophical direction of existentialism as I just mentioned. The lyrical essence of “raw dark pure” maybe can roughly be summed up in some kind of personal revolution. A catharsis leading back to oneself and away from false compromises.
		How do you prepare for creating songs and lyrics and the recording thereafter? Ideas for songs both musically and lyrically mostly come very spontaneous, so that is nothing that we can prepare for. The rest is just work on our skills and craft.
		There is a high resemblance to later Satyricon albums in you music. They obviously were a big influence on your work, what elements of Satyricon do attract you so much? What other bands are you influenced by? When we developed our style bands like Thorns, Emperor or Satyricon were very important to us because they did not hesitate to move on with their development. They did what their hearts told them to do and that was so fascinating to us that we wanted to follow this way of credibility. For Satyricon: Well, Rebel Extravaganza was very fascination stylistically for us. But I think we differ both in the atmosphere and elements in our music in many ways.
		In addition to the bands that influenced your music, what bands (black metal or other) in the current or past scene do you like in particular? Oh that are a lot of bands from a big variety of styles. I always loved bands like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, AC/DC and so on. In the last months I am very much into Porcupine Tree, King Diamond, Ihsahn and Enslaved.
		Germany habits loads of metal bands of any subgenre. Also, each year many interesting concerts and festivals are organized. Why (in short) do you like this type of music and why is metal so popular in Germany? I can`t answer your second question. Well Metal music and Black Metal especially always impressed my with the atmosphere, the rebellion and the emotion. I think it is very honest music and I like honesty.
		What is your opinion on the future of black metal in general? Is there any future for black metal, and if so, what is your view on how it will evolve? I can`t look into the future but I know Black Metal will always exist in some form or another. There will always these old school people on the one hand and the ones trying to push Black Metal in new directions. So I think the variety will grow within this genre.
		What are the future plans of Sonic Reign? Are you currently working on new material and do you have any plans to release this material soon? Any concerts planned? We are writing new material currently, that`s right. But no finished songs so far, just tons of fragments. So no release is planned yet. Live plans don`t exist either. That costs much more time to plan such an undertaking than we can afford right now. We push this into the future.
		Thanks for your time answering these questions. Unleash your last fury here! Thank you very much for your support. We appreciate that. I want to cheer all of our fans. We salute you!!
(Mart Kwakkel)