How life in USA now and please tell us what’s new from you right now?
Life in the US right now is pretty much the same as it has always been. Apparently the hot topic in the news here are the serial killers and rapists. Aside from what’s happening in the courts there is an increased interest in selling commercial ads with the help of televised stories of a kidnapped girl and a female war survivor. But I don’t keep up with the world that spins around me; I prefer to be self-absorbed.
As far as what is happening with Cea Serin right now? Well, we’ve recently redid the mix of “…where memories combine…” to bring the vocals and other parts up. That album should be out shortly if time pormits us. I’ve been busy doing interviews, listening to new music, reading books on the Golden Ratio and String Theory, outlining a new design for a drum kit, writing new songs for the next album, doing museum work, and trying to keep it all together without getting an ulcer.
Cea Serin is new band in Malaysia and also to the readers so can you tell us
about your history and what kind of music did you play?
I would define Cea Serin as a “mercurial metal” band. I don’t want to be lumped into one pot of prog bands, death metal, black metal, avante-garde, or crustcore. Instead, I prefer to operate by ourselves and not have the stigma to live up to a definition. I feel that if people call us Progressive Metal then they will expect to hear something like a Geoff Tate singer and overly technical playing. I don’t think that that is the case for us. The song writing is influenced by many genres and sub-genres of music from all around the world. I enjoy Yanni, Sarah McLachlan, Cirque Du Soliel, Classical Crossover, etc. I get heavy riffs from unheavy music and melodic ideas from personal experiences, and so on.
Cea Serin started off a couple of years ago as an outgrowth from another band I was in with, Cea Serin guitarist, Keith Warman. Keith and I have a similar background in music, in that we both grow up listening to the same music. However, we differ in what we are into now but compliment the differences quite nicely.
He and I were in a band together called Ashen Dawn. This band was a melodic metal band in the tradition of Fates Warning and Sanctuary. Over a couple of years with Ashen Dawn I got my hands on a sequencer and started to practice my own compositions. This resulted in the fledgling start to Cea Serin. I initially wanted to create the heaviest band on Earth, but when I would sit down to write such heavy riffs I found it just wasn’t me. Some 5 years later I believe that Cea Serin has really found it’s own voice in this little community of extreme playing and performing.
Cea Serin has since released a couple of demos, seen a type of success on internet mp3 use, played a couple of nice gigs in our region of the U.S., reached a couple of people world wide, and I believe made a name for ourselves as not just some underground band. But none of that really matters as much as reaching the people that will find something personal in this music.
Why you choose Cea Serin for your band name..who give the idea and please
tell us what’s meaning of this name?
I was looking for a name to represent the soul, the life, the very meaning of what we are about. I looked through dictionary terms, went through pages of books, but could never get that name that truly represented the very texture of what we stood for musically, and lyrically.
I knew I had to make some kind of life journey, some kind of quest on my part, to truly discover what the name would be. We’re all born and given a name. We have no choice in the matter, and I knew that in this case we would also have no choice in the matter.
There is an area where no one should go. It’s a place where men would run away screaming upon looking at its shore. It’s a place that the strongest individuals will remain forever if they honestly don’t bear inner fortitude. It has no origin on a map, no road will take you there, no step can be taken to fall short of its border, and certainly no word can be spoken in relation to its whereabouts. In siemer to this I had to discover the undiscovered on my own.
Just as I was about to give up hope to find it I heard a strange sound from a far off distance. It called to me and kept calling. It was some odd beacon that shone with no light, leading me to a destination that I wished would come into final sight. As I rounded a bend and stared upon the vast sea of carrion I marveled at the expense at my travel. A great ocean of water that washed an endless amount of extinguished birds stood, oscillating, in front of my eyes. This stung at my insides and numbed by brain in such a way that I forgot about the voice calling me. And there in the distance appeared an island with a solitary man, cupping his hands to his mouth and beckoned at the images and their meaning. And there before me, in the serenity of the sea and the death of some blackened flock whispered the answer. It was not his voice that called me but the withered voices of the dying birds that fell in the sea, looking for the same thing I was looking for. Serenity in a sea that will torture and destroy everything it touches. Is this not the essence and meaning to our lives?
What something new from Cea Serin because from your promo the quality is same
with album and maybe this released is more professional?
Hmm. Well, we’ve done everything ourselves from day one. Each release that we do sounds better and better I believe. It also happens that when we record, situations arise that make us re-record and when we do that the performance gets better each time around. See, we never practice the songs before we record them. Often times, the band hears the songs when we begin to record. When I do my vocals that is the first time I’m hearing them back to me. I write the words in my head and when I sing them, I often have to change things. Recording for us takes a while because of this. There were times that I thought I was ready to do the vocals but the lyrics just weren’t working for one reason or another.
Keith is responsible for the sound quality and engineering of all Cea Serin material. It is because of him and his hard work and excellent ear that we can get such a good sound from the un-professional or non-industry-standard equipment. Stuff like that I just don’t know anything about.
The title of this promo is “Where Memories Combine”,why you choose this title
is it you want to make love story in this promo?
The actual full title is “…embracing the absence where memories combine, that the tongue will incite for the days left behind…”
What I wanted to do was something different. Most bands take a song name and make it a “title track.” of the CD. They’ll just name the CD after a song or something. I don’t think that is very original. A lot of bands have a self-titled album. Some bands just have some arbitrary word like “push” or “dwell” or something. I don’t like that. I wanted to do something a bit different. So what I ended up doing was taking four lines from different parts of the songs. One line from a different song, each line meaning something in its own right. Then I took these lines and formed another verse or stanza that meant something together and own their own. So when you read the lyrics you’ll see where those lines are coming from.
I use the one line, “…where memories combine…” because I feel that this is really paints a picture. Memories combine within us and away from us. They are a second life and a continuation of the past but breathes a different sort of breath. I feel that this mentality is complimentary of the album and the subject matter.
So on the CD spine it just reads “…where memories combine…” for short of the actual album title. This would also be what reviewers would call the album.
How about your deal with Heavencross Records,please tell us about your deal
and did you like all management and please tell more details about your
recording?
The deal is quite simple. We finished the CD, recorded it ourselves and the label wants to put it out to give us more access to ears. One thing I was really looking for was a label that wasn’t going to give us a hard time when it came to what we had originally written. Most times when you sign to a label they want you to go to their studio that they pick, use a producer, have the songs approved, etc. etc. Well, the labels that we’re going through right now heard what we had and said everything was good to go.
When I set out with Cea Serin, my goal was to do as much as possible on our own. That means I don’t want managers and executives breathing down my neck telling me what I should do. Cea Serin will remain an entity of composers and not businessmen.
You tell me that lyric of this promo is difficult to make so please tell us
why is it happen and did do it research to make all the lyric?
I don’t necessarily have to do research because the songs come from personal experience and ideas that I come up with on my own. It’s not like I’m writing about history or anything. When and if I do have to go about research it is usually on criteria like ‘is this the correct word usage’ and so on.
The lyrics are hard for me to write because I try to challenge myself. There is a saying, “write what you know,” well often times I’m inspired by things I haven’t been through. Stories that have been told to me, ideas that pop into my head, something I’ve witnessed throughout my day are just some examples of what I’m talking about that gets the wheels going for me. Case in point is “Into the Vivid Cherishing” which was inspired from the death of my ex-girlfriends mother. The information I got from her was just the stories of her memories. I never knew her mother; I never met her. So it was hard for me to write because I had to put myself in that situation to correctly state the atmosphere and emotions.
It’s much easier to write a song like “Scripted Suffering: Within and Without” because that was written from personal experience and first hand view points. However, any batch of lyrics I write is a challenge to me because I want to present the material in a unique fashion. I carefully word things; I search and rack my brain for just the right way to phrase something. I can’t just sit down in a studio with a pen and paper and just scribble down a mess of words and sing them. That’s not the way I work. I take as much time on the lyrics as I do with the music, sometimes more because you would think that writing is easier since we speak and write all the time. But I set the challenge up for myself to go beyond normal verbiage and make new boundaries for myself in that respect.
When you involved in the metal scene and please tell us about metal scene in
USA and what is the new stuff you buy in this month?
I started Cea Serin probably as early as 97 or 96 I believe…that as when the idea started and began to culminate a life of its own, I believe. However, I’ve always played music ever since I was 12 or maybe younger. My memory isn’t that great for these kinds of things. I just remember being very young and taking piano lessons, and being still young and taking bass guitar lessons. I’ve probably been playing music all together for over 15 years now. And I was one of those guys that practiced all the time in their room. I would finish my homework at school so I could have time to come home and practice. I didn’t realize it was practice and work; I just enjoyed it. I would make these tapes of all the songs I knew in all the different tunings and I would play to them everyday because it was fun. I believe that really helped me as a musician.
As far as what I have bought in music this month. Well…. I buy quite a lot of CDs. I think I have an addiction to it or something. I’m constantly searching for that next CD that will just really get to me and stay with me. Off the top of my hand I know I’ve recently purchased the new Dream Theater “Train of Thought,”
the new Josh Groban “Closer,”
Cirque Du Soliel “Quidam,” “O,” and “Drallion”
Alison Kraus and Union Station “live”
Hatebreed “The Rise of Brutality”
Holy Soldier – “Encore”
Sarah McLachlan – “hold on” single
King Diamond “The Puppet Master”
Sarah McLachlan “Afterglow”
Sonata Arctica “Winterheart’s Guild”
Exumed “Anatomy is Destiny”
Let’s talk about vocal in this promo..why you use a few growl vocal in your
song and please tell us what is important this vocal for your song?
Ahhh, why the aggressive vocals? For me when I listen to some of my favorite prog bands and there comes a part that is a bit more aggressive I would sing along to it but put a death metal touch in there. Some of my favorite bands are extreme metal bands like Samael, At the Gates, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Dornenreich, Carcass, Nasum, etc. I like the brutality and the precision in the execution.
I listen to so much stuff that it just sticks to me and comes out in all I do. I don’t just like one kind of music and I don’t feel that I write one particular style. I like the skills of prog metal, and I like the aggression in extreme metal. Many melodic singers are scared of doing such things to their voice. They’re afraid that they’ll hurt their throat or won’t be able to do it for very long. That’s why I kind of compromise on my death metal style vocals. I don’t do it as brutal as some vocalists in that field so I can be able to sing all the clean stuff live.
This is my style of singing and I doubt it will ever change.
Can you tell more details about cover of this material is it you put artwork
in this cover and who create this cover?
The man who did all of our artwork for the CD (the cover, back cover, booklet, etc.) is Carlos Del Olmo Holmberg. You can see his work on many Soilwork albums. He has done work for many other bands as well. It was a pleasure working with him because he worked so fast and was so true to the ideas I was giving him.
He’s in Sweden I believe and with me being over here in the States we had to just email each other back and forth with the material. I would give him an idea of what I wanted for one page and just take it one step at a time. The idea for the cover was that I wanted a very rusty colored room, almost devoid of a certain time period, and I wanted all these elaborate furnishings and nick-nacks all around the room. So we have all this elegant looking stuff in one room, but I didn’t want people to look at it. I wanted an old broken metronome in a certain place and I wanted it to almost stick out of the time frame. I wanted people’s eyes to be drawn to this particular article in the room because I wanted the cover to go along with the idea of time breaking amidst the trivial joys of life.
If I not mistaken,you put some heavy metal in your song is it right??Please
tell us what another music that you mix to get your own music?
I particularly enjoy the music of Yanni. He’s actually one of my favorite artists and whenever he comes on tour I always buy as many tickets to his shows to as many venues as possible. I try to incorporate his own brand of “adult contemporary instrumental” into my own Cea Serin sound. He has a certain writing style that I love and I have been learning from. I also have learned a lot from Sarah McLachlan’s music as well as just about anything else I hear. I try to have an open mind for all the different kinds of music out there whether it is circus music, avante-garde, Celtic, country and western, industrial, techno, you name it. If it turns me on in a certain way it sometimes finds its way into a Cea Serin song.
What about your experience in gigs and any new band from your place that you
want to introduce to the readers?
We live in an area where there really aren’t any good bands around. There are no decent places to play at where we are from, so we’ve had to travel a bit to find venues that will have a metal following. There are certainly no good metal bands, if any in our area either. I can’t think of one band name right now that are from where we live. The members of Cea Serin even came together in strange ways and from far off places as well. We all originate from different states in the U.S. but the core three of us now live within 20 miles of each other.
We once had a couple of guys in a neighboring state in the band and we had to travel over 600 miles every weekend (back and forth) to just practice the material with them.
What do you know about Malaysia especially from the tourism and about our metal
scene?
I actually have no clue what is going on in the Malaysian metal scene. I’ve found that scene’s pretty much vary from place to place. I know that in the states, not only does each state have its own scene or sound, but each little section of that state his its own thing. Like, in New Orleans, there is a New Orleans metal thing going on with bands like Crowbar and Soilent Green and what-not.
I can guess that there is probably a thriving underground death metal scene though in Malaysia. Since you asked that question I’ve looked up a bit on Malaysian metal and found a lot of underground links and talk of death metal. However, I can’t think of any well-known bands that have come out of the woodworks from Malaysia. Perhaps you can take this opportunity to enlighten the readers, as well as myself, about some current happenings in Malaysian metal. Some possible links to bands and their mp3s would be nice.
How important zine and fanzine for your band and what do think about your
scene any improvement or not and what is benefit you get from the interview
with underground fanzine?
I have found that the underground press has helped us out more than anything. Sure, we could get in some wide publication and have a 4-line blurb about us and thousands would read it, but the underground zines and webzines are the ones giving us their time. I find that the underground press is more appreciative of bands, unsigned and established. I’ve had many reviews and have done many interviews and none of them more thorough than the underground writers.
Without the use of fanzines, webzines and smaller print publications, Cea Serin wouldn’t be where we are today. Norway’s Scream Magazine’s website gave us our first review ever, Lamentations of the Flame Princess was our first interview in print and done over the phone, and it was the publications like that that put us where we are. I’d rather have a long discussion with someone that appreciates what we do than with a one-page review in a popular magazine from a jaded writer.
Ok I choose “Embracing The Absence” for the compilation please tell about
this song and what is so special about this song?
Nice pick but I would have chosen “Meridian’s Tear” or “Scripted Suffering: Within and Without.” Oh well.
“Embracing the Absence” is the middle ground when the story line to “the Surface of All Things takes off.” I guess a medius res idea. “The Surface of All Things” is an idea that I had while driving home one day and looking up at, what appeared to be, a scar on the sky. I started to think about, ‘what if God got cancer or tried to kill himself.’ It was just a hypothetical question I asked to myself but I started to really think about what would happen to us and the world if God had slowly begun to die. The story that I have applied to “The Surface of All Things” is two-fold.
Imagine the world we live in as the world inside of God. And by God I mean a metaphorical personification of God. Because he is omniscient and omnipresent, what s/he experiences in her/his life it would directly affect us. So let’s say God got cancer, then this cancer would not only eat away at God but also devour us. And it is this metaphor I want to drive home as it is applied to us, the society and world. The way I see the world right now is as if God has some kind of cancer and we, the people of the world, are slowly seeing this decay in all its various forms.
When I said that the story is two-fold I mean this: the lyrics can be read from not only the point of view of one person (god) but also the entire world (us). From one reading you can interpret the death of a single being, or the death of a clustered community. I apply this to myself because all my ideas and creations are like living things inside me. I have a whole different kind of vast universe inside myself as well. So if I have a bad day or I’m depressed this affects my creativity as well as my internal well being. The world inside me has inadvertently been affected by my exterior world. That is the essence of the “Surface of All Things.”
Embracing the Absence is just a middle point to all of this. The lyrics represent the question (among other things) of what we would do upon discovering that we were all doomed. As if we were walking along our day and our minds were hit with this unshakable notion that beyond a shadow of a doubt we would be dead soon. And when you look around you see that everyone else got this exact feeling. It was like God swallowed a fatal dose of pills and we were feeling the effects of it. This is all metaphorical for the way I see the world as it is now: a slow death that may be the result of our own making, a dying god, a change of control, etc.
Turn on the TV and it’s just disaster. Look at how we relate and talk to each other, it’s a shame. Witness what our religious leaders are up to. Etc etc etc.
Last words from you and any thing did you want to promote for the Malaysian
readers?
Yes, some of the answers given have been lies, however, most are true.
Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you and other Malaysian fans of metal. Hope you find something interesting in Cea Serin and I hope we find our way into your CD rotation for quite some time.