Hello J.Lamm! What can you tell me about the past of Cea Serin? I’m
curious to know the roots of the band.
It’s coming on the ten year mark that Keith and I have been in music together. We first met up through an ad that I had placed at a local music store. I had just gotten out of high school (upper education/pre-university in U.S.) and the band that I was in at the time had split up. It was myself and a guitarist from my past band and we hooked up with Keith and his drummer friend. This was the first incarnation of the band that would be called Ashen Dawn, a melodic metal band that would search for years for the right singer. Keith and I were in Ashen Dawn for many years and we had practiced and practiced, never playing gigs, not really getting anywhere. We made one demo that had some good ideas on it but was recorded in so much of a rush that it doesn’t really stand the test of time.
Ashen Dawn was a very committed band, however. We had built our own studio/practice room from the ground up. My father had actually built a large “work shop” behind our house because he has a hobby of building cars and motorcycles from scratch; we just added on to this already big building for our own personal use. The studio was actually quite nice in that it had an isolation booth and was specifically engineered for recording and practice purposes. So after the studio was built, Keith and I went in halves and bought a keyboard/sequencer to have in the iso-booth. It was with this purchase that began the seeds to Cea Serin.
Ashen Dawn’s drummer would leave his drums in the studio after practice because he obviously didn’t want to keep packing them up and bringing them home with him. This meant I had a drumset at my disposal and I took advantage of that. Everyday I would go out there and practice drums. I would record a click track with the new keyboard/sequencer and work on my doublebass playing and timing. I would figure out how to play songs along with CD’s for practice. In fact, the first song I ever learned all the way though was Tad Morose’s “Time of No Sun.” So learning how to play drums really helped my writing for what would be Cea Serin.
Ashen Dawn was hitting a point of stagnation and there were certain qualities about the band I started to not like. The singer had become a born again christian or something which is fine but he began to have reservations about singing some of my lyrics. I’ve never in my life ever written anything blasphemous and I never will, he was just interpreting certain words to mean something else. For instance, the word “demon” in one song wasn’t supposed to be some horned beast from hell, actually I was using the term in quite an obvious way of the cliche saying “stare your demons down.” The demons being the vices you have that ride your back. Aside from that I was the only one in the band that was into death and black metal. Ashen Dawn was a straight up melodic metal band in the vein of Conception and Fates Warning. I had a lot of ideas that weren’t fitting into that mold so I started using the new sequencer to help me flesh out my ideas. Keith heard these ideas and was really into the idea of doing a little project. And that was what Cea Serin came to be: a small project that overshadowed its predecessor.
“Where Memories Combine” is your debut CD. It has a lot of influences and
it’s very difficult to say what is exactly the genre. What can you tell me
about your first self released “Chiaroscuro?” Why an Italian name for this
work?
I think one of the reasons that the music sounds the way it does is because I have a compulsive habit to buy CDs all the time. I’m constantly buying CDs from all different genres and this has definitely shaped my writing style. People always look at my CD collection and wonder why I have certain discs in there. Why are the Dixie Chicks next to Devil Doll, why is Lord of the Dance next to Lord Bane, why is Lauren Hill next to Hollenthon? The thing is that people need to learn to listen to music for what it is. I’ve got music from just about every genre and I enjoy it because I recognize that what Yanni does is in a different league than what Dornenreich does. Both are great but both are vastly different doing totally different things. It’s so limiting to just listen to death metal or to just listen to extreme music or just country. There’s so much good stuff out there; you just have to unlock that door in your mind that wants to block out foreign influence.
So yes, Cea Serin has a ton of influences and I think it shows in subtle ways. I don’t want to go from a straight up metal riff into an obvious mambo run – there has to be a quality of flow involved. I strive to make all the styles flow together so that it’s hard to see what’s being voiced. My new age influence is more put into the keyboards as opposed to the guitars. My Latin influence is often in the drums as opposed to what a guitar can obvious play. My avante-garde approach is more in the song lengths and arrangement as opposed to the vocals or instrumentation. So I draw from a variety of influences but place them in strange places. So to answer your question of what genre do I think Cea Serin is…well, I have always called it “mercurial metal.” Mercurial is a nice word because it means ever-shifting, not one shape. And that’s what I think we are: one minute shifting from death metal, the next into progressive metal, the next into some salsa beat with flamenco guitars or something.
The first release that we did was called “Chiaroscuro.” It wasn’t necessarily a release as it was just something that was put together for the mp3.com site. Mp3.com had a great offer for the musicians that participated on their site. Aside from hosting your songs for free they would basically make you a free CD whenever you, or anyone else, bought it. This way you wouldn’t have to produce a thousand copies and hope they sold. When someone bought a CD the company would make that one CD and send it to them. They let us have a cover, two pages for lyrics and a back cover…for free. So all we did was upload our songs to the site and there you have it. It was a great way for us to get out there and to allow people to have something to listen to in their cars on their way to work. It contained some great songs on it. Songs that we’ll probably not re-do in the future. “Into The Vivid Cherishing” was on it but we re-recorded the music and kept the old vocals for the release of “Where Memories Combine.” “Sudden Faith pt. 1 and 2” were also on “Chiaroscuro” and were put on the debut as a bonus track. However, “Holy Mother” and “The Illumination Mask” may not ever see the light of day again unless you have “Chiaroscuro.” Something about redoing them just doesn’t capture that initial performance. When we record the songs Keith is usually playing the song for the first time, so it’s fresh to him. Same goes for me when I do my vocals. When Cea Serin first started we never practiced, it was just a studio project between Keith and I, so the only time we were hearing these songs in full was during the recording process. I think this captured a unique essence for the songs.
The reason why I picked the name “Chiaroscuro” is because I was reading a book about Leonardo DaVinci and it said that he used a style of painting called chiaroscuro. He said he liked this style because in theory the darkness was stronger than the light. If you put a pencil down on a paper it will cast a shadow, and this shadow will pierce the darkness and the light can do nothing about it. The light can never pierce the darkness the way shadow can cut into the light. When I read that I thought it was perfect to describe the music, the lyrics, the mindset and everything about Cea Serin.
How much time are you in the music world? What’s your first band listened?
What are your fave bands from the past?
I go through spurts. There will be months when all I do is write and think about lyrics and music, and there will be weeks when I don’t think about it at all. When I’m engaged in other activities I usually don’t think about music at all because when I get focused on something all my attention is really diverted to the subject at hand. Whenever I’m at home I’m always playing guitar or bass or something. I always have things going through my head but to actually sit down and commit things to my keyboards and finalize my songwriting – that takes a certain frame of mind. I’m not just going to come home and say, “okay, I have to work on this song today.” If I don’t feel like working on a song I won’t touch my keyboards at all. I really believe that being in that mindset will have a negative impact on the song. It could mean the difference in the best song I’ve ever written and the worst. So I’ll kick around a song on my acoustic guitar for months before actually sitting down and seriously finalizing it. Once I get in that frame of mind though it’s magic. There’s nothing more rewarding than to have an “on” night when everything that comes out is gold. Sometimes I’ll sit down and every idea I just hate. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I’ll come home from a hard day and I know that I really want to work on a song so I have to purge myself of all the days influences. To do this I have my methods, maybe I’ll write a book on that. A “how to” book on how to calm yourself down after a long day to get in the right set of mind that you want to be in.
I remember the first band I ever listened to because it was when I was sick and away from school at a very young age, staying at my grandmothers house. I turned on MTV and saw the band Autograph, I think. The band looked all cool with the way they dressed and how everything in the video had a lot of action and smoke. Years went by and I never was in to music enough to actually spend my allowance on a cassette or record…until I saw an Alice Cooper video. I remember the video was for the song “Poison” and I thought it was pretty damn cool. I went to Wal-Mart and picked that up and I remember my parents and sister being upset with me because I bought an Alice Cooper tape. They were all into country and stuff and they thought Alice Cooper was the devil or something so they were really disappointed in me. It was around this time that RoboCop 2 came out. I was really into RoboCop because I had always wanted to be a police officer or a detective and the idea of a bad ass Robot Cop was awesome to me at the time. Well, the band Babylon A.D. had a song on that soundtrack and when I was flipping through the channels I once again came on to Headbangers Ball and saw the video for “the Kid Goes Wild” and it had a lot of scenes from RoboCop in it. That was the second album I ever bought on tape and it just went on from there.
I eventually got a bass guitar and started taking lessons which led to me getting really hyped up by Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. There was a period that I was only listen to instrumental artists like Stu Hamm, Randy Coven, Vinne Moore, Yngwie Malmsteen., etc. etc.
A lot of people hear Cea Serin and think that I must be into Iron Maiden and Queensryche. That never was the case. I got into Queensryche late in the game and I never got into Iron Maiden. I was more inclined to lean towards Fates Warning and the bands with the guitar heros. I didn’t care if the band was glam or new wave or what, if they had a bad ass guitarist I wanted that album. I was jamming to Extreme, Cry Wolf, Heavy Bones and the like just because of the solos. I love to hear great guitar solos. That’s probably why I got so into the live Yanni stuff because of the incredible solos. The bands I’ve mentioned were never my favorite bands though. Back then, my favorite band was Megadeth. When “Rust in Peace” came out, that changed my life. That was everything I wanted in a band: cool lyrics, great guitar solos, great bass player, awesome songs, and they looked like normal guys. No spandax and no big hair, just jeans and t-shirt guys doing what they wanted to do. So Megadeth was definately my favorite band for a time, until I heard Lord Bane and Dream Theater. I wouldn’t know who to pick as my favorite band then. Dream Theater, Yanni, Lord Bane, Sarah McLachlan – these artists have been my favorites for years now. But now they have a companion in Devil Doll.
You write a lot of music for Cea Serin and play a lot of instruments as
good as the vocals parts. Sometimes I can hear a sort of “scream” not so far
from Chuck Schuldiner from Death. Do you like Death?
I’ve been compared to Death several times and it always astounds me how I’m compared to bands I don’t like too much. I’ve had comparisons to Nine Inch Nails, Control Denied, and Iron Maiden. It’s not that I dislike these bands its that I’ve never owned albums by them. I think I have two albums by Death that I’ve listened to only one time each. I do own a Control Denied CD and spun it a couple of times but never found anything of lasting importance to make me want to listen twice. I don’t own anything by Iron Maiden or Nine Inch Nails and never will.
I strive not to have a contrived voice. If you hear me sing and you hear my speak you will definitely know that I’m not doing impressions of anyone. There are so many contrived voices in rock today it’s awful. If you listen to the singer of Creed speak and then sing it’s two totally different things, he’s doing an impression of someone and he’s not using his natural voice. The way I do my extreme vocals is a bit different than what other death metal singers would do in that I hold back a bit because I know that I have to sing my ass off live too. You’ll notice that Cea Serin has some pretty high pitched and prog type vocals mixed with the more extreme vocal style as well. If I have to perform every night for months there is no way I’m going to walk away from that being unscathed. I want to do this for many years so I have constructed a type of death metal singing style that can be used and shifted between growls and singing. I try to meld the two together in a nice flow. I’ve heard reviews saying that there are two singers for Cea Serin. That’s a sort of compliment I guess. I’ve tried to encompass many styles of death and black metal along with my clean singing.
And what can you tell me about the Underground scene in your country? Do
you know some young or good bands?
I can tell you write now that as far as the State I’m from there isn’t much going on at all. I can’t think of one progressive metal band at all, at least I haven’t seen them live or heard of them. There may be some good bands out there that have yet to play a gig like Ashen Dawn. However, because of where we are there is no promotion of live shows. There is only two publications that advertise musicians seeking musicians and those always have country acts in it. If you want to find musicians you have to learn from word of mouth or posting ads at music stores. If there are any underground bands around here
Cea Serin has played live but never in our own state. We’ve played in other places that have a bigger scene going but even when we play in other places I’ve yet to see a band perform that would be able to hold there own with the current national touring acts. I’m not saying this to make my own band sound big but I’m saying this to point out that there are no places for good bands to play at. Everywhere that houses live acts only cares music from the current fad. If you put a band like Cea Serin on stage in front of a bunch of kids that want to hear Linkin Park we’re going to be in trouble. I’ve heard demos from bands, of course, and the same goes with what I just said: I’ve yet to hear any original delivery or good ideas. I did hear this one song by a band called Lilitu from Atlanta, Georgia that sounded really cool, but I only heard that one song. It seems like that U.S. is trying to creating this new scene of metalcore or something. Metalcore is alright but to me it just sounds like a rip off of the Gothenburg scene and the New York hardcore scene. I’m not too excited about the current state of American metal or any metal for that matter.
What do you think about the Metal and Progressive scene in the rest of the
world and in Italy?
Well, I tell you what, Italy houses my current favorite band: Devil Doll. I keep hearing they are a Slovenian/Italian band but that’s close enough for me to consider them an Italian band for your question. I’ve been listening to Devil Doll constantly, I absolutely love everything about that entity. Italy also has Labyrinth which I still like a lot. Their new album is really good I think. However, Italy also has Rhapsody, I believe. Rhapsody contains everything about metal that I hate right now: fantasy lyrics, awful songwriting with no consideration to flow, symmetry and structure, use of technique to overshadow lack of real songs, costumes, dragons, ugh. They perpetuate that stereotype of metal being a joke and childish. Most “adults” believe that metal is something you grow out of, and Rhapsody reenforces that belief that metal is just some teenage D&D indulgence.
France has that guy from Adagio which is one of the rare power/prog bands I like now…except I’m not too much into their new album. Norway has Roy Khan which is my favorite singer as well as Dimmu Borgir which I like a lot. Britain has Cradle of Filth that I still like, they used to be one of my favorite bands. Let’s see, what else do we have out there…The Netherlands has the Gathering, and I really like their stuff although a bit to inorganic for my taste, but still really good. I’m going to stalk the singer of The Gathering one of these days…nothing says love like blind adoration and unrealistic impulses. Sweden of course has the other bands that we all know of but to tell you the truth I’m getting really sick of all that stuff as well. I used to be really into Evergrey until I saw them at Prog Power one year. Most of them were always drunk, too busy getting kicked out of strip clubs and putting on a piss poor show. It really distorted my image of them being serious musicians and not just a bunch of guys who are belong to some metal Frat party. That really pissed me off. I went to Prog Power to specifically see Evergrey and it was just awful, I can’t listen to them anymore. Prog Power, that was another joke. It was supposed to be a festival of progressive and power metal bands and there was nothing progressive or powerful about any band I saw. I guess progressive now means you have to have an odd time signature…hell, not even that, just a syncopated beat. And I guess to be power metal you have to have that annoying 6/8 double bass drum pattern in every song. You caught me on a very negative day here. I just don’t have anyone to look up to anymore in metal. I guarantee you that if you see us live we won’t ruin our show by being drunk on stage. We might ruin it by not being prepared but not from being polluted. You also won’t see us gallivanting around with a bunch of stupid girls…well, you might see Keith doing that, but not the rest of us. I hate that. You play live and then some girl comes up to you afterwards with some half-cocked comment to try to get on your good side, piss off, you don’t know anything about me. Sorry, I’m just not excited about today’s music.
Why the strange idea to insert the Tap Dance on “The End of Silence?”
See, I don’t think it’s that strange of an idea. There was a period that I was really into the Lord of the Dance and Riverdance productions. I loved the music and how the dancing added a rhythm feel to the score. There was all this great Celtic music that had been updated to today’s sound and then you had this stage full of “drummers.” The tap dancing acts like the drum section in a way and once you take that away you lose an integral part of the show and feel. I bought the soundtracks to all these shows and they were all missing the tap dancing; it just had the music and nothing else. That’s like buying a Dream Theater CD and not having Mike Portnoy’s drums on it. It made me realize how important the choreography and dancing rhythms were to that particular style of music. It wasn’t just the tap dancing though, it was the culture.
So there came a point in “The End of Silence” where I was wanting to represent the death of everything: media, language, recorded history, culture, art. So that’s what brought on the tap dancing. You hear the dancing and after that you hear a TV tube explode. Also there is a record player skipping and there is me tearing up pieces of paper in the background. It all represents the death of language, art, history, media, culture. The tap dancing serves a purpose aside from the added Celtic influence that I wanted to inject in that particular song. Nothing is without purpose and reason inside Cea Serin.
Are you planning to make some tour or some gigs? Do you have found a
drummer and a bass player?
Yes, we’re working on a different live show right now. We had a separate drummer and bassest at one point but they were from a different state and they didn’t mesh well with me. There were a lot of factors involved but at the end of the day I need to be the one playing bass and singing and not relying on someone else.
The music of Cea Serin is not so easy to listen and it needs a lot of
time? Will be also the next recordings so articulated?
Yes. Cea Serin does not operate in instant gratification. We are more a delayed gratification band in that there is a lot to listen to and more going on with different layers and levels. There are a lot of people that won’t get this and that is fine by me. I take a lot of time on the lyrics and music and Keith takes a lot of time on the production and engineering part. I think there will be those people that can listen to the heavy aspects of the music and the catchy melodies and be satisfied with that aspect, but for those people that want to dig deep and getting something more out of their music, there is Cea Serin. Our songs aren’t about girls, having a good time, drugs and our songs aren’t this ambiguous songs up for interpretation. I have a specific subject in mind and I have a specific aim for the music. Everything is there for a reason, every word is calculated. Some would say that this is taking things to seriously, well, I think that other bands aren’t taking things seriously enough. If you want to listen to a “kick ass” band there are plenty to choose from. If you want the Jeopardy of metal music come check out Cea Serin.
What are the plans for the future? Are you satisfied with the actual
results reached with Cea Serin?
The only result I want is for someone to find something special that they can listen to for the rest of their lives. When I get a phone call or an email thanking me because I gave them something that they will cherish forever, that is the biggest compliment I can get. I know that I can quit playing music after that because I know that is the biggest accomplishment.
My current plans for the future are simple. The CD isn’t even out yet and we are already working on recording the next album. It will be a bit different but undeniably Cea Serin. Some people are apprehensive when they see the word “different” when describing a new upcoming album. It’s different in the sense that I’m utilizing my possibilities more. The Yanni influence will be more pronounced; the “progressive” term will be used to it’s extreme, more avant-garde and experimental but not losing what people like about Cea Serin. We will definitely not release the same album twice. If I feel the need to release an all piano CD and put Cea Serin on it, I’ll do that. Expect the unexpected as the cliche goes.
Since the CD isn’t out yet I’m not sure what the reaction is going to be world wide. I don’t know if we’ll get to tour in other places, if we’ll ever see Europe, or if everyone will hate us. It’s all up to the consumers now. If they don’t buy it I’ll just be in my living room writing music for me.
Ok, it’s all! I thank you very much for your music and for the interest
in our webzine. Say the last words!
Thanks for the opportunity to talk with you and reach some people that may really be into this kind of music. Cea Serin is definitely something that we love doing and its great that we’re reaching a lot of people in different parts of the world. I think if people don’t worry about where we’re from, don’t worry about what we look like, disregard the labels and comparisons you hear, and forget about the reviews and just check us out I think everyone will find something to enjoy. Also, thanks for not asking what the name means.