HIMĀLAYA – Interview with the band

It is not often you get to see some new artist trying to break the barriers of stereotypical music to make something original by adjusting the song arrangements including the time signatures. I was lucky enough to sit down and talk to the talented musicians from a fairly new Metalcore band, Himālaya.

When was Himâlaya found, and what were the circumstances leading to its formation?

Well, at first, there was Lexa (keyboardist) and Wojdy (rhytm guitar) composing together in very odd time signatures. Lexa met Honza (lead guitar) at highschool, they shared enthusiasm for last Born of Osiris LP Discovery, so Lexa invited Honza to the studio. Honza convinced Martin (bass) to join them, but when Martin heard song in a 11/8 time signature, we had to shackle him, so he couldn´t run away. As time passed we met Wikis (vocal) and his demonical throat. Currently we are looking for a new drummer.

What’s the hardest to be new to the game?

As for everybody else, time is our the greatest enemy. We don´t have enough time to promote our music properly, to perform every week, and so, we are rather a music project, than a band. With technological development and easily accessible information lots of bands are able to record EP in their living rooms. Paradoxically there were never before so many well done albums, but the underground scene is dead.

So the hardest thing is to excel and offer listeners something new, in this huge amount of good sounding bands and music projects.

Do you feel like your childhood and your home town kind of contributed to your music tastes?

Our childhood and the place where we grew up definitely had much to do with our music tastes, we have a Rock Cafe Southock club in Jablunkov and some of us have been visiting it since young age. We think that the music and atmosphere there really got under our skin. We loved local bands and we learned from them a lot.

Tell me a bit about your 2017 effort, Where World Rests, Where world Ends. How did you choose the order of the songs in your last album?

WWR,WWE is a conceptual EP about dealing with the death of a loved one (Maya). At the beginning there was only one song – Letter for Maya and then we’ve expanded it to a full EP. Apart from atmosphere and texts, there are a few other elements that make a concept, for example the very ending of an album is a variation of the beginning and the ending of 9th Wave is a variation of the ending of Letter from Maya (there´s more, but we dont want to reveal all of them).

Order of the songs was preordained. Letter from Maya is announcing change in life, 9th Wave is about incoming change and it´s aftermath, next songs are in general about dealing with it and Letter for Maya has two endings. The unreconciled one – where Wikis is growling „Maya“ till it fades away, and the peaceful one, when the wild positive melody appears (outro).

Other than, Progressive Metalcore what genres do you incorporate into the music? And how do you incorporate that into your sound?

We are all open minded, willing to consider any element from any genre, if we find it out interesting. Of course, most of the ideas came from progressive genre and genre of core music, but as you can see, intro is classics – piano, viola and acoustic guitar. We like to create a great contrast between the heavy sound of guitars, blast beats, growling and the sound of piano, which can be incredibly soft and subtle. This piano melody somehow helps to carry out listener through the heavy and complicated parts. But piano can also increase the dark atmosphere and heaviness of breakdown.

What are some fun facts about Himâlaya that fans wouldn’t expect?

In Sunrise, after second chorus there is one part sang in local dialect. Before the breakdown hits, Honza screams there „Móm głod“ what means „I am hungry.“ We were recording during a lunch time.

How much support do you have from abroad (parents, school, friends, job)?

We are disgrace to our families because we are creating music instead of becoming lawyers and engineers. We don’t have many friends, our only friends are in the band and we don’t like each other very much.

Of course, our families are very supportive, so are friends, they are great moshers, and they are able to unleash living hell in a mosh pit. Anyway, we are all students, living in a different cities, and school doesn´t give a fk about rehearsals, so it needs perfect time managment to get 6 people at the same time to the same place.

What do genre distinction mean to you? Do you think Genres should be Subjective?

In case you haven’t heard, we are playing wienna-grand-piano-post-modern-progressive metalcore. But seriously, no. Look how absurd it can get. We don’t like the whole genre distinction idea. Take for example progressive metal – so many bands wanted to be progressive, that the djent subgenre was created, ultimately leading to some of them sounding the same and paradoxically losing their progressive status in the process.

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

We are really into the new Veil of Maya album. They are driving us crazy, every rehearsal we are warming up by playing their song Subject Zero. Then The Sin and the Sentece by Trivium is awesome. Previous two albums didn´t reach the awesomeness of In Waves, but this one is pretty close. And right now we are hyped about Tesseract´s upcoming Sonder.

What is the craziest thing a fan has ever done?

Once there was a guy moshing and headbanging with his leg broken. He was running in the circle pit with crutches.

If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?

Unfortunately, there is no high demand for this kind of music. Even bands like Periphery or Thy Art is Murder, which are worldwide known in this community, admit, that it´s unprofitable. Don´t get us wrong, it´s a hobby, we love what we are doing, but it would be great, if bands could at least cover its expenses.

What’s next for Himalaya? Are we getting a new album anytime soon?

Right now we are halfway through the writing process of the second album. And we want to believe, that we have gained some new experience and it´s in every way better than the first one. If you are interested, be sure to follow us on facebook and instagram, because we are planning to release some teasers soon. 😉