Interview With 'Construct'

Firstly, introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the band and how you came to be?

Hey guys. We're Construct; a Progressive Metal band from Stoke-on-Trent. We aim to create technical music which contains both brutal breakdowns and melodic, soaring choruses and bridges. Our stage show is atmospheric but pretty light hearted. We like to make people laugh as well as throw down. Not at the same time though... That would be awkward. In early 2013, we started out as a handful of music enthusiasts. Rich, Cal and Sam would practice performing in Sam’s living room to pre-composed material from Richard's solo project (dubbed 'Xenogenocide'). In 2015, our outstanding guitarist and backing vocalist, Mike joined us to create the metal outfit everybody knows today 'Construct'. What were you all up too prior to the band, was this always the chosen path or did you have other dreams and aspirations? Rich has always been into music. Ever since he was a toddler, he would pick up an instrument and practice, practice, practice. He would absolutely lose his mind until he got whatever he was trying to learn at the time, right. Then he'd practice some more. He eventually learned about DAWs and began to write his own music around the age of 15. Over time, his skills in composition, production and playing progressed to what we hear in Construct today. This has been his lifelong dream for as long as he can remember. Cal, on the other hand, started out doing vocals for fun. He always sang along to various things with his mother and an old friend when he was younger but he's never been serious about it until now. He saw what his brother, Rich, was doing and listened to all of this amazing music he was making. He wanted to get in on it. He wasn't the best vocalist in the world to begin with but he soon sharpened up, learned more about the science behind singing and eventually expanded his set of techniques. Mike has played in various bands since he was 15 but none of them matched the level of commitment and passion he was looking for. Luckily, Construct was just the type of project he was looking for. Since he became a teenager, he’s always wanted to play his heart out on stage and that’s exactly what he’s doing right now. Sam has also been involved in numerous bands but something always seemed to go wrong with politics within said bands. He’s been very unlucky in that respect. He has always worked hard to make a career for himself in music and he hopes to be doing this for the rest of his life. Tell us about your latest Album and why our readers should check it out. Our debut album, 'The Deity' is set for release on February 4th 2017. It's a concept album which contains the story of a man's struggle to find himself whilst fighting his inner demons. He turns to various vices such as drugs, accumulating money to gain a sense of power, religion, etc. until a God reaches out to him and tells him what he must do in order to feel complete. This is our interpretation of the album's concept but ultimately, we'd like people to make their own decision on what it all means. Songs can have a totally different personal message to the listener than what is originally implied by the writer and that's the most beautiful thing about music. You take what you want from it and that feeling can be everlasting. If you like your riffs technical, your vocals powerful, your beats punchy and your guitar solos emotional, this is the album for you. Check it out on February 4th at https://officialconstruct.bandcamp.com/ and http://constructband.bigcartel.com/. Who would you say is the bands main song writer or is it a group effort and where do you draw your inspiration lyrically and musically from? For this album, that would be Rich. The material was all pre-written from his ‘Xenogenocide’ project and as the band came together, we all contributed in various ways but it’s Rich’s music at it’s core. The lyrics are mainly Rich's writing again but Cal did have a big input in that respect. The second release will definitely be more of a team effort. The inspiration comes from many sources such as 'Scar Symmetry', 'Disarmonia Mundi', 'Periphery', 'Tesseract', 'Protest The Hero', 'Opeth', 'Bring Me The Horizon' and even completely unrelated genres. We like to have a unique edge in our music that brings varied genres together to create something new and exciting. As a band what do you believe is your greatest achievement to date and why? Completing the album and our debut music video for our single, ‘Reflection’. There has been so much hard work involved in both and we can’t tell you how happy we are with the results thus far. We are very proud of what we’ve done up to now and we can't wait to crack on with more. Have you ever come face to face with someone within the music scene who has left you awestruck and why? There was this one show we played where we were doing a sound check as normal and Rich asked for some guitars through the monitors. The sound guy went absolutely berserk with us. “Why d’you want to cloud up the room?! This room has a ceiling man! I am the technician man, you are the band! I twiddle dee knobs, you twiddle dee strings” He went on and on for ages about how he was the best in Birmingham and we were all left puzzled. We’ve had it good with decent sound engineers up to yet but this guy was something else! What do you enjoy most about touring? We haven’t really toured yet per say, we’ve just played a lot of gigs around the country. We have a UK tour coming up in March. Being honest, none of us are looking forward to being stuck in a van with Mike’s protein farts... The enjoyment would purely come from traveling and playing to different audiences each night. If we were to head out to one of your live shows what can ourselves and others expect? You can expect a lot of energy. We love to throw ourselves around all over the place and Cal likes climbing on stuff if the chance arrives. We also pride ourselves on being very tight and accurate in our performance. If you had one artist/band that you could go on tour with tomorrow who would it be and why? Justin Bieber. We like to see shocked faces so that sort of crowd would be ideal. You can spend an hour with a musical icon living or dead, who would you pick, why and what would you speak about? Cal: I'd definitely get Michael Jackson to show me some moves and give me a vocal lesson. Chamone, motherfucker. Rich: Dimebag Darrell would have been an absolute legend of a guy to meet. Not only was he an amazing guitarist, he seemed like one of the friendlist at guitar clinics and stuff. Mike: Ihsahn (Emperor). He is a musician that I idolise purely because he's not afraid to experiment and push boundaries of existing sub genres, and his growls/screams are second to none. Sam: Brann Dailor from Mastodon. He really inspired the way I play drums and helped to shape me as a musician. We'd probably just talk about polyrhythms and odd time signatures. And finally and most importantly is Die Hard a Christmas Movie? Yes. Anyone who says it isn’t is WRONG. We just want to say thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. Thank you for the opportunity guys, we are so grateful!