By Andrew Bansal
Mega-influential power/speed metal veterans DragonForce have been in existence for more than a decade-and-a-half and besides entertaining audiences with their exploits in the studio and antics on stage, they’ve inspired a generation of fans to become musicians. In 2011, they went through a major change with singer Marc Hudson replacing ZP Theart, but during the past four years they have emerged out of that transition to be actively touring again. The second leg of their North American tour with Kamelot begins on November 13th 2015, and follows the recent Metal Blade release of their debut live DVD/Blu-Ray ‘In The Line of Fire … Larger Than Live’. On November 9th, I spoke to guitarist Herman Li about the Kamelot tour, the transitional phase, the live DVD, Japan, crazy fans, the power/speed metal genre, and more. Enjoy the conversation below.
Herman, it’s good to have you on Metal Assault. Later this week, the band is going to start a North American tour with Kamelot. You already did a run of dates with them earlier in the year, so obviously it went well enough for you to book another tour with them.
Yeah! That was a really good tour, and we haven’t really had a proper tour in America since 2009, to be honest. So, it was interesting to be back in the US doing so many shows again. I think we did a tour in 2012 but that was like six dates or something, so it wasn’t much. So it’s good to be back and this time we’ll be playing different cities, of course, as it’s the second run. It’ll also be the last run for the touring in support of ‘Maximum Overload’.
It’s been quite a few years since I saw the band. The last time I saw you guys was in 2008 at the Wiltern in LA. I know you played a couple of times after that in the last few years but I missed those shows for one reason or another. But, the band has gone through major lineup changes and it’s always hard to cope with that kind of stuff. How has it been going for you guys, coming back with the new lineup and touring?
I guess the only difficult thing was the change of singer. With our previous drummer (Dave Mackintosh) we’re still great friends and stuff, so it was never like a problem and it was just a switch, a real smooth transition. But we made the change in singer and came out with the album ‘The Power Within’ in 2012, and that was probably the most difficult period for us at any point of the band’s career so far, because at the same time Roadrunner Records, with whom it was our last album on that deal, they were sold to Warner Bros. So, a lot of people that we were working with were no longer working in the company anymore. So, it was a difficult, kind of a horror run. I mean, how much more difficult can you make it altogether? That was the hardest time.
I can imagine. And fast-forwarding to this year, you put out a live DVD/Blu-Ray + CD called ‘In The Line Of Fire … Larger Than Live’ from last year’s Loud Park Festival in Japan, which is probably one of your biggest fanbases in the world. What was that experience like, playing that show and getting that additional energy from a crowd that knew they were being recorded?
That was really cool, of course. Loud Park is the biggest show there in Japan for metal. Japan is one of those countries where you never go down in popularity and as long as you keep making good albums, that’s what they want to listen to. They don’t care so much about the fashion and the looks and all that. It’s really down to the music, and that’s a good thing because we do play a kind of music where we don’t try to be trendy or radio-friendly, and we don’t try to change our songs just to fit into the current scene and stuff. So, for us, to not compromise and still being able to keep our fan base, that’s really a lucky thing to have, I think.
Right, and in your opinion what is it about Japan that makes bands record there? If you look at the history of rock and metal, even going back to the ’70s, bands like Deep Purple and so many others have recorded concert videos there.
Well, we played Loud Park at the Saitama Super Arena, and they do events ranging from UFC to weird stuff to rock shows. So, it’s just massive and the equipment there is top notch. It’s Japan, it’s a high-tech country. So you always get a great result. That’s one of the reasons why I believe a lot of bands recorded there. After that show, we went back to a headlining tour and we did six shows in Japan, and again they filmed us in Tokyo for the whole show. It just seems so easy to record there. Usually when you’re recording somewhere, you’ve got so many things to think and worry about. But in Japan it always goes so smooth, so it’s kind of a low-risk factor when you record there, and of course the fans are crazy.
Talking of crazy fans, not just in Japan but everywhere, for this style of music that you play, power metal, shred or whatever you want to call it, people that like the music are really super crazy about it. You must be encountering them on a daily basis when they come up to you and talk to you as if you’re God or something. How does that make you feel? It has to be awkward sometimes, isn’t it?
It is definitely strange, because I’m just another guy that plays guitar and does normal things. I don’t have any crazy hobbies and I don’t do crazy things. Our fans are probably crazier than me (laughs). Latino fans are always really cool when we go to Mexico and South America. Those guys always bring it. You’re never disappointed. And I hear stories that people in Japan just listen to the songs and don’t really do much at the shows, but I think we proved them wrong on the DVD that we just released because there’s like three circle pits sometimes in certain songs.
That’s interesting. The band has been around for more than 15 years, has put out six studio albums and done so many tours. In the beginning you obviously started this just for fun, but did you ever think that the band would influence so many other guitar players and musicians? DragonForce is so influential, I still come across people everyday that say this band is the reason they’re playing music.
We certainly didn’t think about that. I mentioned quite a lot of times to people that the reason we started the band is because was wanted to play live and have fun. That was really it. We weren’t thinking that we were better or faster than anyone else. The only thing we thought back then was that everyone was into nu metal or metalcore, basically metal music with no guitar solos, and everyone was saying how rubbish and bad we were, and how outdated we were because we played guitar solos. So, we wanted to do double the amount and annoy people even more (laughs). So, in a way we were fighting back against what was, at that time, cool to be doing. And now guitar solos are cool again! It’s unbelievable. I never thought I would see the day when it would be cool to play guitar solos again, after what happened when Nirvana came out and the whole grunge scene, and how it became mainstream music.
So, all these years later, is speed or complexity still important to you guys in your guitar playing?
I think the importance is different now. At that time we were probably trying to make a point to be a bit more over-the-top. These days it all comes naturally without us trying to force ourselves to go crazy, because we’ve done that and we’ve proven ourselves. Now, we’re definitely still having fun but we’re not so worried about making sure every single song is fast and long and seven minutes each with three minutes of guitar solos. We actually now have a bit more room to expand and show different stuff because we don’t have to prove ourselves to be a certain way, against the scene or against the groups and fighting against whatever it was back then. I listened to different kinds of music all this time, but there were a lot of people back then that didn’t, and they would say everything sucked if they didn’t listen to it.
In terms of your process of writing music, has that developed over the years and is it any different now than it was before?
Yeah, these days our bass player Fred, who’s been in the band for ten years, he’s much more involved in songwriting with the band. So, it’s actually helped us add more ideas to the whole thing, because Fred can play keyboard, guitar and sing and do all these things really well. So, it gave us a different kind of perspective and made us evolve. If you listen to the last album ‘Maximum Overload’ and you listen to the first album, it’s just really far apart. But at the same time it still sounds like us.
You were talking earlier about how you were fighting against the trend and doing something that was not cool, but I think now there’s definitely a fan base for this style, bands like Kamelot, and there are others as well. Do you now feel part of an actual community, more than ever before?
Yeah, but the thing is, there’s still a very small amount of bands of this style of music coming out. You’ve got the heavy stuff, the metalcore and now the djent stuff, and all kinds of different styles coming up. But for this kind of music which requires melodic singing and melodic playing, it’s still a very small amount of young bands coming out. So, I believe it’s still a difficult thing. Those guys in Kamelot are really cool and I knew them before we toured with them. We’ve chatted before. We used to be on the same record label when we released our first album on Noise Records. But there are more bands breaking up than starting, even young bands. So, all these bands end up touring together. They have to team up because there’s not that many choices.
You just mentioned your first label and you talked about Roadrunner earlier. Now you’re on Metal Blade Records, which is such a historic lable that’s been around for more than 30 years with so many classic bands. That in itself must be a kind of credible thing for DragonForce to be associated with.
Before we signed this new deal with Metal Blade for North America, we actually had some different offers from labels, and some were very good labels and they had bands on the cutting edge of the scene, however, they were not as established as Metal Blade has been for so many years. We believe that with our style of music, DragonForce is not a trend band and it’s about longevity, so we picked Metal Blade because that’s what they have proven themselves to be. It’s what they’ve done for years and years.
Right, and one more thing I want to ask you is, in the power/shred metal scene have you come across any younger artists lately that have impressed you at all, or have you just been too busy doing your own thing?
When we went to Japan recently for the tour, we actually played with some Japanese bands, and these bands can really play. One of them is called Gyze. They’re like a Japanese Children Of Bodom power metal kind of thing. They were cool. And there was a visual kei Japanese band called Jupiter opening for us, and they dress completely in a crazy way. I don’t even know how to describe it, but visual kei is a Japanese thing. They were really good, and they were playing melodic power metal. Hybria from Brazil is a new band and they’re really good too.
That’s interesting insight, and fans reading this will definitely check these bands out. I think that’s all I have for this interview, Herman. I actually see you everywhere in LA but I never talk to you. Next time I’ll go up and tell you that we did this interview.
(Laughs) Yeah, yeah. Come say hi to me. I’m not a dick, I swear!
DragonForce links: website | facebook | twitter | instagram
DragonForce North American tour dates with Kamelot:
11/13/2015 Revolution Ft.- Lauderdale, FL
11/14/2015 Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
11/15/2015 Expo 5 – Louisville, KY
11/17/2015 Fillmore Charlotte – Charlotte, NC
11/18/2015 The Fillmore – Springfield, MD
11/20/2015 Webster Theater – Hartford, CT
11/21/2015 Starland Ballroom – Sayreville, NJ
11/22/2015 Imperial de Quebec – Quebec City, QC
11/24/2015 The Town Ballroom – Buffalo, NY
11/25/2015 Royal Oak Music Theater – Royal Oak, MI
11/26/2015 Music Hall – London, ON
11/27/2015 Agora Ballroom – Cleveland, OH
11/28/2015 The Rave – Milwaukee, WI
12/01/2015 Knitting Factory – Spokane, WA
12/02/2015 Vogue Theater – Vancouver, BC
12/03/2015 Showbox – Seattle, WA
12/04/2015 Knitting Factory – Boise, ID
12/06/2015 Regent Theater – Los Angeles, CA
12/07/2015 House of Blues – Las Vegas, NV
12/09/2015 House of Blues – Dallas, TX
12/10/2015 House of Blues – Houston, TX
12/12/2015 The Ritz – Tampa, FL
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