Oracle N.I. Interview
Interview with Pete Devine of Pete’s Rock News and Views (http://petesrocknewsandviews.com)
PD: What type of artist are you?
O: We are a modern metal/thrash metal band from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
PD: Tell us the brief history of yourself.
O: We formed in 2015 with the intention of delivering hard hitting, heavy music both lyrically and musically. So far we have released our debut E.P “Tales of Pythia”, embarked on a small Irish tour and played Bloodstock Open Air. We are working hard to finish our debut Album now, which we can’t wait to get out there.
PD: Who are your musical and non-musical influences?
O: Musically we have a variety of influences between the five of us, the main ones for us would be
Gojira, Tool, Lamb of God, Mastodon and Meshuggah. Non – musically our biggest influences would be mythology and politics.
PD: What are your dreams and goals?
O: The dream is obviously to be able to do what we love full time, in terms of goals we want to play in front of as many different people in as many different places as possible – it’s a lot of hard work but hard work that we enjoy putting in.
PD: Who writes your songs, what are they about?
O: We try to write about what we see and hear in day to day life, but then take those emotions and feelings and try to write
them from a mythological stand point. They are very personal to each of us for different reasons, but we also enjoy the storytelling aspect of trying to find and fit myths into the lyrics whilst keeping relevant to what we want to say.
We write our songs together, we usually start with a writing session at Connor or Jake’s house, play out different riffs and patterns and see where it takes us. Personally I usually know where I want to go lyrically so when I hear something I like I can throw my ideas in, but it’s a group effort and everyone chips in together.
PD: How do you promote your band and shows?
O: Social media is key as they say, we try to use videos and pictures where we can as we find that they are more personal and get a better response. They are also a lot more fun to make which is important for us. The promoters we have worked with have all been great, they pour their time and money into making sure that gigs are promoted well and run smoothly – we obviously promote our gigs ourselves too but the promoters are mostly the ones to thank.
PD: What do you think about downloading music online?
O: It think it has both pros and cons, I think it’s great because its alot more accessible than having to hunt through CDs, it’s also good because anyone at all can upload their music to streaming services or make it available for download which is obviously extremely important for bands on a local level. The con would be that you make little to no money unless you are getting millions of streams or downloads, also there aren’t many better feelings than opening a physical copy for the first time.
PD: What song do you wish you’d written and why?
O: For me personally it has to be “Global Warming” by Gojira, that song is everything I’ve ever wanted to say.. It’s deep and heavy whilst retaining a message that will probably always be relevant.
PD: What are some of your pet peeves?
O: Close minded people, people that won’t accept that there can be another outlook other than their own, I think that’s probably the same for all of us in the band.
PD: What is your proudest moment in music?
O: There have been a lot already, but the biggest one was when we stepped out on to the stage at Bloodstock, it finally felt like all of the hard work we had put in to get there had paid off.. It was a great feeling.
PD: So what are you working on at the moment?
O: We are busy writing our first album, we can’t wait to get it out there and see what people make of it..
PD: Tell us about your next shows and why we should be there.
O: We are playing Siege of Limerick next, we also have a few shows lined up in Belfast with Diamond Head and Ten Ton Slug and we are supporting Mortiis in December – you should be there because we bring energy and passion with our live shows.
Oracle links:
Band location – Belfast Northern Ireland
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