Heavylution's Balls of Steel

Heavy metal done by the likes of Heavylution is done quite interesting enough. They spent countless time in the studio writing and recording for their new album "Children Of Hate" with further plans to record more material, as well as play shows and tour in and around anywhere they can reach out too. The band discusses this album and those said plans with details on influences, their namesake, and more!


1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.

Hi! The band began to play around 2006 when we completed the line-up, initially composed with four musicians only: Laurent (drums) - Alexis (Bass) - Franck (Guitar) - Paul (guitar - vocals). The band released its first demo EP "Metal is Our Blood" in 2008 and a second EP "The Architect" in 2011. Our first important gig was to open for Paul Di Anno in 2010, and it was also the first line-up modification: Paul decided to sing without playing guitar, and Olivier Dupont became the new guitarist of the band. For the first time, we were 5 musicians, and we kept that. We continued to play live and got some nice opportunities, like playing to the Rising Fest in France with Wizard (DE), headlining the fest, opening for Lonewolf, Lordi, etc. Then we decided to record our first album, in a professional studio: it took time, but we are proud of the way we took it! The album was released in Feb/March 2015, and we got some nice returns about it. What was not so easy, is that we had to change the line-up again before and after the recording. Currently the band is composed of Olivier Dupont (guitar) - Thibault Maurin (Guitar) - Nico Savoca (bass) - Laurent Descours (Drums) - Paul Eyssette (vocals).

2. Why did you pick the name that you did for your band?

Oh, we found it while drunk! I'm joking, the idea of the name "Heavylution" is, as you can guess, the contraction of Heavy and Evolution. We wanted to assume our heavy influences but to add the thrash spirit in some rhythmic and melodies. We do not claim to revolutionize the genre with that, but this is part of our personality.

3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?

We are from Saint-Etienne, a town close to Lyon, in the center East of France. I think we can say that there are a lot of metal bands compared to the size of the town, but not so much in heavy, except our friends from Holy Cross (heavy/thrash) that we've been playing with several times. In thrash metal we have Furyens and Korrosiah, but the most we have is probably Death / Brutal Death Metal: Mithridatic, Benighted, Burn Your Karma and many others that I forgot. Of course, all the musicians know each other, as there are not so much places dedicated to metal. The Thunderbird Lounge is a pub dedicated to Rock/Metal genre, and its owner and barman is a funny and crazy Texan!

4. How would you describe your style? Which bands influenced your music?

Before the band was really founded with a complete line-up, we were 2 guitarists mostly influenced by Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Edguy and so on. That is why the main basis is "heavy". But most of our past and present members listen to heavy and extreme metal in the same time. We used to think that a lot of extreme metal bands write riffs and guitar solos that are close to heavy metal spirit and that could have been combined with a melodic singer easily, instead of the extreme one. We had the idea to do quite the opposite: music mostly based on heavy metal with heavy metal singing, but it included a bit of thrash or extreme that is sometimes rhythmic.

The singer Paul is mostly influenced by Bruce Dickinson's singing, and likes Iced Earth, Gammaray, Symphony X, Judas Priest, etc. Our drummer began with death / thrash metal from Slayer to Deicide, and became more heavy / hard-rock with the years like Iced Earth, Iron Maiden, Skid Row. Our new bass player Nico is a thrasher! He plays and write songs for another band, Furyens and loves Testament, Exodus, but also Revocation and Iron Maiden, which is very nice for us of course! Olivier, who has been integrating the band early likes Pantera, Iced Earth, Slayer, and used to play a lot of Dissection or Vital Remains when he was younger. This is why his rhythmic is so sharp and powerful. And Thibault our new guitarist is more progressive metal and could play jazz so we sometimes say that he is the only real musician haha! It's a joke of course, he also listens to Pantera, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Symphony X, Dream Theater.

5. What can people expect from this new album, why should they be interested and check it out?

Powerful guitars and conviction! We think that "Children of Hate" is more than old-school heavy-metal: people who like that, will like it, as there are all the basics of NWOBHM, but we think it is more dense and saturated that old-school heavy. Some thrash metal guitars are always behind to push it and the singer can sometimes be a little more aggressive, like for example a Tobias Sammet or Michael Kiske singing which is always melodic. Listen to "The Exodus" for example: the singer is a bit more aggressive influenced by heavy-thrash classics, and the introduction is completely thrash and more insane than on the other songs. Mind Avulsion is quite insane too. And on the other side, a song like "The Future is on your Side" is just the softest song we've ever wrote: mid tempo, melancholy, melody but hope!

6. Do you play live as well? What do you have planned in terms of shows and touring, if any?

Yes, the band is meant to exist only by playing these songs on stage, we began to play live before recording anything. We played in Saint-Etienne for the album release, and then went to Aix-en-Provence, Grenoble (opening for Crucified Barbara), Lyon, and we still have places to go : Toulon, ChambŽry, Bressuire with Lonewolf, Saint-Etienne, and other plans to confirm in Lyon, Brest and moreÉ We also hope that this album will bring us abroad!!

7. What should labels/zines/promoters know about your band? Why should they be interested in it?

We got balls of steel! Isn't it enough?! More seriously we believe in what we do, are ready to move, and people believe in what we do too! When we go on a stage, we have fun of course but also have the mission to do the job as a professional band: we want that people who discover us to believe that we are professional.

8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?

Still spreading our sound to your ears! And of course, enjoying this amazing passion: find gigs, promote the band, and prepare albums as we did for the first time with "Children of Hate". We also think to do a real studio clip, as the "Children of Hate" clip is based on a live video, we'd like to do a real one with a story, or maybe something fun. Fans asked us for that, it's a very nice idea.

9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?

Almost everywhere on the internet of course, the album has been spread on Spotify, I-tunes, Deezer and other online music streaming services. BUT you can buy it on our official web shop or on the label's shop if you want to help the band of course! We don't earn anything from pour music as you can imagine, we only use the sells to pay a part of the album recordings, to buy promotional services and stuff like that. And even if we don't need money to play, without it we won't go very far and will continue to play around our city in small bars. Which is fun, but not only what we yearn to do.
Here are the links : http://www.heavylution.fr/shop
http://www.brennus-music.com/brennus-ap-29/heavylution-children-hate-p-8569.html

10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?

We're not objective listeners, we can't answer haha! Something that strikes people in general is the similarity with Bruce Dickinson's voice on the heavy-metal songs. It is not the case on the songs that are more thrash or softer, but on a "Children of Hate", "Fight for Changes", "The Eye Will", control we can't deny it. It is not composed to make an Iron Maiden imitation, but Paul sang a lot of Iron Maiden when he learnt singing and of course we can hear that now. Other will like the fact that the band really tries to do things the best he can: we think, and this is our opinion but many people had the same feeling, that we achieve every song the best we can; good riffs, good transitions, good solos. Nothing is never botched, we always keep going and try to do better and better, and that's what is meant when you play real metal! We spent a lot of money and time to get a strong production that can help our music to come to your metal ears, so LISTEN TO IT VERY LOUD PLEASE :)! Thanks a lot for this nice interview, see you on stage now!