Melodic death metalcore band OPHELLIA'S EYE have a debut EP out and about, with an album expected soon enough. The band talks of this EP, a bit of backstory about themselves, and where the band has planned next.
1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Ophelia’s Eye started out as a Project Penny and changed the name to Red Fire Dragon before our drummer Marco joined in 2017. At this time the band consisted of him, a guitarist and a bassist. When Marco met his school friend Remo at Greenfield 2017 by chance he instantly knew that he needs Remo in his band as this worked really fine during a band they played together in school. As Remo was quite busy during this time he needed a some time but after one year decided to give it a try, came to a rehearsal and decided to stay. At this point the band started out moving from covering songs to writing own songs.
The guitarist left in the beginning of 2019 but Michel (ex. Sweet Massacre) joined, which was really a lucky case: Michel has placed an add on Bandbuddy in 2016 that he’s a singer searching for a band. Nothing happened until 2019 Marco answered to his ad. Just at this time Michel has gotten his first child but as it fitted very well, he then joined. The band name once again was changed to the current name Ophelia’s Eye.
In August 2019 Corinne saw an ad from Ophelia’s Eye that they are looking for a guitarist. But since the ad was already from the beginning of 2019 and Corinne only played guitar for just under a year, she did not really believe that this would become something. But she was wrong: The answer from Marco came quick and only a week after Corinne came to a rehearsal and instantly knew that this was the right fit for her.
At this point we had the feeling that we now have the constellation to start out, recorded demos in our room very quick, built up our social media presence and organized our very first concert in February 2020 just before Corona measures took place.
But due to different goals we split up with our bassist just two weeks before our first concert and played without a bass player until we’ve found Sandro who joined in August 2020 and was really a lucky strike.
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
Our current name is based on the novel “The Sandman” from E. T. A. Hoffmann.
The story is about the traumatic childhood experience of the student Nathanael which makes its way to the surface through the surprising encounter with the weather glass dealer Coppola. He believes he recognizes the devilish lawyer Coppelius, who is responsible for his father's death. When the beautiful but quite Olimpia captivates him, he loses himself more and more between delusion and reality.
Olimpia is for us a characterization for the goal we want to achieve with our music:
In the course of the book, Nathaniel's perception of Olimpia changes as he observes her through a pocket lens in her room: "But as he looked sharper and sharper through the glass, it was as if moist moonbeams were rising in Olimpia's eyes. It seemed as if only now the sight was ignited; more and more vividly and vividly the glances flamed." (page 28)
And toward the end of the story, Nathanel is enchanted by Olimpia. He calls her "heavenly-beautiful," admires her every day, and is desperate and driven by longing.
We, too, want to "enflame" the audience, bring them to life and cast a spell over them. Through our songs the listeners should also lose the connection to reality - at least for a while.
To make the name sound rounder, Olimpia is called Ophelia in the band name.
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
All of us live in cantons near to our rehearsal room which is in the canton Solothurn.
Normally when thinking of rock and metal mostly countries such as Scandinavia or the USA come to mind bur for sure not Switzerland even tough bands such as Gotthard, Eluveitie, Messiah or Celtic Frost had played a part in the early metal history.
But if you dig a little deeper you will find a lot of great underground bands which work hard, a sworn-in metal community and also one of the venues considered the best by international metal bands the "Z7".
But since Switzerland is rather small and metal seldom lands in the charts here, it is indeed difficult to take off as a band from here in Switzerland itself.
Sure - we could highly recommend "Expellow", "Royal Desolation", "Sickret" or "I, Delusionist" which all deliver hard but still melodic metal in the range of Core as well.
4. How would you describe your style?
Honestly we ourselves have some difficulties to put us into any concrete Genre but we would describe us as a band with influences both from the Melodic Death Metal sound of Gothenburg as well as the early metalcore era of 2003.
For everyone of us, the inspiration comes from another band. Michel (vocals) is mostly influenced by old-school hardcore since he grew up with this, Remo (lead guitar) has more melodic influences such as Arch Enemy, Marco (drums) is especially inspired by Eskimo Callboy and Ghostkid, Corinne (rhythm guitar) loves rhythmic bands such as Meshugga or Goijra even if this not exactly influences our songs and Sandro (bass) loves complex and experimental stuff such as Ice Nine Kills.
So there is a lot of different inspiration around in our band and as we develop, probably you will be able to hear a bit more of those different inspirations out of our songs.
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
At this point we released our first EP which contains 3 songs (https://opheliaseye.bandcamp.com/album/ep-fight-for-us). For us it is a key point for the recording to have a high quality, voluminous production inspired by the good productions of Parkway Drive, In Flames and Periphery. Of course this will remain a goal of all further productions as well to keep the standard. And of course, all of our songs will be loaded with a lot of energy as well but will bring a bit more variety to the album compared to the EP.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
Yes: The next release will be in the beginning of October – the exact release date will be communicated through our socials next Monday, August 30th. This will be another song of ours combined with a story video.
In the end of October and beginning of November we will be back at SOS basement studio again to record a full-length album.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
Our next and first live concert after 11 months will take place on September 4th at Met-Bar in Switzerland and shortly after that on September 18th at Sedel in Switzerland.
We are also working on a small festival in Switzerland as well and a tour is in planning, but we can’t give away more regarding that at this point.
If possible it would be great to get booked at concerts outside Switzerland but due to Covid we think this will have to wait a bit.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
At this time we concentrate on releasing a great album and hopefully start playing concerts again after this long time of no live concerts. And of course our goal is to be able to play in other countries and at festivals in the long run.
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
You can listen to our stuff nearly on every platform whereas Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube Music and Amazon probably are to most well-known. Buying our stuff is possible on our Bandcamp account (https://opheliaseye.bandcamp.com) and our Homepage as well.
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
The most important thing for us is to share our passion, transport emotions and release some energy and this is what a listener should remember – be it a melody which sticks or just a thing the listener felt during listening to our music.
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