Apparitional Discusses Namesake, Music, and Plans Ahead!

 


 Metal go getters APPARITIONAL formed the band only a year ago! Releasing some songs, with newer music in the works, the band has had the chance to play live, with further plans on playing more and releasing more music! The band got together to discuss their history, music, and plans!

 

1. Please introduce yourselves and tell me what you do in the band?

I’m Rik and I play guitar and sing in Apparitional, the other core member Rikk (with 2 k’s) plays drums and lets me know if my ideas are good or not.  He also handles all of the social media and communications that if left up to me would fall into a terrible state of neglect.  We also have 2 other members who make up the live line up of Apparitional, Matt (guitar) and Brittany (bass) who have been a big part of the project lately.

2. Can you give us a brief history of your band?

Rikk and I formed Apparitional about a year ago.  We were kicking around the idea of starting a new project that would be a departure from the sound of the current Horror Punk bands we were in (the Writhers & the Returners) while still retaining the feel and the dark aesthetics.  We’re both big fans of Type O Negative and I had just turned Rikk on to the band Poisonblack which had a lot to do with the direction we eventually took.  I started demoing some songs that eventually took shape into our first single “Unhallowed” and the rest of the songs from our live set.

3. Where did the idea for the band's name Apparitional come from and does it have a meaning to it?

We were back and forth on different names that we felt encompassed the feeling of the band, none of which I can remember now, but Apparitional seemed to fit the stark and gloomy atmosphere we were going for.  It embodies the feeling of the modern era and the disconnection and isolation it brings.   

4. To those who may not know what you sound like, describe the type of music you create?

That is a tough one, usually you start a band with something very specific in mind of what you are trying to sound like, then a ways down the road you realize that you sound completely different.  Luckily we have had enough feedback from people now to have an objective idea of how we are perceived, which is gothic doom with a dash of metallic hardcore that has drawn comparisons to Paradise Lost, Life of Agony, and Twitching Tongues.

5. Who would be some of your musical influences and why are they as such?

As I mentioned before, Rikk and I are both fans of Type O Negative, which we draw a lot of influence from but in writing I pull from a range of different stuff.  I have been collecting records for a long time now and my collection has grown large and diverse and sometimes when I am writing I will pick one at random, listen to it and play around with ideas that listening to that album brings up.  Probably though the biggest influences in my guitar playing would be Tommy Victor (Prong), Rhoads / Jake E. Lee / Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne), and probably Page Hamilton (Helmet).  Vocally there are many vocalists that I admire that have contributed and influenced my style: Peter Steele (Type O Negative), Christopher Hall (Stabbing Westward / The Dreaming), Mikko Heikkila (Sinamore / Dawn of Solace), Ville Laihiala (Poisonblack / Sentenced), JP Leppaluoto (Poisonblack / Charon), Glenn Danzig, Gary Numan, Layne Staley, and Ozzy

Rikk: my biggest influences vary from many musical places. Bands like From Autumn to Ashes, AFI, Linkin Park, and HIM are among my favorite acts generally, but I also listen to a lot of Latin, pop and hip hop for percussive ideas.

6. What about the songs, who is the one to contribute to the writing and what sort of topics do they cover?

Usually I will come up with a bunch of ideas, demo them and send them to Rikk so see what he is the most excited about working on.  So far the songs we have written deal with loss, disconnection, isolation, embitterment, and for me a plea to the Gods to not be crushed under the weight of these feelings.

Rikk: I really appreciate the way we have been working on these ideas - 1k will send me a demo and I’ll gush over how cool it sounds and work on learning the scratch drums he wrote for the song then I’ll obsess over the song until it morphs into something I’m even more excited over. For example our latest addition to the set “This Fading Light” has been such and exciting trial and error writing drums for the verse and some of the fills.

7. Speaking of songs, you have a single called "Unhallowed" tell me about it?

Unhallowed was the first song we wrote as a band, I feel like sonically it is a good embodiment of the sound we are going for, heavy and gothic.  Thematically it deals with loss and can be viewed in two ways, the physical loss of someone you love either through death or the ending of a relationship and it is fine if people interpret it and connect to it in that way, though to me it was written for the spiritual loss I have felt, a darkening of the soul, and the isolation it creates.

8. Does the band have any other newer music in the works?

Yes, currently we are wrapping up the recording of “Burn” by the Cure which will hopefully be streaming in about a month.  Also we are finalizing 3 more songs that we have been playing live: “The Serpent's Coil” which has a sludgy feel to it, “This Fading Light” that has a more straightforward gothic metal feel to it like Paradise Lost or Katatonia, and ”Dark Night On The Moors” which is a song for the Goddess Hekate.

9. How about playing shows, touring, tell us about your next shows and why we should be there?

The next show we have coming up is with Vampires Everywhere, Priest and Julien K at Brick By Brick in San Diego on January 24th, other than that I am trying to put together a live online ritual show to fall on one of the upcoming pagan calendar days possibly the Solstice or Imbolc.  Each show will be a different experience, the energy from a live performance at a great venue alongside high performing bands is a good reason to go out, conversely, the online show will hopefully connect people outside of the local area and be a more intimate affair.

10. Having come across your band on social media with TikTok, what do you think of that format, and social media in general, is it a good thing or bad thing?

Rikk would be better to answer this as he deals more with the social media aspect of the band.  In some cases social media is another performance stage or medium to make an artistic statement, but it is short form and wedges your offering in a juxtaposed, non sequitur stream of endless content.  The upside I suppose is the ability to reach more people, demonstrably, as you mentioned finding us via Tik Tok.  But like it or not, currently it is the reality of things and can’t be ignored or pushed aside.

Rikk: I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I really enjoyed using it for promotion and networking pre-pandemic but I feel like lately it has changed to become a Herculean task. That’s why I really appreciate interview pages such as this for showcasing small acts like us, so thank you very much for that.

11. What else does the band have planned for this next year?

For next year I would like to work on songs individually and release them as singles, see the response and what resonates with people and craft the next song accordingly.  Once we have accumulated enough songs that have a consistent cohesion we will most likely put out a physical Vinyl and CD.  Other than that, I am keeping an open mind about the next steps, shows, and new mediums to share our music and art.

12. Would you like to say or add on anything else?

Thank you for taking interest in us and for those of you to took the time to read this, hopefully we will meet all of you in person on tour or online, until then, I wish all of you enough light and fire to burn through the dark days.

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