Da BAND! Input please!

[Jake of Bodom]

Alright, here's the deal. My band is called Aiserigh (it's Gaelic for "rise again"). We play a brand of Folk Metal that mixes traditional Celtic music with melodic speed metal. The lineup is:

Jake (aka The Fat Trollish Guy): Guitar, flute, miscellaneous pipes, keyboards (?)
Nick (aka The Uberman): Guitar, fiddle, bazuki (sp), mandolin (this kid is prodigal)
Linden (aka Linden): Bass
Alex (aka Jake's Little Brother): Drums & Percussion

First thing: we have NO idea what to do for vocals. Linden and I agree we want female vocals. What I think would sound the coolest is female vocals AND your average Folk Metal raspy midrange growl. It sounds dumb written down, but it's cool when you actually hear it. Anyway, we are most concerned with the female vocals. On the one song we actually recorded on my computer (called "Oi!" for in-the-making purposes), we all just kinda sang like we were all in a tavern or something. It's a riot to listen to, but it's not the effect we want, and it also sounds like we're ripping off Finntroll.

We've got a few songs written and stuff... but does it sound interesting? Has anyone else out there tried starting a band? Any input, ideas, criticizms, sarcasm, fits of paranoia, or visions of a panda setting fire to a traffic light?

Oh yeah, and if anyone is from Utah and is anywhere close to Salt Lake City/Park City/Heber/surrounding areas and you think you can contribute or at least know someone who might be willing to record/mix for cheap, PLEASE p.m. me ASAP!

[Hells Angel]

[B][FONT=Comic Sans MS][COLOR=DarkOrange]I think female vocals would be awesome lol and not because I am a female myself. I have tried to start a band with some friends before, we was going to be called Lcubed, live life loud, I play the guitar, and no sorry dono anyone from utah I dont live there either, but yeah you need a female it would rock. lol.[/COLOR][/FONT][/B]

[Goodbye, Face]

Man, now I feel bad for laughing when a band I saw put down their guitars and took out like flutes and violins, etc. Female vocals sound great, good luck with your search! I'd like to hear what you recorded, IM me or something. ^_^

[Semjaza]

I've personally always been a big fan of male vs. female vocal dynamics in bands. I think it might be pretty interesting in your case because I don't know of any similar bands offhand that have done that successfully.

I don't live anywhere near you guys, so I can't really help with any recording mixing... which is something I actually know how to do (unlike my shoddy guitar playing abilities lol).

[Kamuro]

[SIZE=1]I'm currently in a band, and we're not all that bad actually (Jake send me a PM if you wanna listen). Anyhow, female vocals might not sound to bad. I'm not really a big fan of any female vocalist, I'm not sexist or anything, I've just always been drawn to the male side of metal. I think a combination might work well. Having a female vocalist yet still being able to scream hardcore and change things up a bit would be more attractive then simply a female singer.

To tell you the truth I'm not all that familiar with "Folk Metal" so I don't have much input on that. Some general advice though, don't write to much stuff before actually finding a singer. Chances are you'll have to tweak and change a lot of it before she/he is able to join in and actually sound good. I think it's better to have a singer's input while writing/creating songs so you'll know how the vocal sounds and not just the melody. Sometimes it's hard to peice them together correctly if they've both been created seperately.[/SIZE]

[Jake of Bodom]

Wow! Thanks for all the input, guys! I see the idea of female vocals was a big hit. We felt the same, seeing as many traditional Celtic story-songs are recorded with female vocals.

By the way, I've decided that we have a new genre!

[SIZE=4][B]JIG METAL![/B] [/SIZE]

\m/ Reightous \m/

:laugh:

Generic NPC #3, you're one of the few people who agree with me here. I think mixing death/black vocals with female vocals would be awesome! By the way, Elvenking is the only folkmetal band I can think of that's ever even remotely done this. Theatre of Tragedy and After Forever have the growl vs. female vocals, but they're nowhere close to Folk Metal.

No worries, RiflesAtRecess! When people think metal, flutes, pennywhistles, and fiddles aren't the first things that come to mind. That's what makes us special! We've still got a strong heavy element (you guys'd like this one song we have... it's untitled, but Kamuro and Rifles would like it :animesmil ). For example, the aforementioned song is in D tuning and really chuggy on the low end for the guitars. There's some mid-range riffery (I wrote it before Shadows Are Security even came out, but think "Confined" or "Through Struggle"... they're kind of similar to the style here). So it's really heavy, but Nick is playing a beautiful fiddle "riff" (whatever you call it on the fiddle) over the whole thing. I'm not trying to brag by any means, but it still amazes me when we play it! It's very pretty, but you can sure as hell thrash out to it as well!

Our other song, titled "Oi!" for now (we'll change it) is the one we recorded last week. It's REALLY rough (with a mic on my computer :laugh:), but fun nonetheless. This song is the essence of Jig Metal ( :animesmil ). I'm playing flute through the whole thing, and Nick takes traditional Celtic strumming patterns and puts them to heavily distorted electric guitar. Then there's the verse... we hadn't written any words to it yet, so we all did what we call "drunken tavern singing", which basically entails all of us just sort of mumbling a tune in unison. It's hilarious, fun, and totally METAL! :laugh:

Finally, Kamuro's point. Okay... I hadn't really thought of that. Thank you for pointing that out, actually! I guess we didn't think that a vocalist would have that much of an impact on the music itself, but I guess when you look at the history of all music, it really does.

Man. We need a singer.

Oh, and just to keep you guys entertained - some awesome folk metal bands!:

[B]Finntroll![/B] (If you want to get into Folk Metal, this is the band to start with!)
[B]Elvenking![/B] (Epic songs with seriously wacky but awesome vocals!)
[B]Turisas![/B] (Uber symphonic Folk Metal, and really really diverse!)
[B]Korpiklaani![/B] (Super-folky awesomeness that's really high energy and fun!)
[B]Ensiferum![/B] (Lighter on the folk, heavier on the metal, but still awesome!)

[Amorphous]

Female vocals in a folk metal band is generally a bad idea unless you can get a seriously talented female singer that knows what she is doing otherwise it's not worth it. I can honestly say almost every band with a female and male singer I've ever heard come usually nowhere close to good quality. Unless it's like Haggard and whatever else that I can't remember, there are always exceptions.

As far as the drunken tavern singing, Varg Vikerness did a duet with Mayhem that reminds me of exactly what you are talking about. They all are very drunk and singing "We are very happy and I hope you are too" in repeat and start screaming it at the end of the song. It's just quite funny because of the back story behind Burzum and Mayhem.

As far as creating folk metal, good luck it takes major talent to make it actually pleasing to the ears there is a lot of folk metal that is mediorce out there.

[Goodbye, Face]

I'll add two 'male and female singer' bands for your required listening. It'll change your mind about female vocalists.


Circle Takes the Square:

I've said before that they've been my favorite band for five years. They take their music like an art form and it turns out somewhere in the hardcore genre. Some of the songs have a little of a symphonic sound, some, like "Interview at the Ruins," are just plain odd. One of the main distinguishing features of this band is the 'Dueling Voices' between their male Screamer/Guitarist/Artist and their female Singer/Screamer/Bassist.


Kylesa:

The girl in this band pretty much sings through heir entire new cd, with the male screamers backing her up (it's a different story with some of their older stuff). They have an obvious punk influence as well as metal. Definitely worth a listen, but try not to read too many reviews of their latest cd before you listen to it. Seriously, that cd was picked apart by critics for no reason.

[Jake of Bodom]

Actually, accorting to Varg Vikernes, there never really was tension between Mayhem and Burzum (read the interview [URL=http://www.metalcrypt.com]here[/URL]. Click the link and click on Varg Vikernes' name under Latest Interviews).

Anyway, about female vocals: we're not going to have one unless the girl can really [I]sing[/I]. I know the perfect girl (her voice is out-of-this world amazing) but she had an obsessive crush on our guitarist/fiddlist/bazukist a year ago and he's still scared of her :laugh:. We'll find one one day!

And I do realize that there is lots of mediocre Folk Metal out there. Hopefully we can pull this together though. With Nick in the band, we can't go too wrong... you really should hear this kid play! He's incredible. He plays Bodom like it's nothing. That's no easy feat!

Sounds like this Circle Takes the Square business sounds interesting... I generally [I]really[/I] don't like hardcore, but they sound a little more artistic about it, plus I'm a sucker for good female vocals. I'll give 'em a listen.

[Semjaza]

[quote name='Jake of Bodom]Anyway, about female vocals: we're not going to have one unless the girl can really [I]sing[/I']. I know the perfect girl (her voice is out-of-this world amazing) but she had an obsessive crush on our guitarist/fiddlist/bazukist a year ago and he's still scared of her :laugh:. We'll find one one day![/quote]

I was going to respond to the original quote about this because, really, why would you pick up and stick with a girl who couldn't manage it anyway? lol

You seem to realize, unlike some bands out there, that the female vocalist is important and not simply a gimmick... so I doubt you'll have much problem in that regard. It's just a matter of finding someone who is a good fit for heavier music... that might be an issue lol.

[Kamuro]

[SIZE=1]I really don't understand why you don't like hardcore Jake? I know you dislike bands such as Underoath, which is more screamo anyway, but maybe hardcore means something different to you? lol

As I said in another thread, having certain elements from different genre's is a good thing. Don't limit yourself to a certain type of music and close off the possibilities for a different sound. Even if it wasn't what you previously intended, you might just like the way it turns out after everything is said and done. You seem to have your heart set on a lot of the band's elements, which is good, but sometimes you just have to compromise to create the best work possible.

As I said before, having a girl singer is great, but it also means it's even more important to have her around while creating the music. No offense to the opposite sex or anything lol, but from my own experience, female singers are more picky about the sound of the music. What you think sounds great, she might not like all that much. And depending on her personality she might just decide to change it.

Compromising is a big deal concerning bands. I'm sure you know already, even without a singer. Everyone has different ideas and things they'd like to do. It's important to consider everything so that the band's happy [I]and[/I] the music sounds good.[/SIZE]

[Jake of Bodom]

[QUOTE=Kamuro][SIZE=1]I really don't understand why you don't like hardcore Jake? I know you dislike bands such as Underoath, which is more screamo anyway, but maybe hardcore means something different to you? lol

As I said in another thread, having certain elements from different genre's is a good thing. Don't limit yourself to a certain type of music and close off the possibilities for a different sound. Even if it wasn't what you previously intended, you might just like the way it turns out after everything is said and done. You seem to have your heart set on a lot of the band's elements, which is good, but sometimes you just have to compromise to create the best work possible.

As I said before, having a girl singer is great, but it also means it's even more important to have her around while creating the music. No offense to the opposite sex or anything lol, but from my own experience, female singers are more picky about the sound of the music. What you think sounds great, she might not like all that much. And depending on her personality she might just decide to change it.

Compromising is a big deal concerning bands. I'm sure you know already, even without a singer. Everyone has different ideas and things they'd like to do. It's important to consider everything so that the band's happy [I]and[/I] the music sounds good.[/SIZE][/QUOTE]

Don't limit ouselves to one kind of sound? That's just the thing we're set out to avoid! Hell, we've got a song in the works including crazy bluegrass banjo solo played over a breakdown-ish thing! I just don't like hardcore that much. Hardcore just seems a little too hectic and discordant to me. I do like some hardcore elements (breakdowns, namely), which is why I like metalcore! To me, Metalcore takes hardcore and makes it a little more focused. Like Throwdown for example: obvious hardcore influence, but there's that metal element that makes their songs a little more focused in the direction they're going. There is one hardcore band I really like though, and that's Walls of Jericho. They're pretty awesome.

But trust me, you won't be hearing many hardcore influences here. As far as the metal part goes (folk part aside), it's mostly a mix of Black and Melodic Speed.

Thanks, Generic. We do realize that female vocals arent a gimmick! No, we need them for the Celtic feel, and also because it adds a certain ethereal element that I really like.

[Amorphous]

[quote name='Jake of Bodom]Actually, accorting to Varg Vikernes, there never really was tension between Mayhem and Burzum (read the interview [URL=http://www.metalcrypt.com]here[/URL']. Click the link and click on Varg Vikernes' name under Latest Interviews). [/quote]

Yes I already know this, it was only between him and Euronymous really.