An interview with Darkest Horizon
An interview with Darkest Horizon
What inspired the name of the band? What are your influences?
The name of the band had already been chosen when I joined the band, so I can’t say much about the influences leading to that name. But our musical influences are far and wide, ranging from rock/punk to metal, from soundtracks to classical music… we try to get known to as many influences as we can and create our own music out of it.
How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start off?
Normally all our songs are based on Chris’ (Keyboarder) ideas. He writes orchestral songs or soundtracks and we add our “metal instruments” to it. This kind of music that we write is pretty difficult to jam and we have never been a jam-band so we prefer adding our “personal layers” onto the song we write.
Lyrically there are a lot of themes we cover. Most of the time there is just an idea on of our minds and then we just write the lyrics. If there is a song they fit to and the other like the lyrics, we use them, if not, we do not. So we actually collect ideas and fragments all the time, it is just not always clear when and if they will be used for concrete songs.
How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start off?
Normally all our songs are based on Chris’ (Keyboarder) ideas. He writes orchestral songs or soundtracks and we add our “metal instruments” to it. This kind of music that we write is pretty difficult to jam and we have never been a jam-band so we prefer adding our “personal layers” onto the song we write.
Lyrically there are a lot of themes we cover. Most of the time there is just an idea on of our minds and then we just write the lyrics. If there is a song they fit to and the other like the lyrics, we use them, if not, we do not. So we actually collect ideas and fragments all the time, it is just not always clear when and if they will be used for concrete songs.
Why do you write the sort of music that you do?
Because we are dreamers *laughs* No, serious, we love creating a world, a new place, a fantasy you can join us into. We are all influenced by video games, fantasy books and movies and love big and opulent arrangements as the opera, theatre or even Hollywood-blockbuster.
Most of the time the world we live in is to simple to be reshown in your art, it is way more fun and excitement to go to a totally different place and let your imagination roam free. If you have this feeling whilst listening to our music, we did a good job.
How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them into that live setting?
This is a mixture of what people want to hear and what we want to play. Normally we have a look on which songs are very popular (in streaming for example) and to which ones people prefer to listen to. Some people tell us their favourite song when we meet them and we are thankful for that info to keep it in mind for the next live setlist.
On the other hand we naturally have some songs in our set we just love to play or we want to try out on a stage. If this would not be the case, we as musicians would be like a live-staging-jukebox… not a very fun way to play a concert. So it is as always the mixture of both that builds up a good live set.
How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them into that live setting?
This is a mixture of what people want to hear and what we want to play. Normally we have a look on which songs are very popular (in streaming for example) and to which ones people prefer to listen to. Some people tell us their favourite song when we meet them and we are thankful for that info to keep it in mind for the next live setlist.
On the other hand we naturally have some songs in our set we just love to play or we want to try out on a stage. If this would not be the case, we as musicians would be like a live-staging-jukebox… not a very fun way to play a concert. So it is as always the mixture of both that builds up a good live set.
What plans do you have for the future?
First of all our next single will be released next month! We are so looking forward to present this song to you for we put a lot of effort and work into it.
And we are also currently working on new songs, planning the next photo shooting and start preparing our live set for the post-corona era. So we hope to give you new songs, a new part of our world and hopefully see you all soon at the next concert! As soon as possible!