EMQ’s With Ophelia’s Eye
Hello everyone! Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with Swiss Melodic Death Metal band, Ophelia’s Eye. Huge thanks to them for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play, and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
For all who don’t want to read that much, just scroll down 😉
We are Ophelia’s Eye and have influences both from the Melodic Death Metal sound of Gothenburg as well as the early Metalcore era of 2003. This results in Hard but also Melodic Metal. Ophelia’s Eye started out as a Project Penny and changed the name to Red Fire Dragon before our former 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 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 ad 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 right constellation to start out, recorded demos in our room very quickly, built up our social media presence and organised 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. In the beginning of December 2021 we and Marco decided to go our separate ways due to different ideas about the future cooperation. At this point the search of a new drummer began which we’ve luckily found very quickly with Stefan in mid of January.
How did you come up with your band name?
Ophelia’s Eye is based on Olimpia’s Eyes from the novel “The Sandman” by E.T.A. Hofmann. Olimpia for us is 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.”
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 “inflame” 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.
Where are you from and what is the Metal & Rock scene like there?
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, but for sure not Switzerland even though 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, one of the venues considered the best by international metal bands the “Z7” as well as the great Greenfield Festival.
There is a wide variety of great Metal bands from different sub-genres out there in Switzerland, such as “I, Delusionist” (Deathcore, Djent), “Heathen Heretic” (Thrash Metal), Sickret (Nu / Alternativ Metal, Hardcore), Soulline (Melodic Death Metal) or Hunted Like Thieves (Hardcore, Melodic Hardcore, Punk).
If you’re interested in discovering some Swiss Underground Bands, check out Tamselbärchen’s Lexicon: https://tamselbaerchen.ch/swiss-bands-lexicon/
What is your latest release?
Our debut album “Hopeless World”, which we just released on April 15th, 2022.
Who have been your greatest influences?
For every one 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, Stefan (drums) is especially inspired by Lamb of God, 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.
As you can see, we all have quite a different taste in Metal which surely influences our song writing on an unconscious basis and as we develop, probably you will be able to hear a bit more of those different inspirations out of our songs. In terms of song structure, riffs, melodies and drive we would say our main influences are As I Lay Dying, Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage and a bit of Arch Enemy and Amon Amarth since those bands are like a common ground in our band.
Regarding the sound production Parkway Drive, In Flames and Periphery are our role models. Our lyrics are inspired by things each of us experiences in our lives.
What first got you into music?
Michel often watched the music channel on MTV which motivated him to stand on stages as well someday and for all others it mostly were their parents. Remo, Corinne and Sandro were able to try out different instruments on a day at their then (different) music schools, with Remo choosing guitar directly, Corinne the oboe and Sandro the tuba.
Stefan has a mum who was a professional musician and showed him how to practice correctly but also gave good advice and feedback and inspired him early.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
Michel: Attila
Remo: Parkway Drive
Corinne: So many, but I’d go along with Remo on Parkway Drive as well if I need to choose, since they managed to manage all by themselves until where they are and are quite inspirational therefore!
Sandro: Ice Nine Kills
Stefan: Orbit Culture
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
Probably a typical answer for all metal bands: Wacken – I think this is something you just need to experience on stage. But apart from that we would love to play at our favourite festivals Greenfield (Switzerland) and Summerbreeze (Germany)
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
So far, we haven’t received any gifts at all. We only were really (positively) astonished when a fan of ours, who is a friend of our former drummer Marco, had tattooed our band name on his whole calf when we just released our first Single.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
You are an incredible fan base and we highly value your loyalty and great support all along the way, so a big thank you to all! You have helped us so much with all your sharing and your donations and only because of you it is possible to further produce at this point. And since concerts are finally possible again, we would love to see you back there in front of our stage or for a beer at our merchandise booth!
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Michel: Chester Bennington
Remo & Sandro: Lemmy Kilmister
Corinne: Jimi Hendrix
Stefan: Joey Jordison
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
Actually, we enjoy so many things. For us one of the greatest thing is to have like a second family in which all are there for each other no matter what happens, you can celebrate together, you also have fights sometimes but always find a solution and can speak openly. But of course also the shared passion for music and to be able to share it with other people, getting to know a lot of different people and making experiences you would probably never do otherwise.
When we would hate something, we probably would stop being in a band, but of course it is sometimes exhausting and nerve-racking how much time and money you need as a band to be able to produce, playing shows, advertise and so on. But this is something you need to know before starting out and also define as a band what goal you want to reach and how much you want to contribute to that regarding time and money.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
We think the most difficult thing nowadays is to really earn some money with music. Streaming platforms of course help building a bigger audience, but it just does not really help the band finance wise, so all the revenue needs to come from live concerts, merch and maybe physical CD’s or Vinyl. And when there is a crisis like the one, we are in right now, this is also a revenue stream that gets lost on the band.
So if we could change anything it would be more opportunities for cultural funding, which unfortunately when it exists, in many cases tends to be in the genres of Pop, Rock, etc. and also to create an awareness again of what music is actually worth. But to be honest, with this number of bands it is completely understandable that not every band can get funding and that fans cannot spend too much money on so many bands.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
Michel: “Chocolate Starfish” from Limp Bizkit
Remo: “I Am Above” from In Flames, because it simply contains awesome guitar riffs.
Corinne: “Trauma” from I Prevail since this is an album I can listen up and down.
Sandro: “The Silver Scream” from Ice Nine Kills because it’s versatile and currently one of my favourite bands.
Stefan: “VII: Sturm und Drang” from Lamb of God
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CD’s or Downloads?
Definitely Vinyl regarding the quality and also the feeling you get when you hold it in your hands.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
One of our favourite gigs so far was the one on September 4th, 2021 at the Met-Bar in Lenzburg – the hometown of Corinne. First, we were all so happy to play live again, second we had an amazing audience which sung along and head-banged all their way through every song and last, there was an amazing crew at Met-Bar – everything from sound, lightening to catering was just perfect. All those great things reflected in our performance of course which is why we think it was the best one.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
We all love cooking and also cook for each other at each rehearsal in turns, spending time in nature (some of us by foot, downhill bike or motorbike) or caring for our families (some with kids or cats).
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
Michel: My band mates and Chris Fronzak.
Remo: James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Jeff Ling, Winston McCall, Jeff Loomis.
Corinne: Winston McCall, Kirk Hammett, Alissa White-Gluz, Tommy Johansson and my husband.
Sandro: My band mates and someone important from the music business 😉
Stefan: Chris Adler, Ali Richardson, Danny Carey, Mario Duplantier, Themis Tolis.
What’s next for the band?
Finally we are able to hit the stages again and quite some shows are planned so we at the moment focus on delivering great shows through enhancing our stage performance skills and show concepts, trying to get gigs outside Switzerland and writing new songs so we can release another album in 2023.
What Social Media/Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
Website: https://www.opheliaseyeband.com/
Bandcamp: https://opheliaseye.bandcamp.com/
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-833626332
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3hL6CM4UlNgPOtYttvDLPA
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/de/artist/135618262
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/ch/artist/ophelias-eye/1571416590
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.de/artists/B096WQ9245/ophelia’s-eyetag=smarturl-de-21
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OpheliasEye
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ophelias_eye/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@opheliaseyeband?
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OpheliasEyeBand
ReverbNation: https://www.reverbnation.com/opheliaseye#
Jaffa Cakes! Are they a cake or a biscuit?
Ha ha – difficult. In Switzerland a biscuit normally is something which is rather dry and hard whereas a cake is something moister and softer but a biscuit in Switzerland is small and a cake big. From the texture we would definitely say cake but from the size it would be a biscuit.
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Thank you for having us! To the readers: Thank you for your interest and reading all your way through this! If you like our sound we of course would much appreciate if you share it and support us through buying our music & merch through our website or bandcamp.
Disclaimer: This interview is solely the property of Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this interview, unless you have the strict permission of said party. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.