EMQ’s With Cydemind
EMQ’s With Cydemind
Hi everyone! Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with Canadian Progressive Instrumental band, Cydemind. Huge thanks to their Pianist/ Keyboard play, Camille, 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?
We are Cydemind, a Progressive Instrumental Metal band. My name is Camille (a French name! we’re from Montreal and we speak French) and I play the keyboards and the piano. We’ve been composing and playing music for more than 10 years together. Except for Nico Damoulianos, our bassist, we’re all original members of the party. The band formed when Dage (drums) and Olivier (violin) were at school together. Then Olivier met my brother at the University of Montréal in the music program. My brother, an opera singer, introduced me to the band since he was a friend of Olivier!
We are great friends and love each other very much!
How did you come up with your band name?
Cyde was used, in the past, as a suffix in most words linked to death… Example: Homicide, suicide, etc. It is also a homophone of the word ‘’side’’, which adds possible interpretations of the band name.
We chose to use it as a prefix for the word ‘’Mind’’. We wanted to have the word ‘’mind’’ somewhere in there since our music makes us think so much and is pretty intellectual. I’m not quite sure who got the idea at first, but we found that it had a nice flowing sonority: Cydemind!
What Country / Region are you from and what is the Metal / Rock scene like there?
We are from Montreal, Québec, in Canada. The metal scene is alive and well here, particularly the death and black metal genres. Prog metal is never really the favourite genre of a country or city, unfortunately, ha ha!
What is your latest release?
Our latest release is a music video of ‘Hoax’, the first single that will appear on our next album The Descent. Here is the link! We are very proud of the result.
Who have been your greatest influences?
As we grew up, we all listened a lot to the music of Dream Theater. Then came Symphony X, Haken, Hago, Plini, Leprous and a whole lot of other influences that are not metal bands such as Tigran Hamasyan, Snarky Puppy, Reign of Kindo, and many more. Classical composers also influenced us a lot (Vivaldi, Chopin, Bach, Debussy, etc.).
What first got you into music?
Personally? Both my parents and my two older brothers are musicians. I’ve been playing the piano since I was 5 years old. Music is really a big part of my family, so it has always been present in my life.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
We dream about going on a tour with big names such as Symphony X, Leprous, Haken or Plini. It would give us visibility and maybe new fans! That would be a great accomplishment.
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
At the Jazz Festival in Montreal would be very fulfilling. It is a very well-known festival and most of the listeners are musicians. It would be a great honour to be discovered there in our homeland. We know it has great visibility too, many legends have played there such as Chick Corea, Béla Fleck, Victor Wooten, Uzeb and many more.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
We never received weird gifts. But we sure have read many weird variations of our band name: Cydmind, Cydermind, Sidemind, and many more. This makes us laugh a lot.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
We love you.
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
He’s not a rock star, he’s a classical star, but I would really enjoy being able to share our music with the greatest musical minds of all time such as Bach, Beethoven, or Chopin. I’d be curious to know what they think of it!
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
Playing music is an experiment only musicians can understand: it is so fulfilling and challenging! It is truly amazing to be enjoying the moment: everything else around us fades away. It is a great feeling.
What is sad about being a musician is that you can only rarely make a living out of it. It costs us a lot of money to produce music and we have almost nothing in return. Maybe the future will be wealthy, we will see!
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
A lot of promoters offer ridiculous jobs for bands such as joining a tour but at their own expense (often thousands of dollars) instead of paying them. That is very stupid.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
“The Cocoon”, from Richard Henshall.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CDs or Downloads?
They are all great. I do like CDs to listen to them in my old car 🙂
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
Probably when we launched our first album. The venue was not that big, but it was full and the crowd was very receptive. It felt great.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
I’m a high school teacher. I love literature. I love my job. That’s what I’d do. Maybe I would hike a lot more too if I had more time.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
Five great friends? Not sure about this question. I’d prefer to be with my friends and family rather than with famous people.
What’s next for the band?
There will soon be another single song out. There will be a playthrough video available at the same time. That song will appear on our next album “The Descent” due November 4th. So basically, our second album!
What Social Media / Website links do you use to get your music out to people? Please include any links
We try to be as accessible as possible. We are pretty much everywhere.
This link shows how well the guys in Cydemind are organized. Special thanks to our drummer Dage who can do anything with technology. He sure makes our social media image good-looking and professional.
Cydemind.com | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube
Bandcamp | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby | Google Play | Spotify
Time for a very British question now. As an alternative to the humble sandwich, is the correct name for a round piece of bread common in the UK either a Bap, a Barm (or Barm Cake), a Batch, a Bun, a Cob, a Muffin, a Roll or a Tea Cake?
I don’t know ha ha! I like the sound of Bun or a Cob.
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Not really! Thanks for your interest 🙂 Spread the love and the music!
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