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FRANTIC AMBER: "Burning Insight"

FRANTIC AMBER-  the young(ish) and talented all-female Metal act (no, wait, there's a bloke behind the drum-kit) based in Stockholm, Sweden, and featuring band members with their roots in Japan, Columbia, Denmark, and Sweden of course. Find out more about their debut album and the band. Here's:  Frantic Amber

Your forthcoming album is to be entitled 'Burning Insight' can you explain the meaning behind this?

The name of the album came from the name of the title song “Burning Insight” which is based upon the horrible rapes in India written for the victim against the violators and for the world to open its eyes to the horrible things that are going on. The name urges the offenders doing these crimes to come to a burning insight of what they are doing to other people and that they should stop and pay for what they have done. The name of the song then started to have a double meaning for the band, we ourselves had some burning insights and finally had to do something about them and at last we changed the lineup.

You've recorded and released the independent album in the past. Any "new" tracks on this version?

We have recorded and released some singles and an EP, but Burning Insight is our debut album. As a debut album we wanted a mix of songs from both our past and present to represent us, and also some of the earlier released songs that never got the right sound in the first recording. We wanted to fix this when we finally found the sound we were looking for and now have. The newly released songs on the album are several, but one that we think will surprise most people is the song “Soar". It’s even more melodic in style compared to what we played before and really broadens our sound. It will be the marketing song for the international album release since we will launch a music video to that song close after the album’s release date. The video has a sci-fi theme around Steven Hawkings quote that in the future machines might take over the world.

Kindly tell us something about the writing process and what you're trying to capture with your music.

If mostly starts with a riff that sparks the idea of a new song and we build on that. Mio is the one who puts the pieces together to form an outline of the song. We have many feedback rounds with ideas brainstorming and constructive criticism. When the musical aspect of the track is somewhat constant Elizabeth writes the lyrics and we iterate again with feedback and work with the entire song as a whole until everyone is satisfied.

Lyric-wise, is it the work of pure inspiration, dark fantasy, or the harsh reality?

The lyrics are composed of all three of the above elements. Some are about life experiences, some have specific themes, others about feeling a certain way or portraying issues of the world. The main purpose of the lyrics is to connect with the listeners and make them feel something, to be inspired and to be able to relate.

What kind of 'sound', production wise, did you have in the back of your mind prior to recording?

We wanted a production that didn’t sound too old school but neither too modern, we wanted a timeless production with the best from both worlds. Therefore our sound producer Pelle Saether mixed a lot of different kinds sounds both for guitars and drums and we think he succeeded with the mission we gave him. We feel that he managed to capture the live sound of Frantic Amber in the quality of studio sound. Hats off to him!

What kind of input did the producer have during the process?

Pelle asked us to bring albums with sound we liked and we had several talks before we even started recording. After we started we heard instantly that he knew what we were after and we got really excited. After the mixing and mastering it was even better than we could have imagined!

And are you pleased with the final outcome? (sound - production wise)

Yes, we are very pleased with the results and are proud to present Burning Insight to the world!

Your initial thoughts when Swedish police and SWAT team stormed your video shoot with all guns blasting (not literally). Are you supposed to use (fake) weapons while shooting (again, not literally) the video? :)

Several of us actually believed that someone really tried to pull a practical joke on us… But since we saw the big automatic gun and and the police vests we fast decided that to lay down was the proper thing to do. Afterwards some of us was a little bit in shock but since they were so nice after they realized we were not terrorists, we calmed down pretty fast. Yes, we are using fake guns in the comming video for “Soar”.

Frantic Amber, big in Russia, and it's all music - no politics?

Since our first tour in Russia 2011 we were received with such great support from the Russian metal crowd and we have been back to play as often as we can. It’s great fun and we love to visit our Russian friends when we get the chance. There are absolutely no politics involved in our band in any way Russian or otherwise. We are all about the music.

How do you measure success in this digital era?

It’s hard for a band to measure their own success in general, in one city a lot of people know you and in another no-one knows you. Of course you can, like the labels, look at numbers, facebook likes, Spotify and Youtube plays, but that’s really not the whole truth. We think that success is not something that comes with a number, it comes (in best case) with time and effort. Success is actually anything but numbers, it’s people. People that love listening to music, buys a t-shirt or come to concerts, aka fans. We are very thankful for our fans and friends, without them we couldn’t had made it where we are today!

Describe the feeling of being able to play at Sweden Rock Festival (again?)

It feels great! We are so excited to be back and play at Sweden’s biggest festival and will have tons of fun doing it. We play Saturday at 11:30 on the 4Sound stage so we hope that people will roll out of bed, grab a beer and rock out with us!

Why are you playing this particular style of music instead of Top-20's Pop?

We play the music we do because it’s what we love to play and listen too. We all have different influences but we all have something we like in the core of Frantic Amber. It’s the mix of influences that is Frantic Amber. We also think if you don’t play what you like, but rather for money, it is very hard to make something good. We want to do something we like and to have fun in the first place, money comes second to that.

Who are your influences and heroes (music-wise)

We have very different influences and heroes since we are five very different people. For the band as a whole, bands like In Flames, At The Gates, Hypocrisy, Killswitch Engage, Arch Enemy, Eths, Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork are musical influences.

If there's anything you'd like to add, say, please do

We want to thank all our wonderful fans out there who follow us and we hope to play for you again soon, horns high!
Frantic Amber

Interview by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom,

Photos from the band's websites  
www.franticamber.com 
facebook page 

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