Interviews; A Thousand Years

In this new occassion we have had the opportunity to interview the Metalcore/Post-Hardcore band A Thousand Years, from Canada. Check out this band and give them a like on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name, you planned it or came out just like that?

It sorta just came out like that. I mean, back when Sam and Raph started the band in early 2012, Raph had came up with a Facebook page for the band and he had called it A Thousand Years for some reason. We simply decided to go along with it, I guess.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

Well, most bands in our area used to be either deathcore or melodic hardcore. I guess we wanted to do something in between. Plus, ever since we've started this band, we were influenced by acts such as The Ghost Inside, Parkway Drive, The Devil Wears Prada, The Word Alive, etc...

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

Well, kinda tricky question. Raph and Lloyd are high school friends. So yeah, they knew each other long before the band’s inception. As for everyone else, Sam and Raph had different bands and their paths would cross every once in a while, but that’s it. It’s only a few years later that Elrick and Pat moved to our area and became good friends/bandmates.

4. Each band member favorite band?

Raph: Underoath / For Today 

Elrick: A Day To Remember / The Ghost Inside 

Sam: Gideon/I The Breather 

Pat: Every Time I Die / Stick To Your Guns / Terror 

Lloyd: Architects / From Indian Lakes

5. Who or what inspires you to write music?

Musically speaking, Sam (our guitarist) is the guy behind it all. The guy spends an unhealthy amount of time putting songs together and jamming new stuff in his room with his home setup. Lyrically, Lloyd (synth) likes to write about books he reads since he studies literature. Off our full-lenght, for instance, 3 songs out of 10 are based on books. There is Handcrafted Nemesis which is based on Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), And The Weary Are At Rest which is based on an unachieved 19th century novel and No Man's Land which is based on Year of the Flood (Margaret Atwood). The other songs are inspired by different things, such as selfishness in our society, bad relationships and our own ambivalence (in our ways to act with each other).

6. Where was your last gig?

Our last show was back on November 4th, 2016, in Montréal. We played with Dark Century, Chariots of the Gods and Pronostic.

7. Where would you like to act?

We’d like to start with a Canadian tour to promote ‘Ambivalence’, in an ideal world, but we’ll be happy if we can tour the province of Québec. If we ever get signed one day, we would like to tour the US, but we do not want to set our expectations too high.

8. Whom would you like to feature with?

We all have different favorite bands. But there are singers that would fit very well in some of our songs, such as Sean Harmanis (Make Them Suffer), Mike Hranica (The Devil Wears Prada) or Jonathan Vigil (The Ghost Inside).

9. Whom not? 

Well, we would not have pop stars featuring in any of our songs, but that’s pretty much it, since we try to remain as respectful and open-minded as possible with the preferences of each and everyone about music.

10. Any of you has ever suffered stage fright? Any tip for beginners on how to beat that?

No. Except some technical problems which brought us more than once a huge amount of stress, we have always been calm on stage. You just have to be ready, I guess.

11. What bands have you inspired the most? 

Well, there are plenty. We all appreciate Bring Me The Horizon a lot, because all their albums are really good and the evolution of the band does not bother us, in a way that it still sounds good and that we do not think that they decided to change their musical style to pull off a publicity stunt . We also appreciate bands such as The Ghost Inside for their positivity and the message they bring in the metal community. Finally, there are bands such as Architects and Underoath who inspired us by the fierceness of their lyrics and their social engagements.

12. What´s the weirdest thing a fan ever asked you for?

Well, there are not many, but we’ve been asked to play in a wedding once. Obviously, that’s as weird as it gets for us.

13. What do you think of your fans? 

First, we do not like to think of them as ‘fans’, we prefer to say we have ‘friends who like our music’. But, we are glad to have a solid core of friends in Sherbrooke. They help us a lot when we release stuff on Internet. We would be nothing without our ‘fans’ who believe in us, so we try as much as we can to remind them that they are important to us, by giving all that we can on our live performances, by giving stickers to anyone who buys our merch, etc.

14. What do you think of our site? 

We think that it is really great for bands like us, since you help underground bands instead of helping big bands who are already established. It is also pretty nice that you promote the official Youtube channels of the bands instead of stealing their videos to put it on your own channel. In this way, you help local bands and let them grow independent, which is really good.

Thanks for having us!