Interviews: Into The Unknown

This is a new interview with the Rock band Into The Unknown from the UK. Check out this interview and this amazing band.

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

The band name, Into The Unknown, was never planned ... in fact the band was never planned as such! I was working with Ryan on a recording, and we hit it off, so I suggested to him that we record a cover of a song that I had always thought would work well as a rock song. He then suggested the singer that was working with him in another band (Lucie) and we recorded together. We liked the results so much that we recorded another cover, and then wrote a song between us ... before we knew it, we had almost an albums worth of material, so the band formed organically, and was named Into the Unknown, as basically we had no plans and no idea of where we were going with it.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

I’ve worked in the heavy rock genre for years before we did this, and have always liked the idea of merging genres, so, for me, symphonic rock, merging classical style instrumentation with heavy guitars and drums was the obvious move.

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

I knew Ryan and Lucie in passing, as they played in a band with a friend of mine, and I had done front-of-house sounds for them but didn’t really know each other until we got together as a band. I have also known our new singer Natalie for a long time (even longer funnily than I’ve known everyone else!). James, Paul, and Richard, none of us knew each other prior to them joining the band, as they auditioned when we were looking to expand the lineup. Now, of course, we are family!

4. Each band member's favorite band?

Hard to answer really ... for me, currently I love bands like Nightwish, Within Temptation, Halestorm, but also going back, bands like Vixen, Def Leppard, Poison, etc. I know that Ryan is a big fan of Slash, and ACDC, James loves GWAR, Lordi, and Lady Gaga ... Natalie isn’t actually primarily a rock fan, and is more into her pop and jazz music, Paul is Bruce Hornsby, Bon Jovi, and Meatloaf.

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

Life ... there’s no fixed thing here, as you can see, everyone has different influences musically, so the songs come out of a melding of different ideas, band members come in with ideas for riffs or even whole songs but by the time everyone else has added their ideas to it, the songs are never the same as the demos. We don’t often write together in the same room, so it’s a very personal way of writing as a group ... I then have the job, as a producer of blending the ideas together. Lyrically, there’s also no set style, were not a band that is expected to write specific styles, were not political, religious, etc, so we’ve written songs about Monsters at the bottom of the garden, through commentation on terrorism, to feel good inspirations ... and even reimagining Milton’s Paradise Lost! 

6. Where was your last gig?

We haven’t done many gigs, because for a long time the band was just three of us as a recording project, and then the various restrictions for Covid/Brexit, etc. I think that the last one was an outdoor acoustic gig in front of 2000 people.

7. Where would you like to perform?

Without doubt festivals, I would love to play Sweden Rock and Download. I’d also love to play Wembley!

8. Whom would you like to perform with?

A dream come true for me would be to open for Within Temptation. It would also be great to open for Nightwish, and quite a few bands who I’m friends with that I’ve known for years.

9. Whom not?

There are one or two bands that I know that I would never want to play with, but I’m definitely not naming names!

10. Have any of you ever suffered from stage fright? Any tips for beginners on how to beat that?

I have ... especially having not played for a number of years ... I stopped playing completely for quite a long time, and sort of ‘came out of retirement for this band ... so the first time back was very nerve-racking ... but all I can say is you just need to push yourself to do it (and if the speaker stack is big enough you can always stand behind it until your confidence comes back lol)

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

As You’ve seen, there are so many influences on each band member that there can't be one single band that influences us ...musically it must be ACDC, Slash, Nightwish, and Within Temptation, but for other reasons, there are some bands that I admire greatly for non-musical reasons ... Def Leppard for instance for being able to move forward with so many terrible things happening to them, and In This Moment, who I admire greatly after hearing that they stopped a gig mid-song when they were told that a child had gone missing in the audience, and would not restart the gig until the child had been found ... much respect to them for that.

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

I can’t actually think of any weird fan requests, to be honest ...

13. What do you think of your fans?

Our fans are amazing ... it just humbles us if anyone else likes our music, and that they are affected by it. Being told that certain songs brought listeners to tears the first time they heard songs, as it resurrected good memories for them is just one of the best things to hear! We are constantly surprised to see how many people follow us on Spotify, Amazon, etc. We find it amazing that our music is consistently streamed on various sites, day after day, week after week.

14. What do you think of our site?

The site is great, keep up the good work! I have to say, I didn’t even realize that there were so many subgenres of rock, as you have listed on your site!

15. Something to add?

We have just released a single, a rocked-up version of “Into The Unknown” from the Frozen 2 soundtrack (Did you see what we did there? ;) ) which was a way of introducing Natalie as our new singer, after Lucie, unfortunately, returned to her native Czech republic. We are currently working on our new, third, studio album, which hopefully will see the light of day at the end of the year, or early next year.