Neith

Neith

Interview conducted on January 02, 2021

By Dan Locke

Neith it’s a metal band ranging from symphonic metal to progressive.

Jorge Soria- Bass, Francisco II-Guitar, Raziel Baruch Rodriguez Sánchez- keyboard, Vale Calzada- drums, Diana- Vocals

What is your upbringing?

 We all come from different backgrounds. Mainly we grew up in Leon, Guanajuato. México. Which is a city well known for the tanning industry and leather products, but as we grow old, that industry wasn’t really our thing and we explored different things, such a engineering degrees and even our drummer who studied a Ph.D.; The only one that has a slight different background it’s Diana, our Lead Singer, she grew up in Aguascalientes, which is a city near Leon.

How did you discover music? –

Jorge: I’m the oldest ones in the band, back in the days we used to trade mix-tapes with our favorite songs and music recommendation, in junior high I started to listen to the four big thrash metal bands, and slowly going into the more darker side of the metal music, until a good friend of mine and my first bass teacher showed me prog-metal bands like Fates Warning, Rush, Dream Theater and that blew my mind, I started to follow more and more that style of music, going back to the earlier prog-rock bands and started to shape my musical taste.

Diana: Well my story in music starts by accident, I didn’t even know I could sing until my highschool friends force me to do it because they were very shy haha, but I discovered that I really like it and enjoy it, so I started to practice by myself, singing different music styles just to know If I could do it, that was not one of my best ideas because I hurt myself more than once, fortunately, all these years I have known a lot of good singers that give me all their wisdom and share their own experience and also thanks Lord Youtube exist.

How did you start to write music? –

It was back in junior high, we used to hang out with our skateboards and one of our friends, buy a cheap guitar starter pack, with the small 20 watt amp, that we used to plug in the guitar and crank it up until it burned!, then the reaction of the group of friends was to “make a band”, initially I was interested in getting a drum set, but it was too loud for my house and I ended up getting a bass guitar. We started just for fun and making some music. But then, I started to study a bit and learned about music and changed my approach; I understood that music is as well a language and that can be used as a voice and moved from just a hobby to a way to express emotions and saying without words what I need to say.

Describe your music

– Neith is a way for us to explore different styles, it started with a more easy-listening composing style that eventually evolved to a more prog-oriented style, it’s always hard to describe your music when there are so many influences playing a role in what we listen to and play, I would say that our music has a heavy metal background as common root, but has some melodic, electronic and prog elements in it. So it’s a mix of our personal interests well blended with metal.

How did you get your bass?

 – The first bass guitar that I bought, was a cheap brand in the style of a Precision Bass clone, it was turquoise and heavy, was my very first one, the brand was “SUPLEX” which I haven’t been able to find anything about it, I save for a while until I get enough to buy it in a guitar store, then I sold it to a friend who was also starting to play when I bought my second bass guitar. I lost track of it afterward and I don’t know it’s whereabouts, I have had the chance to get some very nice high-end instruments.

What is the bass of your choice. Make, model and year

– This is a tough question!, My preferred bass for recording sessions and composing it’s a 92′ Japanese DR Heartfield bass guitar, it’s model is a DR-C 6 string bass. It has become a collectors item over the years, but the sound and playability is indeed very comfortable. For live appearances I usually alternate between two basses, a ’11 Mayones Comodous 6 String bass guitar and a Mexican custom hand-made 18′ Colibri JBT 5 String bass guitar, these have been in their cages most of 2020 due to the pandemic situation, I do hope they can be out more often during 2021.

What was your first performance like?

– Our first performance as Neith was back in 2013, we were doing the release party for our first record “The Secret”, we rented a small venue and invited some of our friends to play with us. It was a nice event with our friends and fellow musicians and was a nice evening. But as every new band out there, not much public.

How did the band get together?

– We started first as a recording band, with the guest appearances of Oscar Muro, drummer for “El Cuervo de Poe”; who lives in Guadalajara, and the lyrics and vocal duties were taken over by Luvia Ovando, at the time, she lived near Mexico City, so we ended up recording the drums in Guadalajara, all the guitars were recorded in our hometown, and over a weekend, Luvia traveled from Mexico City to Leon to record our first record. After some time, Oscar decided to leave, and then, our long-time friend Vale Calzada took over the drums and that’s when we changed the approach of being a “recording only” band to a more formal endeavor.

How did you pick your name?

– Neith it’s an Egyptian goddess, she’s the mother of all gods; so we considered the name to be short, having some catch to it and the powerful meaning behind was the reason we chose to use it as our band name, now there are a couple more “neith” bands out there in Spotify, but we don’t mind.

In the beginning, your first videos were just the band rehearsing and getting the first recording together. How was your fan base back then–

 Well, these videos were originally for us, so we keep tracking of our composition and re-take the song from there or changed as needed, hahaha.. It was fun to upload these rehearsals and get reactions from people regarding the music, the other thing is that we didn’t upload them “private”. Back then the fan base was mostly people familiar with our previous projects, Fran Fern and myself played in a melodic death metal band before, as well, Vale and Raz played before with Fran, kind of the things were changing and the puzzle pieces were falling in place by themselves, also a big part of our fan base back then was our students, as pretty much all the band members also music teachers.

How did you go from having Luvia Ovando to Diana as the lead singer?

It was a difficult decision to make and as well, part of the change in the way the band evolved. In our first record, all the composition of the base tracks and structure was done by Fran Fern, then we got Oscar Muro from “El Cuervo de Poe” to record the drum parts over Guadalajara, I recorded the basses on the studio by myself and then Luvia recorded all the vocals over one weekend. We used a lot of cloud-based services like dropbox to share the tracks and put together all the music, and then it was mixed in Leon at Control Z studios and mastered in Finland at Finnvox Studios by Mika Jussila. Was a pretty cool record, but after that, Oscar decided to focus on his band and we recruited Vale Calzada in the drums, so with this change, all of us lived in the same city. We started to rehearse more often and the composition process changed to a full-fledged band approach. We talked with Luvia and we are on good terms with her, she’s a very good friend and someone very dear to me, so after having this conversation, we auditioned several good singers and Diana was chosen since we liked what she did with the mockup song we send to her, that ended up being her first released single “overlap” and we decided to work with her.

What makes a good songwriter? –

 Diana: a songwriter is an artist, so for me, a good artist is one who can express their message and their vision to the audience.

Jorge: A good songwriter, from my perspective, is someone who is capable to convey their feelings and being able to transmit emotions to the listeners because we are talking about a truly universal language, no matter where in the world you live, music it’s based on the same roots and notes, so it’s a truly common way to express ourselves. A good songwriter should be able to understand that and touch-sensitive fibers to the listeners.

Do you belong to any songwriters’ association like the international singer-songwriter association?

– No, I don’t belong to any international association, we have already registered our songs with Mexican authorities to claim copyrights, as well, whenever we upload a single, we register it via our aggregates sites. But now that you mention it, I think I will consider it more seriously to get the right credentials and be part of these kinds of associations.

What was the title of your first original song? Did your record it?

– As an individual, my very first song was when I started to play the bass guitar, the song’s title was “Lost”, we recorded it in a tape recorder with a very crappy sound.

Our first demo song we composed when Neith was on the make, was recorded with better technology and we used iPads and a DAW software and a nice interface in a laptop to record it. Back then the lead singer was another girl and the title was “Explosion”, then that song was re-recorded and rewritten to become “Sailing” in our 2013 album.

What is your favorite track on the album?

 – For me, in “The Secret” album it’s “Just an Illusion”; that song is very energetic. And our recent single, “The Way You Know” is another song that I really like a lot.

How do you stay healthy when touring? –

Jorge: Well, a lot of water, eating well and at the appropriate time. As well, maintain good hygiene habits.

Diana: I have never been on a tour lol

What are you’re feeling about streaming music? –

 I embrace new technologies and streaming has helped us to widen our audience. I think it’s a good thing to be able to offer our music to more people and streaming is now becoming the preferred listening source for a lot of people. What I don’t really like is the low profitability associated with these services. There’s no way to make a decent living income there. So that’s the reason a lot of musicians, like ourselves have a “day job”, like all of us have an engineering bachelor’s degree and our music lessons for a living.

How can people forget about the origin hashtag # Sharp in a music score?

– ha, ha, ha, that’s great!.. When I started to see the “#” symbol used in social media, I often read it as “Sharp-Whatever!” until I got that the meaning was different. I believe symbols have different meanings depending it’s used, so for us in music it means a modulation of a note, while in social media, it’s a way to emphasize your message, in a way, they share the same meaning, giving emphasis to something, but the context is what makes them differ. Most people nowadays use tabs or YouTube tutorials to learn how to play a song and the use of “#” has become less important as its use now has a different meaning. I think that’s the reason people often forget about the meaning of symbols depending on its own context.

Digital vs Vinyl?

 – That’s a no brainer. Vinyl.. It brings back memories of my grand-mother housing having all aunts and uncles around the big-furniture sized turntable, listening to the “newest” records, it was always a bring together family kind of thing, and my grandma used to have a very nice vinyl collection. I don’t possess as many records as I would love to, but I do like more the warmth and special kind of vibe to listen to music on vinyl.

What are your feelings about the social uprising going on in the United States?

I have seen the news about all these movements and social situations going over in the United States, it’s a complex matter since I know that BLM and all other minorities have always been treated not as good as it should be, I know that even my relatives living over the US have been targets of discrimination and racism, it’s a very polemic situation and I do feel that these social uprisings is the people saying “no more”.

At the start of the lockdown from the virus, you did an acoustic version of Sailing. Whose idea was this?

It was Fran the one who brought the idea to the table, but we were wondering if we recorded a cover version of a song we all liked or an acoustic version of a song from the first record, we ended up having fun with the acoustic version and we ended up recording ourselves at home using whatever we could.

You just played out with fans a few days ago.  How was it?

It was a completely different experience, we knew there were people watching the live streaming and that bring us some motivation (seeing in the screen how many visitors the stream was having was good), but at the end of the day, we always need the real-time feedback from the people in the venue, regardless how small or big its, is always good to hear the people on the other end. For me, it was a good experience, I would do it again, but I always prefer playing live with a real audience in front of me.

What song from the past is in your mind right now? Moreover, what is the meaning that song means to you?

Right now, I’m listening to

There’s a “setlist” of songs that I end listening to for some reason, for instance, “One last goodbye” of Anathema is one of the songs I always listen to when my Grand-ma death anniversary comes, it kind of reminds me of her, even when she didn’t listen to them.

When my wife was pregnant with my daughter, she was listening to a lot of Cynic’s “Traced In Air” album, so that’s another of my preferred albums.

How do you feel the Covid-19 virus going to affect the music business in the future?

It’s going a be a massive issue in the music industry, a lot of people have been seen their works severely affected, the way we enjoy live music will change, with all the social distancing and the preventative measurements in place, music will never be the same and at the same time, a lot of fellows musicians have been struggling to get some money. this COVID-19 will impact our lives for the years to come, we don’t know the magnitude yet, but it’s going to be terrible.

What have you been doing with your self-quarantine?

Well, started to try to get as much work as possible while at home, I would say that about 75% of my “day job” can be done over email, which is great! I was able to keep working from home, the advantage of that is that I can keep working at home while warming up in my bass guitar, that helped me to study a couple of things on bass as well, I used my additional time to build some legos with my daughter, watch movies and try to get the most of the forced time at home.

Have you discovered or rediscovered any new hobbies?

I have always liked to cook, so with this time at home, I tried a lot of new recipes, some of them were a success, some not so much, but it was really fun to try new things in the kitchen with the family.

95% of people said that they have changed the way they watch television.  This includes people who don’t have television and using their computers to do streaming of programs and movies. Which is your favorite streaming channel?

To be honest, I don’t watch much open-air TV, I don’t like it. Especially here in Mexico, where the TV shows are so lame and uninteresting, I don’t pay for cable TV either, I have all my entertainment needs covered with Amazon Prime, Netflix and Apple One services. I have been debating recently to add Disney+ to the mix, but for the time being, I’m good using the services I have.

Many artists are doing nightly concerts over either YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.  In October that is going to change at least on Facebook.  Facebook is cracking down on livestreamed shows that include recorded music with new terms of service, preventing artists from using the platform for “commercial or non-personal” purposes, unless they have obtained the relevant licenses.

The updated music guidelines state that users “may not use videos on our products [which include Instagram] to create a music listening experience […] This will includes [Facebook] Live,” and stipulates that such content should be posted for the enjoyment of friends and family only.

How do you think this will change the landscape of Facebook?

Facebook has become a more restrictive platform of what it used to be, somehow I can understand they want to keep it “as clean as possible” but in the long term, we are faking a lot of things over there, so it will end up being a restriction that the people will figure it out how to fool and we will end up sharing videos and music over there.

For us as artists, it is not easy, for instance, we use aggregator services to share and distribute our music over streaming platforms, and sometimes they do a bit of a good job blocking the artist from sharing their own content.

In addition. From October 24 onwards, you can no longer simply paste your links in WordPress to make your Facebook and Instagram content appear on your site.  Will this affect how bands use Facebook?

Absolutely!. A lot of bands like us, that are independent, rely on these kinds of services and what used to make them so appealing was easy to use, so we don’t need “coder” skills to share your content, banning them from these services will lead to the music creators to look for simple solutions.

How can bands keep their fans if they can not play live in front of the fans and sell merch to them at the show?

Social media plays a role, Facebook interactions, Twitter, and Instagram are key players these days. We are lucky enough to have very well versed community managers taking care of it.

Is pay to play still a thing?

Unfortunately for the mainstream media, yes.. It is still a thing, that’s the reason so many independent artists like ourselves rely on other distribution channels and try to appeal to our public in these different channels.

What about Holographic concerts in our living room?

I like the idea, I have seen “Hatsune Miku” concerts over youtube and it’s amazing the things technology can achieve. So for this one, I embrace the new technologies and what they can bring to our lives, but on the other end, as a musician, makes me wonder how the “feeling” and the connection with the public will be ever achieved, how can we interact with the audience. I think the technology needs to evolve a bit more before becoming really appealing to that extent.

If you can’t do music what would you like to be doing?

I’m lucky enough to have two careers, I have a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering and a MBA too, and I have been working in the automotive field for the last 15 years, I’m a Quality Manager at the time, so my “day job” is very demanding but at the same time, is rewarding enough to keep me busy.

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