Vandroya (July 2013)

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   This interview was originally conducted for my website Heavy Metal Haven and is now reproduced to MMA due to the site's closure. Some parts of the article may therefore need to be taken in context, including the date of the review, which will not be recent. 

Although they started in 2001, it's taken Brazilian metallers Vandroya until 2013 to release their debut full-length album, One (late 2012 in Japan). Vocalist Daísa Munhoz discusses the album, the journey of the band, her connection to Soulspell and the Brazilian metal scene in our interview.

Heavy Metal Haven: First off thanks for taking the time with these questions and congratulations on One, a top notch debut album in my view. How has the reception been elsewhere?

Daísa Munhoz: Thank you very much. We are indeed very happy with this album, it’s our first one and we have been receiving a lot of good feedbacks from all over. It has been amazing.

HMH: You probably get asked this question a lot, but how do you like to describe the music you play?

Daísa: Believe me, we really don’t know how to describe exactly (laughs). We play heavy metal, power metal, with a little bit of progressive in it. But I don’t know how to classify it specifically, because we don’t think about how we will sound when we are composing, you know? We prefer not to name it, because we never know what we are going to create.

HMH: How did Vandroya first come together? I gather that you had some different line-ups in the past, so at what point did the line-up that recorded One come together?

Daísa: Long story. Vandroya is a band that exists since 2001, with many lineup shifts and breakdowns. At first, we were just a group of kids, teenagers that was trying to play something, learning music, and we decided to form a band with no pretentions at all. We just wanted to do some metal, talk about our favorite bands, exchange CD’s and experiences, this kind of stuff. But things change, we grew up, we gained experience, so we felt able to create our own songs and in 2005 we recorded our EP, Within Shadows, which was very well accepted. Then, the problems came and we decided to take a break on Vandroya’s activities, and I believe each one of us became more mature with this breaktime, and none of us stopped playing and learning music: Rodolfo Pagotto, for example, became a very renowned music teacher and Marco Lambert dedicated himself to musical productions besides his role as guitarist in Soulspell’s recording sessions and touring. It was only 2010 when we decided to finish what we started and it had everything to do with Soulspell. Heleno Vale encouraged us a lot and we felt that was the right time to do it. Now I realize that if we had launched this album before, we would be just a bad band launching a bad album.

Vandroya

HMH: Any major influences you’d like to mention?

Daísa: We have a lot of them, and they come from different styles too, not only rock and heavy metal. It ranges from Elton John to Dream Theater. When we were a cover band, we used to play bands like Iron Maiden, Scorpions, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Dio, Angra, Symphony X and so on, and I believe all these bands influenced our creations.

HMH: Although One is your first full-length, Vandroya has actually been around for over a decade now, and released a demo in 2005. How come it’s taken the band so long to release an album?

Daísa: Because of this break time we were obliged to enter in. We passed through a lot since we released that EP. We didn´t have any intention of making our own songs at first, but one day Marco Lambert appeared at a rehearsal with a song of his own, and this was our start, it was when we felt able to do more than just cover songs, so we recorded this EP named “Within Shadows”, in 2005. It was well accepted and we gained respect and fans on the scene we were inserted. But after that, problems came, many members left, we had no support and money at all, so we decided to give a break on the band´s activities. It was only 2010 when we felt we needed to finish what we started back in 2005. I use to say that this break time was extremely necessary to the band´s health, because everybody learned and grown a lot musically and personally speaking, and I´m pretty sure that if we had recorded and launched this album at that time, it wouldn’t have such positive impact like it has been right now. ONE came at the right time, with the best band lineup we ever had.

HMH: Both the songs from your demo reappear on One. Given the length of time between the two releases have the songs changed at all since 2005?

Daísa: They didn’t change, but we did. We are more mature and experienced now, so the sonority of them both right now is way better than the first recordings.

Why Should We Say Goodbye - Music Video

HMH: Has there been any particular challenges that you’ve had to overcome to get to the point of releasing your first album?

Daísa: A lot of them. Lineup changes, lack of financial sources, lack of faith in the Brazilian metal market. But we are here, and we’re not gonna stop.

HMH: Of course although we haven’t heard much about Vandroya in all these years, you’ve hardly been silent within the metal scene, having sung on all three of the Soulspell albums to date. How did your collaboration with the project come about?

Daísa: I met Heleno when he joined the band of some friends, Fairytale. He already knew my work in Vandroya. Years later, he began the recordings of "Legacy of Honor" and invited me to join them. It was an amazing experience and I learned a lot during the recordings and the tours. Heleno is a genius and I’m very glad with our partnership.

Daísa Munhoz

HMH: One actually shares a song with Soulspell’s latest release Hollow’s Gathering in Change the Tide. Who actually wrote the song and why did you decide to include it on One so soon after its appearance on Hollow’s Gathering?

Daísa: Actually, “Change the Tide” is a Vandroya’s song. It was composed by Daniel Manso, our former guitarist, and arranged by Marco Lambert. We had already recorded it with a lyric of mine. But Heleno Vale, from Soulspell, used to like it a lot and he thought it would perfectly fit into the Soulspell atmosphere and the character he was creating to Mike Vescera, and he proposed us to change the lyrics and a little bit of the vocal line, so the music would be owned by both Vandroya and Soulspell. We agreed and here’s the result: same music, two different versions. All the instrumental parts were recorded by Vandroya in both albums, Heleno didn’t change any arrangement Marco had created.

HMH: Any personal favourite Vandroya track?

Daísa: It changes every week, but my favorite one right now is Solar Night.

HMH: What’s the writing process like for Vandroya?

Daísa: It’s a free process. Everything can happen, and everybody in the band composes. But usually, the largest part of the compositions comes from Marco’s brainstorms.

HMH: Lyrically, what topics inspire you?

Daísa: The world around me, the everyday situations, and of course the way I see these situations in me. I usually write about myself, my particular world, you know?

HMH: Any live shows planned locally or abroad at the moment?

Daísa: We already did some shows here and they were amazing. We are trying hard to schedule more. You see, Brazil is a huge country, there’s a lot to explore although financial resources and logistics challenges us. But our fan base is growing little by little, so we really hope to be able to play for the most amount of Brazilian states one day. Of course we want to take this concert out of Brazil too, but nothing has been set yet and we know we are just starting our walk.

HMH: If you could tour with any band, who would it be?

Daísa: It would be awesome if we could tour with some of our idols for sure, or touring with only female fronted metal bands.

HMH: Realistically, when do you see yourselves doing a second album? I know some new bands like to follow up their debut quickly, while others take a few years.

Daísa: We are working on our second album already, but I believe it will take maybe two years to be released.

HMH: Have there been any particular career high or low points so far?

Daísa: Nothing that we can highlight, actually. Our career just started, although we’ve been on the scene for over 10 years, cause this is our first album. But till now we’ve receiving only positive responses.

HMH: Can you tell us about the album artwork? Who the artist is and if there’s any particular relation to the music?

Daísa: It was made by Felipe Machado Franco. He is amazing and he did a beautiful artwork. We had another conception of art for this album, actually. We were going to use images of a former industry of our city because we wanted to pay homage to our origin, somehow. However the result was not satisfactory, and that was when Felipe entered the scene; Inner Wound Recordings contacted him, sent him some songs and lyrics and he simply expressed in images what he heard. We just left Felipe's imagination fly and we didn't interfere in his creative work.

One

HMH: How is the metal scene in Brazil? I imagine it must be quite good having produced some of metal’s most well known bands like Sepultura and Angra. Also, who are your favourite bands from Brazil?

Daísa: The Brazilian metal scene is amazing and rich (the Brazilian metal market not so much). There are a lot of new bands popping up with very well produced albums and many were able to launch their albums out of Brazil. My favorite Brazilian band right now is Hibria, they are awesome.

The Last Free Land

HMH: Finally, are there any recent albums you’ve been enjoying that you’d like to recommend to our readers?

Daísa: They are not that recent, but I must confess I’m in love with Road Salt One and Road Salt Two, from Pain of Salvation. I never was a huge fan of them, although I always had an eye on Daniel Gildenlow, but these two albums really surprised me, they are kinda seventies with a lot of good taste stuff. I truly recommend them.

HMH: Thank you so much for taking the time with our questions. Heavy Metal Haven wishes you the best of success with One. If you’d like to add anything else, please feel free to do so:

Daísa: Thank you very much for this opportunity. I want to invite the Heavy metal Haven readers to “like” our facebook fanpage (http://www.facebook.com/Vandroya) where you can check out everything we are doing, pictures, release dates, music samples and videos. Thank you so much!

Vandroya on MMA: http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/artist/vandroya

Vandroya online:
http://www.vandroya.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Vandroya
https://twitter.com/vandroyaoficial
http://www.youtube.com/user/vandroyaofficial

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adg211288 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Visit Members Homepage Add to Buddy List Forum Admin Group Black Metal, Prog/AG Teams Joined: 05 Nov 2010 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 22293	Post Options Post Reply Quote adg211288 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Vandroya (July 2013) Posted: 22 Apr 2015 at 12:45pm
	This interview was originally conducted for my website Heavy Metal Haven and is now reproduced to MMA due to the site's closure. Some parts of the article may therefore need to be taken in context, including the date of the review, which will not be recent. Although they started in 2001, it's taken Brazilian metallers Vandroya until 2013 to release their debut full-length album, One (late 2012 in Japan). Vocalist Daísa Munhoz discusses the album, the journey of the band, her connection to Soulspell and the Brazilian metal scene in our interview. Heavy Metal Haven: First off thanks for taking the time with these questions and congratulations on One, a top notch debut album in my view. How has the reception been elsewhere? Daísa Munhoz: Thank you very much. We are indeed very happy with this album, it’s our first one and we have been receiving a lot of good feedbacks from all over. It has been amazing. HMH: You probably get asked this question a lot, but how do you like to describe the music you play? Daísa: Believe me, we really don’t know how to describe exactly (laughs). We play heavy metal, power metal, with a little bit of progressive in it. But I don’t know how to classify it specifically, because we don’t think about how we will sound when we are composing, you know? We prefer not to name it, because we never know what we are going to create. HMH: How did Vandroya first come together? I gather that you had some different line-ups in the past, so at what point did the line-up that recorded One come together? Daísa: Long story. Vandroya is a band that exists since 2001, with many lineup shifts and breakdowns. At first, we were just a group of kids, teenagers that was trying to play something, learning music, and we decided to form a band with no pretentions at all. We just wanted to do some metal, talk about our favorite bands, exchange CD’s and experiences, this kind of stuff. But things change, we grew up, we gained experience, so we felt able to create our own songs and in 2005 we recorded our EP, Within Shadows, which was very well accepted. Then, the problems came and we decided to take a break on Vandroya’s activities, and I believe each one of us became more mature with this breaktime, and none of us stopped playing and learning music: Rodolfo Pagotto, for example, became a very renowned music teacher and Marco Lambert dedicated himself to musical productions besides his role as guitarist in Soulspell’s recording sessions and touring. It was only 2010 when we decided to finish what we started and it had everything to do with Soulspell. Heleno Vale encouraged us a lot and we felt that was the right time to do it. Now I realize that if we had launched this album before, we would be just a bad band launching a bad album. Vandroya HMH: Any major influences you’d like to mention? Daísa: We have a lot of them, and they come from different styles too, not only rock and heavy metal. It ranges from Elton John to Dream Theater. When we were a cover band, we used to play bands like Iron Maiden, Scorpions, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Dio, Angra, Symphony X and so on, and I believe all these bands influenced our creations. HMH: Although One is your first full-length, Vandroya has actually been around for over a decade now, and released a demo in 2005. How come it’s taken the band so long to release an album? Daísa: Because of this break time we were obliged to enter in. We passed through a lot since we released that EP. We didn´t have any intention of making our own songs at first, but one day Marco Lambert appeared at a rehearsal with a song of his own, and this was our start, it was when we felt able to do more than just cover songs, so we recorded this EP named “Within Shadows”, in 2005. It was well accepted and we gained respect and fans on the scene we were inserted. But after that, problems came, many members left, we had no support and money at all, so we decided to give a break on the band´s activities. It was only 2010 when we felt we needed to finish what we started back in 2005. I use to say that this break time was extremely necessary to the band´s health, because everybody learned and grown a lot musically and personally speaking, and I´m pretty sure that if we had recorded and launched this album at that time, it wouldn’t have such positive impact like it has been right now. ONE came at the right time, with the best band lineup we ever had. HMH: Both the songs from your demo reappear on One. Given the length of time between the two releases have the songs changed at all since 2005? Daísa: They didn’t change, but we did. We are more mature and experienced now, so the sonority of them both right now is way better than the first recordings. Why Should We Say Goodbye - Music Video HMH: Has there been any particular challenges that you’ve had to overcome to get to the point of releasing your first album? Daísa: A lot of them. Lineup changes, lack of financial sources, lack of faith in the Brazilian metal market. But we are here, and we’re not gonna stop. HMH: Of course although we haven’t heard much about Vandroya in all these years, you’ve hardly been silent within the metal scene, having sung on all three of the Soulspell albums to date. How did your collaboration with the project come about? Daísa: I met Heleno when he joined the band of some friends, Fairytale. He already knew my work in Vandroya. Years later, he began the recordings of "Legacy of Honor" and invited me to join them. It was an amazing experience and I learned a lot during the recordings and the tours. Heleno is a genius and I’m very glad with our partnership. Daísa Munhoz HMH: One actually shares a song with Soulspell’s latest release Hollow’s Gathering in Change the Tide. Who actually wrote the song and why did you decide to include it on One so soon after its appearance on Hollow’s Gathering? Daísa: Actually, “Change the Tide” is a Vandroya’s song. It was composed by Daniel Manso, our former guitarist, and arranged by Marco Lambert. We had already recorded it with a lyric of mine. But Heleno Vale, from Soulspell, used to like it a lot and he thought it would perfectly fit into the Soulspell atmosphere and the character he was creating to Mike Vescera, and he proposed us to change the lyrics and a little bit of the vocal line, so the music would be owned by both Vandroya and Soulspell. We agreed and here’s the result: same music, two different versions. All the instrumental parts were recorded by Vandroya in both albums, Heleno didn’t change any arrangement Marco had created. HMH: Any personal favourite Vandroya track? Daísa: It changes every week, but my favorite one right now is Solar Night. HMH: What’s the writing process like for Vandroya? Daísa: It’s a free process. Everything can happen, and everybody in the band composes. But usually, the largest part of the compositions comes from Marco’s brainstorms. HMH: Lyrically, what topics inspire you? Daísa: The world around me, the everyday situations, and of course the way I see these situations in me. I usually write about myself, my particular world, you know? HMH: Any live shows planned locally or abroad at the moment? Daísa: We already did some shows here and they were amazing. We are trying hard to schedule more. You see, Brazil is a huge country, there’s a lot to explore although financial resources and logistics challenges us. But our fan base is growing little by little, so we really hope to be able to play for the most amount of Brazilian states one day. Of course we want to take this concert out of Brazil too, but nothing has been set yet and we know we are just starting our walk. HMH: If you could tour with any band, who would it be? Daísa: It would be awesome if we could tour with some of our idols for sure, or touring with only female fronted metal bands. HMH: Realistically, when do you see yourselves doing a second album? I know some new bands like to follow up their debut quickly, while others take a few years. Daísa: We are working on our second album already, but I believe it will take maybe two years to be released. HMH: Have there been any particular career high or low points so far? Daísa: Nothing that we can highlight, actually. Our career just started, although we’ve been on the scene for over 10 years, cause this is our first album. But till now we’ve receiving only positive responses. HMH: Can you tell us about the album artwork? Who the artist is and if there’s any particular relation to the music? Daísa: It was made by Felipe Machado Franco. He is amazing and he did a beautiful artwork. We had another conception of art for this album, actually. We were going to use images of a former industry of our city because we wanted to pay homage to our origin, somehow. However the result was not satisfactory, and that was when Felipe entered the scene; Inner Wound Recordings contacted him, sent him some songs and lyrics and he simply expressed in images what he heard. We just left Felipe's imagination fly and we didn't interfere in his creative work. One HMH: How is the metal scene in Brazil? I imagine it must be quite good having produced some of metal’s most well known bands like Sepultura and Angra. Also, who are your favourite bands from Brazil? Daísa: The Brazilian metal scene is amazing and rich (the Brazilian metal market not so much). There are a lot of new bands popping up with very well produced albums and many were able to launch their albums out of Brazil. My favorite Brazilian band right now is Hibria, they are awesome. The Last Free Land HMH: Finally, are there any recent albums you’ve been enjoying that you’d like to recommend to our readers? Daísa: They are not that recent, but I must confess I’m in love with Road Salt One and Road Salt Two, from Pain of Salvation. I never was a huge fan of them, although I always had an eye on Daniel Gildenlow, but these two albums really surprised me, they are kinda seventies with a lot of good taste stuff. I truly recommend them. HMH: Thank you so much for taking the time with our questions. Heavy Metal Haven wishes you the best of success with One. If you’d like to add anything else, please feel free to do so: Daísa: Thank you very much for this opportunity. I want to invite the Heavy metal Haven readers to “like” our facebook fanpage (http://www.facebook.com/Vandroya) where you can check out everything we are doing, pictures, release dates, music samples and videos. Thank you so much! Vandroya on MMA: http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/artist/vandroya Vandroya online: http://www.vandroya.com/ https://www.facebook.com/Vandroya https://twitter.com/vandroyaoficial http://www.youtube.com/user/vandroyaofficial
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