A Q&A with Into the Unknown

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Symphonic rock with metal influences, here’s James from Into the Unknown…

What’s the title of your latest release, and what does it mean to you?
It’s a self-titled one, just ‘Into The Unknown’. It’s a funny one because both me and Rupert (bassist) are very much against self-titled songs or albums, but in this case it is actually the song from Frozen 2 and we both thought it would be hilarious to cover it. Bonus is it was a fun song to learn. The second part of this release is 2 songs we each recorded parts to live and remotely in our own homes. These were done over lockdown because we couldn’t go into the studio, but was also just a cool thing to try out.

What was the hardest part about putting this release together, and why?
Just getting everyone to send parts in during lockdown. Some of us have half decent recording gear but others it is a bit more limiting, also putting the individual tracks together into a master as we all sent our parts in separately.

Who produced the release – what did they bring to it?
So Rupert, also our bassist, is the producer and has his own studio set up, so he can spend as much time as he wants working on our tracks fine tuning them. Obviously having it all done in house means we have ultimate control of our sound, and we can also use the studio as and when we want. Its honestly an amazing set up.

What do you want the listener to take away from listening to your music?
For me it would just be to inspire other musicians, the same feeling I get when I listen to my favourite groups.

How does a track normally come together? Can you tell us something about the process?
Yes, so being the rhythm guitarist I will quite often be practicing at home and come up with a cool riff that I think will work, although I rarely have a full song worked out. I’ll record some parts and over the next few months other members will come in to lay their own ideas over the top and the song gets fleshed out that way. The vibe each song has really does change significantly once you add the others in, and I really cannot second guess what they are going to do. Ryan is our lead guitarist, but was also the original rhythm player and his style is very different from mine. He has a knack for writing classic rock riffs and ballads so his song ideas usually revolve around that. Rupert goes with orchestration when he can so a lot of the song ideas he starts involve that, and then the guitars / bass / drums fit underneath, which is an odd way of working I think, but if it aint broke don’t fix it.

What band/artists have influenced you the most since you started this project, and why?
Well I am influenced mostly by metal groups… but if you mean specifically since joining the group. I have been listening to Poppy a lot recently, including all her weird early pop stuff. The recent Ghost album is very inspiring too, as well as some swing groups.

into the unknown interview rupert

What countries would you like to tour? Are there any standout venues you’d like to play in?
If I had to put a list together of cities together, well an easy first one to cross off would be Scotland, but a tour of all the Nordic countries would be sick, Japan as well if ever possible. As for venues, the main ones would be Wembley and the O2, as well as the Oslo Spektrum. And very specifically Richmond Virginia, that’s a special place for me just because of the impact Gwar have had on me as a player.

If you could pick one track for our readers to listen to in order to get a taste of your music, what would you pick, and why?
Hmmm, I would actually probably go with ‘It Is What It Is’ from the previous album Breaking The Silence. It’s one of my absolute favourites to play, but it’s also just a good representation of what we do.

What ambitions do you have for the band/your career?
Get a new album out and hit the road! We’re are actually getting close to that but still a bit more work to do before we can get a finished record.

Finally, as you leave the stage, what are your parting words?
Thank you for having us, and hopefully you fell inspired to leave your mark on the musical world.

For more info visit: intotheunknown.uk

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