AREA 54: Our Old Record Label Wanted Us To Sound Like KORN

November 3, 2004

British metallers AREA 54 recently spoke to Holland's Metal Maidens magazine about the group's split with Dream Catcher Records and tehir future plans, among other topics. Several excerpts from the interview follow:

Metal Maidens: Your first album, "No Visible Scars", came out on Dream Catcher Records. What happened, they dropped you after this release?

Lakis Kyriacou (guitar/vocals): "It just wasn't working because they wanted something different. They wanted us to sound like KORN or something but obviously we don't. They even took the piss out of the bands we liked…They also insisted we leave our jobs as they were going to pay to keep us going so that we could work on the band full time — they insisted. Then they paid us nothing and I watched as I got myself in serious financial debt waiting for them to do what they kept on promising was around the corner. It was a joke from start to finish and that was the wake up call to how it really is in this disgusting industry."

Laura Salmon (bass): "Nothing happened, that was the problem. They made promises they didn't keep. They didn't promote us and wouldn’t give us money to tour or any adverts or support slots having promised us new equipment and tours of Japan etc. For the recording they sent us to someone that was so clueless about how to record a complex metal band such as ourselves, it defies belief. When you're new to it all you have no choice but to trust those you work with. In this case we got let down. A different engineer confirmed he had done things badly in the recording. We should have been given a fair introduction to the public. As every band does, we learnt that you can only rely on things never going smoothly!"

Metal Maidens: You're still a relatively new name for a lot of people outside the U.K., what makes you different from all the other "new" metal bands?

Laura: "We like to put on a good live show and we like to be visually appealing as well as musically. I love playing live soaking up the volume and energy. Our riffs are often complex and we go through texture and time changes in our songs. For lots of bands, musical ability seems to be way down the list of qualifying factors. Image seems to be more important. I love having a strong image on stage, but as musicians we hold our own and we're just doing what we want to do. I think that’s quite different."

Read the entire interview at this location.

Find more on
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).