Dragonforce Ultra Beatdown Interview
Dragonforce Guitarist Herman Li on New Album Ultra Beatdown
Aug 10, 2008
Suite 101: Sales of the last Dragonforce album Inhuman Rampage were obviously boosted by the inclusion of ‘Through The Fire And Flames’ on Guitar Hero 3. Which tracks from Ultra Beatdown would you put on a GH game?
Herman: “Funny you should ask that. Right now they’re going to have a download content for Heroes Of Our Time, plus a couple of older songs as well. That’ll be available through Xbox Live or Playstation 3 or whatever network.”
New Dragonforce Bassist Frederic Leclercq
Suite 101: Ultra Beatdown is your first album with new bassist Frederic Leclercq. How did he slot into the Dragonforce fold?
Herman: “It was interesting at first because we had to learn how he worked and vice versa. He’s a guitarist though, so that makes him much easier to work with in the context of what we do. It gives him an insight as the bassist as far as song arranging and things like that went. It gave us a different sort of edge.”
Suite 101: When you’re recording these songs, is every note mapped out beforehand or is there still room for improvisation?
Herman: “A bit of both, really. There’s a basic structure and identity but we’ve been writing these songs for a year and a half and recording it for seven months. It’s all going to change many times. We never say ‘that’s it’ – every part of every song can change and adapt but by the time we’re actually recording them they have their own shapes. We always said if a part is not good it’s not worth having in a song so every part in every single song – the singing parts, the instrumental parts, the wacky noises – they’re all there for a reason. Some songs were even longer than they ended up but we cut them down to seven minutes or whatever because there were parts that weren’t really working.”
Dragonforce on the Rockstar Mayhem Tour
Suite 101: You’re currently finishing off on the Rockstar Mayhem tour in the States – how’s that going?
Herman: “Oh, it’s great. We’ve only two weeks left on the tour but it’s really been cool. This is the biggest US metal festival there is all year so it’s great to be involved and right up the bill.”
Suite 101: Do you think power metal is perceived differently in the States than in Europe?
Herman: “I guess so. As far as it concerns us, the difference is that in Europe some people might think we sound like an old power metal band so they never gave us a chance or never really listened to us. In the US they’re maybe more open in that they don’t immediately think it sounds like Helloween because somebody’s called it power metal. That said, I think we’ve moved so much that we’re not even power metal any more. There’s power metal elements but there’s also bits of hard rock, thrash metal, pure guitar music. You can call it new power metal or you can call it something else, it doesn’t really matter to me.”
Dragonforce UK Tour with Turisas
Suite 101: After the album’s out you’ve got the UK tour with Turisas. Are you looking forward to that?
Herman: “Oh yeah. That’ll be the first time that we’ll be really playing the Ultra Beatdown tour. We’re playing a couple of songs but at the moment we’re not on the Ultra Beatdown tour so the UK dates will be kicking it off.”
Click here for full dates and details of Dragonforce's UK tour with Turisas.
