Interview Time! The Helix Nebula

Good evening lovely people. 

I hope you all checked out my new friend Cygnia's first post here on Musings yesterday! He writes about some awesome stuff and I am pleased he will be writing a weekly column for us :D 

Anyway, as you all will know, my featured artist this week is the amazing The Helix Nebula. Seriously, if for some insane reason you havent checked them out yet. Do it. Now. I don't actually think I have posted anything apart from stuff to do with these guys all week. So yeah, find them on Facebook, Like them, download all their music, let the eargasms commence. 

Sorry, ramble over. 

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to be able to speak to Jake Lowe, the bands guitarist, earlier this week. Here is what was said......

Hey there guys, thanks for chatting to me here at Musings. Tell us about The Helix Nebula and what you have been up to? 

We started out as a two piece studio project around February this year, between myself (Jake) and bassist/producer Simon. We've known each other for ages after meeting at the Australian Institute of Music 3 or so years ago and it just seemed right that we start making music together! We haven't been at this all that long so the success we've had online so far has been pretty unexpected. We've just been writing new material and putting together plans to take the project live in the long run. With a lot of procrastination and silly antics thrown in along the way!

 Do you set out to create a particular style of music? 

When I came up with the idea for this project I always had a very melodic sound in mind. I'm pretty sure this goes for Simon as well, but I've played in a band or two before that have been pretty aggressive and a lot less melodic so I wanted to give this sort of thing a go and see how well we could fuse melody with technical riffage because that's just the sorta stuff I naturally write. We don't really limit our selves in anyway other than our own personal standards, but there definitely is a certain sound we're going for. 

You have released a couple of tracks in the last year, are there any plans for a full length or EP? 

An EP is in the works!

If so, when? 

We're aiming to have it out well before the end of the Year. 

Who influences you musically? 

Simon and I both have really eclectic music tastes so influences come from everywhere. In terms of music similar to us I'd say bands like CHON, Veil Of Maya, Scale The Summit, The Arusha Accord and The Faceless. Oh and anything Ron Jarzombek does. But we really take influence from anything, I'm massively into Zappa, and Simon and I both love fusion/jazz artists like Alex Argento, James Muller, Adam Nitti, Tom Quayle etc. There's really too many bands and artists to mention. I'm really into Karnivool and Deftones at the moment. 

Are you out looking for a vocalist or do you plan to stay instrumental? 

We are still sorting out a full line up for the live band but we will have vocals. We understand that there are some people who need vocals to get into music, and we love music with both screaming and singing, but we also know there are people who find that vocals ruin some music so we're going to be releasing all our music both instrumentally and with vocals. Hopefully we can please everybody. 

We have a lot of Aussie readers here at Musings, so are there any plans to tour? 

At the moment we're starting to prepare to play live, we've actually entered the competition to play Euroblast in Germany which would be ridiculous if we go the spot! But at the moment there are no plans set in stone to play shows. Unless we get the Euroblast spot we're going to take as long as we need to make our live show as tight as possible. It's also hard because there is not that much of a technical metal scene here so you really have to play with any type of heavy bands you can. We're heaps keen to play with some other great Aussie bands though, Halcyon, Ignite The Ibex, The Schoenberg Automaton and Circles spring to mind. 

Finally, is there anything you would like to say to the readers?

We'd just like to say thank you to anyone who's supported us in the short time we've been around, the response we've received has been incredible. To anyone who has posted us on facebook, or shared our videos, you're the best and we'd be no where without you guys! Keep spreading the word! 

If you guys haven't already, there is an exclusive download of their latest track exclusive to Musings, so go get it HERE

Be back tomorrow peeps!