Interview with Anthropia

Infernal Masquerade: Thanks for the interview, and let’s get started with the questions: 

I.M: To be honest I’ve never heard of Anthropia until I received your latest album “The Chain Reaction” on my ‘to review’ pile of CD’s a last week after the package had journey in postal limbo for a few months. Once I popped the CD into my sound system I was immediately blown away by the quality of the band’s music. Where were you guys hiding all this time? Has it been hard to try to reach audiences outside of France? (Your label did a very good job in sending both of Anthropia’s releases) 

Hugues Lefebvre : Hello and thank you for your nice comments. We received actually very good feedback from USA and France. I think we can explain this because our first label was American, but also because, in my opinion, Anthropia mixes european melodic metal and US power metal. So everyone could find something interesting in the mixing.
We actually never tried to “hide” (laughs), but it’s difficult nowadays to find a way to reach people more than the other bands, without having a major company doing a lot of publicity for you. We try to make the best we can to promote the band, for example by self-producing videos, like our last one on the song “The Altar Of Trust” that you can see on YouTube  :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du52MLfw8TU
Hope you like it! :)

I.M: Featuring a heavy Ayreon influence, your brand of Progressive Metal is something that most bands only dream of achieving, how did you guys got so good at composing intricate songs that tie to perfection with the lyrics? 

HL: Thanks again! This is really nice to hear this after the huge amount of work that this album needed… I don’t think that there is a “secret” when writing a good album, but one important rule (in my opinion) is to be very structured and rigorous in the elaboration process. You really have to determine what are the different steps and their deadline for example, that kind of things. In the case of this album, I nearly composed and wrote everything myself, and that’s why maybe, you feel unity in The Chain Reaction. 

I.M: Being a concept album can you tell our readers a bit more about the story behind “The Chain Reaction” and how did you conceive something of this magnitude? 

HL : Here is the main subject : the main character is a soul who is fed up with always doing nicely what he is told : in his next life, he will do exactly what he wants. Unfortunately, this behaviour and the tragic loss of his kindred soul will lead to an unexpected and tragic outcome, that I won’t unveil here (laughs).
Actually, I really love telling stories, imagining concepts, etc… That must be a trace of my game master experience in role playing games (laughs) I’m also a great fan of SF movies and books, so I guess this concept was created from all these inspirations.

I.M: Was the music composing heavily tied with the lyrical aspect, please explain how one goes about composing something of this magnitude? 

HL: Creating a project, I always begin with concept’s writing : the story in details in two words.
Then I cut this story in chapters that could be interesting to develop : that would be the future songs, one song per chapter.
Then I compose music on this basis : If the main feeling of the chapter/song is sadness, I will try to gather or create sad melodies, arrangements to put in this track. Same case if it the main feeling of the song is violence or horror : I will associate a big fat riff to this track(laughs)

Then, it’s really easy to put lyrics on the track, because the music has been composed from the “feelings” point of view.

I don’t say this is the right and sole approach to compose an album, but that’s my way, and referring to these steps really reduce difficulties due to composing in my case.

I.M: Starting as a one-man project, why did you decided to get full time band members and continue as a band? Has this added different perspectives on how you go about composing music? 

HL: Anthropia was indeed a solo project at the beginning for the good reason that I couldn’t find the right members at that time... I’m now happy to have found great musicians and friends that really fit with Anthropia, so it naturally became a “real band”. Like I told earlier, I composed nearly all the 2 first albums of Anthropia, but I’ll be now glad to let my bandmates compose and bring their own ideas to the next albums. These guys are really talented, and that would be dumb to just ignore it. Besides I could take holidays as they compose some songs (laughs).

I.M: I just started to give a few spins to the band’s first album, and there are clear differences in terms of the quality between the releases. How did you guys improve so much in a few years? 

HL: I’m actually very proud of the first Anthropia album “The Ereyn Chronicles Part One”. Of course there are some youth’s mistakes on it, but it is my first “professional” album and it really made Anthropia on the right way.
The Chain Reaction is more mature and stronger in terms of melody, arrangements, song structures… and we won’t stop here (laughs). As a musician, we always need to progress and make better albums.

I.M: I’ve seen plenty of very positive reviews for “The Chain Reaction” were you guys expecting this? Are you feeling the pressure when the time comes to release a new album? 

HL : It’s true that it is really great to see that the album get excellent feedback from the zines and the fans. We didn’t work so much in vain (laughs). Composing this album, we weren’t thinking too much about press reactions, I personally only wanted to do the best album I could. We grew our fan base with the Chain Reaction and that is a good thing. I don’t think if we can speak of “pressure”, but composing the next album, I wonder sometimes if this riff or song structure will not “shock” our fans too much… That’s new for me (laughs). Anyway Anthropia will stay Anthropia, even if we bring new elements to the music.

I.M: Are there any plans in the future for a possible tour in North America? How is the distribution of your album going on this end? 

HL: We are focusing right now on our upcoming releases : a mini live acoustic CD -that should be released around February 2010- and the next Anthropia album. We already began to work on it : concept is nearly finished and the first songs are going to be finished in the next weeks.

Of course we would be interested in touring over the world, we just wait for the right moment and the good proposition for it. Concerning US distribution, we have a little deal with The End Records, but we are still open to work with partners that could help Anthropia reaching the top! You can also find our albums on the main digital shops on the web (iTunes, Amazon,…)

I.M: If you had unlimited budget for a live presentation, what props and stage setting would you use and why? 

HL: I just think that the preparation of this show will last 2 years (laughs). You know, I have a lot of ideas and I am very pernickety in every project. So I guess I would have to think about every little details of stage structure, decor, costumes… My main goal would be to make the audience travel and dream. That is something you can do with music quite easily, but from a visual point of view, it’s quite harder, because you need a lot of money (laughs).

I.M: Having only a handful of well known French acts in the metal scene, but yet there are plenty of great underground bands. Why do you think that happens particularly in France compared to your neighboring countries that have flourishing metal scenes?

HL:It’s maybe because metal is totally boycotted in France. No metal on TV, on radios… it’s really shameful, because we have very good bands here too, that would deserve to be heard. So I don’t know, maybe one day, all French metal bands will gather and march down the streets to change this (laughs). But yes, it’s not really easy to be a metal band in France : most people still believe that we all are satanic and sacrifice goats. I hope this will change someday…

I.M: Lastly, since this is still very fresh off the press, what are your thoughts on how the French soccer team qualified for the world cup?  

HL: (laughs) I used to be a huge soccer fan in my youth, but not so much anymore… I only watch world cup. Of course I saw the images and I am dubious… I still don’t understand why video is not used yet to help referees, this would be so simple and would avoid those problems. I am happy for the French soccer team, but it’s simply sad that they qualified like that. I think Thierry Henry is a good guy, whose only mistake was this “hand reflex”. He doesn’t deserve all this bad reputation. But maybe FIFA or the referees do :)

I understand the anger of Irish people… But you have to know that France experienced this so many times : losing a match on a bad decision of the referee. So let’s say we are even now? (laughs)

I.M: Any other things you wanted to add for your fans and our readers of the USA? 

HL: Thanks a lot to all our American fans, you just rule, and we wouldn’t continue this adventure without you. I hope we’ll be able to come to play for you in a not-too-distant future. Check our new video if not already done, and stay connected to see when our forthcoming mini-live acoustic is released. Bye!

I.M: Thanks for the interview! And good luck promoting the new album