Interview with Alexandre Rodrigues, the creator of the one-man-band project:
Crushing Axes
Monday – 20/September/2010
Cloaca – How did you come up with the idea and what motivated you to begin theCrushing Axes?
Hey there, how’s things going? First of all I want to say thanks, for the opportunity, the chance for promotion, and also for the great work the blog has been accomplishing for the underground.
I was in several different bands, unfortunately, they no longer exist. After a few years I realized, it’s complicated to be under orders, to be submissive when your way of thinking is way too different for the others.
My ideas for the songs were very different from the other musicians. So I realized: I must do everything myself.
Cloaca – When did you have that idea?
Basically ever since I got my first guitar, I’ve been trying to be on a band, I begun on the 90’s, I’m not quite sure the exact date, but I think it was on 97. The concepts, style for the band has been always the same since then.
Unfortunately I was part of bands at the time, and I had to respect their opinions/ideas.
I consider the beginning of the Crushing Axes in 2008, however the idea was something from the 90’s.
Cloaca – How was the name choice?
This part was very complicated, there are hundreds of bands, and find a good name isn’t easy, well, the name itself doesn’t have any special meaning, I took some photos from a friend’s Axe, so when I had to chose the name, the first thing that came to my mind was how the logo would be, and also that the name should represent the sound of the band.
Crushing Axes, I don’t know, I think it matches the sound of the band.
Cloaca – Why do you have a preference for a One-Man-Band?
Well dude, I have to confess, I prefer traditional bands, power-trios e and so on, there are only a few artists One-Man-Band that can get my attention, at first Crushing was supposed to be a band, by the way I begun to record the first album as a pre-production, my idea was send the material for other musicians, so each one would give me ideas.
But I worked really hard on the pre-production, I think that considering my financial conditions, the result is even better of what I would get from a studio, if I called the musicians to record in a cheap studio.
Cloaca – How do you promote your work?
I only make virtual releases, no distribution or record labels, so far I’ve been only promoting on the web.
Nevertheless I had a pleasant surprise, extremely professional people in various parts of Brazil, and people from outside the country are helping me to promote.
Among this persons are: The site Metal Prudente, the group Brazilian Metal Bands from Lastfm one of the biggest groups in the sector, The blog Discipline Of Steel, and Marco’s Blog Metal Brasil Downloads.
And there is of course your blog.
Cloaca – I noticed that your songs are a bit different from the habitual Death Metal. Is there a fusion of other styles/genres, can you tell us wich?
Before anything else, I want to say I fell honored that you noticed the difference in the songs, I think if is there a meaning behind the Crushing Axes project is to make something new, and collaborate to build the culture in the world.
I don’t want to mess the whole interview, but that difference was the main reason other musicians had a hard time do adapt in Crushing Axes, most of them want just to imitate other bands, remakes, I don’t have anything against this, by the way I like to watch tribute bands at live.
But when is about Crushing Axes, if you aren’t original it’s better for you to go home.
Nowadays this expression is very popular, people used it too much completely out of context, but I believe when you define yourself you are limiting yourself. I think is totally wrong bands choosing the style/genre before even start to compose, how can you choose a category for something that doesn’t exist? If is there not musical compatibility between the members, well, then they should never play together in the first place.
I would say the genre that better suits Crushing Axes is the Death Metal, is possible to find very much of Thrash Metal, and mainly Traditional Metal. I believe Crushing is mainly the fusion of this 3 styles.
Cloaca – What are your influences, from Metal and other genres ?
My main influence is the classical music, in general baroque composers, Bach, Corelli, Vivaldi, Rameau. I also like composers such as Beethoven and Mozart. I begun studying classical guitar, and I always study when I have some time left.
Nowadays would be very interesting to say I was influenced by a guitarist from the 50’s, I guess that would make me look better in the eyes of the critics, the reason I started to play the guitar was Iron Maiden.
Nevertheless once I started to study the instrument my main influence was by far the Randy Rhoads. Other musicians that influenced me was: Zakk Wylde, Jake E Lee, Van Halen, Alexi Laiho, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Satriani, Steve Vai, Tony Iommi, Andy La Rocque, Angus Young, Chuck Schuldiner.
There are other bands that influenced me as a group: Carcass, Obituary, Slayer, Metallica, Vader, Behemoth and Megadeth.
Cloaca – Tell us about your new work, the “Member Of The Unholy Society”, from this year, what subjects it brings?
At first it supposed to be a conceptual album, about the seven sins, some songs denote this, Wrath Of The Fallen, that supposed to be Wrath of course, Apocalypse Everyday would be Acedia nowadays is described by sloth and was used to represent the spiritual sloth.
Unfortunately, at the end of the first weeks I had tens of riffs and ideas for Wrath, Lust and Greedy, e none for Gluttony.
Oh yes, and the first song was a part of this idea, and I kept the name, Greedy.
Cloaca – How was the production process?
I usually take 15 or 20 days to record, is something so fast, I mean, there are basically 2 days for each song, so there isn’t time for pre-productions or stuff like that, nevertheless I have the facility of recording everything at my home.
Cloaca – How was the critics ?
That was another pleasing surprise, I was wondering about the resistance, I mean Brazilian Death Metal, One-Man-Band, you know? Apparently people have been more and more open to alternative styles.
The first work Bloodfield In Hell (2008), found more resistance, some people didn’t like the sonority of this album, from that time to now I’ve been improving the production process, nevertheless I still enjoy that style of sonority.
I try to help as much as I can the blogs and sites, at myspace and lastfm you can find some reviews, among that reviews you will find the review from Discipline Of Steel and Lastfm group Brazilian Metal Bands.
So far the album with best reviews is Member of The Unholy Society.
Cloaca – After this production, What are your future plans? Do you have any works in mind?
Oh yeah, I have so many ideas that I don’t even know where to start, of course some of that ideas might not work, and ruin months of work.
Among this ideas, I would like to try sing in other languages, perhaps Polish, people from Poland are giving me a lot of support, perhaps German, I will probably, almost 100% sure sing one or two songs in Portuguese, I tried before, but I didn’t like the results, I will put more effort this time.
I have something around 8 songs, this songs were made between 2002 and 2004, and I have some pre-productions, I intend to record them, and probably add some covers, something from AC/DC, Metallica or Slayer. Nothing is defined yet.
Also I want to record some videos, I intend to call some friends from other band, and record one or two songs from each album live in the studio.
By doing this I will have the video, and a different version of the songs.
I hate videos of musicians making different poses, where they don’t actually play the instruments and there is no meaning or anything, remind me some playback’s from pop singers.
Cloaca – Where to find material to know the band?
The main promoter so far has been myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/crushingaxes
Apparently LastFM is here to take the Crown:
http://www.lastfm.com.br/music/Crushing+Axes
You will find in both sites all the albums available for download, at no charge, free listening and downloading, you can also find alternative servers for download.
Cloaca – Any suggestion to our readers?
Besides Crushing, that have been taking my entire time, I have a traditional band called Legacy Of Death, is more traditional Thrash Metal, so far we don’t have any songs available, probably the members from this band are going to help me record those videos.
I also have a experimental project called Alex Locatelli. It’s a project like Crushing Axes, I play all the instruments, except that Alex Locatelli is a instrumental project.
Coacla – Final Considerations?
Well, I would like to say thanks once again, for the support and opportunity, I would like to say congrat’s for the awesome work you’ve been doing.
Thanks for everyone that supports the underground.
Crushing Axes is here to stay, and I hope to contribute a lot to the underground scene.
http://www.metalprudente.net/
http://www.lastfm.com.br/group/Brazilian+Metal+Bands
http://metal-brasil-downloads.blogspot.com/
http://www.disciplineofsteel.blogspot.com/ 
