Heidi fala talks about the album “Attack Of Orym” and more
We had an amazing conversation with the vocalist of cinematic symphonic metal band Dark Sarah, Heidi Parvainen. She spoke to us about her career, the band and all the details of the new studio album “Attack of Orym” and much more.
You can listen to the audio interview below (in English), or read the transcribed interview.
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW BELOW:
Leia A ENTREVISTA transcrita ABAIXO:
Playfonic: Welcome Heidi here at Playfonic. So you guys just released a new album, Attack of Orim, before we talk about the album, I want to know how you started the band and what does the band name mean?
Heidi: I started in 2012, after leaving my previous band Amberian Dawn. And then I just realized that I didn’t want to quit because I didn’t have any other projects at that time. So I started preparing this solo project at that time. When I was already in Amberian Dawn, I knew I was going to leave. We agreed that we would do the promotion of the last album. so I had plenty of time to start building up this new project. I didn’t have the name for the band or the project at that time, but I started writing the first lyric. It was Save Me, the song, and there was this woman walking in a forest. This was my image and I thought, ok, what is her story? And then I started imagining what could have happened to her. Why was she in the forest, walking ahead? And then I started building this backstory. And as we know it started the whole concept album thing for us. “Dark Sarah” means. Sarah means princess, actually. It is an ancient name. It means princess, so it was dark sarah, a dark princess.
Playfonic: The new album is different in sound from the other ones, but it is still strong and it has power, the melodies are so good to listen to.
Heidi: Yeah, we are very aware that this will be kind of quite a different album from our previous albums. Also our last album, grim, was bringing some of the new ideas into our music. But this one is taking a little bigger step. This decision was made intentionally, because I was feeling a little bit down after we knew that we weren’t going to continue with napalm records, and because I felt that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue Dark Sarah at that time. I was so tired of doing everything on my own, like being an independent band. No one can actually know how much work it is. And when you grow this big, the job amount is increasing all the time. So I was like, do I want to do this again? So we started discussing with our producer, how about making the step now with the production style, so that would change the idea a little bit. We have been talking about the change in the production style for a long time, but because I wasn’t sure about taking the big jump already, I wanted to go slowly. But now we decided that ok, now its the time. What I have planned for this album, the songs, were already kind of the new style. And it gave us motivation. I started learning a new singing technique. It has been quite a journey, now we have a new band member too, so there have been a lot of changes in dark sarah. And we wanted to bring all these synthesizer sounds, electro, wave and also this kind of new cinematic sound that you can maybe hear in videogames. I’m a big 80s sound fan.
Playfonic: When did you start thinking about this new album? How was the composition process?
Heidi: I started really early, after the grim album was ready, I wrote quite many songs for this album, like demos that we chose from this album. I think it was in 2020 when I started. It is a concept album and it continues the story of the previous one, grim. This is a trilogy, so this is the second part.
Playfonic: This story is something you created, the narrative, or is it based on some real story?
Heidi: No. It is completely my own. I created the story from my imagination. The story can be familiar to everyone that likes reading books of fantasy and fairytales. So the tematic are the same. But the character Luna, monsters, villains, orchs, magics, villages, it is a journey. That’s why I have also written a story book to the album, like a physical book. They are quite short and written in a poem form, cause I want to have the same feeling on the album when you are reading the lyrics. In this way you can dig deeper in the story too. Of course you can listen to our album without knowing anything about the story, but if you like there is this possibility to read it and get the idea. We have the books for sale on our website. They are in amazon too.
Playfonic: How was the choice of the guests in this album, the featuring?
Heidi: Ah, Mark Jansen was my first choice when I knew that I needed this growls grunts voice, and then I knew him already. We toured together twice when I was in amberian dawn, so I know him quite well. So I contacted him and asked if he would be willing to come, to join this album. And he is a really nice guy, a lovely person. He said of course. And then I asked Asperi, who I also played with in two bands. He was the guitarist of amberian dawn, and also in my first band. We are really good friends, so it was easy to ask him to join. And the song we chose for him has the same energy of the Beast in Black albums, so he fits really well to that. And JP, he has been in the role of the dragon, so this is the conclusion of what is happening in this album. So once more he is featuring this album, let’s see if he will come sometime in the future.
Playfonic: When JP sings, he sings more in the back vocal style, not as a lead vocal, Was it a choice?
Heidi: Yeah, we did this knowing what we were doing. In the story he is already flying away, so we didn’t want to have the same style as before. He is singing with me the same lines and a little bit further away. So it feels like he is already more distant.
Playfonic: How did you do the art cover of the album?
Heidi: I was looking for the right art cover for this album for a long time, we tried one artist too but of course when you have a very strong idea in your mind it’s really hard to work with an artist who has his own strong mind about the idea. So in that way I felt that it was easier if I could find an already made picture. And then I started searching through all kinds of photo stocks. And in shutterstock I found this artist, and when I saw the picture I was like, ok, this is the one. It was close to the idea of what I had in my mind, I wanted to have this game feeling to it, and even though we don’t have anything to do with anime and japanese culture, it’s still kind of dark and it’s still colorful, like our album is. It’s dark and colorful. So we have this contrast going on. The story is quite dark, but still the music is colorful, also the visuals. Both really dark and colorful. In this cover there is this woman with a crown, and her eyes are white in a way that there is something, like, she is not there. In the story Luna has been sleeping because the monster put her to sleep, and she cannot move. She can move, but she’s not here. She’s awake, but not awake. Her mind is in another place. So in that way I thought it was the perfect photo. On the last song of the grim album, that is called the dark throne, she got the throne, but because the evil orb put her to sleep, and she couldn’t help the citizens, and now the new villain is coming to the city, she needs to be awake. So how they will do it and so on. So I was like, take my money, I bought the picture from the artist. I wanted to have a different art cover.
Playfonic: The music videos you released are amazing. Do you plan to release more videos? How was the production?
Heidi: I’ve been working with a video producer, Marcos. We know how he works and he always picks up my original idea for the video, and he kind of asks for it. It is always well attached to the storyline. But it was really fun shooting these videos, especially the warning sign video, with the flower gun. It is really different from our previous ones, and in that way I felt it was so refreshing. And No, I don’t think we will release more music videos. I have to say shooting music videos is so expensive, it’s like thousands of euros. And nowadays I don’t know if people watch that many music videos anymore, to be honest. So I don’t know if it is a good investment anymore. The primary thing is to promote the album.
Playfonic: What is symphonic metal for you?
Heidi: I think the symphonic metal scene is changing and we picked up the change already. All the culture and art is changing all the time, we need to change, otherwise we would become old styled. And I think that I wanted to change. And of course symphonic metal beats to my heart because I’m a classic singer originally, even though I experience different vocal styles, but still is something that I have education for and of course is something that I love the depth, the music and cinematographic style that it can create. So in that way it is kind of my lifestyle already. It is really refreshing to start and explore something new. This kind of change affects all styles of music. If you close your eyes, it is possible to continue doing the same album over and over again, but for me, because of the growth as a person and as an artist and a creator, it has been always like I’m in a creative flow and everything I experience in my life and artistically it affects also my art, my music, everything. That’s also one of the reasons why our albums are so different from each other, because all the time we are growing. It is good to shock a little.
Playfonic: If a person wants to know dark sarah, what song or album do you recommend for the person to listen to first?
Heidi: I would recommend something new. I think the song that represents our album best is “Warning Sign”. It is my favorite. In this album there are a lot of “disco vibes”. Because of these dark times we are living in Europe, I think that we really need this kind of color to experience. Energy and positivity.
Playfonic: Leave a message to us in brazil.
Heidi: Thank you so much. It’s crazy that there are people following our music very far away. So it is really great, thank you for following and listening to our music. Listen to the album on all platforms.
Playfonic: Thank you very much for giving us the interview.
Thank you for reading our interview with Heidi from Dark Sarah. We hope you liked it 🙂
