interview with Acracy (U.S.)

Acracy, a progressive metal band from Chicago, U.S., points out that the term "acracy" means, “in political philosophy, the negation of rule or government. A society with the absence of coercion; one of voluntary order.” In accordance with that principle, they say that "This is the very idea behind the recently formed metal band to hail from the Chicagoland area: one that writes and performs music without boundaries, without the standard rules of order, and without the impetus to follow the stylistic trends of popular music."

The band is:

Juan Cardenas: drums/percussion

Isaac Traylor: bass

Albert Rybka: vocals

Clint Davis: guitar/backing vocals

They are currently working on their debut album, so this is a new band, but these are experienced musicians who have in their résumés prog and heavy/power metal bands like Abolisher, Bavmorda and Katagory V, amongst other groups. This publication will be covering more on this band in the future, but in the meantime let's begin with this introductory interview. In addition, at the end of the interview you will find the link to the teaser video that they have published. This is all that there is for now, but there will be more in the coming months. Actually, they have some exciting shows coming up. Read on and find out! The band’s guitarist Clint Davis answered the questions.

Greetings! How is the metal life in Chicago for Acracy? You all live in Chicago, correct?

Greetings to you, too! The metal life in our area isn't too bad. I personally consider ourselves lucky be able to live and work as a band in our particular area. One of the advantages to being a performing artist in a larger city with many surrounding suburbs is that there are always plenty of different venues to play shows at. In turn, there are always opportunities to expose your music to newer crowds that may have never of heard of you before. It's also very nice to have so many different metal bands come through town on a regular basis. We were actually fortunate enough to be able to open up for Primal Fear for our very first show. So, yes, the metal life here is pretty good for bands and fans alike. To answer your second question, the members of Acracy all live within the Chicagoland area, but not in the actual city of Chicago. However in the past we have all lived in Chicago, with the exception of our bassist Isaac who is an Ohio native. We all still have family in the city so we'll always consider Chicago our home.

What is the history of your band?

Back in mid 2013 Juan, Albert and I decided to come together and form a new band. At the time I was already working with each of them separately in different projects. Both of which were lacking band members. We all loved what each other was doing as stand alone musicians and the work we each did in our previous bands so it made sense for us to unite as one group. We used the bits and pieces of material that was being created in both projects and got to work on writing a few tunes.

Throughout the remainder of 2013 and early 2014 we put a lot of effort into tightening up our sound and searching for members to complete our lineup. In May of 2014 we made our live debut as one of the opening support acts for Primal Fear for their Chicago stop of that tour. The show went over very well and it seemed that we were on solid ground. Unfortunately, despite our efforts to keep things stable we went through a couple of lineup changes over the following months. We'd made plans to start writing new music for an album right after a show we'd booked in January of 2015. Little did we know that there was another pitfall ahead. Soon after we started rehearsals for that show we found out that we would be losing our bassist that we had at the time.

As luck would have it, we were fortunate enough to have our good friend Patrick Gloeckle (drummer of Moros Nyx) refer us to a bass player that he knew by the name of Isaac Traylor. We invited Isaac out to the final show we played with our old bassist and spoke with him afterwards. A week later he was auditioning for Acracy. He's an amazing player and picked up on our material very quickly in addition to adding his own unique style which gave the tunes new life. He made a great impression on us all and we recruited him into the band a few weeks later. A month or so after that we began writing music for our upcoming debut album Doorways to Destiny which we're currently in the process of recording.

How do you see the music of Acracy?

Acracy at it's heart is a progressive metal band and we try our very best to keep things as versatile and interesting to our listeners as we possibly can. There is always an element of power and force to our songs. Even during some of the softer moments in our music a presence of metal can be heard beneath it all and I think that our listeners are able to sense that.

What can the listener can expect from Acracy?

Our music will most likely capture the attention of fans of progressive, thrash, power and traditional heavy metal and maybe even some fans of classic prog rock, too. I'd like to think that we may even be able to reach other listeners beyond those genres. When we started this band we agreed that we'd always approach the creative side of our music with one rule in mind: We have no rules, no restrictions. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I'd say that listeners should expect the unexpected. We draw our inspiration from many different genres of metal, rock and beyond so we're hopeful there will always be some sort of surprise in each of our songs that will catch our listeners a little off guard, in a positive way that is! (laughs)

What events drove you down the path of being a musician? How were the early days of forming bands?

My main influence has and always will be Led Zeppelin. Watching Jimmy Page in the concert film The Song Remains The Same is what did it for me. Oh, there was also this one episode of the 90's American tv show called The Wonder Years that played a small role, but that's another story for another day. (laughs) I also grew up in a house where my mother listened to a lot of old rock & roll from the 50's and 60's, my father listened to a lot of old blues and I had three older brothers who all listened to different eras of rock and metal, so I there was a ton of musical influence in my soul by the time I picked up the guitar.

It was definitely a challenge when I first began learning guitar to find others who not only played instruments but also liked and listened to heavy metal. It was extremely rare to meet other metal heads in my neighborhood. The big game changer was when I started going to high school. There I met my fair share of fellow metal musicians that played a major role in how I developed as a guitarist. One of those people I am still making music with till this very day which is our drummer Juan.

What can metal people do to support your music? What support do you like to see?

Keep your eyes peeled for the release of our upcoming album Doorways to Destiny. Check out our Facebook page and follow us for the latest updates. Come out to our shows. Let's us know what you think. If you'd like us to play a show in your neck of the woods then please contact us. Most importantly, support the metal community! Without you there is no scene.

Do you plan to tour?

We definitely plan on going out and supporting our album when it's released. We've played a couple of dates in Chicago this year and we're currently scheduled to play two more hometown gigs that we're pretty excited about. The first one being August 20th. We'll be performing on the second day of the 2016 Midwest Metal Anthem festival with a bunch of other awesome bands. Then, on September 2nd we will have the pleasure of opening for the Norwegian progressive metal greats Circus Maximus which will be an amazing experience that I'm really looking forward to.

Can you explain the reasons why you devote yourself to making music? Can new metal bands make money from their music? What is success to you?

I think it is possible to make money by playing metal music. It all depends on how hard a band is willing to work to make it happen. It takes a lot of investment of time and dedication to make a living off of playing music in any genre. But If you're passionate about playing music, money isn't always at the top of your list of priorities anyway. You make what money you can and use it to further finance your art. For me, I simply love music. I love creating music and the whole process of building songs, recording them and performing them live. So for me there's no other option. I couldn't pull myself away from music even if I tried. It's what I do and it's who I am. I couldn't really tell you if I think that we'll make a lot money from music or not. What I can tell you is that my bandmates and I will do the very best that we can to create the best music that we can and deliver it to the masses. I think that staying dedicated to that simple strategy will eventually produce it's own rewards, whatever they may be. And if we can continue to do that effectively, I would consider that to be a success for Acracy. That is the sort of success that creates a solid foundation that a band can continue to build on over the years.

Does living in a big city like Chicago impact your views on your lyrics? Chicago is in the news all the time, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not.

Most of the lyrics in Acracy's music cover topics that revolve around real life experiences. Self discovery, betrayal, love, sacrifice, death, and occasionally a bit of fiction too. Both Al and I write lyrics in the band and we have totally different writing styles so it complements the variety of our music.

What other Acracy news do you have?

Please stay tuned for the release of our upcoming album Doorways to Destiny which will be available very soon. If you go to our Facebook page you'll be able check out a teaser video that has a couple of audio samples from the album. You can also find the video on YouTube by searching for "Acracy: DTD Teaser Video". We're looking forward to its release and can't wait to share it with you all!

Acracy: DTD Teaser Video

www.facebook.com/acracymusic/

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