interview: Analogy

Analogy is a prog power band from El Salvador. Guitarist and singer Edu Franco wrote back with some replies to the questions by this publication. Prog power supporters will want to check out this experienced band and learn more about the life of metal musicians in El Salvador, Central America. Their most representative recording is the album The Circle of Life and it is an impressive work with enough riffs and solos to last from here to eternity. The singing is great!

Let’s not waste any more time and let’s get on with the interview and follow the links at the end of this feature to hear the music.

Hello, Analogy rockers! Can you please tell us about your life as a metal band?! You are in the El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador?

Yes, we are in El Salvador, in the capital, San Salvador. Well, the metal life here is hard, nevertheless this is the strongest metal scene in Central America. Our life as a metal band is to live our lives as ordinary men with ordinary jobs until 5pm, then we play in gigs, record with other artists or participate in radio programs.

What is the history of your band and who are the members of the band now?

The members of Analogy are: Benji López on the bass; Maury "Chino" Lozano on guitars; Daniel "Moro" Jiménez on rhythm guitars; Alex Cordero on drums, and Edu Franco on guitars and lead vocals. The guy answering this interview is Edu.

As to where our story begins; Me and Benji started playing together back on 2003 when we were on high school. We started as a garage band playing covers from Maiden to Metallica and the like, we were kids back then, living on the eastern city of San Miguel, a place with hot sunny weather, the most beautiful beaches of all the Americas 20 minutes away and great food.

In 2004 we graduated from high school and moved to San Salvador. This is a beautiful city, with a lot of commerce, tall buildings and the worst car traffic in the world. We split up for almost 3 years and by that time, Analogy was only a good memory. I started playing with other bands, and during that time I met a lot of people from the local scene, had the privilege of opening for bands like Stratovarius and Helloween; we toured Central America and it was great.

I remember that on the Stratovarius gig on 2006, I was with Benji and Pablo (our first guitar player), we started talking about a lot of things and ended up getting nostalgic with all the crap we went through and how cool it was. We decided to start playing again as Analogy, but instead of playing the old kids stuff we played, we wanted to be a progressive power metal band, heavily influenced by bands like Angra, Stratovarius, Symphony X, etc.

We tried to get moving on that subject on 2007, we got our first lineup ready to play; Edgard "Colocho" Velásquez on vocals, me and Pablo Chávez on guitars, Benji on the bass and Richard García on drums.

As you can see, years passed and we were just trying to get ourselves together, we recorded several demos which are still out there on YouTube; we changed our lineup until what we have today. As students and youngsters, we weren't able to pay for a plan to go pro with the band; we had to go to college, some had to work and so on.

We begun to play as a full act on 2010, and all of our ideas started to come to life by that time. There were so many things going on, we were finishing college, playing a lot of gigs, we opened for Sonata Arctica and were releasing more demos to get more audience.

Finally by mid 2011 we started recording our first album. In 2012 we had it finished and by that time we got some offers from record labels, none to our satisfaction, so we delayed the release until 2013 to be independent. We didn't want to promote it outside of our country, and that's why until today we are promoting it to the international music market.

Just a few days we opened for LT Rhapsody and Primal Fear, and are playing a bunch of gigs over here and in Central America. We are already writing our new stuff and plant to take 1 full year to finish recording our album. Our world domination plan starts now.

What is metal music to Analogy?

We play progressive metal. To Analogy metal music is the only thing that makes sense; we interpret it as the expression of what we think and feel and the only way to share our philosophy with the world.

How many recordings do you have?

We recorded 3 demos on the early days, Starlit Skies, Tears of the Moon (it sucked), Petrified.

Then we released, on 2012 our EP entitled "Moonfire", then we released "The Circle of Life"

We recorded with a pop producer from San Salvador, it was his first time recording metal, then we mastered with Jochem Jacobs at Split Second Sound Studios in Amsterdam NL. What you can expect from our music is to be of a modest production quality, but full of feelings, strength, attitude, unique ideas and blazing guitar work.

What inspired you in the first place to pick up instruments and to make metal music?

For me, it was because of my older brother. He got the first guitar home, it was a crappy acoustic made by one of the city jail prisoners. That started a fire that up to this day hasn't extinguished and never will.

It was really hard to find the right people, and not good musicians, but the right people to work with. The audience here is good, but I think that people treat you with enough respect.

What can metal people do to support your music?

What metal people can do is listen to our material and buy it. If you are reading this, go to our Bandcamp page and you can get our stuff from there!

Do you plan to tour or to play shows in 2016 and 2017?

Yes, we plan to play, there are a lot of different things as projects right now that I can't really tell you something because nothing is definitive now. More importantly we are creating our 2nd album, so it will be a very busy year for us.

What is your level of success in Analogy? Are you able to be professional musicians and make money?

There are no millions in metal, at least not for us bands born in the 21st century. Either way it's possible to live from that in our countries. I think that with Analogy we will one day drop our jobs and start doing this every day, right now we are very recognized but are not famous, I think that we content ourselves with a good audience, a lot of touring and being able to pay our bills doing that.

What type of lyrics is important to your band? In the news there are reports of violence, gangs and murder in El Salvador. What is your opinion and how does it all affect your band?

Our music is entirely introspective, we try to tell stories and not focus on certain topics, we can talk about anything we want as long as the music goes with it or makes sense.

About the violence, yes, we live in the most violent and dangerous country in the world according to the news, but we are more of the good guys over here! It affects our scene because it scares international artists that would like to play metal here, they think that metal heads are gangsters and can get killed if they set foot here.

I think violence is the product of all the bad policies, corruption in all levels and what is left of the cold war that brought us a civil war between a rebel guerilla and the government more than 20 years ago. All the death, destruction, and disintegrated families and scarred people left in its sake are the melting pot where all this bad people spring out from.

What other Analogy news do you have?

Expect more from us, hopefully one day we will be touring near your city. We are working on a new album that will be heavy, more progressive, a little bit darker, and a lot more fun to listen.

Thanks for the interview, we hope to hear from you soon!

www.analogyofficial.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/Analogyofficial

THE END