in Everett, Sat., January 7th: Aethereus

Aethereus is technical extreme metal from Tacoma, a city to the south of Seattle. They will bring their metal to Everett (to the north of Seattle) on January 7th, 2017. Listen to their 2015 EP Ego Futurus in its entirety at the first link below. This publication wrote to them to find out more about the band and Kyle Chapman, who does guitars and backing vocals, provided these responses.

Can you tell us how life is for a metal band like yours in the city of Tacoma?

The metal scene in Tacoma is a little peculiar. There are several metal bands in the area, but it's not as pervasive or unified as it was several years ago or like you see in larger areas such as Seattle. That's probably due to how few live music venues we have in Tacoma that cater to local acts. That being said, Real Art opened up in South Tacoma not too long ago and they seem to have a much more underground local mentality, so maybe that'll help rally the fans.

When did you form the band? What is the relation between this band and the band Seker? Was there a change in musical style or personnel changes?

Aethereus was officially "formed" in mid 2014. I say formed in quotes because it's essentially just a re-branding of our former band, Seker. I started Seker in 2008 when I was in high school and we played several shows from 2008-2011 in varying lineups. Ben (our other guitarist) and myself were the only consistent members until about 2010 when Shaun Hansen (of Terra Morta) joined. After several drummer issues, we decided to end Seker in 2011. After a year of jamming with various other bands and projects, we decided that we may as well rerecord all of our old material (plus 2 new songs) with programmed drums and self-release an album. After about a year or so of working at it, the three of us released Transcendence. It got some pretty positive feedback and that sort of reignited the spark. At the same time, all of the songs on Transcendence were anywhere between 4 or 5 years old by the time the album was released, so none of the material really reflected where we were at as musicians, let alone the tracks we were working at the time. So we decided that if we're going to keep this thing going, rather than keep using the Seker name, we would rebrand ourselves and basically start over from scratch with a new project (despite having the same members). That project was Aethereus.

Who are the current members of the band?

The band currently consists of myself [Kyle Chapman] on guitar/backup vocals, Ben Gassman on guitar, Matt Behner on drums, and Vance Bratcher on vocals. We are currently looking for a bass player.

Does your band have a new album or new music planned for 2017? You have an EP from 2015. What has the band been doing since the EP? Do you play in Seattle a lot? Have you ever played in Everett?

Yes, we do have new music planned for 2017. Things got a little derailed after we released the EP. As many in the scene know, Shaun passed away earlier this year. That brought everything to an indefinite stop for awhile. He had been such an integral part of the band and the writing process for the upcoming full-length that Ben and I weren't sure if we wanted to continue. Thankfully, Matt joined the band and helped kick our asses back into high gear.

We've been hard at work on material for the full-length. At this point I believe we're about 80% done with writing. We made our live debut this month (December 2016). Our next show we have is actually in Everett at Tony V's with Thou Shall Kill and A Flourishing Scourge on January 7th. After that, we're playing with Alterbeast, Depths of Hatred, Aenimus, and Aethere at Studio 7 on February 19th. We're planning on getting some more shows booked for the rest of 2017.

What other news do you have for 2017?

Right now our focus is on playing some shows and finishing the full-length. I'm hoping that by April or May, we'll be able to start doing some of the final tracking. Only time will tell.

aethereus.bandcamp.com/album/ego-futurus

facebook.com/aethereusband/