interview: Parius

PARIUS is a young band making an effort to give their progressive music a bit of their own unique flavor, with various sides that make these Americans a headache for people who like to put music in neat genres. Parius is something like a bull in a china shop. That, or maybe, a crazy kid running around with a bunch of money in a big candy store and eating up as much sugar as possible. This publication’s questions were answered by Louis Thierry, the growler, screamer, vocalist in charge of the microphone for Parius, from Philadelphia. Their new album is called The Eldritch Realm.

Metal Bulletin Zine here. Good job on your second album The Eldritch Realm! How is life for Parius in 2018 in the city of the Super Bowl champions? The second album is all done, what is next for Parius for 2018 and 2019?

Hello, Metal Bulletin! Thank you very much, it was the product of a lot of hard work and time, and we couldn't be happier! The reception we're receiving is both overwhelming and very humbling. Winning the super bowl managed to tide us over until the album dropped. I think most of the trash from that night is almost cleaned up. Plans for the future include ramping up our show playing, working on getting more interesting merchandise for fans, and figuring out what our next project will be!

How much live work have you done in your area? Is it your plan to tour?

During our time as a band we've played a fair number of shows. Nothing too impressive, but we aren't new to playing live or anything. We've mainly played shows around the Philadelphia area. We venture outside of that occasionally, but not too often. We'd like to expand our reach to more of the East Coast. Anything farther than that will take some time. Touring is a dream, but for now it'll have to stay a dream. Most of our members have too many commitments to consistently tour, but some day down the line it could be a possibility. If the want is there.

How old are you all at this point? The picture in Metal Archives shows a teenage band.

Most of us are in our early twenties. Dan Silver, the drummer, is still a teenager at 19. Hah, yea, that picture is very old. I think we were all between the ages of 15-17 at that point. Maybe I should contact them and ask them to update it!

The first demo is from 2011 and the band began in 2011, right? What did you sound like back then?

Our first demo is indeed from 2011. It was called Demo-n. Very hilarious right? I thought so at the time at any rate. The band also formed sometime that year. We started completely from scratch. I'd say it was closer to The Black Dahlia-style death metal. We were all very into them at the time and it reflected heavily in our music.

Why were there were four years from the demo to the debut in 2015.

Saturnine was actually complete/mostly complete for a while before we released it. I went away to a different school for a while and it held up the completion of the record. aside from that we had just been playing shows and writing songs until we felt like we had enough material to record an album.

How were things going in 2015/16 after the album? How did people react to the album?

We would play shows around the area, but nothing too crazy. Reaction the Saturnine was lukewarm. I don't remember it well, but I don't think we knew how to effectively market the album. It was also and album made by mostly 16-18 year old kids and was largely derivative of bands we liked at the time. We finance all our work ourselves. Around 2016 Ryan, our guitarist, was working on Let There Be Light; our EP that came out in 2017.

Now here we are in 2018 with The Eldritch Realm. It’s quite the trippy album. Is there an overall horror story?

There is one overall story to the album! The Eldritch Realm started with me wanting to make a Twilight Zone-style story (hence the name). Since each episode is tied to a theme I wanted mine to be the idea of being caught in a circle and stuck on the day to day grind; finding it hard to break out.

The story follows a man with eternal life as he journeys to retrieve his mortal soul guided by the Black Moon, Lilith. He begins by contemplating the nature of his situation and sets off to see what lies beyond this realm and into the next; dealing with the answers he finds while being hindered by a cosmic force.

Have you always had in mind a genre-crossing type of music?

I think our first big genre-crossing was in “Another Kind of Reckoning” (2017) towards the end of the song we have a black metal inspired part. That helped us begin to really think about genre mixing. That and I try to listen to a diverse range of music, which is constantly giving me ideas to incorporate into our music. Ryan and I usually bounce some pretty crazy stuff off each other. I tend to go for the wackiest ideas. Not all of them are good, and not all of them make it through the band trial! But most of us are into prog metal and are every open to doing some wild stuff.

Has your vocalist always wanted to do different styles?

For one reason or another I really fell in love with metal vocals and all the other weird noises people can produce with their mouths. During the writing of The Eldritch Realm I was certainly wanting to experiment to create a lot of variety. I wanted some Dimmu Borgir spoken screaming/pitched speech. I wanted Devin Townsend style yelling. Southern-sounding yelling, trilled r's, choir singing, you name it. Not everything turned out as originally imagined. A lot of testing goes on in the studio. Many influences have inspired my vocals and sometimes Chris Kelly (our producer) and Ryan help me out. They help with harmonies and Chris is heavily featured at the end of “The Binding.”

What is the situation for the band nowadays? Do you have merch for your fans?

We're just working away on this release, expanding our live presence, and thinking ahead to our next project! We aren't currently signed to a label and don't have any plans to be right now. We want to concentrate on crafting our sound, and improving our live performance. We don't want to get tied up in contracts. We distribute our album on Bandcamp! We sell both digital and physical formats and stream anywhere streaming can be done! We are currently looking into making vinyls of the album.

Right now our merch is pretty bare bones, but we are working on getting some more quality goods out there. We have 2 types of t-shirts.

Is there anything else that you want to mention?

We'll be playing a few dates in late August/early September in the Philly/New York/Connecticut area, so keep your eyes peeled!

I wanted to thank Metal Bulletin for taking interest in the band and for taking the time to talk to us. Don't forget to pick up your copy of The Eldritch Realm from our Bandcamp. Happy listening!

parius.bandcamp.com