Everyone's got an opinion on Dragonforce. Whether you believe them to be musical mavericks or Guitar Hero sell-outs, the hyper-fast shredding machines recently put out their sixth album, 'Maximum Overload', and the title should tell you all you need to know. It’s packed with gloriously cheesy, over the top, zero-fucks-given power metal.
But, it's not entirely a slave to the Dragonforce script. There are no nine minute songs to be seen, there are gang vocals...oh, and there are some guest screams from Matt Heafy, the frontman of a little band called Trivium. You may have heard of them.
“We've been friends with Matt for a few years now,” Herman Li, one half of Dragonforce's airtight guitar unit, explained. “We've toured together, we're both into the same sort of martial arts too so we keep in touch. We were at the point in recording when we were going: 'What do we need?' We thought that harsh vocals were needed in certain songs like The Game, No More and Defenders.
“We thought that the songs needed some lower, clean backing vocals. And we thought: 'Hey, Matt can do all those voices! Why don't we just ask him?' Sam [Totman, guitarist] and I didn't really want to ask, because we're nice guys and didn't want to force him to do more work while he's off tour, but Fred [Leclercq, bassist] did!”
‘Maximum Overload' is a blend of Dragonforce old and new, with the best bits peppered with a sprinkle of innovation. Of course, there are still the madcap video game guitar bleeps that have become the band's trademark since their 2006 breakthrough album, 'Inhuman Rampage'. Li and Totman long ago came to the conclusion that the style worked and it’s not going anywhere.
“We've both always been into the retro video game sounds and I've always made weird noises on the guitar and Sam's always said it was cool,” Li said. “I've always been into the whammy-bar sort of stuff, but when you have another person telling you what's good or not it's better than doing it by yourself.”
“We've been doing it for a while, but it just sort of seems like normal now – they're almost like chords,” Totman added. “I was never into the really good guys like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. They're amazing but I never got into the albums, because I couldn't handle a whole album of instrumental. I appreciate them and I think they're absolutely amazing, but I'm more into catchy songs. I grew up learning Metallica and Iron Maiden and all those guys' leads.
“I really got into Death too, who had some great leads – especially on the 'Spiritual Healing' album. Even stuff like NOFX influenced me – they're not Steve Vai, but they've still got some really cool ideas with their guitars; the way they put certain chords over other ones to make these cool harmonies is just an example, but there's so many things you listen to that influence you.”
Despite all the fun and games, there's one thing that Dragonforce are universally famed and – perhaps unfairly – shamed for: Guitar Hero. Who remembers that? Who has lived through the hours arduously spent sweating in front of the telly, fingers bleeding and eyes in the shape of squares as you fail to complete Through The Fire And Flames on 'expert' mode?.
“I think we definitely opened up the power metal scene a bit with the whole Guitar Hero thing,” Li said. “But we hear people slag us off: 'Ugh, they're that band from Guitar Hero.' Funny thing is [that] every band's on Guitar Hero. Who isn't? People like to give us crap because people talked about our song most. Megadeth, Metallica Slayer...they're all on Guitar Hero, but we're easy ones to take a stab at.”
“Us being on Guitar Hero probably has opened up the world to power metal bands a bit,” Totman added. “But that always surprises me – power metal's the catchiest kind of music there is, which is why we wanted to play it. It's got the speed of thrash and the great choruses and I don't see many power metal bands breaking into the mainstream.”
Not only are Dragonforce dismissed by regular metal fans, they remain whipping boys of the power metal scene they are supposed to belong to. “We have been the black sheep forever in the European power metal scene,” Li explained. “People say: 'Oh, Dragonforce! They're weird, they're not power metal! They're too fast and they have too many solos, this isn't true power metal!' We don't even call ourselves power metal, because we've been out by those guys since we started.
“We're technically the most hated power metal band by all of the power metal guys in Europe...for not actually being power metal. On the second album [‘Sonic Firestorm’], before it even came out, I told the record label to put a sticker on it saying 'extreme power metal' to stop people complaining that we're not true power metal. I was sick of people saying that about the first album, which wasn't even as advanced as the later albums. There you go. Got it off my chest.”
That being said, Dragonforce have long been easy targets for purists. They are vulnerable to criticism due to the fact that they refuse to bow to convention. They're not re-inventing the wheel, but they don't need to. “Still, after all these years, no band sounds like us,” Li said. “I don't want to be in a band that sounds like everybody else, because that's so lame. You can express yourself artistically without copying.”
“I suppose it's nice that nobody's come along and copied us,” Totman added. “Maybe because it's difficult to do or maybe it's because nobody actually wants to copy us.”
What you see is what you get, then, which is why heads turned, jaws dropped and fingers were wagged when the band announced that they'd be covering Ring Of Fire on the new record. You know, by Johnny Cash. What's surprising about the cover, however, is just how much arse it kicks – rather than piss on Cash's grave, Dragonforce lads have morphed it into something distinctly their own.
“Since the beginning of the band, we've always said we don't want to do a cover because it's lame or whatever. Everyone does covers and they're always a b-side or a bonus track – they always seem to play the song exactly like the original,” Totman pointed out. “What's the point? We have enough of our own songs that we think are OK, so we just kept playing those. But now we've done five albums, we thought it might be interesting for people to hear us play something else – it wouldn't have been interesting when we first started, but it's kind of cool now.
“We wanted to turn it into a proper Dragonforce song, so we didn't want to just play Iron Maiden and do it exactly the same. I just happened to be watching TV and Ring Of Fire was on, and I just imagined it working as a Dragonforce song. I recorded the chorus on my computer with my guitar, put a fast drum-beat underneath it and worked backwards from there.”
Li, not to be outdone, chimed in: “And it's got the word 'fire' in the title!”
Dragonforce Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed September 17 2014 - EDINBURGH Liquid Room
Thu September 18 2014 - ABERDEEN Lemon Tree
Fri September 19 2014 - GLASGOW King Tuts Wah Wah Hut
Sat September 20 2014 - BELFAST Limelight 2
Sun September 21 2014 - DUBLIN Whelans
Tue September 23 2014 - CARLISLE Brickyard
Wed September 24 2014 - MIDDLESBROUGH Middlesbrough Empire
Thu September 25 2014 - MANCHESTER Manchester Deaf Institute
Fri September 26 2014 - STOKE Sugarmill
Sat September 27 2014 - BIRMINGHAM Temple, Institute
Tue September 30 2014 - BRIGHTON Haunt
Wed October 01 2014 - SOUTHAMPTON Joiners
Thu October 02 2014 - PLYMOUTH White Rabbit, Plymouth
Fri October 03 2014 - BRIDGEND Hobos Live Music Venue
Sat October 04 2014 - BRISTOL Thekla
Tue October 07 2014 - LEEDS Brudenell Social Club
Wed October 08 2014 - NOTTINGHAM Nottingham Rescue Rooms
Thu October 09 2014 - COLCHESTER Arts Centre
Fri October 10 2014 - NORWICH Waterfront
Sat October 11 2014 - LONDON Bush Hall
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