|
 Benedictum released their second album via Locomotive Records on January 25th to critical acclaim, especially with the reviewers here at Komodo Rock. It's been said that vocalist Veronica Freeman has “pipes that need to be heard to be believed”. Hailing out of San Diego, and having worked with Dio's Craig Goldy, they have become the poster child of his new project the Destiny Bridge, a program aimed at sharing the knowledge he has gained over the years with other bands.
Goldy aside, the bands latest album 'Seasons of Tragedy' was
produced by another Dio man in Jeff Pilson, and features guest
appearances from the legendary George Lynch. Goldy himself makes a
guest appearance on the bonus track on the digipack version of the
album, a cover of Rainbow's 'Catch The Rainbow'.
Komodo Rock's Mike Elliott caught up with Veronica to find out more
about the bands new album 'Seasons of Tragedy', their touring plans,
and where she's sees the band heading in the future.
Mike Elliott: The album comes out in the UK next Monday. Has it already
been released in America or is it coming out over there at the same
time?
Veronica Freeman: No, actually I don’t why they did it this way. They
did it the same way with the first album. They released it in January
and then for the US it’s released in March.
ME: Any idea why that is?
VF: No, I don’t know why. Maybe they need to get the press together for
that. I know that Locomotive has been working with the press in Europe
so maybe they do it in stages and they have different people working on
it over here.
ME: So the album itself, you worked with Dio’s Craig Goldie as part of his Destiny Brief Project.
VF: Yeah, he had something to do with that. We didn’t work directly
with him on it. Of course, I’ve worked with Craig directly for a long
time, but he has been a large influence for us, so we got the fast
track on that with him.
ME: Yeah, you’ve been billed as the poster child so to speak for this whole project.
VF: I don’t have a problem with that, as much as he does for me. We kinda help each other out.
ME: That’s how these things should be really isn’t it?
VF: Exactly.
ME: It was him who put you onto Jeff Pilson who produced the album.
VF: Yeah, when we first had the rehearsal tapes and stuff back when we
first started out, he came to San Diego and listened to it and we’ve
always been in touch. You know one of those kind of friends that you
know is really close but you don’t spend a lot of time together.
ME: I know exactly what you mean.
VF: Yeah you know how that goes. But, you don’t miss a beat when you get together.
ME: It’s like you’ve seen them every day of your life, but you haven’t actually seen them for three months.
VF: He’s in the UK right now. He’s playing with somebody, but I don’t
know who. I didn’t get a chance to find out the name of the band, he
left me a message. He was the one who after hearing those particular
tapes said this is something he could really get behind. That’s when he
got us to put some stuff together and we sent it over to Jeff. When
Jeff listened to it he said that he was willing to take these guys on
and the rest is history.
ME: Nice. Kind of knowing the right people and being in the right place
VF: A big help my friend, let me tell you. We ended up working so well
together and Jeff is just amazing and I can’t imagine working with
anyone else. I don’t know who I’d work with if I wasn’t working with
him, I can’t even think of anybody because he is one of the first
people that I have worked with who actually understands my voice.
ME: That’s got to be useful for lack of a better word.
 VF:
Yeah, you go to the studio or something and they see oh it’s a chick
and set the levels for a faster voice and I have literally blown out
equipment before.
ME: That’s awesome!
VF: So he knows how to get to the right settings and everything for me. It’s very encouraging and all that stuff.
ME: It must be quite hard, the reaction you get for being as you said a chick. That must be quite hard to deal with sometimes.
VF: Yeah, sometimes it is. For the most part I’ve had it pretty good.
I’ve been surrounded by positive people and I’ve been very blessed in
that area, but I’d always had problems before with other bands who try
to put together a promo actually going into the studio and finding
someone who could work with me.
ME: Yeah, if it’s not one of those all girl bands people want to know why there’s a girl singing.
VF: Yeah, exactly.
ME: It’s not good, it’s not right and it’s not clever.
VF: Yeah I know but I can deal with that it’s ok.
ME: To be fair, once people hear you on the record it should change their opinion anyway. It’s pretty powerful stuff.
VF: Thank you.
ME: But of course it doesn’t matter that you’re a girl, it’s completely
irrelevant in the whole process which is the best part about it.
VF: That’s what I’m trying to get to because most interviews and stuff
like that want to focus on that and that’s just not my deal.
ME: No, it’s not important.
VF: I just want to do my thing and if it’s good it’s good and if not I
need to work on it. That’s how I look at everyone else. I’m not like
oh that’s a chick singer or a female singer or this singer or that
singer, I want to be a good singer.
ME: Yeah, you wouldn’t turn around to a guy and say oh he’s alright for a guy.
VF: Exactly, oh you’re a great male singer.
ME: Yeah, it doesn’t work like that and here we are not focusing on the
female singer bit at all! I think it’s true that times are changing and
you have more girls fronting some bigger bands, it’s starting to
change. But it hasn’t done yet.
VF: Women have been fronting bands for a long time, but in this
particular genre they’re getting a lot more attention which is good.
ME: I completely agree, actually no I disagree thinking about it I
don’t want them getting attention, they should just get out there and
do their thing.
VF: Exactly they should go out and kick some ass. They’re being recognised and I’m happy about that.
ME: Yeah, just sing some songs at me and if you’re any good you’re any
good. Anyway back to the album! You’ve also worked with the legend
that is George Lynch.
VF: Oh my god, yes! [Laughing]
ME: It was bit like that was it?
VF: Yeah that was cool. We had wanted to ask him the first time on the
first album, but we were too chicken to do that. We were just getting
to know Jeff and we didn’t want to push it and we weren’t sure how we
would be received or anything and we figured well this is our first
album he probably wouldn’t be interested, even though Jeff was a real
believer from day one. So when the second one came around we finally
got the nerve to ask, and we still figured, you know, he might not be
down for that.
He’s a private person and keeps to himself, but Jeff asked him and he
was like cool, and one of his favourite songs involved Balls to the
Wall anyway, so when we asked him if he could solo on that one. The
cool thing was, he came in and he started to do one song and he said
okay, I’ll do another, he was having such a good time. We were like,
okay. [Laughing]. So I got the phone call about that later and Jeff
went well I’ve got some good news, I hope, I’ve got him on Bare Bones
and Balls To The Wall. He was having a good time with us we went with
it.
 He was cool with it so I’m not going to complain!
ME: So, do you have any plans to tour the album?
VF: You know, just before you called, I was sitting in front of my
computer and emailing my booking agent, just to find out what is going
on because we definitely need to do something out there.
So we have some kind of festival coming up. The general plan right now
is to see how many summer festivals we can get so if you have any pull
at Download let me know! That would be a dream right there. To do a
little supportive tour somewhere either in the spring, which is coming
up real fast, or sometime in the fall. Waiting for them to get that
all together if they want to do it, it’s got to make sense financially
as well. That’s part of the frustration if we were over in Europe we’d
be doing it right now.
ME: You could be hitting all the European Festivals.
VF: Flying people over and a crew is really expensive so it has to make sense financially.
ME: Yeah, you have to get to the European festivals, whereas if you
were in Europe, you would just be there. Presumably you will be touring
in America though as well?
VF: You know I don’t know about that either. Our fan base is definitely
European and people are just getting to know us over here. That’s why
I’m really curious to know what happens over here and we’ve got a
couple of offers actually to do some things here so I hope those pick
up and we’ll definitely be doing some shows out here too.
It’s just at the planning stage right now so I don’t have anything concrete just yet.
ME: That’s cool.
VF: That would be great. I would love to get some shows out here and really push the album out here in the States too.
ME: So with music and the album in general, what’s influenced you, what’s helped you as a band come to the sound you’ve got?
VF: That’s a good question. Pete and I have been writing for a long
time, we were in a band together before this, and we have kinda just
developed our own little sound and we have our own little influences
that we come together. We kinda noticed that we have a certain sound
to it, so I really can’t put a finger on it, it’s just a collective of
the different influences we have and I try to listen to a lot of
different types of music so the approach always stay fresh. I don’t
want it to get too stale, so that’s where I’m kinda there with that and
a lot of it is Jeff who’s very influential and in the production
process of where we were going with that. He just helped mould us a
little bit more to where we were becoming.
ME: When I reviewed the album I said Beast in the Field reminded me of Meatloaf and Jim Steinman.
VF: [Laughing] Oh my god!
ME: How do you feel about that?
VF: That wasn’t a bad thing, I hope?
ME: No, no it was a good thing.
VF: Okay, that was a first for me. So I was like, oh I’ll have to check that out again now just to see that.
ME: It’s not something you particularly agree with then?
VF: You caught me off guard with that one there!
ME: So with this album coming out as we said this year, are you already
looking to what you are going to do next or is that too far off at the
moment?
VF: You know for me that’s exactly how I think, cos that’s what
happened the last time. The month or so that you do a lot of press, I
was like, all happy about that, doing interviews because I never done
anything like that before. And then they kinda die down, and you go, oh
we gotta do another one, and then tour and deal with Locomotive and I
was already stressing what we gonna do and how we gonna do this and so
I’ve just been getting into that phase now.
We pushed so hard and got the album done and doing a lot of press and
everything and now once that dies down and I’m like oh I personally
don’t want to wait two years between albums again. So right now we’re
negotiating with Locomotive to see what’s going to happen in the future
and hope everything works out well there and then figure out what we
want to do as far as writing and everything. Pete and I have already
talked about getting together and lay the skeletal structure of what we
probably want to do for the next one.
ME: A lot of people would sit there and not be even thinking about that
one yet. This one’s not even out yet so we’re not even thinking about
what’s coming next.
VF: Everything is so fleeting anyway, so I want to make the most of
this moment, and I’m not getting any younger, so I have to take
advantage of the fact. I don’t want to be out there with a walker.
[Laughing]
So you have to always be forward thinking and I don’t want to stress
about it as much as I did the last time, but it is in the forefront of
my mind, especially as this is where we’re going next. I’m taking in
the reviews and people’s opinions about things. You know, I want to
stay true to the Benedictum sound, and this one was a big change to the
last one. I think there’s a bit more variety in there, so I want to do
that again, stay in the bounds of what we are as a band. I’m starting
to jot down little ideas and stuff and maybe do a concept album and
have it all on one theme or something. That would be cool.
ME: If you were going to do a concept album where would you be looking to go with it?
VF: In my wild imagination? I’m always about you know the warrior, the
fight you know because I write about things experientially on whatever
level whether its spiritual, or emotional, and expand that into music
and other themes, so I’m thinking, I don’t know, maybe some female
warrior chick. [Laughing].
You know, in my wild imagination, I lie awake at night sometimes and
think about different concepts and I so wish we had the money for a
really good video. I’m a very visual person so I have ideas on what I
would like to see on the video, different thoughts and stuff. Where I
would like to go, but I haven’t got it nailed down yet, but we have a
couple of different ideas.
ME: So you’re talking about videos, are you looking to cut videos for this album or is it really money related?
VF: Its money! If you could drum up some investors! I think that’s all
where we’re at right now. There’s a lot of business stuff going on,
we’re waiting to see if we get the support for that. We’ve put in a lot
of our own resources to make this album happen and we’re really tapped
out now. We’re really hoping people will step up and say hey let’s do
this, something not too extravagant, you know not Cecil DeMille or MGM
release or anything.
ME: Hey why not? Aim for the sky.
VF: That would be great, yeah. Just give me your cheque card or
platinum card and we’ll make it work. I could do some shopping too.
[Laughing]
ME: There’s nothing wrong with that either! [Laughing].
A big thank you to Veronica for taking the time to talk with us.
Check out Komodo Rock's review of Benedictum's latest album 'Seasons of Tragedy' here, and find out more about Benedictum at the bands official website here.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
