23:53 - Sunny PagliaccioNote to self: Do NOT open links on max volume in the middle of a quiet night. Otherwise, not bad. :D

23:52 - ApothecaryFast food workers planning a strike in support of $15/hour wages next month. I'm a tutor in a reading lab at a college and I don't even make that much, a bit of an overestimation of one's importance, don'tcha think?

Let's be honest, there's something horribly unexciting about most up-and-coming bands. More often than not, brand-spanking-new bands that are worth further investigation are a tough find. Even if they are moderately decent, they still rarely have anything worthy of further investigation. Well, here's one of the few worth knowing about, folks. Titans Eve - an up-and-comer Vancouver thrash band putting out music that's as tight as a long-time staple name, but with the energy you'd expect from a band this new. Talking about the current tour across North America, stopping through with Woods Of Ypres, and of course, a more introspective look at their solid debut album.

Doc: So you guys are on a brand new tour, how is that going so far?

Brian: It's going really good so far, man. This is our second date here in Calgary, we're stoked to play The Distillery, also to play with 'The Woods for a few dates before we hit Seattle is great. It's going good.

Doc: So looking at your myspace, it looks like it's going to be your biggest tour ever so far, is that correct?

Brian: Yeah, last year we did a month-long tour of Canada, this month we're going for a two month North American tour, so it's definitely our biggest.

Doc: Basically it seems like album sales are shit wall-to-wall unless you're Taylor Swift or Susan Boyle, success in more cult-following based music genres are based more on tours than anything else. Do you find you guys are where you want to be, have you hit all your goals so far?

Kyle: Every year is different, we usually plan it out for the year. What we've done for this year is book a tour to support the album - that's what this year is all about. We also have Brazil at the end of the year, so all our plans seem to be following through so far.

Doc: A lot of bands I've talked to say it's easier touring places like Europe and Japan (money wise, travel wise etc.) do you guys plan on heading over there soon?

Brian: We've got South America in December, so we're going to be doing a month long tour of South America, we'll find out how good it is. I hear it's great though!

Doc: You guys are paired up with Woods Of Ypres this tour, comparatively speaking you guys play much different music than they do, have you guys had any trouble getting people into your music considering the vast differences?

Brian: So far we've only played one gig with them so far in Winnipeg. We played one show with them last year in Ottawa. I think as long as you've got good energy, it's going to translate to both crowds. Of course at every show you're going to get those people that go for certain bands.

Jesse: There's a lot of those bills now where you're going to get folk metal bands playing with death metal bands or whatever. I think it's better to have variety on a bill rather than have three or four bands of the exact same genre. Those are the ones I like to see.

Doc: Listening to the album, it seems you've got a pretty heavy focus on creating an anthem-like feel to your songs. Have the crowds been picking up on that? Chanting along in some places?

Kyle: Well usually if they check out our myspace before the show and they learn a couple of words they do. Like last night in Medicine Hat, there was a handful of kids who knew some of the choruses, they were singing along.

Doc: Take "Into The Fire" for example, that one is catchy right off the bat...

Brian: We get that a lot, people chanting along to that song a lot. "Nightfall" - that's another where there's been a lot of chanting.

Doc: Has there been any places where you've been surprised to find that sort of familiarity?

Kyle: Yeah. We played St. John New Brunswick last year. There wasn't a lot of people there, there was maybe like five people, but of those five people, two of them drove two hours just to see us. They knew most of the choruses to our songs, that was a huge surprise.

Casey: When we go back, we're hoping there's at least ten people.

Doc: So back to the album, since you're fairly new (globally speaking), for people who haven't checked you out yet, what can they expect to hear when they listen to your album?

Brian: With our music we've got a powerful live show. Straight-up, we just like to give people energy, empower them. Hopefully they'll give us some back.

Doc: I'm also hearing a wide array of influences in there - Testament, maybe some Entombed, a bit of metalcore in the melodies a bit. Is that written as a coherent group or is everyone bringing in different sounds?

Brian: A lot of people ask me these questions, but the truth is, Kyle & I do the song writing, and I can only name one Testament song, I don't think I've heard any Entombed. People also say Machine Head and Arch Enemy. What I think it is is that those bands have just had a massive influence on metal as a whole that anyone you listen to will have that indirect sound. We don't write music thinking "we want to sound like this", we just like to write powerful music, and sometimes it comes out that way.

Doc: So what are some of your main influences then?

Brian: Well Judas Priest is a big influence on Titans Eve for sure. As far as Casey goes, he's into the extreme metal when it comes to his drumming. Jesse, he's into the anthem stuff, too. We also like a lot of classical scores. I could say I like Arch Enemy and lots of other metal bands, but we don't really have a set group that we stick to.

Doc: Looking at the album & song titles, it seems they all fit together in a general theme. Is it a concept album of sorts?

Brian: That's exactly what it is. It's based on Paradise Lost and the book of Genesis. Kyle and I sort of took that story of a fallen angel. From start to finish it sort of goes through that.

Doc: If you guys had to choose one song off the album to get people into Titans Eve, which song would you choose?

Brian: I'd personally have to go with "Tides Of Doom".

Casey: Yeah, I'd agree with him, "Tides Of Doom".

Jesse: Good choice. I'd either say that or "Becoming The Demon".

Kyle: Yeah, definitely "Tides Of Doom".

Doc:You were also telling me about another album in the works already. How is that progressing from what you've already done with the first album?

Brian: It's going to be another concept album. I'm not going to say too much yet, but it's going to be really cool. It's going to be a lot more aggressive and powerful. We've got three or four "Tides Of Doom" I guess you could say. We wanted a lot more high-energy fast songs on this one. We're not going to lose the melody, it's still Titans Eve.

Doc: Is the concept going to be a continuation of the theme in the first album?

Brian: Well we didn't want to do another concept on that right away. We wanted to branch out and do another concept, so it's unrelated. I think we might return to that and make a chapter two of it at some point.

Doc: You guys also recently found bootlegged Titans Eve t-shirts in Indonesia, is there some weird cult following for you guys over there?

Brian: My friend Jens in Germany, who is supporting Titans Eve over there, I sent him a bunch of CDs to distribute to clubs and stuff over there. He tells me "Brian, I found something...It's so weird, man". So he sends me this link, and out of Bali, Indonesia, and they're bootlegging more than just our bands shirt, but our band was their feature. So I ordered one. I thought it was pretty funny.

Doc: Do they actually look good or are they reprints of what you already have?

Brian: They're not a t-shirt we've actually ever printed. They are our album cover, and they've grafted it onto our shirt. It looked alright, so we'll see.

Doc: Speaking of losing money, you guys have also put your album up on the internet as a "pay what you want" type deal, how's that working out so far?

Brian: You know what? I find that most people like to pay 20 cents. Europeans are generally pretty good though, I've noticed a lot of people around there will pay what the album is worth. For the most part though, people just pay what they want, and people don't want to pay a lot.

Kyle: Some times it's 5 cents, some times it's 5 bucks.

Brian: Some times it's 10.

Doc: Well, good luck with that. How can you guys afford this?

Brian: Honestly, it comes down to touring. Last night in Medicine Hat, we made enough off that one stop to make it all the way back to Vancouver. It keeps the machine going. We just have to build a good rapport and keep doing better. Since there's no real market for CD's anymore, you just gotta tour and build the machine.

Doc: For the "pay what you want" - is that the physical copy or the download of the album?

Brian: It could be both. If you go to CD baby, there's digital there. Or you could contact our e-mail nacht_54@yahoo.com, give us your mailing address and we'll send you the album and a shirt or whatever you want.

Doc: So I gotta ask - the name. I had one person speculate that it was an amalgamation of the 80's thrash band Hallows Eve and the NWOBHM band Tytan, how accurate is that?

Brian: That's cool, but not the case. We were basically just sitting around, we wanted something powerful sounding, we were into some drinks. We just kept thinking "Titan...Titan...", Kyle kept saying "No! There's that movie Clash of the Titans." We had to think of something that was the beginning of something, so Kyle just said "Eve." Honestly, it was that easy.

Doc: So that wraps things up, anything you'd like to throw out there?

Brian: Nope. Other than MetalStorm is an awesome site and thanks for taking the time to do this!

Special thanks to Jon Asher of Asher Media for setting up the interview