Aisles Are Moving ‘Beyond Drama'
Prog-Rock geniuses Aisles kindly talked to us about their highly anticipated new album 'Beyond Drama'. The 9-song LP is the band's newest LP entry since their acclaimed 2016 outing 'Hawaii', a hefty conceptual double album imagining humanity as a space-faring civilization in a timeline after the destruction of Earth.
For 'Beyond Drama', the Chilean rockers decided to go a bit "back to basics" as it were, focusing again on melody and more grounded lyrical work that relates digs into a personal Territory, resulting in a piece of art that Guitarist and founder Germán Vergara described as "a record of crisis, but also of inspiring moments. Crisis for the whole social and personal context".
In 2018, as a way of concluding the Hawaii era, Aisles released the Live from Estudio del Sur EP along with four videos recorded live, which can be viewed on YouTube. After the departure of their original vocalist Sebastián Vergara at the end of 2018, the band returned in September 2020 with a new singer, Israel Gil, and reignited their artistic evolution by releasing a new version of their 2009 song “Smile of Tears”, from In Sudden Walks. Following the release of singles such as "Fast" "Megalomania" and "Thanks To Kafka" in 2021.
2005 WAS THE YEAR YOU DEBUTED YOUR FIRST ALBUM. IT'S BEEN AN ALMOST 20-YEAR JOURNEY SO FAR. WHAT'S CHANGED THE MOST FOR THE BAND'S SOUND?
I think that the band has evolved towards a heavier sound. Our music used to be more ethereal and less direct than it is now, I guess that’s the result of our view of life in a way, but also a natural adaptation to something that we believe makes more sense today. When we wrote and recorded Hawaii, we actually did it very immersed in our own world. We were in complete isolation; we didn’t care about trends or whatever was happening around us. Beyond Drama is more of a process where outside situations, like the pandemic and social crises, are reflected in our music.
TELL US ABOUT THE RECORDING/PRODUCTION PROCESS FOR 'BEYOND DRAMA'. HOW LONG DID IT TAKE AND WHAT WAS ITS HARDEST PART?
It took us a couple of years to record because we had several problems. In 2018 we decided to change our vocalist, who is also my brother, and it demanded a lot of time searching and auditioning, time that we would otherwise have spent recording or writing music. After that, we were in the middle of recordings and rehearsals when in Chile we had a wave of violence and protests in the streets that reached a level of intensity that led the authorities to implement curfews all over the country, by the end of 2019, but also, we found a new singer, Israel, with whom we worked on this album. After that, the pandemic came, and then the lockdown. It was terrible for us in every sense. However, both the lyrics and the music were influenced by all of this. When the album was ready, we decided to put off the release in order to try to make a deal with a record label.
The hardest part of this process was keeping the energy and hope in what we were doing and where we were going. When the album was ready for release, Felipe, our drummer, Rodrigo, our guitar player, and Israel, our singer, left the band. But here we are, promoting our new record named Beyond Drama, and this one must be the most personal and beautiful album we’ve made.
PROBABLY THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION REGARDING ANY ALBUM IS WHAT WAS IN YOUR MINDS CREATIVELY GOING INTO IT. WHAT SORT OF STORIES DID YOU WANT TO TELL?
With this album, musically we expressed a feeling of crisis and of a point of no return. When we started writing the music everything was fine, but a little time passed and we went through an external and internal crisis.
With this album, we wanted to tell urban stories, sing about emotions, and talk about people dealing with their own personal conflicts. That combined with the moment we were in, the “all or nothing” feeling caused a deep conflict, and some of us were able to commit to a new process and continue and some weren’t.
GERMÁN, YOU DESCRIBED THIS ALBUM AS A "RECORD OF CRISIS". WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THESE CRISES THAT WERE REFLECTED IN THE ALBUM?
As I made progress with the lyrics, I realized I was writing about myself, my own breakup after a 17-year relationship, my own loneliness, my own personal crisis, and my own feeling of defeat. But there was conflict everywhere, social, political, and family members of the band passed away, so there’s a collective feeling of struggle and crisis too.
If you pay attention to the lyrics in the album you realize that crises are everywhere. Even in “Fast”, which is the most optimistic song in the album, there are lines like “You know this world will end, sweetheart”. The interesting thing about a hostile environment is that it pushes you to transform yourself in order to survive. I think we are at that point after the storm, having released our most ambitious record in spite of all the predicaments, and now getting ready to promote it and even with new music on the way.
YOU ALSO POINT TO "INSPIRING MOMENTS". CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THEM?
I think that when you make music connected with honest feelings and who you are, you are bound to be touched by inspiration. You must make it happen by being willing to write music about “real” things. When I say real, I mean music that moves you, that makes you feel connected. We all go through painful moments, either caused by disappointment, sadness, failure, etc. but even those dark emotions create a powerful connection among us humans. We were trying not only to expose the way we were feeling but also to reflect us as a society.
THE SINGLES YOU'VE RELEASED SO FAR POINT TO A MOODY-YET-MELODIC SOUND. WAS THIS SOMETHING THE BAND AIMED AT WHEN WORKING ON THIS ALBUM OR DID IT JUST COME OUT NATURALLY?
We aimed at that, we consider melody to be a crucial feature of our music, and it comes out naturally too. Melodies tell the stories along with the lyrics.
OFTEN, WHEN PUTTING AN ALBUM TOGETHER THERE ARE SONGS THAT DO NOT MAKE THE CUT. WERE THERE ANY SONGS LEFT OUT OF THIS RELEASE? COULD YOU TELL US WHY?
Yes, there were songs left behind probably because we considered them to be more of the same. We don’t like to repeat ourselves. If you compare Hawaii (our 2016 record) to 4:45 AM (our 2013 record) they are very different. Beyond Drama is different from all of them.
FANS ARE EAGER TO CATCH THESE NEW SONGS LIVE. WILL YOU BE TAKING THE ALBUM ON THE ROAD? IF SO WHEN AND WHERE?
We will, but we still don’t have any dates, probably Europe, the US, México, Brazil, and Chile, those are the places where most of our audience is. I recommend all of you to follow us on our social media because we hope to make announcements as soon as possible.
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