Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Maurice: Egeria started out in 2013 as a cover band, but after a period of playing cover songs we decided to begin writing our own songs. Some of the band members left the band due to the preference to still play cover songs.
New members joined the band and our first song ‘Requiem Draconis’ was created. In 2017 we released our first EP Requiem of Shadows’ and played our first gigs. Eventually we found our own niche in the symphonic metal genre. Our songs will take you on a dark, fantastical journey were dreams and nightmares alike become reality. In October of 2019, we released our second EP ‘As Night Falls’ followed by the recent release of our first music video of ‘Dawn Breaks’.
Like most bands we had some change in the lineup over the last couple of years. Our band has currently three members, with a drummer as a regular session musician. At this moment we are auditioning for a new keyboard player. We hope to have some more news soon.
How would you describe your style? Which bands influenced your music?
Nicole: Our style can best be described as symphonic metal with influences from progressive and classical genres. Our songs tell stories about the darkest depths of reality combined with fantasy. When people listen to our music, we are often compared to other bands in the genre. But lots of reviews state that we bring something slightly different in our music compared to other bands.
We take our inspiration from bands such as Xandria, Nightwish, Stream of Passion, but also classical composers like Beethoven, Shubert and Mozart or dark fantasy music for example.
Why should a metalhead buy your demos/albums?
Joris: As you may know, we are from The Netherlands and we make female fronted symphonic metal. Since the end of 1990’s, a number of bands from the Netherlands became famous in this genre. This includes names like Within Temptation, Epica and After Forever. Together with other northern European countries such as Finland and Germany, (female fronted) Symphonic Metal can be seen as an important musical export product.
When people listen to our music, we are often compared to other bands in the genre. We try to be inspired by other artists when our own writing music. But we like to do things just a little differently than other bands and stay away from clichés that are the characteristic for this type of music. For example, we only have 1 guitarist and we use prog-metal influences to incorporate non-standard melodies and chord progressions in our songs. Above all we aspire to be unique so that we create our own niche or subgenre within the Symphonic Metal genre.
By adding enough variation to our music, no song sounds the same and we can keep surprising our listener time and time again (and further develop and grow as a band in the process).
So if this sounds at all interesting to you, then we could recommend listening and buying our music, also simultaneously supporting our band a great deal.
What have you released so far and how were your releases received by the public/media?
Maurice: Our first EP, released in 2017, was actually a demo containing 3 songs, “Requiem of Shadows”. Most copies were sold at our shows or via Bandcamp. We produced the EP ourselves and was not promoted except on our social media.
Our second EP “As Night Falls”, released in 2019, contains 5 tracks. Matthijs Quaars (MQ-Audio) recorded vocals and, as we currently do not have a fixed drummer, also took care of the drumming. Keyboards, guitar and bass we recorded ourselves. Mixing and mastering was again done by Matthijs. We worked with a promoter, who has much more contacts than we do, so we received a lot of reviews, most of them were quite positive. Recently we released our first official music video of Dawn Breaks, to which we received positive reactions so far.
Do you play live as well? How's your live activity so far?
Joris: We do indeed play live. This is one of the greatest things to do as a band and which also gives our fans the opportunity to listen to our music in an atmospheric setting. During our performances we always try to put on a real show for our audience, for example by our stage presentation and sounds effects.
We have done some cool performances in recent years, together with well-known bands like Antimatter and Vetrar Draugurinn. In 2019 we’ve played our first summer festival during Occultfest in the city of Hoogeveen, Drenthe. This was also awesome to experience. Our previous shows were mostly performances in various places throughout the Netherlands and currently we have one planned show in our home city of Arnhem, on February 28th. We would also really like to extend our musical boundaries to countries like Germany, Belgium or even France, so who knows where you can see us play live in the near future.
What should labels/zines/promoters know about your band? Why should they be interested in it?
Nicole/Joris: We are a symphonic metal band with lots of potential who wants to develop our music with every song we write. Just by creating our own style in sound we make our band unique and innovative, but also maintaining recognizable influences from the symphonic metal scene.
What plans do you have for the near future as a band?
Nicole: Hopefully we find a new keyboard player so we can write some new material and work on an new album in the near future. We want to make a lyric video from one of the songs from our EP ´As Night Falls´. Off course we want to play lots of gigs. meet our fans and talk to them. But above all to have lots of fun as a band!
Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
Maurice: You can find us on Spotify, iTunes, Bandcamp, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and our website. Here is a list of links.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/00PWYPfGnLgUGLUHzZflit?nd=1
Bandcamp: https://egeria-band.bandcamp.com/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyUcsJRZqc7QhhRr9TWF2zA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/egeria.official/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/Egeria.official/
Website: https://www.egeria-band.nl/
January 2020