Awake are one the best new British bands I have heard in a while.  Formerly known as Humanity the band underwent a line-up change and saw a refinement of their sound which dictated the change of band name to Awake.  Possessing a sound that is heavy with a dark atmosphere yet brimming with catchy vocal melodies the future looks bright.  The band have just released their debut album "Illumination" on Lion Music.

Interview undertaken By Simon Shedwell, vocals and Richard Hall, Guitars

Many thanks for agreeing to this interview.  It’s good to finally be able to interview a decent new British band in Awake!  You have just released their debut album ‘Illumination’ but I believe the band have been around for a few years under a different guise.  Can you give our readers a brief rundown of the band history and what led to the change of name?
Richard: That’s correct. The band started in back in Sept 2000 under the name HUMANITY. We all met at college in Cambridge where we were studying music. At the time we were a six piece with two guitarists, and we wanted to make the whole Metallica S&M sound. This then moved into a more progressive direction. We gradually got more and more success in our hometown and around the country, we  signed our first record deal with Killin Time Records and then moved onto the Carbon 13 label  where we released our debut album ‘When Silence Calls’.

However despite the album being very well received,  Carbon 13 went into liquidation. After that we decided to go it alone and make our own album, which is when we later  got involved with Tom from Evergrey. The change of name came after we recorded the album. We had parted ways with our other guitarist Steve Wallace, and wanted this album to be a new start for us, so the name change to AWAKE was all part of that.

‘Illumination’ seems to walk the line between straight metal with a few progressive elements and darker metal waters as peddled by the likes of Evergrey.  How would you describe the music on ‘Illumination’ for readers that have yet to hear the band?
Simon: This album is a mix of progressive metal with elements of heavy riffs and some catchy sections along the way. It has its own style, it’s difficult to put it in any box as it has many different moods, with both heavy and slow songs alongside each other.

What struck me about the album was that, here is a British band, playing a form of music that generally isn’t widely played by UK bands and it’s very refreshing to hear.   Where does the band draw their influences from and how do Awake generally write songs e.g. band rehearsal/or individually?
Richard: In the beginning our influences  were Metallica, Dream Theater, Paradise Lost, but now we bring our own personal musical tastes to the song writing – it can vary depending what we’re into at the time!  We like to write songs as a band, one person may bring in a riff or chord progression and we all jam it out and go with what feels right.  I like the way we write because it’s not just one person’s opinion, and so you get the best from everybody.

You guys seem to prefer to work around a vocal melody as opposed to a riff leading the musical direction of a song which gives the album a very strong song feel as opposed to a barrage of instrumental pieces pasted together with vocal slapped over the top.  Is the song all important for Awake?
Simon: Its strange, we’ve been told this before but as you can see from the previous question we do start with a riff and go from there and the vocals come last. However the song IS all important to us so once we have the music sorted we then start working on the lyrics and if they don’t work together, instead of changing the lyrics, we change the music to enhance the vocals.

Have any of the songs changed much from their original seeds to what we hear on the album today?
Richard: Yeah, it’s funny you ask - Disbelief and Crime of Passion were originally one track! When Tom (Evergrey) heard it he totally cut it in two and we made two brand new songs. It was great to work that way and it certainly opened our eyes to a better way of writing. Other than that, it was mainly vocal melodies that were tweaked and made better.

The keyboards play a more atmospheric role than many bands that feature them, how do you view the use of keyboards within the bands sound?
Richard: When it comes to the keyboards, we never wanted to go down the prog keyboard solo path - for one thing Craig hates keyboard solos! - so we use them more as an addition to the sound, which gives the album that great big sound that it has. On tracks like Illumination however, we used them in an more electronic way rather than trying to make them sound like strings or orchestra parts. That is the great thing about keys, you can do pretty much anything with them, and we like to see how else we can use them. It’s something we’ll push further in the future I think.

Getting back to the recording of the album how were the tracks on ‘Illumination’ recorded?  What was the average number of takes? Were there any whole band live performances or was it recorded individually?
Simon: The tracks on the album were recorded over a period of two months with Tom and Arnold. They would alternate using their musical strengths, Arnold being a drummer concentrated on the drum and bass as Tom worked on guitars, keyboards and vocals. There were no whole band performances it was done individually to achieve the best results from all of us. As for the number of takes, it generally went well although we had our moments of course! But once we got into the swing of things, we were lucky it ran pretty smoothly, and so much of that was down to the professionalism of the studio we were working with.

The band has signed to Lion Music who have a good reputation for discovering new talent around the globe.  How did you hook up with the label?
Simon: We have Keith at Killin Time Management to thank for this.  He has done so much work for us behind the scenes - he got us heard by many labels including Lion and they came to us with the best deal.

I see you have a couple of live UK dates set up with the likelihood of more being added, what can the public expect from Awake in the live arena?
Richard: A lot of energy and five guys really enjoying being on stage! We don’t like to come across too serious when we play live. I think if you stand up there looking like your house has just burnt down the audience doesn’t feel as much part of the show as they could. We’ll be playing as much of the new album as possible and some older Humanity tracks as well, so I hope people will enjoy it.

You have a video for ‘Disbelief’ on your myspace profile, why was this track chosen for the debut video?
Simon: We chose this track because I think it is one of the catchiest songs on the album, its commercial, and we wanted to reach as many people as possible with this track. It’s a powerful, energised song and we thought it would be the perfect way to introduce ourselves on to the music scene.

What else lies in store for Awake in 2007?
Simon: World Domination and an Aston Martin for me!,(just kidding!).  We hope with the support of the fans that we can do more live work and more videos and tours with a couple of singles released along the way. Essentially, we want to create a profile for ourselves and we want to be given opportunities to show people what we are all about. I hope 2007 makes me work really, really hard!

Richard: Touring as much as possible, promoting the album and hopefully widening our fan base as much as this album will allow. We’ve also started writing the next album so we should be busy. After that I may buy Arsenal FC and make sure we win the Premiership and the Champions League next season - but only if I get the time!

Many thanks for your time.
Thank you for this opportunity.

Links
Official Awake website
Official Awake myspace profile