Summon: How did the band get started?
Hugo: GodVlad was formed in Portugal in 2006 by myself(Hugo Ribeiro) and Sergio Carrinho. We felt we wanted to make heavier music than our previous projects. In 2008, after searching hard for the right people, the rest of the line up was formed.
Summon: What kind of music do you play?
Hugo: People always had trouble defining our music style because all of us come from different musical backgrounds that when you hear our music its like a big melting pot of musical fusion. Although if you had to generalize, it would be sort of a modernized Gothic/Melodic Death Metal. I think that’s the closest I can get.
Summon: How has the fan response been?
Hugo: The fan response has always been great from day 1. Very overwhelming. Since we have a variety of styles we manage to have fans with various musical tastes that like the band.
Summon: Where did the band name come from?
Hugo: It’s like an antithesis we came up with. ‘GOD’ as in the christian supernatural creator of life, known for representing everything good and sacred. ‘VLAD’ as in the Transylvanian prince Vlad ‘The Impaler’ Tepes, as everybody knows for being evil and twisted. We put those two together and it’s like an antithesis I mentioned, like good and evil in one word. It sounded good to us so we kept it and named the band with it.
Summon: Introduce the band members and what they do in the band.
Hugo: We have Vanessa Cabral on lead vocals, Sérgio Carrinho on bass and vocals, Pedro Miranda on guitars, Paulo Martins on Keys and Synths, and me(Hugo Ribeiro) on drums.
Summon: Who writes the music? Lyrics?
Hugo: The music comes from all of us. Sometimes from a drum pattern, guitar riff, etc… and we start from there. Anything can serve as a starting point to compose a complete song. Lyrically Vanessa writes most of the lyrics. I’ve also wrote some of the lyrics in our previous albums.
Summon: And where do the lyric ideas come from?
Hugo: We vary between tyranny, society, love (in a negative way), and some other stuff as well. Usually we write about things that demonstrate some type of aggressiveness from physical to psychological.
Summon: What is your view in Satanism and Occultism?
Hugo: We’re not really a religious type band. Definitely not Satan worshipers. Haha. Its just something we don’t really write or talk about. We respect it but its just not our thing.
Summon: How many albums/CD’s have you released?
Hugo: We have released three studio recordings so far. Two full albums and an EP. The first album was released in 2011 simply titled “Godvlad”. Our second album “Bipolar” was released in 2014. Our new release “Dark Streets of Heaven” came out in February of this year. They are all available for stream/purchase in our Bandcamp page
(https://godvlad.bandcamp.com/).
Summon: Tell me about some the songs on the latest CD?
Hugo: We have the title song “Dark Streets of Heaven” which focuses on what we appear to think is real but not. People living off showing something they’re not. Another song is “Game Of Shades” which talks about trying to cope with the loss of someone and trying to fill that missing void. We focus a lot on the negative aspects of society. It can be from people’s insecurities, relationships, limitations or fears and how they cope with them.
Summon: Do you have any side projects?
Hugo: I’m the only one with side projects at the moment. I also play in a band called Kandia(facebook.com/Kandiamusic), a acoustic/folk artist named Bruno Pato(facebook.com/brunopatomusico) and also do freelance drum recording sessions in my home studio(hugoribeiro.com).
Summon: Who are some of your musical influences?
Hugo: Although we hear many different types of music, its safe to say that we are a mix of Pantera, Machine Head, Lacuna Coil, Disturbed and Nine Inch Nails. Like I said before, we are pretty vast in musical styles.
Summon: Which current bands?
Hugo: Mainly the ones mentioned above.
Summon: What is the band like when you play live?
Hugo: Its all about power and melody mixed into one massive sound. A lot of energy and also some exoticness from Vanessa because of her different look and live presentation.
Summon: Have you guys ever played in another country?
Hugo: So far we’ve only played in Portugal but hopefully we will broaden our live shows to more countries around the world in the future.
Summon: How big of crowd shows up at shows usually?
Hugo: We’ve been fortunate to play practically in packed shows which is fantastic. We’ve played mostly clubs but we have a big open air gig in August which we will share the stage with Helloween, Dark Funeral, Vector, Finntroll, among others. It will be our biggest show to date.
Summon: How is the crowd response when you play?
Hugo: Its been great every single show. We are fortunate to have very loyal fans and we always manage to get people that never heard us interested. Its been very gratifying.
Summon: What do you think of the US Black Metal/Death Metal scene?
Hugo: From what I see here overseas, its been growing more and more over the years. I think its becoming a lot less of a taboo/overlooked style of music like, for instance, was in the 90s. Its definitely a style which only has a small niche but its growing nonetheless and that’s great.
Summon: What do you think of the Overseas scenes?
Hugo: It also has been growing over the years. Although I think Europeans usually accept this style of music more easily since most of the biggest bands in this genre are from Europe. Europe has definitely the biggest metal festivals in the world so that goes to show that its very alive and well here. Fortunately. But we do have the same small club scene which is not always as pleasant we would like it to be, but its part of a band’s journey. You can’t run before you can walk, if you know what I mean.
Summon: What are some of new favorite black metal/death metal bands?
Hugo: I can only speak for myself but I still dig the old school death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Obituary. Newer bands would be Decapitated. This just off the top of my head.
Summon: When do you guys plan on writing any new material?
Hugo: We already started recording our next album which will be released sometime in 2017. We’re not the type of band to take long breaks so we’re always working on new material.
Summon: What does the future hold for the band??
Hugo: We are currently planning more live shows for this year to support our new EP. We are also releasing a new album next year so we are going to keep pretty busy. Lets see what the future holds. Time will tell.
Contact them at:
https://www.facebook.com/godvlad/
https://www.reverbnation.com/godvlad
https://www.youtube.com/user/GODVLAD
