Summon: How did the band get started?
Masaki: Travis and I met through our mutual friend at our old rehearsal place. I got a call from her and picked up my gear to jam with him.
We jammed and a few months later, we got together and started as a band with a guitarist we used to have.
Summon: What kind of music do you play?
Jack: That’s a tricky question but I’d say we fit in with the Thrash Metal genre as well as a bit of death metal. We don’t take either genre to huge extremes though and prefer to combine all styles.
Travis: I don’t like to label our music as a certain type of metal. It is metal with definite thrash and death metal elements.
Summon: How has the band response been?
Travis: We get mixed reactions depending on the crowd. Some people hear us and mosh and some people stand there and watch the musicianship being played.
Summon: Where did the band name come from?
Travis: My wife is a pharmacist who specializes in infectious diseases and when we were looking for a name she pitched some sick medical terms at me. Hemoptysis sounded cool and it had a very cool, metal sounding name so we went with it and Masaki found the font for the logo.
Summon: Introduce the band members
Masaki Murashita: Vocals/Guitar
Jack Fliegler: Lead Guitar
Sunao Arai: Bass
Travis Thune: Drums
Summon: Who writes the music? Lyrics?
Masaki: I wrote all the music on EP “Who Needs A Shepherd?” and few more songs which we have been playing at the shows.
Ever since Jack joined this band, we started writing music together and it seems to be working pretty good.
Travis: Our original singer, Anthony Bartinelli did not appear on our debut CD but he helped write lyrics for three of the songs. Masaki wrote the rest of the lyrics for that CD except for some of the lyrics I did for “And the World Dies.” Currently Masaki and I are writing the lyrics for our new songs.
Summon: Where do the lyric ideas come from?
Travis: I usually get pissed off and frustrated the most at work so I get my best ideas there. Oh, and Disney World. I wrote 60% of some lyrics about killing everyone that I came up with while I was at Disney World. We haven’t used the lyrics for a song yet but I hope we do.
Summon: How many albums/cd’s have you released?
Travis: One, our debut EP “Who Needs a Shepherd?”
Summon: Tell me about some the songs on the latest CD?
Travis: There are two songs about killing, one with an anti-Christian theme and two with anti-Iraq war themes.
Summon: Do you have any side projects?
Masaki: No. I wish I had a time for that.
Jack: I compose music on my computer just for fun but I don’t have much time for any live side projects.
Summon: Who are some of your musical influences?
Masaki: I love old school Metal as well as melodic death metal, but I listen to pretty much everything.
Jack: I love all types of metal. My main influences are melodic death metal bands as well as thrash bands and some symphonic black metal.
Travis: I listen to several kinds of metal: death metal, black metal, thrash metal, etc., but just metal.
Sunao: I listen to all kinds of music like metal, rock, blues, jazz, funk and many other genres; anything to inspire me playing music.
Summon: Which current bands influenced you?
Jack: Lately I’ve been taking a lot of influence from bands like Kalmah, Wintersun, Evile, Death, Symphony X, and Garden Of Shadows
Travis: I like Slayer, Hypocrisy, Morbid Angel, Deicide, and many other death, thrash and black metal bands.
Sunao: Like I said before, I’m influenced by many bands, so I don’t sound like someone else.
Summon: What is the band like when you play live?
Travis: We are more excited so we play with more energy and it’s faster.
Sunao: I think we are more brutal, and we play better than the CD.
Summon: What was the best band you played with?
Jack: We’ve shared the stage with a local black metal band called Six Million Dead which we all thought were awesome.
Travis: Fracture Point is probably the most popular band we played with.
Sunao: Yeah, Fracture Point was one of the best we’ve played with.
Masaki: I agree with everyone.
Summon: Have you guys ever played in another country?
Jack: Not yet. Hopefully we will soon.
Masaki: Hopefully we will get some opportunities to play in Europe, Canada and Japan.
Sunao: I’ve played in Japan with my previous band, but it wasn’t like some big venue or anything like that.
Summon: How big of crowd shows up at shows usually?
Jack: We’re still generally new to the scene so it’s hard to get a huge amount of people at our shows. I’d say we get around 50 people per show. The numbers are growing as we are though.
Sunao: We are gaining lots of people as we play shows. Hopefully we’ll have tons of people by next year!!
Summon: How is the crowd response when you play?
Jack: We’ve been getting really positive feedback about our live show so I’d say it’s a great crowd response.
Sunao: Yeah, seems like people love us.
Summon: What is your opinion on the conflict of Black Metal Vs Death Metal?
Masaki: I do not understand what that question means.
Jack: Conflict? I’m not sure I understand either. I like both genres and comparing the two is completely pointless in my opinion.
Travis: I didn’t know there was a conflict. I like both of those genres
Sunao: I have no idea.
Summon: What do you think of the overseas scene?
Masaki: Europe has many great bands, so I would love to check out the scene over there as well as my home country Japan.
Travis: I hear the European scene is awesome as well as in South America and in Japan. I would love the play those places sometime in the future.
Sunao: I only know about Japan, and there are many diehard fans out there.
Summon: What are some of new favorite death metal bands?
Travis: The Absence and Daath
Summon: Any plans on writing any new material?
Jack: We are currently writing some new material for our first full-length.
Summon: What does the future hold for the band??
Masaki: A Full length CD is the next step, and I want to tour all around the world!
Jack: Hopefully success.
Sunao: Full length CD, tour all around the world and play at bigger venues.
Contact them at:
https://hemoptysis.bandcamp.com/track/traitor
https://www.reverbnation.com/hemoptysis
