written by Marko Jakob
Pix666: Hello Max. Thanks for your time. Please introduce your band to the readers in a few short sentences. What kind of music do you make?
Max: Hello, and thanks a lot for the interview, apologies for the delay of my answers but we had a lot to handle after the release of the album! Well Drenalize is basically the story of 5 friends and fans of hard rock and heavy metal who wanted to play together in a band. It’s high class, and catchy hard rock/heavy metal with lots of melodies and even technical riffing, for fans of classic bands like Whitesnake, Def Leppard, Scorpions, Extreme, Judas Priest etc..
Pix666: Recently the new Drenalize Single ‚Eternal Eclipse‘ was released. How have the reactions to the song been so far?
Max: It has been stressful to release it because people had lots of expectations, due to the time it took us to release it, but actually the reactions were AWESOME, everyone welcomed the song positively and the overall quality of the song – instruments, vocals, lyrics, mix.. – has been underlined hundreds of time, and people found that there’s been a huge improvement since the first album. That’s actually what we were aiming for so it’s a huge accomplishment.
Pix666: What is this song about and what are your lyrics about in general?
Max: In this album, Chris Voltage – the singer – mostly wrote with metaphors about things he has actually lived, even though it seems fantastic at times because of the few references you can find in the lyrics – for instance you may find some references to ‘Hellraiser’ in Eternal Eclipse.
Pix666: Now your new album ‚Edge Of Tomorrow‘ has finally been released. What can fans expect on the album and what are the musical differences to your previous songs?
Max: Well you could say I am the one who brought the prog-ish/heavy metal vibes in the second album, and I was not in the band yet at the time of the first album’s release, so you can tell there’s a significant difference between the two albums. The second album is still catchy hard rock though, but heavier, more melodic, more technical, and with more mature and better musicians, as everyone including myself had time to grow up and evolve since the first album.
Pix666: In which versions can fans buy your album and is there also new merch in stock?
Max: Yeah sure, you can buy the ‘Edge Of Tomorrow’ album in CD and vinyl versions on our two platforms https://drenalize.bandcamp.com and https://drenalize.bigcartel.com . There are also 2 AWESOME new t-shirt designs, and you can of course still buy the first album if you’re a true AOR and 80s fan!
Pix666: How do you create your songs – is there a specific plan? What influence did the Covid pandemic have on the work on the new songs? Were there any difficulties?
Max: When I’m in a creative process I usually take my guitar and try everything I can think of while recording myself. When I get an idea I try to explore around it until I come up with an intro, a verse, a pre-chorus and a chorus. Then I share it with the others and I let it rest, and I come back a few weeks later to eventually finish the song. It has become quite a natural process for me.
Well Covid obviously slowed us down a bit in the process of making the album, but fortunately the songs were already written before the pandemic began. It has been difficult to work together when covid started spreading because everyone in France was put in quarantine, but trust me on this: people brought us much more problems than covid ahahah.
Pix666: Do you have some shows or a tour planned for the time around the album release?
Max: We already have planned some show but there are no official announcements to make for now. Follow us on our social medias to stay in touch folks!
Pix666: The style of your music fits perfectly into the old millennium. Would you rather have been a musician in the 80s or 90s and what are your musical influences and role models?
Max: The others would say yes for sure, and I’m pretty confident they would cite Def Leppard or Scorpions as role models and influences. As for me, maybe I would be more famous today if I had been a musician in the 80s, but there’s also a lot of 21st century’s music in my influences so I wouldn’t be the musician that I am now. As I said I’m more like a proghead/ metalhead so my influences are stuff like Whitesnake, Extreme but also Queensrÿche, Andromeda, Propagandhi etc..
Pix666: Do you have dreams and wishes for the next years with your band?
Max: Become rich and famous doing what we do, that’s totally possible!
Pix666: Do you have any other news about Drenalize or some interesting things about yourself that you would like to share with fans?
Max: Yeah sure, check out on YouTube the awesome video clip we made for our song ‘Into Madness’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdRT2qJ3q9A
And also thanks a lot to our german readers, we’d sure love to come to Germany and rock the hell out of every stage there, as we are living really close to it!
Pix666: Thank you very much for the interesting answers – Good luck with your new album and stay healthy!
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