Seven Blood: Energy & Enthusiasm
Emo metal band SEVEN BLOOD have only been releasing music for a year, but in that time they have created a beautiful friendship, anticipation of what’s in store for their future, and now, a debut album. The Berlin-based quartet have staggered the release of Life Is Just A Phase, with the majority of the songs already out in the world, hopefully easing the nerves. Catching up with vocalist Azaria Nasiri and bassist Josi Hille, we find out how the album came about in such a seemingly short amount of time, and how they just can’t help but look into what people are saying about the songs.
“We are too curious,” Azaria laughs. “As a band, we’re very curious.” The lyrics of the album are extremely vulnerable at times, but the friendship between the members makes this easier. “As a group, we all agree on the same thing, and we all understand each other’s points of view. So personally, I care less about what other people think, because I know the band is on the same page. That’s what matters to me most, more than strangers.”
For a band whose members only met for the first time two years ago, they are extremely close with one another, which makes the writing process that much smoother and natural. Azaria explains, “that day, we wrote our first song, and we noticed ‘we should do that, we should be a band’.” She jokes that because they didn’t want to put any pressure on themselves, they didn’t commit to making an album for a long time, and they could have just kept writing songs forever.
“In German, we say ‘we get naked in front of each other’. Like, emotionally. We all stood naked in front of each other emotionally, and it worked. We all became friends through it.” Like most bands, song writing is a form of emotional therapy, and the process for SEVEN BLOOD usually begins with coffee and talking about everything, from their feelings to what music they are listening to at the time. The lyrics and songs come after. “I think [the album] captures our honesty, and our authenticity. This is what we do, it’s who we are. We’re not selling anything. It’s just us.”
The band maintain that their debut album is perfectly representative of them as a group, and while it definitely helps that their drummer, Anfy, is also their producer, they just had a lot of fun in the writing and recording. This isn’t to say that there weren’t any difficulties and disagreements, and the members agree that the process could be exhausting at times. Some songs were adapted over months, with elements changed or completely re-worked. The general consensus was that each song had to be perfect, no matter how long it took or how hard they had to work to get there. By the end of recording, each member of the band felt perfectly comfortable with each other, so that they could just outright say when they didn’t like something. Everything was a discussion, which Azaria labels as, “very grown-up stuff”.
“I think we’re a very good team. We’re like a puzzle, we just fit together perfectly,” Josi adds, “songwriting is like a puzzle. There’s a song in our set that had a different chorus earlier, so if there are people who have heard it before, they were like ‘okay, maybe I know this song’. But actually, it’s really different, because it felt like something was missing, and that’s not the end result.” Azaria agrees. “It was a good experience that we could change one song almost completely, but we were all on the same page.”
SEVEN BLOOD are, at their roots, a live band, so their live shows are essential. They explain that they all love going to concerts together, so it’s really important that anyone seeing them has the best experience. Where the songs can be pretty sad, the energy of their shows is based on having a good time. Azaria says, “we have lots of fun on stage, and I think that’s something we all agree on. We don’t want to be a studio only band.” Though the band technically haven’t been together for very long, they have their pre-show routine down to a science, and it’s formulated perfectly for them to all be in the best mindset. Josi explains, “it’s like old magic, on stage and the moments before. We have our own circles, and our rituals, we have a pre-show setlist. It’s different than just meeting during the day, or going to a bar. It’s a different vibe, or a different energy, and it’s a lot of fun.”
At its core, Life Is Just A Phase is an album about identity, and going through hard times, but coming out on the other side. Though it might not seem it, the outcome is deeply positive. Azaria explains, “I think we all hope that people feel understood, because that’s how we felt when we wrote those songs. So that’s would be great if people are struggling maybe with some things that we struggle with, that they can listen to it and see that they are not alone with this feeling, but they also should have fun. Because we hope we write songs that you can enjoy, not only be sad about, but that you can also feel the energy and feel enthusiasm.”
Life Is Just A Phase is out now via self-release. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS126 here:
Like SEVEN BLOOD on Facebook.