INTERVIEW: Vithia & Fabulous Fab – Rise of the Northstar
WORDS: James Weaver
RISE OF THE NORTHSTAR are perhaps one of the most interestingly bizarre bands in modern hardcore. With musical styles ticking the boxes of rap, metal and hardcore and lyrics intertwined with anime and manga, RISE OF THE NORTHSTAR are reinventing hardcore. At a rare performance at this year’s Ghostfest our editor James Weaver sat down vocalist Vithia and bassist Fabulous Fab to talk about the band’s musical style, the difficulties of combining a range of styles of music and how they are hoping to change the dynamics of modern hardcore.
So we are here at Ghostfest which was a rare performance in the UK from you guys, you don’t really tour over here. How was the performance for you today?
Fabulous Fab: It was great!
Vithia: It was small and packed!
Fabulous Fab: For a UK show it was insane!
Vithia: I did have some trouble with my back so I couldn’t really move about on stage.
RISE OF THE NORTHSTAR recently played a rare show at Comic Con in London in May, what was the thought process behind playing a show like that?
Fabulous Fab: It was a process through our label, Nuclear Blast Records.
Vithia: The UK office put us on because of our lyrics really, it was strange for us because it was the first time we played in an environment like that, there were some weird people in the crowd which was really funny!
Fabulous Fab: It’s important for us to play in front of a different crowd than the typical metal or hardcore crowds we normally get so playing Comic Con was a good opportunity for us.
Your musical style is very interesting, it combines rap, metal and hardcore. What are you trying to achieve?
Vithia: It’s natural! We all grew up with all this different music; a lot of rap music, a lot of thrash music, metal music and hardcore. So when we wanted to create our own music, we just put it all together and we put in all the manga and Japanese comics too!
Fabulous Fab: I think without having the Japanese influences the music would sound totally different.
So the Japanese elements, the anime, was it something you’ve always been interested in?
Fabulous Fab: Yeah definitely! It’s such a big part of the band to have all these anime influences.
So is it a driving influence for RISE OF THE NORTHSTAR?
Vithia: Yeah for sure!
Fabulous Fab: Especially the 90s anime! We grew up with that, we love it!
So with the band combining different genres of music, is it difficult to create your sound in the studio?
Fabulous Fab: No, really it is a natural progression. It just comes out by itself so there isn’t really a challenge, it just comes out as it is.
So RISE OF THE NORTHSTAR is very much a band that showcases everything you love in life?
Fabulous Fab: Exactly! We try as a band to connect fiction to reality.
Vithia: So we have Japanese animation and have some characters and we want people to grow up with them!
Fabulous Fab: It’s almost like we picture ourselves as manga characters. We hope that kids that are into our music can picture themselves into RISE OF THE NORTHSTAR just as we bring all these influences on stage.
RISE OF THE NORTHSTAR have hardly played the UK, is there a full UK tour in the works?
Fabulous Fab: We hope so! We are trying to work on that, we’re looking at the UK market so hopefully we are trying to get something planned soon!
So really my last question for you guys is what else do you have planned for the rest of 2015?
Fabulous Fab: We are going to be touring in Japan and Asia
Vithia: Yeah we are playing in China at the end of this month, and then we play in Taiwan and Japan.
And do you find by having that anime influence, that you can appeal to the far east?
Vithia: Our album came out in Japan very recently and people are coming to our shows and saying because they love anime and manga they love us! So really we will see!
Well best of luck for the future and thank you for talking to me
Vithia & Fabulous Fab: Thank you!
Welcame is out now via Nuclear Blast Records
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