July 15, 2010
POWERGLOVE
“We are POWERGLOVE and we are here to fuck with your childhood!” proclaims the band at the beginning of its live shows. After finding success mining the brains of the A.D.D.-driven video game generation with songs like “Tetris”, POWERGLOVE has set its sights on the inner child in all of us. To this end, the band has set its blasters from stun to kill; its target: the world!
POWERGLOVE is composed of four battle-hardened rockers out of Boston, MA: Alex Berkson, Bassil Silver-Hajo, Chris Marchiel, and bassist Nick Avila who took time out to talk about the band’s upcoming release through E1 records in the fall and his love of tanks.
What are your top five picks of classic muscle cars?
Nick Avila: I would prefer to drive a tank instead of a muscle car.
Who or what inspired you to pick up your first instrument and how old were you?
Nick: I went to my first metal concert when I was 14 years old. I couldn’t get enough of the energy, virtuosity, and the connection I felt while headbanging with thousands of other metal heads. I was hooked the second I got home and I knew from that point on that heavy music was what I wanted to do for a living. I bought my first bass the day after that concert, and formed my first band a week after that. We didn’t even know how to play, but it didn’t matter. You can always learn on the way.
Remembering back to your first time in front of a live audience, what comes to mind?
Nick: I remember feeling the need to entertain the audience in front of me. My first show was probably at a church, or a VFW in front of 20 people. It didn’t matter to me, I felt back then that as long as you practice your ass off and give the best show for whoever shows up, then you’ve done your job. For some reason, I have never experienced stage fright. Like many musicians, I tend to be a bit shy in everyday life, but my alter-ego always comes out on stage.
What has been your biggest triumph as a band? Greatest challenge?
Nick: For me, getting to where we are today is our biggest triumph. The first show I ever played with Powerglove was in 2006. We played a show with some bands that did not match up with us genre wise, and we basically got booed and flipped off the entire time we played. We’ve now toured with Sonata Arctica, Dragonforce, and Hammerfall, who are bands we grew up listening to. And signed a worldwide deal with E1 (formerly Koch) records, who have released some of the best CDs from my favorite band in the world, Opeth. Most importantly, we’ve gained a lot of fans all over the world, and based on emails I’ve received, have gotten them through some tough times with our silly video game music.
The greatest challenge has been sacrificing our lives for the band. But honestly, I feel like the countless hours of work you spend on the band and relationships you may lose along the way are totally worth it. Metal is life.
As your music as evolved, what do you think has been the most significant change and do you consider it a positive or a negative?
Nick: I think that our music has evolved in a very positive way. We record and produce everything by ourselves, so every new album is a different learning experience, and over time we learn better recording, songwriting, and playing techniques. Our new album is all cartoon and TV themes as opposed to video game themes, but the sound is still very similar to Metal Kombat for the Mortal Man. The main difference is that the new album sounds more dark, progressive, and has a overall heavier sound. This is due to our love for bands like Behemoth, Opeth, and Cannibal Corpse, in combination with our love for bands like Blind Guardian and Sonata Arctica.
What games do you play online? And can my boyfriend join your guild?
Nick: I personally don’t play any games online, I’m more of a console gamer. But the rest of the guys love Starcraft, and Starcraft 2. We actually want to get more involved with our fans by hosting monthly Starcraft and Xbox Live tournaments where you can play members of the band, and win some cool stuff as well. If I had a guild for your boyfriend to join, I would be fine with it!
What is your favorite song to perform live? Why?
Nick: Right now my favorite song to play live is Red Wings Over Baron from Final Fantasy 4. I loved that game
growing up, and the song goes through so many different feels. Not to mention I love watching the look on peoples faces when we play the Final Fantasy victory music about halfway through the song.
This is your chance to promote your CDs, bands, tours, websites & gear?
Nick: Ha-ha, shameless self promotion time eh? Well we are going to have a new cartoon/TV themed CD coming out this fall on E1 records. We should be touring again in the fall, and if you want to keep updated with everything the band is doing, check out: myspace.com/vgmetal – facebook.com/pages/PowerGlove or twitter.com/powergloveband. Our website is also a playable video game, and if you beat it, you can find a secret song (hint, the actual game is hidden, but not that hard to figure out).
The new cartoon/TV themed CD coming out this fall on E1 records — Could you tell me more about it and what themes are going to be included?
Nick: Sure, there will be an official announcement about the track listing in a few weeks. But a few of the tracks I can mention are the X-men theme, The Pokemon theme song, The Flintstones, and Transformers (the theme from the 80′s movie). The album will be called Saturday Morning Apocalypse.
Let’s hear a little about your tastes not related to music — Could you name some of your favorite books or movies?
Nick: As far as movies go, I love everything that Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarintino, and Judd Apatow have ever done. I haven’t had too much time lately to read, but the last book I really enjoyed was The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten, which is a really interesting read. This book has all of Victor Wooten’s (one of the best bassists of all time) educational concepts, placed in a novel, instead of a flat dry instructional book.
Who would be your dream band to perform with, from anywhere in the world?
Nick: There are way too many bands to choose from, but I would say that Opeth would be my dream band to perform with, even though Powerglove may not fit with them. As far as bands that we’d fit with, and I also love, I would choose Japanese visual kei bands such as Versailles, X-Japan, and Galneryus. We also need to tour with Dethklok in the near future!
Is there anything you’d like to say to your fans all over the world?
Long Live Video Game Metal! We love you.
-Nick Avila/Powerglove
I would like to thank Powerglove and Nick Avila for his participation in this interview.
~Denise Smith (interview 2010.07.15)
