Taipei Metal

Symphony X - The Dark Horse Rides Again

This article also appears in the March Issue of Music In Magazine. For more news and features on the music scene in Taiwan and abroad, pick up a copy today.

Legendary progressive power metal band Symphony X wrapped up the touring cycle for their latest album, Paradise Lost, in Taipei on February 22nd, 2009. Vocalist extraordinaire Russell Allen talked to Music In about the highs and lows of being in a band that thrives on being underestimated. 

“We’re the outsiders. We come in middle of the night and steal your chicks and your money and we’re gone.”
--Russell Allen, Symphony X

 

A young band, its members just starting out on the downward slope towards the age of 30, sits at a unique crossroads. Nearly a half a decade into their career, and with three solid albums under their belt, each a study in high-precision, blazing guitar leads and memorable metal riffs, with vocals that pay homage to metal greats such as Ronnie James Dio, Bruce Dickinson and the like, they have yet to play a single show. They’ve known neither the crushing disappointment of playing to two people in the middle of nowhere after a 12 hour van ride through the non-descript Midwestern countryside, nor the dizzying high of hearing hundreds, or even thousands, fervently singing along with every epic-inspired lyric following a 12 hour overseas flight. In their midst is one of the greatest virtuoso guitar players this side of Malmsteen and Uli Jon Roth, and yet, outside of the shredder haven of Japan, the band is virtually unheard of.

They should be barnstorming America, dropping jaws in Europe, and fielding offers of arena tours. Instead, they idle at home, wondering what the point of putting so much into something they are getting relatively little out of is. Frustration begins to take its toll, and soon the band has lost one member, the drummer, who decides it’s time to pack it in. It’s not long before the band’s imposing, charismatic front man begins to entertain the thought of leaving as well, and maybe starting from scratch with a new project. Everything the band has built together seems on the brink of collapse, and they haven’t even had a solitary chance to electrify the collective mind of a single live audience.
Such was the scenario facing Symphony X a decade ago; a band that, today, could arguably be bestowed the title of kings of the progressive metal hill. The foundation was shaky and it seemed like their efforts to keep the house they built with their bare hands standing were in vain. But like any good metal warriors they stuck it out, and it is only today, ten years on, that they are beginning to reap the rewards.

Then they were still the underdogs, despite being on the cusp of releasing their fourth album, who were thinking of giving up the game. Though they have retained the perpetual hunger of a band that has had to fight and claw for every scrap of recognition and respect they have received thus far, and actually seem to revel in fulfilling that role, today they are acutely aware of what they have achieved and just how much potential they have left to explore.

“When people come to see us, then it’s all over. We get fans the old-fashioned way. We earn them. Just give us an audience and let us do our thing,” says Symphony X front man Russell Allen, who has wedged his hulking 6’4” frame behind a table at a hotel restaurant in Taipei, a few hours before he and his band mates, guitar hero Michael Romeo, bassist Michael Lepond, keyboardist Michael Pinnella, and drummer Jason Rullo, would prove those words to be irrevocably true with their first performance in Taiwan; the final show of the touring cycle for their 2007 album, Paradise Lost. Even if you can’t see the fire in his eyes behind his dark sunglasses, the passion in his voice is undeniable, as is the sense of confidence.

After 15 years together, and over 10 years of playing shows, they’ve got their performances down to a science. Allen stalks the stage from side to side, extending a beefy forearm that frenzied fans struggle to fit their hands around, belting out towering vocal melodies with a range few singers, past or present, can match. A former football player, the man knows how to command an audience, just as he surely knew how to punish the opposition on the gridiron in years gone by. He both praises the crowd’s enthusiasm and chides them in good humor into giving more when he feels they aren’t quite fulfilling their end of the vague bargain between performer and audience. To his right, Romeo works his way through a year’s worth of guitar geek wet dreams in a single song, pulling everything out of the guitar god bag of tricks, including the over-the-top-of-the-neck fret board tap, much to the awe of the shred fanatics in the crowd. Lepond’s thinning head of hair bangs back and forth as he too pulls off impossible feats of fret board tapping with unparalleled accuracy, with Rullo, the one who left the band if only for a brief two year period from ’98 to 2000, keeping it all together. Pinnella, who perhaps makes the most understated contribution to the band, is nevertheless amazing when called on to fleetly gallop his fingers across the keys.

The sight is even more impressive given how close Allen once came to calling it quits. As they were already a man down at the time, this could very well have sent the band, if not the musicians themselves, on the fast track to a place that is paradoxically well-populated but oft-forgotten and nearly impossible to locate—the realm of obscurity. Once Rullo left the fold, Allen seriously considered following suit.

“I was tempted to leave too at the time. I was very frustrated. If this band doesn't tour now I'm out, because I just don't see any future in it.”

At the time Symphony X should have been a well-established act given their pedigree and the fact that they were already on album number four. But they were trapped in a record deal that, while gaining them credit in Japan, was getting them nowhere stateside or in Europe.

“We didn't really have a place to play anywhere in the world,” Allen not-so-fondly recalls. “Japan was the place where the albums were released so we had no way of getting releases to anybody else because the Japanese, at the time, were very possessive of the act. We used to call it the golden handcuffs.”

Allen was also becoming conscious of the ever-closing window of opportunity he had to make something of himself in the metal world. The sad but often true fact of the matter is that if you don't make it by a certain point, chances are, it just isn't going to happen.

“You just get to that point in your life where you're like, 'I gave it this much time, it's either going to happen or I'm going to move on.' I was 26 or 27 at the time, and I gave myself seven or eight years throughout my teens and early twenties to do it. Either this band moves on and it continues as a career or I was going to quit and maybe try one more act, or just say 'fuck it.' I just rolled the dice one last time.”

As it turned out, rolling the dice was the right thing to do. The band's fourth album, 1998's Twilight in Olympus, caught the ear of a French promoter, who helped bring the band to Europe to play some festivals. Finally, they had some exposure outside of The Land of the Rising Sun, which for them might as well have been called The Land of the Floundering Career. European fans were introduced to Symphony X's brand of epic power metal, but it would still be another seven or so years before the band started to earn some respect on their native soil. According to Allen, the band has developed a following in the U.S. in just the past three years, and it is only now that the man is starting to get recognized when he goes out while at home.

“There was a time when I could be playing an arena in Europe and I could walk down my street and no one would know who the fuck I was at home. Now it’s a little different. I get a lot of kids coming up to me at the 7-11 and they’ll be like, ‘Dude!’”

The same could be said of the band's leader and chief songwriter, Michael Romeo, an ax man who has spent the bulk of his career just off the radar of American mainstream metal knowledge; a fact bemoaned by his brother in arms.

“Michael Romeo's been famous everywhere but America, and he's still the underdog. The guy's probably the greatest guitar player on the planet. He just doesn't get enough recognition.”

It was not until 2005 that Romeo and co. began to get some props at home. That year proved to be a watershed for the band when they were called upon by none other than Dave Mustaine to join the born-again Megadeth main man on the inaugural Gigantour, albeit on the second stage, and the band has been growing in popularity ever since. But something was missing, and that something was a new album. Though Gigantour was clearly too good to pass up, the band hadn't released an album since 2002's The Odyssey, inspired by the Greek epic poem. The band knew they had to find a way to top themselves; that it was either time to break out or back out. The question of how to go about this proved to be a daunting one which would take five years to answer.

“How can we repackage what we do and make it accessible to everybody?” says Allen of the job they had ahead of them. “It's not a sell-out kind of thing. How can you make a person that's never heard your band like your band regardless of your genre background? That was the challenge.”

While they may not have known exactly what they were going to do, Allen certainly knew what he didn't want them to do, and that was join the vacuous mob of trendy, modern metal. The popularity of certain bands that seem to value style over substance clearly baffles the man to no end.

“I just don't understand. It's like the cool kids club of the metal thing. The hardcore thing came out and became so big, and then everybody had to have this kind of look and sound. If you look at how the emo bands have infected heavy music with some of the looks, it just kills me. So we've never been all about that. We don't care to be wearing the latest shit. Let them have their fun; not us.”

That cool club of which he speaks has never been something Allen has aspired to become a part of. In fact, he's spent the bulk of his life avoiding it at all costs.

“When I was growing up the cool kids club was into Duran Duran. I started rebelling against that shit at that time. But Van Halen and Iron Maiden started corrupting me slowly and I enjoyed every minute of it. Metal has always been the kids with the Iron Maiden t-shirts that are over at the fuckin' bench out on the field smoking pot, and there's only about eight of them. Metal has always been about the outsiders.”

And so Symphony X undertook the seemingly incomprehensible task of remaining the outsiders that they have always been, while at the same time trying to increase their fan base. Adding to their stress was the fact that, as they did on The Odyssey, the band had decided to do everything save for the mixing completely on their own. That was part of the reason for the five year wait between albums, but it wasn't the whole story. Another factor in the elongated time frame was that the band has developed its own rigorous standard of quality control, from the guitar licks to the lyrics that Allen helps pen.

“I hate every aspect of that process because we’re constantly challenging it. It takes months for us to do that. We’ve got a little system down now—a system of quality control where we analyze what we have and then take some time off and analyze it again. And so we can cycle through what we have and be pretty confident that it’s going to stick. Anything that sticks with you is good. But the process of getting to that point is difficult because you’re completely open to ridicule. The lyrics are naked and we rape the fuck out of it. And then we move on. It’s a tedious process; days and weeks of sitting there. Me and Mike hate it but we know it has to get done.”

And so it was with a workman’s grit and sweat and an artist’s passion and drive that Symphony X went about the long process of writing and recording their seventh studio album, Paradise Lost, inspired by the Milton poem. There’s something about symphonic power metal that lends itself well to such grandiose storylines regarding myths, legends, and the oldest tale of all, the battle between good and evil.

“It’s so hard to sing about your dog dying with a full symphony orchestra behind you,” Allen deadpans. “So we always focused our efforts on topics that seemed to compliment the musical style that we have and the ability to create these epic orchestral pieces. Paradise Lost was an easy fit even thought the songs are really not about the devil or anything. It’s just about betrayal and lust and revenge—all the things the book talks about.”

And with darker subject material, Allen chose to explore some new territory vocally, growling a little bit deeper, and giving his vocal chords a bit more of a razor’s edge, but still keeping his trademark power and range. While rawer than his previous work, don’t expect him to trade in his siren wails for grunts and guttural experimentation anytime soon. He’s simply along for the ride, letting the music take his voice wherever it needs to go, proving that he has the chops to do whatever the music requires of him.

“If I do a little more grit on some tracks it’s because the topics are aggressive. I’m not a fuckin’ screamer. I never got into the cookie monster thing. I’m just into singing. I love Chris Cornell and Robert Plant, Dio. I like the power metal guys. Notes are kind of my thing, even if I’m growling pretty deep there’s still a melody in there.”

Of course, with five years between albums, two times an eternity by music industry standards, the band had no idea if metal heads, a notoriously fickle bunch, would even remember them. Even Allen admits that taking so long in getting the album out was a mistake. But when Paradise Lost came out in 2007, all worries were quickly laid to rest. The album gave Symphony X its first American chart position, coming in at number 123 on the Billboard Top 200.

“How lucky are we?” says Allen with no hint of false gratitude. “Five years with nothing and then our biggest album to date, outselling The Odyssey everywhere within a matter of months. The band had disappeared for five years on the record shelves.”

Many metal bands would likely espouse indifference when told of their chart position, but Symphony X, being a bit sager than their younger cohorts, are aware of the significance of the achievement and what it could mean for the band.

“I’m not going to lie to you. That opens other opportunities. We’re going to take the opportunities as they come. That kind of recognition is important for the band to move forward. We just keep getting bigger.”

It also has financial implications. Everyone in the band is now a family man, with Russell being the latest to become a father. With offspring now in tow, the band members can’t afford to simply be out for themselves anymore. They have mouths to feed, and their stock and trade is dependent entirely on their ability to market themselves to new fans while retaining those who have stuck by them for the band’s entire 15 year history. As a result, when they make a move, they can’t afford to roll the dice, as Allen did once when he decided to remain in the ranks of Symphony X. Each decision regarding the albums they produce and the shows they play must be carefully calculated.

“None of us can afford to get raked over the coals by going out and doing some bullshit festival that charge you an arm and a leg for nothing. If we had money to burn I guess we would entertain those ideas. But we make good money, and we like keeping it. But if we do want to invest in the band, it has to be something legitimate.”

One way they have invested in the band is to build their own studio, at which their last two albums have been tracked. But rather than pay someone to come in and design it for them, the band also took the D.I.Y. approach in this regard, putting hammer to nail and wire to circuit themselves. Allen was finally able to put his knowledge of computers to work for the band, and almost single-handedly carried his band mates into the digital age on his own broad shoulders.

“I’m really knowledgeable with computers. I could rip apart a PC and put it back together right before your eyes in about five minutes. I’m very confident with building PCs and I understand multiple operating systems. Romeo did a good job of getting up to speed with that and we moved to a digital recording medium. I built him five rack computers, he wired everything.”

The studio became an educational tool for the band. No longer bound by being billed by the hour, they were free to experiment and teach themselves the tricks of the recording trade, something Allen clearly enjoyed, which has worked to the band’s benefit. Now, the only thing not handled directly by the band is the mixing process. Everything else is handled determinately in-house.

“We’re very learned individuals. We like to keep learning more and more and more about how to create a good acoustic environment for recording. We learned all of this over the years. Why pay somebody else to do that? We still pay someone to mix, just because it’s a smart thing to do. You can’t be that close to a project all the way through. That’s the only thing where we pass the baby away and say, ‘Clothe her.’”

The band was rewarded for its hard work and five years of pursuing perfection have landed the band in relatively new territory. Whereas before, they either never had momentum, or lost any forward motion they may have had to lengthy delays between albums, now they are in a position to capitalize on their current success. Everyone in the band is on the same page for the first time in the band’s existence, according to Allen, who was well-acquainted with the subject of momentum from his football days.

“I played football for eight years and it’s hard to see unless you’re involved with something like that. This business is a game. You’ll be riding high and then all of a sudden you fumble the fuckin’ ball and now the other team is riding high. If you fuck up and give the other side the momentum back it really crushes you. Then you have to work ten times harder to get the momentum back. So we did. We put all the work into the album because we knew it had to be great. The band has a firm understanding of what it is to lose momentum. But we understand it as a band, not just one person. That was a big deal.”

With the touring for Paradise Lost at an end, it’s now time to get back into the studio and get back to work. Rest is not an option, especially when the bleak economic situation provides ample fodder for a metal album.

“We’re not stupid. You buy a bigger boat, you need money to pay for it. The economy is really tough on everybody so it’s a great time for us to start making a new album because the times are going to help to inspire us. It will come out, hopefully in a year, when things are little better for everybody. We’re hoping, just like everyone else in the world, that things will get better. That might be the message in our music somewhere. We need to get out again and capitalize on our success. We can’t wait five years, obviously, so we’ll be out with a new album by the end of the year.”

Allen is also anxious to have Symphony X branch out and expand its musical horizons. Since the beginning, mostly due to Romeo’s astounding proficiency in having his fingers speak volumes up and down the guitar neck, the band has been tagged as being progressive, which Allen believes is sometimes misconstrued as being obtuse, or technical simply for the sake of being technical.

“The band needs to explore some new territory. It’s been too long. It’s time to try something completely different on a song or two. Maybe bringing in instruments that have never been associated with metal, like a distorted banjo. Who’s ever heard of a distorted banjo? You heard it first. We’re progressive because we’re forward thinking, not because we play a bunch of notes for you. If you want that, go somewhere else. We’re trying to make music with integrity that’s going to stick around for a while.”

If that has traditionalists quaking in their safe little corner, fear not. The distorted banjo comment was made mostly in jest. Though they clearly have a penchant for making concept albums, you’re not going to hear a Symphony X record based on Deliverance. Symphony X will always be a metal band that juxtaposes the darkness and the light, but don’t be surprised if the darkness starts to increasingly envelope those last shining rays, leaving tiny pin pricks of gleaming hope in just the right places to keep things from becoming predictable.

“We’re just going to continue to do what we did on the last album; heavy, melodic stuff. There’s always a darkness to the band, there’s a good and evil to Symphony X. There’s always been a light and dark side to the band. A lot of bands have done it over the years. We just decided to make it a staple in the band that we would always have that contrast on every record. There would always be a balance of some sort. The darker shit might dominate, then there’s one really bright light somewhere on the record, like a beacon.”

And if anyone out there thinks there’s no way Symphony X can top Paradise Lost, by all means, drop the band a line and let them know. After playing the underdog for a decade and a half, there’s no other part they want to portray. Happily typecast, they cherish any amount of vitriol and doubt that might come their way. Go on; tell them they can’t do it. Tell them they’re washed up. Just be prepared to chow down on your own words when the next album comes out, and perhaps a few of your own pearly whites on the side.

“Being underestimated is the greatest advantage you can have in life. No one is expecting you to do anything, so anything that you do is a win. But when you really knock somebody’s teeth in and they're totally not expecting it, that’s what’s so powerful about what we do.”

And with all due respect to Alestorm, the Scottish pirate-themed metal band, Symphony X are the real buccaneers of metal. At least that’s how Allen envisions the band. Family men they may be, but, at least in a musical sense, when they are around, keep an eye on your daughters and lock the safe.

“We’re the outsiders. We come in middle of the night and steal your chicks and your money and we’re gone. We’re always going to be that. The only way we’re going to take the cake is if we steal it. I’m a pirate. That’s what I am. That’s what the band is.”

The band is only now reaching its potential as it once loomed over the potentially precarious ledge overlooking the cavernous depths of middle-aged mediocrity that have swallowed up many a lesser band. They are poised to leap over it and avoid such an unfitting demise, snatching their career from the jaws of obscurity with Paradise Lost, and ready to take their career to the next level with their upcoming album. Ever the gladiator, Allen can’t resist putting it in athletic terms.

“Like any sport, you have to know your fundamentals. Now it’s just a matter of opening the idea box and saying, ‘What do you want to do?’ That’s where we’re going to have a good time.”

And if you must underestimate them, by all means go ahead. Though once they doubted themselves, all such thoughts have long since been banished. They may still be the long shots of the metal world, but nothing is going to stop them now that the wind is firmly at their backs.

“We’re the darkest dark horse of all time. We’re not your typical fan favorite. But we just keep on coming.”

By Joe Henley