PipemanRadio Interviews Stratuz From Venezuela

0:00 Hey, you love them too, that's sure. I'm from four see why for Young Rod. Wake up America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipeman on W fourcy dot com west pom Beats number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the White Man. Your looks you boys, don't it's minds you well, you don't. Jost does speak, so you do, Gus write down. This is the Pipe Man here on the Adventures Pipeman W four CY Radio. And I'm here with our next guest who has some killer music you guys got to check out and definitely heavy heavy, which I love.

1:11 So let's welcome to the show. Geronimo from Stratus, How are you, hey man? Thank you, oh, thank you for being on here and making us some great music. And you know, it's it's interesting like I've wanted to go to your country for a long time and almost seems like Americans might not. It's not an easy time now to go. I go to Costa Rica all the time and try and work my way south. But so what's it like in Benezuela doing metal music? Well, it's it's like a really niche thing, right, Like it's not the most popular music here.

1:53 So actually we released this record, and we get more feedback from from from foreign countries then we do here. Actually that's a kind of figure. There's a small metal scene and we get to play and stuff, but it's not to be Yeah, that's why I kind of fair. But see, I think that's kind of cool too, because I'm an old school metal head and I liked it when it was a small scene back in the day, even here, you know, And it's like it blows my mind because I go and I do radio coverage of these festivals all the time, and like you know, when you have like a hundred thousand metal heads at one festival, it just kind of blows my mind. We wouldn't have that here, Yeah, I bet not. Somebody somebody needs to come up with an idea to do a festival there. But of course I think you would have to change things first before we could have a metal festival. And Benet, Yeah, So tell us a little bit about your latest album, because I was listening to it and I mean, man, I love it, so I know the listeners will love it too. Thanks. Man. Well, we were last year and we've been promoting it since. It's like it's it's a comeback.

3:14 Really, we took hiatus in two thousand and six, and it wasn't until now that we decided to get back together and write some music. And I think that time apart was kind of useful for all of us to grow us musicians, musicians and as persons, I think, And yeah, this is what we came up with. So do you think that maybe the whole COVID lockdown thing might have been an impetus to you guys coming off a hiatus. Well, it's funny because we decided to come back like four months before the COVID thing or something like that, six before. So we decided, okay, let's do it, and we played live show and we had a good time, and so we decided, okay, let's write some new stuff, and we started writing, and right then COVID thing happened, which was really hard for us because we're used to writing music back together. Yeah, and we couldn't go out, so we had to write like remotely, and it was awful. But yeah, it took us a lot more time to write the song that we will usually do. But yeah, but plus, it's kind of it's kind of hard to have that chemistry in the studio when you're not in the studio, right, Yeah, it's absolutely, absolutely,

4:46 yeah, it's really weird, and it was hard and like to get the atmosphere right and the thing right when we were writing this thing. Apart of course, when we recorded it we got together. It was some time later so we could actually go out with certain restrictions, but we could so we could record a thing together and that was right, But writing the stuff was really hard. Yeah, And you know, your story is not that unique as you would think, because you wouldn't believe how many bands I've interviewed that same thing. They were either like broken up or on hiatus and they decide to make a comeback and then boom, like literally weeks or months get locked down and it's like, well, you know, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of those musicians like yourself. It's like all that time and then it's kind of like, you know, wow, like luck. But I think it might have might have helped us in the way that we had a lot more free time, right, so we could focus more on it.

6:00 Yeah. Yeah, well, and that that was the art thing I was going to bring up, because I've brought that up a lot lately. It's like I think for a lot of artists, and especially the ones that were going at full speed before COVID, that it was like jumping off a hamster wheel, you know, and you know you finally had a chance like you did years ago to actually be creative with the music. And so I keep saying that, like, if we're gonna pick something positive at a pandemic, the positive to me was that artists got a chance to you know, stop and figure out who they are as an artist and where they want the music to go, and like the old days, take their time and make an album right instead of rushing and like putting an album out even though they note they're not completely finished with it. Yeah. Absolutely. I actually right now we're starting to write new music for an upcoming album. And it's weird because now we have our jobs and its possibilities and things to do, and it's hard to find the time like like the time we had before. Yeah, it's it's like, you know, it's the dichotomy of the good news bad news thing. You know, it's like bad news you can't play, you can't work. Good news is you can be as creative as you want.

7:30 Absolutely, yeah, so they're way around exactly. So I'm glad you're writing new music. Do you have any kind of vision of how the new music is going to be compared to previous music. Well, this album was Compasses, is pretty different to what we did before. Well, actually the band started like really long time ago, in eighty four. I was a little boy back then. I joined the band into thousand and four, I think or five, and the first albums of the band were like really thrash and death metal, and in time we started going more to the doom side and the more calm down, darker atmospheric thing. And this latest album is really different to the previous albums. So these new things we're writing now are kind of in the same direction that last one, but I think it might get a little more more problem maybe or something like that. Nice. And you know, I'm glad you brought up how long you guys have been around, because I'm sure a lot of people don't realize that. And I'm an old school metal head, so like the eighties are are my time, you know, Like I was at the first Slayer show ever. I was yeah, yeah, I was at the first Metallica show ever. I was at early Possessed shows Dark Angel it is and you know, so wow, you're

9:03 speaking my language and from the old school. But then I like growth too. What I like about nowadays is back then, you know, it was, there were a lot of gatekeepers back then, so you you couldn't like doom metal. If you were into thrash metal, you can't like it was there's some of the rules were just plain stupid, you know. You know, I like it better now where I can listen to whatever I want, and then there's some uniqueness to blending all the different genres. So instead of you're just purely death metal, or you're just purely thrash or you're purely black metal, like mix it all up and then you have this unique, cool sound. Yeah, I think that's that's actually when people ask me, like, what specific genre are you guys, you say we're metal because we're doing a lot a little bit of everything mixed in the pot. Sometimes it might get death metal, sometimes make it doom me, make it I don't even know. So right, we're just metal. That's the way it should be.

10:13 Yeah, there's way too many microgenres and subgenres, and it's like it's getting to a point of ridiculousness. Yeah, it's like, oh well we're doom, thrash, blackened clam metal pony. You know. I like the idea of it's just metal, you know it because it doesn't matter. And you know, if you're a metal head, you're a metal head. There's very few types of metal in the heavier genres of metal that I don't like. It's not like I can say, well, I like thrash metal, but I don't like death metal, you know. You know, it's like I like it all. To me, it's more about the band and the songs than the same here. I don't care about the generous anymore now and then, you know, the funny thing is nowadays it's it's weird to me as like one of the original metal heads. Okay, it's really weird to me some of these bands that they're writing metal for this like so micro subgenre that it's almost like an algebraic equation to writing the music instead of musical creativity.

11:28 Yeah, it's very limiting, like they can't go outside some walls and that's slam I think, Oh yeah, because like think about think of a Big four of thrash. Was there any really a rules to what thrash was. I think the biggest rules of thrash were wearing skinny jeans and a black leather and it wasn't about the music because like those four Big Four, they sound all completely different. Yeah, they're completely different. Absolutely. Yeah, that's also music thing. I think about the new bands, some of these new bands, like they sound the same, or that you could tell the difference between these new bands, and when you look back, even in the same genre, they were also not even metal, I think in every style of music, like in like if you say grunge like Nirvana was really different then change right and stuff and yeah, it's crazy. I know, it's wild to me because it's like you know, I laughed sometimes because back then people would say to me, oh, it just al sounds the same, and I was like, no, it doesn't. I'm like, it's it sounds totally different. Now I became one of those people that I'm listening to some of the stuff now and I'm like, that sounds exactly the same.

12:52 I can't tell the difference between the bands. If you played me any eighties metal band or nineties metal band, or like you said, run within ten seconds, I know what band it is no matter what. And now you could play me some of the new stuff, I'm like, oh, I don't know who that is exactly exactly, you know. So that's what I think's cool about your sound with your band, because you do have that uniqueness, and I think, I think it's so important man, it's it's important for you to stand out and be your own creativity. Yeah, that's what I think. That what I think that you were saying about about growth, that's really important because well, only think that matters is to get your wrong thing out, doesn't matter what it is. Yes, and listen, if you're a musician, why would you not want to grow because, like listen, I look at like Hatfield as an example, recently was talking about he hates well not I don't know about hate, but at the San Jose Sharks games, they play Seek and Destroy, but they play his original version and he hates his voice back then because he said, I didn't even know how to sing, you know, And I mean I love that voice from back then absolutely, But he learned how to sing. He evolved, He did

14:24 a lot of work, and you know, so for somebody like that, playing all that work and experience and years of effort in You don't want people to think of you from like when you were sixteen. Yeah, I imagine dad, imagine someone telling you, you know what, when you were a beginner you were better. I know, right, Oh my god, that would be terrible. Oh man, So that's cool. So let's tell everybody how they can reach out to you guys on social media on the web, get get your music, buy merch check everywhere, Instagram, strive on the official and we're also on Facebook the same name. We're pretty much in the every social media with that name. And we're also on Spotify. You construc strados with a C at the end, and yeah, we're pretty much in there in every outlet there. Yeah, so everybody check them out, connect with them. That's st r A t u Z and man, these guys are badass. So you definitely have to check out the music. And I thank you for giving it to us, and thanks for being on the Adventures of pike Man. Thank you very much. Man, that's really fun.

15:39 I love it or that that's the best compliment of them. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man on w for CUI Radio.