Band of the Day: Gone Are The Days

Another band arrives from the largest country in the world. Given its land mass there’s no surprise that we’re not short of great acts coming from Russia!

Simple things first – where are you guys from?

Our band was formed in gloomy rainy Saint Petersburg. It is widely believed that the peculiar spirit as well as the nasty weather all year round does influence people who make music here. Perhaps there is something in it.

How did you meet?

In 2017 I (Vladimir, the mastermind of the band) and my acquaintance Grigory, the bassist, were looking for other musicians to form a band. I used to be a school teacher then, and I found out that one of the students was interested in metal music and extreme vocals, so I suggested that he came to our rehearsal. That was how Max became the member of the band. Now he is only 17, and probably he is one of the youngest extreme vocalists in the world (imagine, he started his singing career at the age of 14)!

Few months later guitarist Sergey joined the band via the guy who knew the guy who knew a band looking for a guitarist.

Shortly after that we put an announcement on the Internet saying we were looking for a clean vocalist and just forgot about it for a year and a half. Much to our surprise, in May 2019 Dmitry reacted to it and eventually joined us. Currently we are arranging our business with a potential drummer. So far we have changed several guys, so we hope this one is our luck.

That is the brief story how the actual line-up formed.

How long have you been playing as a band?

We are not professional musicians in terms of having academic background, though most of us have a huge experience gained in other bands and various musical activities. But ‘Gone are the Days’ is a quite young band, we count our birthdays with Sergey’s joining the band as a starting point, which means we began our journey just three years ago.

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Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?

There is ambivalence behind the name of our band. ‘Gone are the Days’ can be both interpreted as ‘gone are the good days, so we are going through hard times’ or ‘gone are the bad days, so the best ones are yet to come’. Most of our songs deal with both these moods, so it’s up to our listeners to choose the way they feel them.

What are your influences?

In fact, we listen to completely different genres of metal. So, our musical background is pretty diverse. However, we tend to play the blend of melodic metalcore and alternative metal and speaking of these fields most of the inspiration we got from the bands Trivium, Of Mice & Men, Bury Tomorrow, Alter Bridge. Surely, pioneers of MDM made a significant impact on us, too: Soilwork, Amorphis, In Flames, Dark Tranquility. On top of this, such band like Machine Head, Mastodon, Black Bomb A, Woods of Ypres are also in.

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

We believe it is music critics or listeners who are to judge the hot features of bands but if you ask us, we feel that our uniqueness lies in the perfect combination of old-school aggressive riffs, catchy and thoughtful melodies that are surprisingly wrapped in modern sound.

Do you have any particular lyrical themes?

Basically, our songs are devoted to psychological and sometimes social issues. The feature is that we focus on particular life cases rather than outline abstract ideas. We don’t sing about death, pain, loneliness, love etc. in general. We have passion for revolving around specific situations with the plot or whatever.

For instance, the song “When I Die” tells the story of an elderly man who becomes aware of his children’s negligence that results in his bitterness towards his offsprings, so he makes up his mind to deprive them of the fortune.

Or take another song “Outside”. It is about a person who is in two minds about his blind patriotism and unconscious interest in something new but unfamiliar. In general the theme of the song is xenophobia, fear of the alien. However, this topic is taken not in a narrow perspective (it has nothing to do with racism, blind nationalism, etc.) but in a more universal one – life in a closed and narrow world leads to psychological or even psychopathological problems which are described in the song.

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What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?

Our history is quite short at the moment, however, we have given over 10 concerts in Russia. We hope we could take part in gigs in European countries next year provided the pandemic is not so severe. As for our shows, we try to shake the stage as hard as it is possible. We always communicate with the audience and tend to accompany our performance with some scenes from the songs. So, we try our best to make the show more appealing for the eye and ear.

What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?

Well, I remember 2004 or maybe 2003. Anyway, it’s not the case. So, Behemoth were giving a concert in Saint Pete. They were late for almost an hour, finally Nergal came drunk on the stage, they played a set of around 45-50 minutes with Nergal spitting towards the audience and in the end he said something like ‘fuck you’ and vanished. You know, a story similar to that of with Abbath this year. Actually, there’s nothing that wild about it but I don’t know any other stories I myself have seen live. I can only regret not visiting a concert by GG Allin.

No, wait. There is one thing. Last year I went to Fever 333 concert. In the end they invited all the fans from the dance floor to join the band on the stage. That resulted in a wild mob – around 60-70 fans – shaking together with the musicians. That was just crazy. I suppose for a second they might have wanted to go back on their rash invitation. Anyway, it was cool to watch this noisy wave moving up and down shouting along the chorus.

What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?

We use guitars LTD Deluxe EC-1000, Edwards EHR-115D and bass CORT B4-Plus-AS-LH Artisan Series. Processors Line6 POD HD500, Line6 x3-live, Sound Card BEHRINGER U-PHORIA UMC1820, wireless guitar systems AKG WMS40 Flexx Pro and AKG WMS40 Pro Mini.

What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?

Apart from promoting the album itself, currently we are preparing the PR campaign for the main official music video to support the album – “The Claim”. It’s the opening track in the album so it deserves most attention from our side.

What are your plans for the next 6 months or so?

We hope that epidemiological situation will allow us to play some local gigs to present our new album You Don’t Know Us. Also, we are looking forward to a new drummer joining us in the near future so that we could become a completely staffed performing unit again.

Surprisingly, as early as this summer, long before the release of our second LP, we started composing new songs and now we are ready to get down to the recording session for our first EP (by the way, drums have already been recorded). The EP includes 5 absolutely mind-blowing tracks that are quite different from our current tracks for they are the most metal thing we have created so far. That’s why we can’t wait to release these songs. Hopefully, it will happen in spring 2021.

If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!

Speaking of the band to open a concert before us, we would be glad to have Tenops – local alternative metal band with rigorous approach to songwriting, sound production and live shows.

As for the headliner and our wildest dreams, we would be proud to support Machine Head or In Flames. The scenario that looks more realistic in the near future is that we share the stage with Fallcie, they are now getting more and more attention for their hard work and professional approach. And they are also from Saint Pete.

Check out this month’s BotD Playlist on Spotify and YouTube

Gone Are The Days: facebook | instagram | bandcamp | spotify | youtube

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