Whats going on dance music fans (metal fans in the house?!) As you know we love bringing you the best in original music from the best up and coming artist in the game right now. Tonight we're bringing you something a bit different, a bit darker, and a bit, well, *metal*. That's right, we're bringing you a fantastic collaboration between Philly bass heavy artist, Architekt, and metal band, Of Titans. Atchitekt has deep roots in heavy metal traveling between bands as a young artist before finding his passion in super-heavy dub production. We were happy to hear this collaboration was happening, especially since we're huge fans of The Browning here at EDMsauce.com; their electronic undertones mixed perfectly with metal. When this union happened, we were immediately interested in an interview with both the band and Architekt to see how this Frankenstein of an E.P morphed together into a dark masterpiece.
Key:
A: Architekt
JOT: Jim (Of Titans)
AOT: Andy (Of Titans)
1 . Who are of titans and how did you guys start working together?
A: Me and the jim (drummer of the band) are life long friends and have always wanted to collaborate on a record – especially now that i produce very metal infused dubstep. We are both drummers , and we both came up in the same local scene in the southern suburbs of philadelphia. We traded knowledge and metal influences throught out the years as well. This album is definetly a reflection if that.
JOF: i started this project(of titans) with andy (vocalist / guitarist) about 2 years ago, just writing demos and trying to figure out our sound. . We invited mike (architekt ) over to work on some sort of digital / electronic intro for a something – after 2 hours and many beers later we had a whole song done – just keys , drums , and song structure. We Bounced those stems over to andy and he wrote guitar , vocals and bass to what is now the song kronus.
AOT : I met Jim through the site Bandmix.com. We hit it off from the first day we met and he’s quickly become one of my best friends. We’d hang out on weekends, record random stuff we thought sounded cool, and went from there.
2. What influenced this record?
AOT: I really enjoy Djent and Metalcore but I like electronic music as well. Mixing the two genres felt natural and I think it worked out really well. Some artists I really like are Novelists, Born of Osiris, Circle of Contempt, Veil of Maya, I See Stars, We Came as Romans, After the Burial, Brian Transeau, Celldweller, etc.
A: The connection between metal and dubstep has always been there for sure. I released a mix 3 years ago called electronic death metal for that very reason. Heavy music is theraputic regardless of the approach. Jim got me into a band that kinda blew my mind, and started this whole project, about a year ago and really influenced the first record…
JOT: ….Born of Osiris…
A: IT MADE THE MOST SENSE, THE WAY THEY COMBINE KEYBOARDS AND DJENTY PROGRESSIVE METAL…THE SONG MACHINE IN PARTICULAR STRUCK ME AS SOMETHING THAT FELT FAMILIAR. LIKE AS IF I WROTE SO MANY INTROS THE SAME WAY. I IMMEDIATELY LATCHED ONTO THAT SOUND.
JOT: AND , YEA – WE KNOW – KRONUS SOUNDS SUPER SIMILAR FOR THE FIRST 30 SECONDS – BUT WE REALLY DID OUR OWN THING WITH IT. BUT THERES SO MANY OTHERS BANDS TO MENTION TOO – AFTER THE BURIAL , MESHUGHA, VEIL OF MAYA, AUGUST BURNS RED, CODE ORANGE, IMPENDING DOOM, UNDEROATH, ATTACK ATTACK, I SEE STARS, A DAY TO REMEMBER, NOVELISTS, ENTHEOS, MNEMIC, DEATH, CHILDREN OF BODOM, LAMB OF GOD, ALL SHALL PERISH, ASKING ALEXANDRIA, CRADLE OF FILTH, FOR THE FALLEN DREAMS,UNEARTHED, WAGE WAR, ( OLD )WINDS OF PLAGUE, FROM FIRST TO LAST— THE LIST GOES ON. NEED I SAY MORE?
3. How did you guys track this EP?
AOT: I used a guitar tone and bass tone I made in POD Farm. The Platinum version has every pedal, distortion, reverb, etc that one could ever want haha. I just messed around with them and picked what I thought sounded good. The guitar I used is a Schecter Diamond Series C-7 Deluxe.
JOT: i have a 5 piece gretch custom drum kit that runs through an alesis dm10 prcessing module which are triggered by D drum triggers , which i run into the computer through midi format . The midi information activates sounds from the steven slate digital plugin. It sounds PHENOMENAL.
A: We worked off of my computer for mix and master but we did all the tracking and demos on jims mac mini ( dont let the name
Fool you – this thing kicks ass). DAW wise – We recorded in reaper, but we finalized everything in ableton. VST wise we used steven slate digital drums for drum replacement – and we used machines kontact library for many of the natural (steinberg) piano sounds & plucked / bowed string arrangements. I believe andy used a custom Tweaked Pod farm set up for his guitar tones. I used waves plugins and Ozone for the instrumental and Vocal mixdowns.
4. What are you looking to accomplish with this project? :
A: to make people pit before and after the build up. Haha. But forreal. I want to bring heavier, more niche metal into the bass genre. These 2 things live together, wether people realize it or not. I think they catch on more everyday.
AOT: Make music that we like and hopefully people dig it as well. The two styles blend really well. And yes, make people mosh lmao.
5. Whats up next (for both of you)?
A: ive got some singles to release that will finish out the release schedule for the year – then some more eps and singles in 2019. Im developing my dj sets and shows more, trying to make the touring experience as fun as possible for everyone. expanding the brand overall.
AOT: We want to release our first single as a band.
JOT: we have a bunnch of solid material tracked already – just working out which song is going out first. But this material will show alot of growth and depth in the Of titans sound.
A: i can attest to that – it sounds gnarly.
