Well I lied...
So I give you my interview with John Sprich, organizer of Euroblast and manager of Monuments and The Algorithm:
I'm just going to throw a couple of questions we've been asking everyone out there to begin with and then get to the ones that are more specifically for you as I was not expecting this interview so I'd love to buy some time with these.
John: (laughs) No problem
1. If you could add a couple of bands to this festival that would fit the bill, what would you add?
John: Meshuggah, Gojira, Tool, Periphery, Animals As Leaders.
2. Have you discovered any new artists while staying here so far?
John: Not really, my managing duties have kept me pretty busy.
3. Why do you think the tech metal scene is so strong in the UK compared to other places?
John: Musical education is so ingrained in the UK educational system so kids learn musical instruments from an early age and then you end up with someone like Mike Malyan. I've thought a lot about this actually, how progressive music is received in different parts of the world and why. Another strong market for it is India, you know why? Their traditional music is progressive so when they hear progressive metal it's like what they know put forth in a fresh way. In Russia it works because of the general interest in mathematics but Germany is a hard place to sell it to. The traditional music there is marching music, 4/4 on the beat, every beat.
Progressive music today is getting so complex to categorize though. They come from all of these different directions, old school prog, metalcore, groovy stuff like Pantera. All of those have lead to different styles of prog today and it's creating difficulties here and there. Spotify have an algorithm to find out how to recommend music but it doesn't always work. What would you think would be the number one recommendation if you listen to Meshuggah?
I don't know...Periphery 'cause they're wildly popular I guess...
John: Karnivool.
Really? Well I guess they're likely to share some fans but if I'm looking for Meshuggah, Karnivool isn't exactly the closest thing.
John: Exactly.
4. How did you get into the whole festival planning and managing thing?
John: I just did it. There was no one getting the bands to Germany that I wanted to see so it was a choice to wait or do it myself. I was the drummer for a Necrophagist influenced tech death band at the time but I turned to planning Euroblast. The first one was mostly progressive death metal but it's gotten a bit different through the years.
Regarding managing, Monuments played Euroblast in 2010 and after the festival they asked me if I was interested, I wasn't really planning on it but I sent them a list of questions and then managed them on a tour with Periphery and Tesseract.
From there I talked to Rémi (The Algorithm), we live together, we have the same taste in music and play a lot of video games together so it made sense to work together as well.
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During the interview we talked about a lot of things, Euroblast being the main influence for Simon to start the UK Tech Metal Fest, the state of modern metal etc. and if I get another chance to interview him I promise to have more questions prepared.
Overall a great guy, had fun talking to him and I'm really grateful for all his help so I'd like to return the favor. Euroblast has a funding project going, help them get this funded because they're sure to use the money to make Euroblast 2014 the best one yet.
http://www.gofundme.com/euroblast
Jón Þór