Parasyche Interview

Being a Metal band anywhere in the world is always going to be a challenge –add that to being part of a country that doesn’t have a long standing musical tradition with that genre and things are even harder. This is the story of Chile-based band, Parasyche, a group of young Chileans who have managed to gain attention on the internet through a couple of cover videos of hit songs such as System of a Down’s B.Y.O.B or Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, but their musical talents go beyond just that. Their debut album released last year, Insanity Origins, is a testament to these young men’s musicianship.

Here we have an interview with the band, which is made by Nico Borie (vocals and rhythm guitar), Matías Becerra (lead guitar), Nico España (drums) and Cristian Suárez (bass). Hope you enjoy it.

Good to have you here, guys. It’s a pleasure.

Band: Thanks! The pleasure is ours.

For those that are not aware, what can you tell us about Parasyche, your origins and what you guys are all about as a band?

Matías: Just after highschool, in 2010, all I was thinking was to form a metal band, so I started looking for musicians. After trying with many people, I spoke to Nico España who I knew 3 years before (we used to play guitar together) and I told him I was looking for a drummer. He told me he was just learning how to play drums. What a coincidence. So we started to write our first songs, such as Wolf Inside, Vesania, Detonation and many others.  Dario, a friend of us, was the former singer, but he left the band for a while in 2011 and we looked for a new singer. We published a demo of vesania (it didn’t have an actual name) in Blogspot and Nico Borie told us he wanted to apply. Now we had a singer, and a new songwriter, so between 2011 and 2016 we wrote Insanity Origins (adding Borie’s compositions such as Need and Cachafaz), we defined our work methodology and we realized that Nico’s vocal impressions were very funny. So we were ready to record our album in our home studio, but we lacked a bass player. So we spoke to Cristian, who was member of the band back in 2011 for 2 months, more or less. He listened to the songs in their final version and he accepted to be in again. The team was completed, we chose our actual name, Parasyche (the older name was Deconstructed), and destruction begun (lol). Last part is what everyone knows: Insanity Origins, YouTube, impressions and so far 19 live shows in Chile.

Why each one of you wanted to get in the music business?

Matias: In the first place it was to make a dream come true; that was my first motivation since I was a kid: to have a great Metal band and make amazing albums. Today I think it’s similar, but now that we know a bit more of the metal scene, I think that my main motivation is to create connection with people through our music and spread our music over the world.

Nico Borie: Since I took the guitar for the first time, I really enjoyed creating with it. Then I discovered that I could sing so I joined this band, we work well together, and here we are doing what we like so why not share it with the world?

Nico España: for me it was never a business until now, I just wrote a couple of songs, because the guitar was my main instrument at that time, and I showed it to Matias. Happens to be that Matias was looking for a drummer and I was just starting to play drums, so we get our songs and started to work with them together.

Cris: I’ve got the Rock and Metal music influences from my big brother, who usually played the guitar. That drove me to dig in this world, playing with my first guitar at 13 years. Seeing the fans’ faces and hear all of them singing our songs, tells me that all the stuff we’ve passed were necessary to be here where we are with Parasyche.

The Heavy Metal scene is somewhat different in Latin America compared to Europe. What do you think are the biggest differences, according to you?

Cristian: The support of the music business. That’s the big difference in terms of production, places to play, the opportunities are not the same as in Europe or North America. It’s very difficult to stand out Latin America today.

If we have a look at your lyrics, there are very different themes and concepts. Where do you draw inspiration for your lyrics?

Nico Borie: It’s interesting because we write the music first. It comes naturally and it flows depending on the mood. And then when we write the lyrics based on what we imagine with the music. It is great when the music matches with a story like Cachafaz which is an unknown Chilean myth about a “musical demon”. The other themes on the first album were anger, insanity, injustice, loneliness and redemption.

One thing worth remarking on your debut album, Insanity Origins, is the fact that is self-produced. What can you say about the experience of recording an album all on your own, considering that it was your debut? Do any of you have previous recording in a studio?

Nico España: I recorded, mixed and mastered all the album with almost none of experience on a professional studio work, we were on a budget at that time so we couldn’t afford any good studio, then we decided that I will be recording and mixing the album. I studied techniques, read a lot and watched a lot of videos, and I was working with the same DAW for almost 5 years at that time, so for all four of us was a really difficult process, but in the meantime we learned a lot. Sure, we made mistakes, but the knowledge we got from its priceless.

Of course, being in a band nowadays is no longer just about making music and doing concerts. You have to know about organization, management, publicity, presence on social media, etc. How are you coping with all of that?

Cristian: It is a dual job. All the guys in the band have different roles and activities, the organization sometimes gets difficult, but we are always thinking in the band, not in personal gain. It’s the way we found and it works!

In the videos that you did covers for System of a Down’s B.Y.O.B and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody you show a wide array of influences, such as Metallica, Pearl Jam, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Blind Guardian, Tool, etc. As a band starting out, do you have any modern influences?

The band: Everyone can notice that Parasyche has been influenced by Megadeth and Metallica. But we have some other “modern” influences, mainly of progressive metal bands, such as Opeth, Gojira, Dream Theater, Nevermore and many others. We think that this mix between classical Metal or even Rock with modern Metal gives us versatility, and what makes Parasyche a dynamic band and hopefully one interesting to listen to.

Being in a band can always be a complicated experience in terms of creativity: you have four minds that have different points of views, interests and influences. How do you combine all those different musical perceptions to make your music sound coherent?

Nico Borie: As you said, it’s not easy to be in a band with four minds writing different kind of songs. But we like the result of that. We like the variety of influences and we take that as our way to make our music because we don’t like to do only one subgenre of Metal. So I don’t think that we want the songs to be that coherent, but obviously we want the people to recognize us so I think the vocals and the overall sound will do that job.

What are your favorite songs to play live from Insanity Origins?

Matias: Cachafaz and Vesania.

Nico Borie: Cachafaz and Vesania.

Nico España: for sure Cachafaz, but basically all of them!

Cris: Cachafaz too! That song has it all!

What interests do you have outside of Metal, and how do you think those interests influence your music?

Matias: I work in technology, as a software developer. I love topics like artificial intelligence, things that are internet-related and kind of futuristic stuff (I love the series Black Mirror, for example). Maybe it could be a great topic for new lyrics.

Nico España: I’m a very passionate person in the things that I like and I think this passion is reflected in the songs of the album. I try to push all of this intensity when we play live, in the lyrics of the song where I wrote some parts, and when we share with the fans before and after playing live.

Nico Borie: I love doing photomontages so I did the cover and the art of the album. I also love watching movies and TV shows and that influenced some of the lyrics and the art direction of the music videos.

Cristian: I’m currently working on the field of construction services and maintenance of highways, so I get to see a lot of powerful machines, which also can be very destructive. I think part of that brutality is something that I deliver in my compositions and vocal techniques in Parasyche.

As we mentioned earlier, you did a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody. That’s obviously very hard song to cover. What can you tell us about the experience of making that cover? Any interesting fact about it?

Nico Borie: We did Beelzeboss and B.Y.O.B. before. And then some comments on YouTube requested Bohemian Rhapsody. I realized that it could be a great challenge and I liked that because the song is fantastic and it has a lot of sections. So it took me like four months to practice impressions and picking which voice fits best with each part. A funny fact is that a lot of fans were expecting Mustaine in the cover. I was about to include him for the “Oh baby, can’t do this to me baby”, but when I discovered that I could do some Dio I decided to take off Mustaine’s impression. The other reason is that I joked a lot with Mustaine’s voice in other videos and we wanted this cover to be more serious. We love Mustaine btw.

What are the plans for Parasyche in the coming months and in the beginning of 2019?

Matías: Our goal is to release our second album, hopefully near July 2019. We know is a big challenge, but we really think that that can be a huge step ahead, considering the experience we have won this year and the fanbase we already have. We think that if we make good partnerships and we take the right decisions, it would be a great second album.

It has been a great experience, guys. Thank you for taking the time to do this. Where can we follow you on social media and buy your album? Any last message?

Band: Thanks so much for reading this interview! To follow us just search for Parasyche on YoutTube, Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, etc. If you want to buy the album send us a private message on Facebook and we can send it everywhere. Greetings from Chile and we hope to play there someday!