THE ANIMA EFFECT – interview with the band

Progressive Metal is quite abundant these days, with a lot of modern bands opting this particular style to achieve insane melody and punishing aggression. One such band is The Anima Effect. This Progressive Metalcore/Deathcore band is all set to release their album early on this month. Ahead of the release, I was fortunate enough to get a chance to talk with the band. Here is how it came about.

How did you guys get together to form The Anima Effect? Plus, any reasons why the name “The Anima Effect” was chosen?

The drummer and I have been playing together in a ton of different bands since early 2011 and the two of us have been going through many different member changes for years until finally securing the members we have now. Aside from the singer Chandler whom we found through a craigslist ad, the rest of the members like John Burns, Brandan Hinkle and Brandon Hadix were all long time friends of the band that came from other bands in the area to join the group that we have now. In essence the majority of us grew up together and knew of one another through the music scene here in our hometown in Redding California.

As for the name, I came up with the idea based on the psychological concept of the anima/animus. Which is theory that suggests within each male/female there is a counterpart female/male psyche respectively called the Anima for men and the Animus for women. Our band’s name is a play off the ‘effect” that the Anima/Animus plays on our individual/social level. it represents the harmony we want to see in the world through the union of masculine and feminine properties.

Care to share some vital information about your upcoming album that our readers should be aware of?

After the drop in November, we have two shows planned for that month. A release party in our hometown redding california, and one in medford oregon. Because of the holidays and our work schedules December looks pretty quiet for shows but we are planning a tour for febuary across calfornia and oregon, people can stay updated on that at our facebook page.

Are you guys self taught musicians or have you had formal training?

the majority of us are self taught, our signer has had a few lessons on singing and vocal technique but other than that were all self taught.

What bands did you guys grow up listening to?

The bands that got me and my drummer started as musicians were the early 2000’s era metalcore acts like Parkway Drive, As I Lay Dying, Killswitch Engage, The Devils Wear Prada, Miss May I, and other classic metalcore acts like that. Eventually we discovered artists like Born of Osiris Periphery and Animals as Leaders and got more interested in the progressive side of music.

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

Veil of Maya just dropped a banger of an album False Idol, they’ve really made a huge leap in terms of the songwriting so for fans of Djent/Progressive Metal definitely check that one out. Also the new WIthin The Ruins album is ridiculous too, another example of an already great band increasing their musical palette with a really tasteful addition of clean vocals

What do genre distinction mean to you?

Not alot honestly. Genre labels are subjective, because many genres over lap and all the best bands use a variety of different genre techniques, and motifs that it is pretty hard to definitively label any band these days. i think we’re one of those bands that are difficult to label because our songs have so much variety in them. Sometimes we’re strictly deathcore sometimes we’re strictly metalcore, sometimes we have hard djent grooves and many bands are doing this now to keep things interesting so labels are a pretty arbitrary thing to us

Do you think Genres should be Subjective?

they are and they aren’t. Like you can’t call a Johnny Cash song metal, but at the same time there is a case for arguing that Born Of Osiris borrows a lot of metalcore elements even though no fans of BOO would ever call them metalcore. So yea they definitely are subjective to an extent.

Do you have any guilty pleasure when it comes to listening to non-metal?

Oh so many things. There are a lot of pop artists that im super guilty of loving. Paramore is probably my biggest guilty pleasure, every album they put out is pure gold for me.

If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?

The monetary incentive, the greed, the parasocial idol worship of musicians and artists, and at least in metal the egotistical competitiveness. Those three things are all one interconnected issue to me so that is the thing i would change

Would you rather shoot a hilarious and meaningless Music Video or a well scripted one?

For me probably a serious well written one because our music is very conceptual and the meaning behind everything is important to me. Maybe not all my members would have the same answer but how we represent ourselves and our art is important to me

What do you want to achieve as a band?

We want to spread our message and music to as many people as we can as far as we can. We want to use the band as a vehicle to explore the world and grow as artists and human beings.

What’s next for The Anima Effect?

touring, promoting the album, and recording the next one we already writing our next Ep and full length simultaneously. We have a lot of plans for the future so definitely keep your eye on us.