MUMBAI: Celtic folk metal band SuidAkrA will be making its second trip to India, only this time, it will be on a six-city tour. After the Bangalore Open Air 2012 that they co-headlined with German band Kreator, this will be their first tour to India since the launch of their eleventh album ‘Eternal Defiance’. Radioandmusic.com speaks to Arkadius Antonik, founder, vocalist and guitarist of the band about their upcoming visit, new music and Indian metal heads.
This is your third trip to India. Have you been to any of the 6 cities before?
The only city we have played at twice before is Bangalore. One of the shows was the B:O:A which was a huge thing for us. I truly enjoyed performing in Bangalore and we all were impressed by the city itself and by Indian people. We visited a lot of temples and other wonderful places. That is why we are looking forward to coming back, playing this tour and getting the opportunity to visit other cities.
What is your opinion of Indian Metal heads?
To be honest, the 3 shows we played in India before blew us away. Every time a journalist asks me which metal scene I like most, I always answer the Indian scene. I love the passion and power the Indian metal fans showed me. There was such energy during the shows that I felt like trying crowd-surfing for the first time in my life ;-)
You will also be judging the Wacken Metal Battle. What would you like to advice contestants?
My advice is always the same: Give 100% on stage, do not try to imitate someone else; be yourself. Do what you do with passion and I am sure the audience will like it. Nobody wants to see a band that sounds and looks like someone else. But the fans can feel it when you love what you do and perform it with passion.
Do you plan on performing any of your new/unreleased material in India?
Yes of course. This is going to be the first tour after the release of our latest album ‘Eternal Defiance’. We will perform new material from this album, also some songs we have never played before live. I think we have created a good live set which is a mixture of good old songs and heavy new stuff.
Are you working on your next album? Tell us something about it.
Not yet. I mean the last album released about a year ago. We have been doing shows and tours ever since. There are still a few countries where we would like to perform this material before we will start writing new stuff. I think we might start with the new songwriting process around the beginning of 2015.
You have put up a Facebook contest for Indians to design your merchandise for the tour. Is there any other such activity you have planned for your tour?
We really enjoy the privilege to talk to fans and be in touch with them. That is also a reason why we try to involve our fans into different kinds of things. Yeah, we will do some Meet and Greets on this tour, to have the chance to meet our fans and friends from India. And who knows, maybe we will start some new competitions ;-)