Two years ago on October 8, 2020, Daughter Chaos unleashed their crushing debut release in the form of their self-titled EP. This was the first physical release from Daughter Chaos, featuring artwork by Ibay Arifin. The Compact Disc was replicated from a glass master, manufactured by 8Merch & released via Abrams Records.
I interviewed the band via a phone conversation just prior to the albums release, where we discussed the (then) upcoming release, and I published the interview to coincide with the EP’s release. Below is the write-up and interview with Daughter Chaos. I hope you enjoy the interview and that you take the time to check out the album! It’s more than worth the listen. — E.N. Wells
REBORN FROM THE ASHES...
An interview with Daughter Chaos by E.N. Wells.
October 8, 2020.
In late 2018, after it was determined that Armageddon founder, Christopher Amott was unable to devote his time to the band because of his commitments to Dark Tranquility, the remaining members decided to continue on due to the high demand from fans around the world. And, on January, 3rd 2019, former members Antony Hämäläinen, Joey Concepcion, Sara Claudius (Abrams) & Andrew Pevny along with LET US PREY drummer, Yanni Sofianos unveiled the birth of this new era through their Facebook page!
Armageddon was to now be reborn as... DAUGHTER CHAOS!
Three days after this announcement, to the delight of fans, the band unleashed their debut single, the eponymously titled Daughter Chaos. Just one month later, on February 4th, the band released their second single in the form of the song, Intergalactic. On February 23, the band played their debut live performance under the new moniker at Blackthorn 51 in Queens, NY. They announced plans shortly after to release an EP in the summer of 2019 via the label Seeing Red Records. In April of 2019, they released the artwork for the planned EP.
But, as Daughter Chaos began to pick up momentum, blazing the trail before them, the great god Apophis arose, casting his dark shadow of doubt upon their path. Not to be so easily swayed, unbent and unbroken, the band regrouped and began their journey down a new road. And, like the Phoenix, which is born from the ashes of immolation, they to are reborn...
Now a trio and stronger than ever, Daughter Chaos featuring Sara Claudius, Andrew Pevny & Yanni Sofianos are set to release their crushing self-titled debut EP upon the world in less than 24 hours. Blessed by the gods, I was given the opportunity to get a preview of the new EP pre-release.
What I experienced was the most exciting slab of Melodic Death Metal that I have heard in more than a decade. I also had the pleasure of speaking with the band about moving forward after line-up changes, Sara Claudius stepping up to the mic, the bands passion for the music, their new record label, and the excitement of releasing their long awaited debut. From the ashes of Armageddon, I present to you...
DAUGHTER CHAOS!
ERIC - Hello, Daughter Chaos!
SARA, ANDREW & YANNI - High, how’s it going?
ERIC - It’s going well! How is going with you guys?
YANNI SOFIANOS - Good, good!
SARA CLAUDIUS - It’s going good.
ERIC - Well, are you guys ready to get started?
DAUGHTER CHAOS - Absolutely!
ERIC - It seems the band have faced a few challenges since you began working on this EP. Can you give us some insight on what’s been happening in the DC camp and what has delayed its release?
SARA - So basically, we had everything ready to go in August of 2019. And then, Antony (Hämäläinen) and Joey (Concepcion) left, so we had to figure out how we were going to do this. And, do it in a way we could take it live and do it in a way that felt right. So, just the process of rising to the challenge. I had never done vocals before. I would do demos. Like, for this EP and Captivaty & Devourment I would demo the vocals in whisper style. But, I wasn’t doing real growls, and we would have a real vocalist come in and do it. So, I was like, “I gotta do it for real”! That took a couple months to get there. And then, we saw the opportunity actually to make it better with revision. So, we did an entire remix. Andrew just upped his game in the matter of a couple months. He’s like, “you know, I think we should remix this, it’s going to sound better”, and he did it. We also got more artwork made for the back cover. And then, there was the process of starting a new record label. All that stuff ended up taking a whole year so, that’s where we’re at now. It was a major learning curve and really coming together with what he had left. And, actually making it better, I am really proud of the way it turned out. I think we all are.
ANDREW PEVNY - I agree with Sara, even though it sucked that we had everything ready to go and the wheels were moving, we were able to quickly turn it into an opportunity to learn more about doing this right, and improving upon it. And, I think we’ve got it pretty close to something that looks like it would have cost us ten times as much money to make, when in reality, we did pretty much everything ourselves.
SARA - Back to Captivity & Devourment, that’s kind of the gold standard here. That’s what the last album was, “for me”, with the band (Armageddon) anyway. And, Andrew was on the re-recording of Crossing the Rubicon, which is a high production value. We had industry vets mixing and mastering for us on those. And, I was playing them back to back (with the new EP) on a bit of a road trip here, and it holds up. I feel it really holds up. And, like I said, this was all DIY. So, it’s pretty cool that we put it together, ya know!
ERIC - Well, you just answered a couple of my questions within the first question.
SARA - (laughs) Yeah, it was nice to get a little preview (of the interview questions), then I was like, “well, I better pace this, I don’t want to blow it all in one question”! (we laugh) We’ll find something to talk about for sure!
ERIC - Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure... Sara, I was going to say that your vocals are crushing and they fit the songs perfectly.
SARA - Thank you man, that means a lot, it’s been a journey, you know... it’s definitely been a journey!
ERIC - What made you decide to take the helm, and were you nervous at first, about stepping up to front the band? You stated that you had never sang before...
SARA - Yeah, definitely... it was a challenge. The funny thing is, I had kinda been working on doing regular, clean vocals before we started Daughter Chaos. Then, I kind of back burnered it because we got involved, working with DC. Once again, I whisper demoed the vocals but, I never foresaw this coming, but strangely enough I had that Melissa Cross DVD. I had gotten it a couple months before, just thinking “maybe, I’ll learn how to growl for real now” but, not really acting on it. Then, I just asked the guys, “Give me a month! We’ll see what I can do in month. If it sounds good, let’s work with it, and if it doesn’t, I’m going to be honest with myself and we’ll figure something else out!!”
ANDREW - I remember, you sent me just a recording of you signing one of the songs on your phone and I don’t remember if you felt good about it or not. But, I loaded it into the session and I put some processing on it. And, I was like “yo, keep going with this!” (laughs)
SARA - Yes!
YANNI SOFIANOS - Yeah, definitely!
SARA - These guy’s really... Because, I live in Florida and they live in New York, Connecticut & New Jersey, so we weren’t together for the first part of the process. But, the power of the internet and sending just phone clips like that and having them encourage me and push me forward definitely got me past the nerves. Which, is going back to your question about what got me sing. I, had a very strong conviction, I was very driven! I really wanted to make this good!
ERIC - It sounds like you had everybody in your corner, which helps.
SARA - It does help a lot... it does!
ERIC - Were any of the former members involved in the recording of the album, or did you start the recording process over from scratch after their departure?
YANNI - Joey (Concepcion) co-wrote 2 songs which are Void and the Burning One. All of the solos that he had recorded on the EP remain, since they blended so well with Andrew's, and so he’s featured as a guest on the album. As far as the vocals go, we started back from scratch, and as we mentioned Sara decided to take on vocal duties.
SARA - Yeah, so it’s the three of us with Joey’s solos are on there. Which is great, because he is obviously an incredible guitar player.
ANDREW - Chris (Amott) helped write one of the songs. (To Sara) "Wasn’t it Daughter Chaos that he helped write?"
SARA - Yeah, Chris has writing credits on the title track, Daughter Chaos, which is a song that me and Chris had written for what was supposed to be the next Armageddon EP, which was going to be titled Daughter Chaos. And, then he also co-wrote The Burning One. The Genesis of that was like, Chris and Joey basically started that song and then we finished it.
ERIC - The Burning One started out as as the song Intergalactic, didn’t it? You, just re-wrote the lyrics.
SARA - Correct... yes!
ERIC - I thought that I recognized it when I started listening to the EP.
SARA - I feel like we’ve created a little Metal trivia there, with extra versions and different lyrics. It kind of adds to the story.
ERIC - I feel like the new lyrics fit the song perfectly.
SARA - Thanks Man.
ERIC - You are welcome.
ERIC - Okay, so you touched on this subject a little earlier. The production quality of the EP is pretty outstanding. It sounds like it can hold up with Captivity & Devourment. What was the recording process like this time around?
ANDREW - Because everyone was in different states, we all pretty much recorded our parts on our own. So, as drums go, Yanni was able to record at his house. Then, the bass was recorded directly into Sara’s computer. And, then I did guitars here in my home studio. With vocals, Sara came up for a few days... (to Sara) was that earlier this year?
SARA - Yeah, it feels like three years ago but, it was actually in the end of January, I believe. (Laughs)
ANDREW - Yeah, so she came out to record vocals. That took about three days, I think.
SARA - Yeah, three days total.
ANDREW - So, pretty much everything was done in our home studios with recording equipment no more expensive than a couple hundred dollars, I guess! And, then the mixing process was... as Sara mentioned, we had already mixed it once already. And, I didn’t really have a process for mixing before this. I kinda was just okay at it, and I would get lucky sometimes, and my mix would sound good sometimes. But, I made it a point to sit down and really study the process and get a good work flow, and that made all the difference in the world. And, I am really proud of the mix, how it came out on this one.
ERIC - Yeah, it sounds professional.
ANDREW - Yeah, thank you.
YANNI - Absolutely!
SARA - Yeah, when we heard the remix, we were like... “Dude, Andrew ate all of his brain food or something because, we were like “WHAT”! (We all laugh) Because, it was really night and day, so much better. And also, we were pretty blown away by the master. The master was done by Zeus. It was really one of these cases... you know, like sometimes you might get a master back, and it’s like, “it sounds good but, it doesn’t blow your mind”. But, with this it added a lot of depth to it, another layer that really finished it and polished it up.
ERIC - Well, the EP sounds like you spared no expense recording it.
SARA, YANNI & ANDREW - Thanks man, thanks!
ERIC - I wanted to touch on the lyrics a little bit. They seem to wrap around a theme old ways and ancient gods. Can you tell us where you drew inspiration from?
SARA - Yeah, so that’s just me basically nerding out on my research projects that I’ve been doing for some years now. I guess there were three main texts that I really took inspiration from. One being straight up, the Bible. Like the first part of Genesis especially, and the Book of Jude. And then we took, well I also took the Emerald Tablets of Thoth, which is an Egyptian themed ancient text. And then, the book of Enok, which is an Apocryphal text that’s not included in the Bible, but should be part of the canon even though it’s not. So, I took those three and kinda compared and contrasted them. So, that’s where pretty much all the lyrics from.
ERIC - That is pretty in depth.
SARA - Thanks. Yeah, it’s my little research project, like I said. Well, it’s not little, it’s something I spend time on. So, it was really cool to flesh it out into lyrics and a concept for the album.
ERIC - It worked well. It does well for the imagination.
SARA - Thanks man. I think it works well in a heavy music, Death Metal format, because it dovetails right in there.
ERIC - So, what is the bands writing process like?
SARA - It’s interesting because, every song had a different Genesis. No song on the album was done the same way. “On the EP, when I say album.” So, I thought it was kinda cool that each song came from it’s own origin. Daughter Chaos came from me and Chris. The Burning One came from Chris and Joey (Concepcion), then me, Andrew and Yanni finished it. Then Void started with a riff that Joey had sent us, then we fleshed it out and turned it into an entire song. And then, The Space Born, that’s me Andrew and Yanni just totally charting new territory. Did I mention Old World? Old World started with Andrew. He basically wrote all of the music for that song and presented it. It was perfect.
ERIC - The music sounds like you sat down with each other and put it all together.
ANDREW - Space Born, I think was the only song that Sara and I were in the same room for.
SARA - Yeah, then we finished off the rest of the songs. What happened was, we had bits and pieces and after the show we played in New York, me and Andrew went ahead and finished the EP. Everything was kind of hot in our brains. We were conditioning to the music and we covered a lot of Armageddon songs in the set to. So, we just kept that energy and pushed into the songs, and finished the EP that weekend. It was like, two days. We just slammed it out.
ANDREW - Yeah.
ERIC - It’s very cohesive. Everything sounds like it fits together perfectly.
SARA - Yeah, and you know, it’s funny because we had a different track listing too, and by chance, Andrew just had a random song order loaded up to show us the final mixes and we ended up changing the track listing at the last moment because everything flowed really well.
ERIC - The one thing I noticed is that the songs are very balanced. I mean, you’ve got savage, technical riffs, melodic passages and two part harmonies. There is an old school melodic death metal feel, but it’s got a modern edge to it as well. Was there a conscious decision to take the band in this direction or was it just a natural progression from where the band left off with Armageddon?
ANDREW - Well, I guess I should only speak for myself, but I’ve been a fan of that type of Metal, like the "Swedish Melodic Death Metal" pretty much, since I started playing guitar. But, I was never in bands that wrote... It was always influenced by that style, but we would kinda venture into other territories. So, for me, this was kind of an outlet for me to pay tribute to that stuff that I came up listening to, and kinda be pretty shameless about writing stuff influenced by my favorite bands like; Arch Enemy, Dark Tranquility, In Flames and all that stuff. I can’t speak much for the direction of Armageddon because, I really wasn’t part of the creative process for that band in the brief time I was in it. So, that’s my opinion on it at least.
SARA - To answer your question specifically, it’s not like we sat and said, “we want to sound like this” necessarily. It just kind of came out and felt pretty natural. Like I said, I think relearning those Armageddon songs and playing them in a set along with the new stuff really created this fertile environment to move forward and forge ahead with new stuff and keeping that spirit. All of it felt very natural, to me personally, and not forced.
ERIC - No, it doesn’t sound forced at all. Like I was saying earlier, I haven’t been this excited about an album in a long time. Specifically, a Melodic Death Metal album.
SARA - Thanks! That means a lot! I just really wanted to breathe some life into the genre, and I really feel like we’re achieving that, and bringing something exciting for the listeners. I think everybody needs a dose of some good Metal right now. And, I think we are delivering that. So, it means a lot that you recognize it and appreciate it.
ERIC - Very much so!
ERIC - If you had to pick a favorite song from the this EP, what song would you choose and why?
YANNI - I would say for myself, it would be Space Born. And, reasons... probably because it’s got a little bit of everything, ya know. It comes in heavy and fast and then it kind of blends and goes through all these different parts. So, that’s probably my favorite tune.
SARA - Yeah, that’s my favorite too, of all, Space Born. My reasoning being, to me, that’s really the band forging new grounds as the three piece that we are now. That’s purely us, now!
ERIC - Yanni, your ability’s shine on that song.
YANNI - Thank you, thank you.
SARA - Yeah, I’m like, dude “is Yanni even human? I think we need to check. I want to send a doctor out there. I need it certified that you’re actually human dude! " (We all laugh). Andrew too man! I am the Neanderthal. Those guys are freaking amazing, dude. It’s mind blowing. It’s pretty mind blowing for me.
YANNI - And, it was actually one of the smoothest songs. I felt like everything was very natural when I would sit there and come up with the parts for each song. And, Space Born... My background playing in a few Extreme Metal bands is where the blast beats and fast double bass comes from. I love mixing it up. I don’t like to do too much of the same thing, just being repetitive. This is like a perfect blend for me. So, it came off naturally, coming up with all of the parts for it.
ERIC - Well, it shows.
YANNI - Thank you so much!
SARA - Every time we would demo the songs with EZ Drummer just to get it down, “which is the bane and also the help of every drummers existence” (we laugh), then we would send it over to Yanni, and every time he would put his drums on a song it would change the atmosphere of the song. It would completely change the way I play the bass to the song. His feet always have really interesting patterns. It’s really like songwriting “drumming”! It’s not like copying EZ Drummer. He writes his parts very uniquely. He brought a lot of flavor to the songs.
ERIC - Yeah, a lot of flavor
YANNI - Thank you! Yeah, sometimes it’s like, “awe man, I don’t want to hear the EZ Drummer that’s layed down in the background” because, you don’t want to be influenced by it, so! Usually, I just wipe that out of my mind and just try to do my thing on it. Like I said, everything went pretty smooth.
ANDREW - Yeah, I tend to agree with both of them that Space Born definitely sums up our sound a lot because it’s also the one we kind of collaborated the most on. And also, I have a little bit of of bias toward Old World, cause that’s my baby.
ERIC - That’s your baby!
ANDREW - But, Space Born, I was definitely impressed with how that one came out.
SARA - Each song is kind of it’s own world. No pun intended but, for me, going in, doing lyrics and vocals, I was living in each song. I would have to switch gears. And, I was almost sad when it was done. I went through some separation anxiety when we finished them because, I was so deeply into the songs. Each one was its own atmosphere, and world.
ERIC - You didn’t want it to end!
SARA - Yeah, exactly! But, that’s why you gotta make more music! That’s the incentive, ya know.
ANDREW - (to Sara) That’s easy for you to say, because you just came to my house and screamed for three days. I was glad that it was done. (We all laugh)
SARA - (laughing) Yeah, I would come over and reign terror on Andrew. Which was important to, by the way, because I was initially doing vocals by myself in my closet. It really helped. I was like, “you know, you really can’t be the synergy of in person”, working in person. The songs that we wrote, all of the parts were written in person, together. Even though it was kind of passed around, in ways, I feel like each song had a very mutual touch between all of us. So, getting up there to do the vocals was a major thing. I definitely needed a producer, an engineer, just to take away the crutch of having to hit the space bar and everything myself. And, having Andrew and Yanni there to coach me and really bring the best out of me, just made me want to rise up and deliver.
ERIC - And... Deliver, you did!
SARA - Thanks!
ERIC - If you could have a live action video made for one of your songs from the EP, which song would you pick? And who would you like to have direct it (if you could have your pick of any director in the world)?
YANNI - Hmmm!
SARA - I like this question! I had to think about it. I’m glad that I had a preview (of the interview questions). I guess I will go first because I’ve thought about this; if I could have anybody in the world to work with, it would probably be Stanley Kubrick. I don’t follow a lot of directors or movies. I know he’s not alive anymore but, he’s one that I follow and I think it would make for some weird and interesting music video. But more specifically, I don’t know if you guys remember a guy from L.A., he’s a friend of mine, his name is Tom Zombie (Thomas J. Yagodinski), and he does claymation. I think he did a claymation of a Mastodon video a couple years ago that got a lot of views, and did real well. I’m not sure if he’s done much since, but like I said, he does claymation and I think that would work real well with these songs because of the subject matter. It would be hard to pull off (with live action) but, with claymation you could do anything and I think it would make a very cool video for some of this stuff.
ERIC - I could imagine that.
SARA - That’s my two cents...
YANNI - I would say the similar thing with Stanley Kubrick, because of 2001: Space Odyssey, ya know! I could just picture that for Space Born.
ANDREW - I wouldn’t know who would direct or produce but, for some reason I would really love to do a video for Void, because that verse is so mean and I would love to just frigin’ stomp around to that with some great lighting or whatever.
SARA - Yeah!
YANNI - Yes!
ERIC - Yeah, get that energy out!
ANDREW - Yeah, exactly!
SARA - Yeah, as far as singles, Space Born is the single off of the EP, but I hope you can get into that track (Void), because it really finishes out the EP very heavy. It would probably make for a very sick video.
ERIC - I would probably have to go with Space Born.
YANNI - Nice!
ERIC - I would have to go with Space Born and your idea Sara, of claymation.
SARA - I think that would be so unique and cool! You could literally do anything with that.
ERIC - Could you give us a little bit of insight about the album art?
ANDREW - That’s all you Sara!
SARA - That’s Ibay Arifin, and he’s from Indonesia. I was trying to remember how I found him. It was just one of those things of scanning through the internet, I think, and seeing the artwork that he’s done for other bands. It just really caught my eye, that stark black and white. It just seems perfect, ya know. It’s got a Sci-fi edge to it. It’s kind of surreal. His style is sort of like taking a Death Metal logo and expanding it into a beautiful, abstract piece of work. So it felt right. He had actually drawn one cover for us. It was more anatomical, a human type figure, just as a draft, and I was like, “no, it just doesn’t feel right”! I had a painting that I had done, and I didn’t really want to use my painting as a cover. I wanted to collaborate with someone else. So, I showed him that painting and he drew a sister to that thing that I started to think of as the Daughter Chaos protector. So, he drew the twin sister to it in his style, and incorporated thatVoid, and the fertile, potential... water flowing out of darkness.
ERIC - I think it’s an amazing piece. It speaks volumes.
SARA - Yes! The imagery that he created, to me he is part of this EP as well! He obviously created an atmosphere, another layer to these five worlds that I’ve been living in, and to have that imagery there as well. It feels very full fledged. It became its own universe, ya know!
ERIC - Yeah, it definitely fits the music.
SARA - Yes.
ERIC - What will happen next after the release of the EP? Any news for tours or upcoming live shows (including livestreams) that you would like to share with us?
ANDREW - Well, the current situation makes that fairly complicated. (laughs)
ERIC - Right, that’s why I threw live-streams in their.
ANDREW - Yeah, yeah, It would be great to do a live-stream if we could all get to the same place and play the songs to show people how they sound as a live performance.
SARA - That’s definitely a goal. The goal is to get it live when we can. I know that I still have some wood-shedding to do, just to get it to the point where I want it, for my personal performance. I have no doubt about the other guys ability to perform. Yeah, we talked about doing some play-throughs just to keep it going while this whole thing gets sorted out. Once we can book shows, I mean ideally, maybe we could book some gigs in the northeast whenever that’s possible. Yeah, just keep feeding that fire, and get some new material going.
ERIC - It would awesome if you could get some play-throughs out their. It would help keep everybody’s interests peaked.
SARA - Yes
YANNI - Yeah, definitely!
ERIC - Are there any plans for a full-length album any time in the near future?
SARA - Yeah, I think we’re kind of getting this one hammered out, and that’s what we’ve been talking about since the beginning, we’ll do an EP first and then do a full LP. So yeah, that’s the goal.
ERIC - You definitely have something magic on this EP, so I would like to see you put that into a full-length.
SARA - Yeah, I think it would be really cool to push it even further, especially starting the album with this format, and see how it works it’s way into the final product.
ERIC - Is there anything else that you would like to say to the fans, and potential fans?
SARA - I would just like to say thanks to you and anyone that’s following us. I mean, sometimes there would be moments of doubt through this process. And, it would almost seem like clockwork, If I was doubting myself, I would get a random message from somebody in Mexico, or somewhere in Europe about, “what’s happening with Daughter Chaos” or “What’s the EP like? We can’t wait to hear it”! When I would get a message like that, it would just charge me up, and I would be like, “I have to deliver”! So, thank you to everyone that supports and follows us! It means a lot!
ERIC - You’ve earned it! So, just keep going! Don’t doubt yourself!
SARA - Thank you!
ANDREW - Definitely, that’s the goal, yeah!
YANNI - Yeah, thank you!
ERIC - You’re welcome!
ERIC - Well, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me today. I know it must have been pretty hard setting this up.
SARA - This was great! I love the live format. I feel like it doesn’t happen much anymore. So, I’m glad that we could pull it together because, I wasn’t sure if I was going to have reception since I’m on the road. And, I didn’t know what the guys schedule was going to be like, or what your schedule was like. I love doing live interviews, I think it’s kind of a lost art. So, I appreciate that you wanted to do it like this.
ERIC - Well, thank you very much.
ANDREW - Thank you! It’s just great to be a part of this product that was kind of unconventionally put together. It’s pretty cool how it came out. I hope that people enjoy it as much as we enjoyed listening to it when we first got those masters back.
SARA - Yeah!
YANNI - Yep, yep!
ERIC - Well, I can’t stop listening to it!
ANDREW - Hahaha, awesome!
SARA - Awesome!
YANNI - Nice, Nice!
ERIC - Well, once again, I would like to say that I appreciate you taking your time to speak with me today and, when all of this Covid stuff lifts, I cannot wait to see Daughter Chaos on the road.
SARA - Absolutely man!
YANNI - Awesome, thanks man!
ANDREW - Awesome, awesome, awesome!!!
ERIC - Alright, you guys have a good night and be safe.
DAUGHTER CHAOS - Alright, you take care of yourself, and thank you!
SARA - Thank you for supporting us.
2020-2022 INTO THE WELLS ©℗
Get your copy of the self-titled EP here: https://daughterchaos.bandcamp.com/
Or listen to the EP on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/daughter-chaos-ep/1531627941
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