"I wanna play good metal of the thrash type, but I don't want to sound like an 80's band!"

The successors of Britain's metalcore beasts Stampin' Ground, Romeo Must Die, shall release their debut ЕР "Defined by Enemies" on March 17. This was a reason enough to get in touch with vocalist Adam Frakes-Sime and ask him a bunch of questions...

Vassil Varbanov: Good evening, Adam! How are you?

Adam Frakes-Sime: I'm great, and you?

V. V.: Great! Here comes the first question: What exactly happened to Stampin' Ground?

A. F.-S.: With Stampin' Ground we were together for 11 years and achieved more than we ever dreamed of achieving as an independent band. Then it came to a point when we had achieved what we wanted to do, some of the guys in the band wanted to settle down and have families, but myself and our bass player Ben Frost didn't wanna do that - we wanted to carry on touring. At first I wanted to get different musicians and carry on with Stampin' Ground, but then I thought, why not just get a new band? That's what we did.

V. V.: Could you please introduce the other guys in Romeo Must Die?

A. F.-S.: Well, there's obviously me, and Ben plays bass, and then we have three young guys who are very eager and hungry to tour (guitarists Paul Fletcher and Sam Dawkins and drummer Tom Winch). The songs are coming along fast and easy - we even recorded our first EP, "Defined by Enemies", that should be out in England on March 17, 2008.

V. V.: Tell us more about your gigs.

A. F.-S.: We've just been doing some tours in England with Evile, Sanctity and a Dutch band, Textures. We gained great reaction and... Well, it was great. The most exciting thing for us now will be to come over to Bulgaria, Romania, Greece - that will be a real adventure. With Stampin' Ground that part of the world was also our favourite.

V. V.: Although you've got Romeo Must Die now, you can't avoid people saying that these are just two guys from Stampin' Ground... Does this bother you?

A. F.-S.: No. I'm very proud of everything we did with Stampin' Ground. It's not like this band DevilDriver with the guys who used to be in Coal Chamber - DevilDriver is a great band, but I imagine he kinda must be embarrassed about Coal Chamber, you know... because they sucked! As for me - I'm very proud of everything we did with Stampin' Ground and there's nothing I would change about it.

V. V.: Musically speaking, what's the difference between Romeo Must Die and Stampin' Ground?

A. F.-S.: The main factor is that two of the guys from Stampin' Ground were from the early 80's punk scene, so a lot of our early releases had these influences - too hardcore-based with just a little metal thrown in. Towards the end it kinda changed and became vice versa. I'm a metal kid, you know - I grew up with Metallica and Pantera. As for Romeo Must Die - our riffers are younger, around 20-21, so our influences are different. Also, Stampin' Ground was a 100% live band - we used to write songs for reaction, whereas with Romeo Must Die we do that to an extent, but I also want it to be something that you can listen to at home and not get bored.

V. V.: However, I can't say that "Defined by Enemies" is that thrashy as Evile and Sanctity, for example. To me Romeo Must Die sounds still closer to Stampin' Ground...

A. F.-S.: I like the bands you mentioned, but to me retro is the dumbest thing... Why go back? I think you always have to try for a new spin in music and that's what we are trying to do. I wanna play good metal of the thrash type, but I don't want to sound like an 80's band. I love 80's bands, but I think you have to push forward in trying to establish your own sound as a band. From my point of view, if Romeo Must Die was about to try to make an album that sounds like Exodus, if I was a kid I'd prefer to go to a concert and see the real thing, which is Exodus. I want people to come and see Romeo Must Die because they wanna see us playing our music, not a weak version of a scene that was around 20 years ago. We try to do something contemporary.

V. V.: Why Romeo Must Die - because of the movie or because of some other reasons?

A. F.-S.: Obviously I was aware there was a movie called "Romeo Must Die"... but I hate kung foo films! And I've never seen it. If you look around society today, everybody's so obsessed with image and celebrity culture, and I don't understand why everyone is into this. I wanted to have a character that was once that way - that's Romeo. He totally detaches himself from everything that this culture has to offer. In Stampin' Ground we never had a real strong character or logo or anything like that - you know, Iron Maiden have Eddie... I know it's cheesy, but I really wanted to have such a character for Romeo Must Die.

Copyright: Tangra Mega Rock