Interview with Seita

MySpace makes this world a little smaller or at least this was the way we got to know about SEITA, brazilian Metal hailing from The Netherlands. We talked about this and that, but read on your own:

TrashAndRiot: "SEITA is a Brazilian four-piece band hailing out of Amsterdam". This is how your biography starts.
How comes that four Brazilian guys are hailing from the Netherlands?
Michel: The story began some years ago when I went to the Netherlands with my previous band, Retturn. It's hard to have success with a band in Europe, but in Brazil 10 times more, so that's the reason why we chose for Europe.
A few years after the rest of the band moved back to Brazil, but I stayed a little longer in Amsterdam. After a while Dom Mura -whom I knew already in Brazil- finished with his previous band With Pride and we hooked up and decided to start a new band, SEITA. In Amsterdam we became friends with Edson and we asked him if he wanted to join the band as a guitarist. We continued to make songs and then Edson went to have a tattoo in Andre's shop, they started talking about SEITA and that we were looking for a bassplayer and there Andre came in the picture.
Language never has been a problem for us since we all speak English and most Dutch people speak it. But to have a carreer in music is another thing. It's hard to have a 'normal' job and a band at the same time. There's never enough time to do everything the way we want it. But we keep on trying!

TrashAndRiot: You are inspired by the contradictions, passions and violence of your homeland. Can you share a little of Brazilian mood with us?
Seita: Maybe you can take all movies and documentaries about Brazil in mind. There's a big gap between rich and poor. At the same there's corruption and injustice. In the Netherlands everybody has more or less the same chances, in Brazil not. So, that's why a lot of kids end up in criminality. Trying to have a better life… Practically every Brazilian will have one or more times in his life an experience with violence. But the same time the relationships between people are warm, maybe because of that; we all know life can be short, so we try to enjoy it as much as we can. If you tell to two friends that there's a party somewhere, soon there will be 10 people, 14... we are company people!

TrashAndRiot: In most minds Brazil is the country of Samba and Metal might just come into a few minds (thinking of Sepultura, just to name a big one). I think you know about the European clichés of Brazil. What about them is true and what is false?
Seita: Maybe a cliché is that people think that we're only busy with something like carnaval. Carnaval is just a few days in a year and it's true a big group of people is really enjoying this event. Because it's so prominent in the media it gives an idea of Brazilians partying all the time, but most people struggle every day to survive. Leave their house at 06:00 a.m. in the morning and come back at 08:00 pm. Quite a lot of people even have 2 jobs. So Carnaval is the time of the year where they can relax and have fun.
Another cliché is that we have the best footballplayers in the world.. And that cliché is true (haha)!! All people have their favourite team, football is in our veins and again, a very nice way to forget about everything..

TrashAndRiot: Talking about clichés: there are some about Netherlands / Amsterdam as well. What do you think is the most common cliché, that is NOT true?
Seita: Every cliché has an origin, but not every Dutch person is stingy when it comes to money. For example there are people here that are not into metal, but they buy our MCD just to support us. That's really cool! Dutch people are critical, but if they see that you're working hard to reach your goal, they like to help.
About Amsterdam: most foreigners think that people are stoned every day, but most people don't smoke grass. But it's nice that it's legal here.

TrashAndRiot: You are currently working on your first full length album and plan to release it in 2010. How is the progress of work going?
Seita: It's been quite busy with gigs and we went two times to South Korea, which was amazing, but not so much time left! Now we try to use our free time to create new songs. A couple we have already, but we're not there yet. A lot of work to do the coming months, we want to deliver a nice piece of work.

TrashAndRiot: How are the plans about the release?
Do you have a lable already or are you still looking for one?
In case of a lable: which countries are you planning to release the album?
Seita: We don't have fixed plans about the release yet, everything is possible. Our MCD we used basically as a way to introduce and promote ourselves. With the full-length we want to see how far we can go. Every country that's interested in our music is an option, why exclude countries or people when it comes to music? When the CD is finished we'll contact labels that we think fit our music and see what happens..

TrashAndRiot: Your demo "Imprint Forever" was mixed and mastered by Danny O'Really (Deicide, Biohazard, Napalm Death). Why did you decide to work with Danny?
Who will be the man behind the buttons for your upcoming album?
Seita: Danny worked already with Michel's previous band and since he talked very enthusiastically about Danny automatically he was the man that we asked. Danny is an excellent person to work with and he understands our music.
For our next album we like to work with him again and go to the next level.

TrashAndRiot: As we can see in your myspace calendar you are playing a lot of gigs in Netherlands / Belgium soon.
How are your tour experiences so far?
Seita: We learned a lot since our first gig together and learn every new gig. We're still developing on stage and becoming more and more a team. But we enjoy every gig that we do and enjoy to discover new cities and countries.
A few highlights were our first festival-gig at Metal Attack in Eibergen (NL), Le Klub at Paris (FR), Prilpop in Sevenum (NL), BBTH Festival in Monchengladbach (DE) and of course our South-Korean gigs at Asian Metal Festival (Seoul) and Dongducheon Rock Festival (both South-Korea).

TrashAndRiot: When you recover the gigs you played already: what where the most funny moments happening on stage?
Seita: We're quite concentrated when we play, but it's fun to have interaction with the crowd. Maybe funny was the situation on the Dongducheon stage in South-Korea, when Edson and Andre were at the front part of the stage and they suddenly were heated by the flames on stage. This being our first 'fire gig', they were caught by surprise and took some distance...

TrashAndRiot: And backstage?
Seita: General feeling: work's done, let's take a beer with friends and visitors!
Backstage in South Korea for example was a nice experience. Everybody takes you really serious and is very supportive. It seems there's no competition between bands, just brotherhood.

TrashAndRiot: You went to South-Korea twice in 2009. How was the travel and how was it to play over there?
Seita: For the first gig in South-Korea (Asia Metal Festival in Seoul) we prepared very well to make a good impression!
On the trip to come we had some problems. Our flight was 3 times delayed and therefore we missed our connecting flight to Seoul. So the aircompany offered us to stay at the airport hotel and the next day we could fly to Seoul. When we arrived we had to go immediately to the festival area, do our soundcheck and wait for our time to go on stage. Very intensive but a great experience to be on stage after 55 hours of travelling/waiting! The people were a little shy in the beginning, but after a while a vibe started to create, they were screaming, headbanging and enjoyed the gig!

TrashAndRiot: You were taking part in the "Rock The Nation" band contest. What was this contest about?
Seita: The contest was about a booking- and lable contract. There were many bands in the competition, so very difficult to win. For sure there were quite some good bands in the competition, but only 2 were chosen, one of them with a lot of experience already.

TrashAndRiot: Famous last words.
Seita: Of course we like to thank you for the interview and interest in SEITA. If your readers got curious about us we like to invite them to take a look at our myspace: http://www.myspace.com/seitaofficial We're also on youtube, twitter and facebook. We like to explore more the German metalscene. New contacts are welcome!

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