This time on the NAS 10 Questions, we get to know Rock In Progress, A heavy metal/rock band based in Chile with influences such as Iron Maiden, Dio and Helloween. The current line-up includes Carlos Ascencio (lead singer)
Cristian Cortes (bass)
Angelo Guevara (guitar)
Felipe Castillo (guitar)
Marcel Goic (keyboards)
Andres Musalem (drums)
The track "Warnings of Another Fight" is featured in the New Artist Spotlight Family of Playlists.
Link To New Artist Spotlight Playlists:
1. Tell us a little about where you are from and what you are currently doing.
We are a rock band from Santiago, Chile. Most of us are connected to the U. of Chile's School of Engineering: 4 of us teach at that school and the lead singer's daughter is studying engineering at that school. We are still trying to find a way to connect the sixth member to our school :) We love classic rock, progressive rock, grunge, a bit of metal and latin rock.
2. What inspired you to start playing and making music?
One source of inspiration was listening to great music either because of the emotions that it makes you feel or because of the skill of the musicians. After listening to great music you probably feel that you want emulate that sound or those emotions. In addition to all of that, the band is a vehicle for all of us to express ourselves and to keep challenging us to play better and write new music.
𝟯. Who are your biggest influences?
Each of us in the band has different influences that get mixed into what we do. For example our bass player loves Jaco Pastorius and Pink Floyd, our lead singer is a big fan of Iron Maiden, Dio and Helloween. Our lead guitar is a big fan of Tool, Ghost and Pearl Jam. Our rhythm guitar loves Spinetta and Bowie. Our drummer is a big fan of Queen, Rush and Van Halen. Our keyboard player is a big fan of Primus and Pixies among many other bands.
4. What are your goals in the music industry?
We want to keep releasing original music, currently we only have 4 original songs. That means that our setlist is typically a combination of original songs and covers. We want to expand our original catalog and start playing more of our own music live.
5. Tell us about your creative process when you make new music.
The creative process for some of our songs sometimes starts with just a riff and a chord progression, which is the outcome of experimenting with an electric guitar or a keyboard. That then leads to expressing a particular concept into words and a melody. For example, for our first song (Relativity), we had this idea of what would happen if you were able to buy time (or get a loan). How would your decisions and feelings change? That was the inspiration for the lyrics of the first song. For our last song ("Warning of Another Fight"), we were inspired by movies and stories about vikings. That led to writing a song about a warrior that must join the battle but also anticipates the regret he will feel due to all of the dark angles associated with war.
6. What is your all-time favorite song?
Tough question, here is the answer from just one of our band members. One of my all-time favorites is Bohemian Rhapsody. It's a beautiful song with lots of different parts, each of them communicating a different emotion. The way the piano, drums, vocals blend together is amazing. All of the vocal harmonies are just mind blowing, obviously I am referring to the operatic section. The lyrics are also nice in a sense that they are somewhat intriguing. One gets an idea of what's going on, but only a rough idea and we are forced to fill in the blanks with our own imagination. Moreover, it's not clear if the lyrics are literally describing what happened to the main character of if they are a metaphor for something else. Combine all of that with the amazing vocals of Freddie Mercury, the singing guitar solos from Brian May, the high pitched vocal harmonies from Roger Taylor and you get a masterpiece.
7. What is the best advice you have either given or received in terms of music?
I think it is the idea of being very conscious about not overloading the listener with too many stimuli at the same time, which happens for example, when you have each musician doing something completely different on the same verse. I don't think we have fully addressed that in our music, but it is something that we are more aware of now than a couple of years ago.
8. Proudest accomplishment?
Recording our first single is one of our biggest and proudest accomplishments. Before that, we had been playing covers from all the bands that we love, which was great. But then, facing the challenge of creating our own music and showing it to other people live or on platforms was probably one of the biggest steps we have taken.
9. Just for fun! What's been your most embarrassing moment so far?
It might be having to stop playing a song during a show and then starting over. We were playing Comfortably Numb without realizing that our bass player had not yet finished changing the tuning of his bass (drop D), so we started but then we had to stop, waited for the tuning to be done and then we were able to restart the song.
𝟭0. Tell us about your lowest and highest points in music so far.
Probably, the lowest point was the first few months during the pandemic where we couldn't get together to rehearse. The highest point might have been a gig we had back in March this year where we had a pretty big crowd that responded so well to our music (a mix of covers and original music). They were jumping up and down, singing the songs and doing a slam/mosh. It was the best response we have ever had so far. You should be able to find the video by googling "Rock in Progress @ FestiBeauchef: Multicam Video"
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