The Big Über Rock Interview: Kobra Paige

Written by Lindsey Appleton
Sunday, 30 April 2017 05:00

The fabulous Kobra And The Lotus have a new album ‘Prevail I’ coming out this coming month. Bravely for the band, it’s actually part of a double package, as the band produced a mammoth 21 songs for it… just a tad too many to fit onto one record, we’re sure you’ll agreeI recently sat down with the charismatic frontwoman from whom the band take their name to talk about the album, and recent developments in the KATL camp….

KATL Promo Header

I see you guys have just recruited Joey Concepcion of Armageddon, can you tell us a little about how you went about auditioning him and recruiting him?

Three years ago, I was invited to tour Europe and South America with The Metal Allstars super group. During that tour, I became good friends with Jon Donais, super shredder for Anthrax. When the time came for us to look for an axeman to accompany Jasio’s side, we’d grown quite weary of the searching process. I decided to reach out to Jon and and ask for a recommendation. He recommended Joey claiming that he was a very talented young man, deserving of everything coming his way and (sometimes most importantly to me)…. a sweetheart on the road. Joey is one of the few that have never auditioned for us. I’ve decided to take my friend’s word and roll with it so here we go!

Your tour with Beyond The Black is coming up soon have you got anything special lined up for this? Any guest appearances?

No guest appearances, just us guests from Canada ;). I’m really looking forward to this tour. I think this bill is very compatible, especially with our new material being released, and is going to go over very well with the audience. I’ve heard only great things about BTB.

How has your new single ‘You Don’t Know’ been received by your fans?

We’ve been very humbled to see the positive reception for all of the new music we’ve released so far, including ‘You Don’t Know’. It’s always interesting to see how your support network will react to another sonic evolution within the band but our support base has proven that they are ready to grow with us. This music is supposed to be another step towards unifying more of the world and shedding light into dark corners where people find themselves feeling like they don’t have enough internal strength all by themselves. So far, we have seen people resonate not only with the music but also with the messages better than ever before which is the best outcome we could have hoped for.

Can you take us through your song writing process, and how your music has evolved since the band started?

The song writing process has been a chameleon of different methods throughout this band’s lifetime. One truly important quality though is collaboration. That is what makes a large part of the band’s sonic identity and that is what makes the band constantly rise to new levels. Collaboration crushes the ego, forces myself and others to keep learning, opens our mind, and makes room for the best ideas no matter what. If a person writes a great song all by them self, awesome, it’s going on the album. If two or three or even four people, make the song come into vibrancy then yep that’s what’s going on the album. I largely collaborated on this double record with Jasio Kulakowski. I don’t know what it is but there is magic in our writing when we do it with each other. There are also many great collaborations with others including our producer Jacob Hansen, Danish songwriter Martin Paagard Wolf, new Iced Earth guitarist Jake Dreyer, our previous producer Johnny K, and our bass man Brad Kennedy. I came into the studio with a broad vision for the project, Brad called it ‘Prevail’(perfect!), and then everyone jumped on board and started adding their beautiful colors. I am so proud of everyone involved.

Your artwork for the single was done by Nat Enemede Photography. Did you have a particular idea for the cover or were they given free rein to produce something for you?

Yes, we had free rein. Yay! I had a very clear physical vision of what it ‘looked’ like to be misunderstood. It had to represent an internalized feeling of being trapped in one’s own body, screaming from the inside to get out and be heard, but yet still remaining silenced and isolated. I had some very bizarre ideas for Tim Tronckoe to try when we did an album photoshoot last spring with him in Denmark. One consisted of me in my nudes flipping chalk everywhere with my hair and the other was me backwards and topless holding my back in a decrepit building. I had no idea whatsoever why I was doing that, I was just listening to my intuition and thought we needed it! I’m such a hippy!

When Napalm asked for single art for ‘You Don’t Know’, I knew exactly what it had to be and it involved one of those creepy, backless, faceless, photos. Tim Tronckoe told me someone else needed to do the graphic art on the photo so I took it to Nat Enemede and explained my vision. She graciously wanted to collaborate and exceeded my expectations. Nat’s wildly talented in many ways and couldn’t have made the expression and message of the song come to life better. Both Nat and Tim are favourite arists of mine and people will find only their photographic work within the pages of ‘Prevail I’.

Your new masterpiece ‘Prevail I’ is out in May; can you tell us a little about this and how the recording went?

When we were recording our classic rock EP in 2015, I had a crazy idea to do most of our songwriting for the next record in studio, organically. I wanted us to be in an isolated place where no one could escape the madness. I thought surely there had to be some magical element that happened when you made music on the floor, collaboratively, the way they did together in the 70’s. Short of about 3 songs, almost everything on ‘Prevail I and II’ was fully formed or written in Hansen studios in Denmark. We spent the first month writing and creating music. I think Jacob thought I was crazy!! There was so much creativity though within the group of musicians that were in the studio that it was unbelievably inspiring as it started to take shape. We literally lived and breathed music for over a month. I know, personally, I wasn’t sleeping very much. We would go home after the studio and continue writing with our little interfaces and mac books. The first two weeks were very challenging. This was the time spent where we were really trying to establish with Jacob how and in which way we wanted to evolve the sound, improve as a band, and what our goal really was. Once we locked it in, the creativity was allowed to flow and pour out of everyone writing. It was truly amazing what happened.

Did you do anything differently on this album that you haven’t done before?

So much was done differently. First of all, it’s the first half of a double record!! These are the most organically created albums out of all of our albums, in regard to where it mostly took shape. This is also the most versatile and dynamic music the band has ever created. You will hear musical growth in the musicianship, the fine details underlying each song, the structure, the focus, and the vocal performance. These are also the most straight forward and vulnerable lyrical messages ever written. This album is made to make a helpful impact in whichever way it can for people. Every song on this album has emotion behind each note and word, it’s like everything is telling the story and inducing a particular feeling. For example, ‘Specimen X’ is not just saying ”get me out of this mortal prison cell!’ the guitars are screaming it too. This is our most thoughtful repertoire.

Any behind the scenes stories from recording with the rest of the band that you can share with us?

One of my favourite parts of the studio experience was honestly watching Jasio, Jacob, and our engineer Joonas doing the group vocals on the songs. I couldn’t stop smiling and laughing. The faces that were being made, them trying to do it in unity… all of it was so funny! I sadly lost all of the footage off my Macbook :(. I wanted everyone to see what happened in there! To top it all off, there was a really cute, young teenager that came to study Jacob doing his job as a project for his school and he was in the back lip syncing the “Whoas” the whole time. Ah it was the best, ha ha.

Are you planning a full tour for the release of the album and if so can we expect you to return to the UK?
We’re working very hard on coming through all of the territories with the new album. Currently we’re in the process off building a UK tour and knowing us, I think it’s safe to say you can count on seeing us this year. We always come back to the UK, stay tuned for dates!

Anything you would like to say to your fans before we sign off?
Yea! You all rock!! Thanks so much for all of your constant loyalty and support. We can’t do any of this without the people that believe in us and share the passion for what we do. Music will always continue to bring us together. Can’t wait to see everybody out there with our new stuff!!

‘Prevail I’ is released on 12 May.

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