Jim Louvau: In Periphery, there are five other members who are very much into writing in a
progressive metal style and there is plenty of noodling going on musically, do you have a
hard time fitting vocals over the music?
Spencer Sotelo: I kind of grew up as a guitar player before I was a singer so I understand
guitar and counter points on melodies. As a singer now, I treat the melody like it’s another
instrument and you don’t want to repeat the same melody with a different instrument or it
just gets boring. So, I listen to what’s going on with the guitar and figure out which notes
aren’t being played and I write the melodies based off of that.
Jim Louvau: Concept records aren’t always easy to understand and when you throw
aggressive vocals and guitars on top of that, it’s really easy for listeners not to understand what is going on in the story. Was that something that you thought about
when writing these records?
Spencer Sotelo: Absolutely, I understand that for a lot of people, the concept may
be hard to grasp as a whole story and every little aspect of it. For those people,
we are going to try to make it a short graphic novel, something that delves into
the story and gives all the details.
Jim Louvau: There is so much cool artwork in the physical version of the
record, fans are sort of cheating themselves when they buy a digital copy or
stream the records.
Spencer Sotelo: We definitely kept that in mind when working with the artist who created the album artwork. We didn’t do it to upset the records but
that is a big point. All of us in the band grew up buying physical copies
of records and I still do it whenever I can. It’s easy to go online and buy
a record, but when you have a psychical CD in your hand and you can
read the lyrics and get these visuals that are meant to be seen while
you’re listening to the music, it makes for a better experience, in my
opinion.
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