Featuring former Korn drummer David Silveria (“absolutely brilliant! …biggest inspiration behind the kit” – TOP TENS), and ex-Anyone frontman Riz Story (“Story embodies the indie spirit” – VARIETY). INFINIKA’S debut experimental rock album includes 14 original tracks, including 6 songs that were featured in Story’s directorial project “A WINTER ROSE” (opening film for the 17th annual DANCES WITH FILMS film festival, world premiere May 29, 2014, Hollywood’s Chinese Theater).
“This album represents our bold new direction, our collaborative answer to the ‘death of rock music’,” said Riz Story. “It’s got hardcore elements, melodic tracks and scorchingly psychedelic overtones. There’s really no hype here, no angle – just the honest music, which will have to speak for itself.”
“INFINIKA is like nothing I’ve done before – we’ve taken some creative choices with this project, a new mix of musical, percussive songs,” added Silveria. “I am extremely proud of this music. “
INFINIKA’S new studio album, ECHOES AND TRACES was digitally released on September 1, 2014.
Interview by: Laura DeSantis-Olsson
Interview with: Riz Story (frontman) and David Silveria (Drums)
(Interview includes INFINIKA’S music from ECHOES AND TRACES)
Introduction by: Band
Interview by: Laura DeSantis-Olsson
1. What is the history of the musical relationship of INFINIKA, how you all met, and how you decided wich direction you wanted to go musically?
Riz: “Actually, Dave and I first met back in about 2000. At that time, Korn was the number one band in the world and I was a member of a band called Anyone, which was just looking for a deal. Anyone wanted to take over the Orange County, CA, Huntington Beach scene, where I lived right across the street from David. At the time, I was interviewing David for the movie I was making called, Togetherment. The movie was kind of a psychedelic visual, which featured all the local bands and all sorts of Orange County personalities, ranging from porn stars to Dennis Rodman. In the process of making this movie, Korn got exposed to my band and offered us a record deal right away. The label they had at the time was called Elementary. So, they offered us a record deal, but through a little confusion surrounding the timing of a big tour, we ended up signing with Roadrunner Records instead.
So, that was the first time we met, but we always were in admiration of each others music. Monkey was going to produce our record, at the time we met the band, but had to head out on tour at the same time. We were real tight with Monkey and Dave. Then a bunch of years went by, I hadn’t heard from David in a long time, and then all of a sudden I got this call from David (he loved Korn as well) describing how he was looking to do something new, totally different, and utterly opposite of Korn. He wanted to try a band that was moving in a completely different direction, and he was looking into different bands and different music. So, we got together and started creating music and it just clicked right away. David was really into some of the music I was creating and I was anxious to hear Dave play it. We also created a lot of material though improvisation and just working together. That’s basically how the band formed.
2. How did you choose the name INFINIKA for the band?
Riz: “I just made up this word INFINIKA. I wanted the band to be named something that was absolutely original. So, I made up a word. INFINIKA, refers to anything that lasts forever, something that’s characterized by being timeless and intimate. I wanted the name to also to relate to infinity in terms of “no limits”. Right from the beginning David and I said, “There should be no limits to this music, it shouldn’t be bound by what we did before, it shouldn’t fit into any categories, it should just absolutely be about innovation and new directions.” We wanted it to be about the unexpected and keeping it musical. So, that’s the origin of the name.
3. What has the response been to the music of INFINIKA?
David: “It’s been good. It’s been digitally released and with very limited exposure, but the response from that has been really good. It received very positive comments.”
Riz: “Everybody knows the music industry’s in trouble, that’s no secret now. Record deals are almost a thing of the past. So, what we decided to do was release music, get it out there, and let it build on it’s own. That’s exactly what it’s doing. We’re finding our audience is assembling themselves out of nowhere. We have some Korn fans. We have some of my old fans from when I was in Anyone. However, for the most part it’s people just discovering the music and telling other people about it. It’s very organic and it’s all about the fans for us. They’re the ones telling other people about it, buying the record, and getting into it. That’s what we wanted. That’s what we hopped would happen, rather than just ride on our names and what we’ve done in the past. We wanted to do something that was street-oriented, total grassroots and just about the music. That’s what we’re doing. We’re just going to be building out fans as time goes by, one fan at a time. It’s all based on the music.
INFINIKA – “Echoes And Traces”
4. How would you describe your fan base? Who do find is listening INFINIKA most?
David: “Honestly, I don’t really know. I can’t really say any one particular group of people that are into it, except that there are a substantial amount. As far as saying who is listening to it, I can’t really answer that in terms of a particular crowd but rather just people in general, who have discovered it.
Riz: “I think I have a sense of who the fans are. They’re contacting me a lot, and, of course, I’m doing a lot of the interaction with the fans. What I’m seeing is that we’re getting a good cross section of fans that have just always loved David. They love his drumming. There are also Korn fans, who have discovered the band based on what David was doing. Then, there’s old Anyone fans, who followed my band, who are mostly in Europe and around the world. They’re excited I’m coming back and making new music after Anyone that’s rock ’n’ roll. I never stopped making music in between, I was just doing it in a different way. I make film scores and I produce and write for a million different people. So, we have all of those previous fans. However, the new people that are coming in are similar to Muse fans and Radiohead fans; people that listen to more artistic more alternative music. They’re blending in with the heavy music fans we have from our past.”
“INFINIKA has songs that go from super heavy, like “Down”, to a song that’s an acoustic song, like “Over Before It Begins (Part II)”. That’s where we’re at as a band. We have no limits. Usually the person that listens to this new metal sound of band wouldn’t be exposed to an acoustic song right next to it. It doesn’t happen. New Metal bands have all New Metal songs from beginning to end. They’re very limited. Back in the day, when the bands were classic, they would mix it up so much. For example, Led Zeppelin was a band whose heaviest song, which in those days would have been the Immigrant Song, or something like that. Another one would be Stairway To Heaven, which is, itself, mellow for the first half and then it gets heavier. Even though it doesn’t sound like New Metal, that was about as heavy as rock got. So, it was the heaviest you could get, to the mellowest you could get.”
“For us, we wanted to have that full range and bring that back. That’s why rock ’n’ roll just got so divided, which is good because people can pick their own flavor to a certain degree. However, there’s a lot of people who listen to so many different kinds of music from reggae, to rap, to rock, to pop music. People’s listening is so varied because of the modern age. So, INFINIKA is that band where you can throw on a record and go on a whole musical journey. All the different moods of life come in somewhere on that album, from the blissful, transcendent sound of the last song on the album, “Traces”, to the pissed off sound of “Down”, to the mellow and psychedelic edge of “Undone”, to the rock anthem of “Beautiful World”. There are no limits and we’re just getting started.”
INFINIKA – “Runaways”
5. How does INFINIKA plan to develop their music?
David: “I would say we are looking to take everything a step further, especially with the use of keyboards. There are a lot of keyboards on Echoes and Traces, a lot of composed keyboards. However, on the next one we will probably go even a bit further. When we start writing, I’ll create new samples and sounds, and load all the programs up with the new samples so we can write using the new material. On a sample pad I can program any sound I want into the pad and create beats out of program sounds and we can take that even further.
6. How would you describe your song writing process for the Echoes and Traces album?
David: “We would basically sit with Protools and review a lot of the songs Riz had already been working around, and then we would finish them up with drums and additional parts. Then we would fine-tune it all.”
Riz: “On Echoes and Traces a lot of the music I had come up with was unique because I wrote it from how complete it was in my head. A lot of people fiddle on the guitar; they fiddle on the keyboards and they just fiddle around till they find something cool, and then they add this part or that part. However, what I’m starting to do, is I’m starting to hear entire songs playing in my head like they’re finished, as opposed to sitting down and crafting a song. A lot of songs on the INFINIKA album came to me that way, which is really, really unique. It’s also really rewarding. To hear the song completely finished in your head, it’s almost like you are hearing it on the radio or something. The job is then to create what you’re hearing in your head. Then, of course, bringing David in is the biggest thrill of all. Whatever music comes to me, I’ve got this rhythmic powerhouse to interpret the rhythm, which is so important to every song. I get to have this very solid, very powerful, very unique style of a drummer interpret the rhythmic elements of the music. Then, of course, add his very specific ideas to the music. For example, the synthesizers in “Down” are all David’s idea. He came up with the idea and sort of tried to describe it to me and I experimented with it. It creates some of the analogue sound you hear on the album. It is kind of hard to describe in a written interview.”
“So it was like that. I had these songs realized; then David came in with his rhythmic approach and very unique fills and all the things that make him a drum legend. Then he added even more by saying, “Hey, why don’t you try the strings here?” David would also sometimes say, “You should repeat this verse or you should try doing this or that.” It was a very cool collaboration. I enjoyed a lot. I feel it’s going to produce a lot of interesting music in the future.”
INFINIKA – “Yesterday’s Gone”
7. What do you like to write songs about? Why do you like to write songs about these ideas?
Riz: “Being the lyricist I will have to answer this one. Basically, lyrics, for me, are very important, and that’s one of the main things about INFINIKA. Any of the lyrics on the album are important. If you’re saying something, it might as well have some meaning of some kind. I tend to write about the big picture, all of it, every single thing that we encounter; being alive. That’s why, again, going back to what I was saying earlier about the album having so many flavors; the reason why that is, is because that’s how life is. As an artist, I’m inspired by what I listen to. For example, you listen to “Down”, and again that’s a song about being in an uncomfortable, dark, place. That’s a song about being down. Everyone goes there. It kind of has an anger to it as well. So, that’s a certain flavor of being down. Then, again, you go to traces and that’s more of this kind of big picture of life in general. Then, when you listen to “Over Before It Begins”, we’re talking about smaller pictures of people relating to people. The song “Beautiful World”, is a statement on the world. All these different things are flavors in life that happen. They form the lyrics. They inspire the words.”
So, again, a lot of bands say, “We have to be pissed off all the time.” A lot of bands say, “Oh, we have to be talking about love all the time.” You can take any band: Rage Against The Machine, who has to be political every time. So again, INFINIKA, “infinity,” no limits, is why we don’t have to be anything all the time. We can be happy one moment and show absolutely one hundred percent devastation the next. It’s like a soundtrack to life. That’s what INFINIKA is.”
8. What message do you want people to get from your music?
INFINIKA – “Over Before It Begins”
David: “We encourage people to listen to the whole record; to go on the journey the record takes them on. Whatever message they interpret each song brings to them is what I hope they would take away from it. I can’t really say that there is only one certain message for each song. It can always raise a different message and a different emotion. I would just hope that people are able to listen to the whole record and enjoy the journey going through the emotions the music projects.”
Riz: “I can’t say anything better than that. Yes, we’re both hopeful that people will explore the whole album. We know that currently, it’s all about the “one song”, and the “one video”, and then a minute later it’s over. What we’re trying to bring back to music is album you can live with. We are getting similar feedback from the fans. People are telling us that they put the record on and have been loosing themselves in it. They are mentioning that it’s so varied and so colorful, deep, and multi-layered with so many different words to listen to. So, you know, they are taking the whole ride, putting the album on, and dropping the needle. They are laying back and taking the whole ride, the whole journey of the album, the whole thing. That’s what we’re trying to bring back and that’s what bands like Pink Floyd and Rush were all about. Any classic rock band that you pick, back in the days when I grew up, or when David grew up, was so special. You could choose a band and go on an entire ride with that band. You loved every song on the album for what it was. You would’t hear the same one song over and over again. For us it’s about exploration. For us it’s about throwing the formula away.”
9. Who do you record with?
Riz: “We do all our own production. It’s just David and I. I’ve been a record producer for a while now and David has got amazing ears after a lifetime of doing it. Sometimes he’ll come in and say, “Add 2 DB of 1K to the kick drum, add a little more snap in the 3.2k on the snare drum, and it’s perfect.” That’s how we communicated and that’s how we mixed. The early fans will tell you that they waited for about a year and a half. We dropped the single “Beautiful World” and the video. However, it was after a long time because we worked on mixes and remixes and reworked things over and over. We really wanted it to sound as good as it could. We weren’t in any rush and we just let it develop. Actually, from early versions that got out, you can tell we worked more on the final songs as we continued to refine and refine and refine, until we thought it was just about as good as it could sound.
10. If you were going to create a genre of music from the music you’re making, how would you describe it?
David: “Honestly, it’s familiar to alternative rock, but I would call it an “actual alternative rock”. It’s not just the same keyboard and drum machine and processed vocals you hear over and over again on the radio. But if we were categorizing it, it would be “Actual Alternative Rock.”
Riz: “I agree with David exactly. The thing is, when you have any genre of music, it starts to define itself despite what it was supposed to be. You can say for example, “progressive rock”; well it was progressive when it came out in the 1970’s but when you’re in the 2000s and your making the same exact sound, it’s no longer progressive. Now, it’s nostalgia. I guess where we are, is that we are truly trying to mix things up in a new way and have no limits. If you had to call it a genre, I guess “alternative” would be the big genre name we would fall under. However, when you think of alternative, you think of certain sounds, and we don’t embody those sounds at all. We don’t sound like the Flaming Lips or Nirvana.”
INFINIKA – “Crash”
“I don’t like labels. That’s why, again, I chose the name INFINIKA. Listen to it and you will come up with your own term for it. There’s no formula. There’s a lot of stuff that you could say like, “Oh, this sounds older, or “this” is a reference to “that.” However, then it’s put together with something that totally new. That’s what I like about what we’re doing. It’s feels like it’s just music: adventurous, exploratory music. If nothing else, it has some feeling behind it. So these ideas are what we talk about frequently.”
INFINIKA – “Fly Away”
“Of course, it’s also about creating the right mood. As two guys here, composers of music, who are trying to create something, we decided if it’s going to be on the record, it should have some sort of emotional impact. That’s another element of the INFINIKA record that I definitely feel should be mentioned. Each song has it’s own emotional impact. There’s no frivolous bullshit on there. The one song that slips into heathenism in a way would be “Crash.” However, “I lost” and all those songs like that, “Fly Away”, have a theme of escapism. The album’s kind of a concept record about somebody who decides to just run away. This is something that not a lot of people have picked up on. The album is, vaguely, a road trip story of a guy who is a very sensitive, open person, who decides that the world is just messed up and wants to just get away from it. If you listen to “Beautiful World”, that’s the second song on the album, that’s him just kind of looking around at what’s found. It’ makes him want to throw up. So, in the following song, the lyrics are, “There must be somewhere we can run, where we can fly away.” That’s when the journey begins. So, that’s one of the things I think you can say about the album: that the lyrical concept runs throughout.
INFINIKA – “Beautiful World”
11. How much time do you put into coming up with the visual concepts for your music?
Riz: “I think that that’s just a natural thing that comes about from who we are. One of the things about David is that he doesn’t have a made-up image, he’s just always been a badass drummer. As far as the image and the flavor of the band, my presentation has always been an impression of who I am. It tends to be on the “artsy” side. I make films and I’m involved in other areas of art, so it tends to show when we have a theatrical presentation. However, we’re just getting started, we only have one music video. The next music video’s going to be an important thing for us because it’s going to further define our visuals.”
“We let the fans vote on what the next video would be. It was great because in the course of voting, almost every song on the album was brought up. There was a lot of, “It should be “Lonely people,” or, “No it’s gotta be “Crash;” no, “It absolutely should be “Fly away.” I believe the one that won overall was, “Yesterday’s Gone,” unless we decide to change it up last minute. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll do a double video, where one video encompasses two songs for, “Over Before It Begins (Part I&2).”
“I have a film coming out and it has INFINIKA songs in it. The film is called A Winter Rose. It’s the story of this girl who overcomes her difficult childhood and follows her dream of being a singer. That’s going to be released world wide soon, so the songs will get a lot more exposure from that. It’s kind of a timeless story. We premiered it at the Chinese Theatre recently, with a sold out audience. We got a nice standing ovation and it went over really well. So, we have big, big hopes for the movie. We’re developing it now into a series as well.”
“I’m involved in all art forms from painting to film, all the instruments, to music itself.”
12. What is your practice schedule like?
Riz: “Well, it all depends on what phase you’re in. If we are about to go on the road then we are practicing constantly. If you’re in the studio, you’re not practicing at all, you’re more or less creating. So, that answer just depends on what stage you’re at. However, when you’re getting ready for something, or you’re about to do a show, or prepare for a tour run, you’re practicing every day, all day, getting the mix together. You’re getting the programs together.”
13. If you were going to choose a different genre of art, from painting or sculpting, for example, which one would you say relates most to your music?
Riz: “If you put the question that way, I feel we’d be closest to something impressionistic, like Monet. Or, in the poetic world, we would relate to the processes of E.E. Cummings. We’re more impressionistic.”
14. Riz, as a lyricist, who’s your favorite author?
Riz: “My favorite author would be…. it’s hard to narrow it down to a favorite author in my opinion. You reach a certain level in your craft where you can be no better and then it just turns into what flavor you like. So, there are no favorites, only the best, and the best are well known and celebrated.”