Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Echoes of Eternity

February 7, 2007

Aphrodite is the golden goddess of love, Athena the goddess of wisdom and war, and Artemus the goddess of the hunt and the wild. And the goddess of Echoes of Eternity is Francine Boucher. Hailing from Canada, she has fronted this Los Angeles-based progressive metal band since its inception in 2004. But Echoes of Eternity is not the average goth metal act with a female vocalist. Boucher's breath-taking beauty and ethereal vocals are goddess-like, but they echo over a heavier, more aggressive style rarely associated with female-fronted metal. In fact, founder and guitarist Brandon S. Patton has said the band wanted “to recreate the vibe of Death's Symbolic album with beautiful female vocals." Prior to the band's signing, hard work and self promotion through their MySpace page helped spread the word to the music world. Live-Metal.net quickly embraced the band and featured Echoes of Eternity in early 2006 in its “New Noise” feature for unsigned bands.

Now, with a record deal with metal titans Nuclear Blast, Echoes of Eternity's debut album, The Forgotten Goddess, arrives Feb. 20, 2007 (Read Live-Metal.net review here). Live-Metal.net's Jeff Maki was more than thrilled to talk to Boucher, whose aura had him beside himself on more than a few occasions. Francine talked about the history of the band, being a female in the metal scene and the meaning of The Forgotten Goddess. Trust us: This goddess will not soon be forgotten.

Live-Metal: I was in contact before you guys were even signed with Brandon. He sent us a three-song demo and we actually featured you guys on our site in our “New Noise” section.

Francine Boucher: That’s awesome. Live-Metal looks very familiar, so that’s probably where I remember it from.

How important was self-promotion to the band and was this key to getting signed to Nuclear Blast?

Well, when we did our three-song demo we pretty much just shopped it around and anyone who would listen, just gave a copy to them. Finally, Roy Z heard it and he really liked it. He wanted to produce us. It didn’t happen, finally, but he did put us in touch with Nuclear Blast. So that’s kind of how we got signed and everything.

How many CDs do you think you handed out to web sites like us and other people?

Gosh, I don’t know. Maybe 60, 75. There’s not that many metal places, so anything we could find.

Being from Canada, how did you originally come into contact with Brandon and join the band?

I actually went to school in Florida, in Orlando. It’s a place called Full Sail. I was studying audio engineering and [drummer] Kirk [Carrison] and Brandon were also there, so that’s how we came into contact. We became friends because we were all just fans of metal. I was doing kind of like solo stuff. I wanted to score music for films, so I was doing this kind of Tangerine Dream-ish kind of stuff with ethereal vocals over it and he really liked the vocals, so he asked me to be in the band.

Tell us a little bit about the overall sound of Echoes of Eternity, for people who don’t really know.

Well, it’s different from most female-fronted bands in that there’s no keyboards or orchestra or opera singing or Beauty and the Beast vocals—there’s no growling. So it’s a little different. And the music is heavier, a little more aggressive, progressive, and the vocals are softer. Smooth vocals over heavy riffs. That’s kind of what we were going for.

I read that the band—I guess maybe Brandon posted this—was trying to recreate the vibe of the Symbolic album by the band Death.

Yeah, that’s one of his favorite albums. It’s not really the same music, per se. A lot of people have mistaken those words. It’s more of the vibe than the music.

Well, at first we were gonna call it “Burning with Life,” which is the opening intro of the album. Then this artist by the name of Wendell Pendejo, he drew art for each song and, finally, we ended up loving what he did for “The Forgotten Goddess,” so that one kinda ended up as the album cover. What it means is, it’s about the Sacred Feminine, which a lot of people know from The Da Vinci Code. It’s basically when old cultures, old religions used to worship a male and a female deity and it’s kind of like the yin and yang in the sense that each half needs each other to be complete, to make a whole. Also, the album cover artwork by itself, regardless of the title track, it kind of represents the music. You have the mysterious forest in the back, the statues very pretty and the blood is aggressive. So it kind of encompasses all of that, the beauty and aggression.

On the title track, some of your lyrics are sung in French. Any way we can get a translation on any of that and is this something you plan to do with future albums?

Sure, yeah. I was thinking about posting a translation and I just haven’t had time to do it. I’ll be posting the translation shortly on MySpace and on our web site, which should be up, hopefully, in a week or two.

OK, yeah, I’ve been checking EchoesofEternity.net and it’s been down for a little while.

Yeah, we just had a bunch of stuff to get together. The artist is also working on it. It should be up pretty soon, though.

What was your initial reaction when you were signed by Nuclear Blast and how have things changed since for the band?

Well, we were gonna just record the album regardless, but we were stoked to be on Nuclear Blast. It’s the home of some of our favorite bands, so we were so happy. It really changed things. I don’t know, it just gave us a lot of excitement, just looking forward even more to doing the album.

A few of the songs, like “Voices in a Dream,” had been around for a while. How much of the material is new or changed?

We re-recorded all of our demos that were done previously, just so it would have a lot more continuity with the rest of the album. It’s a little different. Some people have demo love. It’s a little slower than the demo, but the production is better; Kirk got some new drums, and it was just a lot better.

We talk a lot about death, historical places and just spiritual stuff. “Voices in a Dream” is about losing somebody that you love. “Expressions of Flesh” is talking about how your soul is immortal. “Towers of Silence” is about the death ritual of the Zoroastrians. “The Kingdom Within” is also a spiritual song; it says, “Seek within yourself,” you know? “Circles in Stone” is kind of like Stonehenge ; there’s many Stonehenge-like places in the world, so we were kind of inspired from that. “Garden of the Gods” is about shamans and the tools that they use. “Lost Beneath a Silent Sky” is just a reflection of yourself, of what life’s about.

Covering topics like these, do you guys sit down and go to Wikipedia and things like that and research these kinds of different topics? They’re kind of obscure, do you know what I mean?

Brandon watches a lot of Discovery Channel, History Channel, so he gets inspired from that. Some lyrics were composed before the music and some titles, like the actual title of the song is composed before the music and the lyrics. It kind of sets the mood for the whole song, so we kind of play around that.

Do you think you personally are ready for the media attention that may come with you being an attractive female frontwoman?

Yeah. It’s gonna be a little crazy at first. I know there’s gonna be a lot of people that love me and a lot of people that hate me, so I have to kind of prepare for both. I am kind of a sensitive person by nature, so I have to kind of get over that and just do my own thing and not care about what people say and hopefully they’ll all like it.

I saw you had a little feature in Revolver already. Are you getting many phone calls for photo shoots and things like this for magazines and publications already?

It’s been starting slowly. Our publicists from Nuclear Blast have been emailing us a couple questionnaires to fill out. Today is my first actual press day, so I’m doing a bunch of calls today to various magazines and such. It’s a lot of fun, though. I’m enjoying it.

How do male fans treat you? Are there any strange stories to tell, like any crazy stalkers or anything weird going on?

No, no, we’re not that big yet. Nothing strange has happened yet. Mostly, the fans are pretty nice. When we play a show, we’re pretty new so a lot of people don’t know us yet, and they’re welcoming. They get into it. By the end of the show, they’re into it. So that’s cool.

Have you ever had any wardrobe malfunctions on stage? I saw in the photo shoot it looks like you’re wearing these big fancy gowns.

I do wear corsets. Thank god nothing has popped out yet. I try to make sure that everything stays in place.

What do you think of some of the other female-fronted metal or rock acts in recent years, such as Lacuna Coil, Evanescence, Nightwish. Are you guys fans of that type of thing?

Yeah, I love Nightwish. They were some of the first female-fronted metal that I had heard and I’m a big fan of their’s. Lacuna Coil is kinda new, like I just recently kind of started getting into them. I think they have a good sound. Evanescence is not really my cup of tea. It’s a little too commercial, but I still have respect for what they do. But it’s not really what I listen to.

Gosh, so many. I’m a big fan of music and I love almost everything. As far as singers go, I’m a big fan of Bruce Dickinson, Rob Halford, Geoff Tate. I think they have such great stage presence. Female, some of my favorite singers are Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart. Just so many. It’s hard to name just a few.

Say I took a quick glance at your CD collection. What are five random, off-the-wall albums I would see?

Well, I love Dimmu Borgir’s Enthrone Darkness Triumphant. Dying Fetus Destroy the Opposition. Morbid Angel Blessed Are the Sick. Non-metal, I guess it would be Enya, greatest hits. I also love Queensryche Operation: Mindcrime. Just so much stuff.

Back to the band a little bit, how was the band’s recent show with Type O Negative at the House of Blues in Anaheim?

That was so much fun. It was completely sold out, huge crowd. Peter Steele is such a nice guy. We had such a great time. House of Blues is a great, professional venue. They’ve got their shit together there. Everything was just great—soundman, audience, everything was perfect.

I didn’t get a chance to meet everybody, but Peter did come out and say hello to us. He’s a very nice person.

We are shopping around a tour right now. We don’t have any specific dates. We’re not sure if we’re gonna do the U.S. or Europe first. But ’07 is definitely gonna be filled with tours. We’ll be announcing it as soon as we have all the details.

It’s a little heavier than the album. We’re getting a fifth member to come out with us live. The music is really written for two guitars. [EDITOR’S NOTE: The band has since announced the addition of second guitarist Sam Young.] It’s a little more powerful, a little more aggressive than the album. My singing isn’t as laid back; it’s a little more energetic. Yeah, it’s just lots of energy and a little more aggressive and heavy live.

You just shot a video for “Voices in a Dream.” What was that like and when will we see it premiere?

We did it last weekend with a Swedish guy named Olle Carlsson. I can’t remember off the top of my head what bands he’s done, but he’s a good guy, he’s talented. He’s editing it right now, so we should be seeing it maybe two or three weeks from now. I think that Nuclear Blast will put it on Headbangers Ball.

One final question I’ll just throw out there: What pisses you off the most in the world today?

People hurting each other for no reason. People hurting animals for no reason. Torture. Yeah, that kind of pisses me off. I don’t understand that.

Is there anything else we need to know about Echoes of Eternity or anything else you want to say here?

I can’t think of anything, but the album’s coming out February 20, so be sure to buy it.