Steven: For this one I’m going to play an excerpt from
‘Azure Eternal’. It’s one of the
most melodic songs we’ve got, so check it out.
[Music playing]
Jacob: Alright, we are here with Steven Wilson. Steven, go ahead and tell us what
instrument you play, band, any information we can get from you.
S: Again, I’m Steven Wilson. I play bass guitar for Final Weapon. We’re a local Birmingham video game
band. We’re on Facebook, Twitter,
and have our own website at FinalWeaponBand.com.
J: Okey dokey, tell us a little bit about Final Weapon. What kind of music do y’all do besides
video game?
S: Well, we orchestrate different video game music into
contemporary metal and rock. Also
we incorporate J-Pop music and other styles of Japanese music into a more
Americanized styling, kind of giving it a fun flair, if you want to say that.
J: And do y’all just do covers, or is it all originals, or…
S: Pretty much all our music is original. We do get inspiration from a lot of
different video games such as CastleVania, Sonic, and any kind of rail shooters
and stuff like that. We have done
one cover show that was specifically for a client. They requested a CastleVania cover show. Again, we play majority of our own
music, but we incorporated CastleVania into our music to kind of play
around. Those covers were also
written directly by us. It
wasn’t just a verbatim cover it was a custom – if you want to say – “custom
cover”.
J: Tell us about the show. What kind of show was this? Who was the client?
S: The show was for – it was an anime convention that was, I
believe, in Huntsville. It was
PersaCon in 2011. It was – they
requested us to – well, I don’t remember exactly how many songs we did, I think
it was 6. But they requested us to
do it for their convention and it was supposed to be a themed convention for
CastleVania, so…
J: And how did y’all land the gig?
S: That one, we got in contact with a group called Concept
Galaxy. They’re kind of a local
talent – if you want to say, talent agency – that works with conventions and
such, getting local groups into more of a spotlight. They also helped us get onto RealmsCon, in Corpus Christie,
Texas. It has, I want to say, 2000
to 3000 attendees, it might be upwards of 5000, I don’t remember exactly how
many. They helped us get on with
that when we played with – oh, gosh who was the band? Honestly, I don’t
remember what the band was. We’ve
played with a few larger names such as Lisa Futecalla(?), and… Oh, gosh I can’t
remember.
J: It’s okay, we can take a look at it later. We can probably find it in a press
release somewhere.
S: I’m horrible with names so it’s okay.
J: So tell us a little bit more about RealmsCon in
general. Did y’all do anything
special, anything new for that?
S: We actually wrote – it was the first show that we wrote
our backing tracks for. Originally
it started out as just a four-piece band, and everything that was played was
only us. We had nothing going in
the background. Well, we finally
got software – Studio One by PreSonus – where we could write in backing tracks
and where we could play a lot more in-depth and complex music that sounds
really cool. But, with that, we
also had – we were also able to get a vocalist. Even being a four-piece instrumental band, we were able to
get a vocalist through a program called Vocal. It is a phenome-based program where you can actually input
sounds and phenomes of the – at the moment, I believe it’s only from the
Japanese language, I believe they’re still working on the English language
patches for it – but, phenomes and sounds of the Japanese language and create
words that aren’t – if you want to say – pre-recorded by someone, it’s actually
all digital. So, it’s pretty
fun. It’s a little bit more complicated
than it sounds, but it’s still really fun to play with and be able to get some
really cool sounds, especially when it’s harder to get that type of vocals that
you’re looking for.
J: Tell us a little bit about how you got started into
music, various academies that you’ve played through, different instruments,
just how you got your start into music.
S: I started when, way back in the day, when I was probably
2. My family has always been a
musical family. My mother plays
piano, my dad plays guitar, my brother plays guitar, and obviously I play
bass. But we’ve all been singing
in church and stuff like that, so.
The church was the first place I really got, if you want to say,
introduced to performing music. I
participated in children’s choir and stuff like that. I got to sit and watch my parents do choir ensembles and
choir productions through the church, so it was a learning experience starting
with vocals and not really actually learning an instrument. Once I got into middle school, though,
in sixth grade I learned clarinet.
I joined the band, learning woodwinds, clarinet obviously being my
focus. Throughout middle school
and high school I continued learning the clarinet, moving onto bass clarinet
and throughout woodwinds, learning traditional and classical music in larger
ensembles other than just small, 2 piece or 3 piece or quartets. That itself created a lot of openings
and a lot of new feelings and new ideas towards music. In high school, I actually was, had the
oppurtunity to learn bass guitar and to be in a jazz ensemble. That’s where I picked up bass
guitar. I originally, throughout
middle school and high school, had kind of played around on my dad’s classical
guitar - an older, classical, full-body hollow guitar – and just kind of
learning and picking around on that, but never actually learning the theory of
the instrument itself, just kind of playing on it. But once I got into the jazz ensemble, I was able to
actually learn the instrument from the ground up. So, that’s where I started the bass guitar. Now the jazz in itself, I’ve always
been under the – I learned it this way, that if you learn jazz you can learn
any other style. Jazz has got
every kind of articulation, every kind of slurr, legato, anything that you can
learn in music, you can learn from jazz.
So, it’s a very good, strong base for what I learned in my music. After high school, I went to UAB and I
was accepted into their music performance program focusing in woodwinds, in
bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet.
I was classically trained by one of the highest – actually I think she’s
ranked number 4 or 5 in the United States – woodwind players. I was trained under her, taking private
lessons for a year and a half. So,
learning through all that, and again, focusing all in classical stuff, in
classical style music, you learn quite a lot going through all that. Off and on, through high school and in
college, I played in my local church’s praise band, for our youth. That’s where I played – predominantly
played – the bass guitar. So it
was quite a learning experience trying to jump around to all the different musical
styles, going from jazz one day and then the next morning going to classical
music and coming back at evening and going to contemporary praise and
worship. So, sometimes if you want
to say it would be considered whiplash.
But at the same time, being bombarded by all those different kinds of
music gives you, if you want to say, a religious experience. It’s something quite different. I would recommend it, really for
anyone.
J: And for these styles, do you incorporate any methods that
you’ve learned into the band, into Final Weapon?
S: Well, with a background in classical music, you learn
from the beginning what the role of, and what the shape of music, should
be. Obviously the biggest thing is
that you want to start with a very solid base and work up. You never want to have heavy high ends
or heavy middle ground because you’re going to fall apart. The best music always has a strong
root. That’s what I took from
classical music. Also, a lot of
the intricate patterns and a lot of the unorthodox playing styles and
unorthodox movements in my bass playing come from classical music, rather than
more contemporary stuff that follows the root.
J: What would you describe as unorthodox?
S: Unorthodox, in my opinion, would be, for instance, if
you’ve got a group or song that goes in a simple 3-step chord progression,
going from the root, then to a 5, then to a 4 and then back to the root, or
even root, 3, and then 5 and then root, I might consider instead of going from
the root to the 3 to the 5, I might follow a different pattern that’s going
down the scale, versus going up the scale, following the root that all the
other instruments are playing. It
allows for different tonality, it’s not necessarily always going to be in a
straightforward melodic tonality.
It could be a harmonic tonality, it could be an amelodic tonality, which
doesn’t necessarily sound right initially until you hit the resolution right at
the end where you get all of it coming together and it creates that small point
of dissonance, or collision, with everything going. It makes it sound kind of chaotic until you come to that
nice, pretty note where everything is back in line, and everything sounds
pretty and serene.
J: Okay. As far
as music to you, how do you feel about it, what does it mean to you? How has it shaped your various
experiences, from school playing to church to most recently, your work with
Final Weapon?
S: Originally, music to me, and it’s been a while, so it’s
kind hard to remember. Originally,
music to me was kind of – honestly, originally music to me was something to
make my parents happy, to make my parents proud. That was the original reason that I started doing it, being
the good little child, the good little son, I wanted to make sure I didn’t get
my parents angry, and I wanted to be like my daddy – being able to sing, being
able to do whatever. So, that was
originally what it came to me as.
Eventually, probably, I would say, once I actually started to grow more
mature in my musicianship, it became more and more of a personal choice between
doing that and going and starting, for instance, at that time – this was
probably around the beginning of high school – a lot of people would go out and
say, “Yeah, let’s go out partying” or something like that while they were in
high school. Music was kind of, if
you want to say, my drug. I would
want to go and play or go and listen to music, do something that would be out
of the norm for most people. I’ve
always looked up to musicians; I’ve always thought that at the time that was a
glamorous lifestyle. It’s not
necessarily all glamor now, but it is a lifestyle I wouldn’t want to live
without. Now and throughout all my
life, music was built into this viewpoint. Music is, more or less, my “happy place”. Music itself is an entity to me. It’s not – it is sentient in itself, it
can be there without you. It’s
kind of – it’s a new experience every time I listen to music. I would find the story behind
music. I would listen to classical
music sometimes, listening to Bach and Chaicovsky, and just find what the
composer was thinking about, trying to figure out what they were thinking
about. But also, kind of visually
seeing how the music progressed and how it would play. Now, I’ll listen to more contemporary
stuff, like J-Pop stuff, like Light Bringer – that’s one I really enjoy – and
just listening to the playing style and the technicality of it, it gives a lot
of body and a lot of meaning to it.
Again, like I said, with music being my “happy place”, if I ever felt
sad, or upset, or depressed, or mad, I would sit down and just listen to music,
and I would lose myself in it. I
could have hours go by where I’d been listening to music and have someone run
up to me and be like, “hey, we need to go do something”, and I’m thinking, wow,
it’s been four hours! Just listening, sitting there doing nothing. It’s just – music brings a level of
peace to me you can’t really find from drugs, drinking, you can’t get from
anything else. It is pure joy. So, really that’s at least now – obviously, I can’t say what’s
going to happen in the next 20 or 30 years, but I hope that that’s the way I’m always going to view music, because
it’s just… it’s precious to me.
J: How would you say your recent experiences – your work
with the band, getting to go to Texas and whatnot, what kind of value or added
perspective would you say that that has given to you in terms of music?
S: Going on tour, if you want to say – not exactly touring –
but being able to take the show on the road gives me insight into that lifestyle. I was always thinking that, yeah, you
get to go around and hang out and get to do whatever, but it’s a lot of
work. It’s a lot more than you
think. And it gives me a sense of
accomplishment. When you get done,
and you see people excited, and not necessarily wanting to buy CD’s or
something like that, but really desiring to listen
to your music – it’s something where you can bring happiness to someone and
incite emotions in them, and you get to be that instigator. You get to be that facility for the
emotions to go in. And then it’s
no longer about you or your playing style, or what you can or can’t do, it has
everything to do with what they’re experiencing. And that’s the big thing, is the experience of it. So going on the road and actually being
able to perform live for different people, it gives you that experience and
let’s you see that reaction to your music and what you can do, and it gives you
that good feeling knowing that you created that experience for them.
J: You mentioned something about CD’s. Can you give us a little bit of
information about how many CD’s you have, or what’s your current release? Just
some information on that.
S: Right now, we’ve had 2 CD’s. One was a self-titled EP, the other one self-titled, but not
really, we didn’t give it an official name. We created the first one – it was all done by hand – so we
did it all ourselves. There was no
production team; everything was done by hand, by us. Fortunately, I have worked in a printing job, so we got all
of our printing done through us.
So it was saving money, saving time, and manpower, but it also kind of
gives that personal touch. Like I
said, we recorded all of it. I
actually recorded some of the things here in my recording studio. We also recorded stuff at our drummer’s
house, and at our guitarist’s house, so we got a lot of stuff done that you
wouldn’t expect. A lot of people
would have to go to recording studios, like professional, big recording
studios, or recording companies, to get the same level of expertise in it and
quality. So it’s really an
interesting thing, and a really fun thing to do. The second CD that we have, again we recorded everything
ourselves. But it was the first CD
that we were able to incorporate all of our backing tracks on. We have, let’s see, 3 songs – yes, 3
songs, maybe 4 – I don’t always do backing tracks, so (laughs). As of right now, I think 3 songs we
have backing tracks for – one being ‘Orion’, one being the song entitled, ‘X’,
and the final song being ‘Azure Eternal’.
‘X’ and ‘Orion’ are the first songs that we’ve ever had to incorporate
our vocaloid singer. Although ‘X’
doesn’t have much vocaloid in it at the moment, ‘Orion’ being the primary one,
it’s highlighted and we still have them in both songs. Including that and including our bonus
tracks, one of which our guitarist Jacob wrote for someone actually, is on our
newest CD. It’s a bonus track and
it’s got a different style than all of our music. It’s got its own flair. So, with that CD it gives us a kind of blank canvas to do
whatever we want. It’s not about
necessarily making any one person happy, but it’s about allowing us to fulfill
our desires and put our music as we want it. That’s the reason I’ve always enjoyed it where we don’t have
to go to a recording studio.
Everything is done by us, the way we want, not the way anybody else
wants. That’s the reason – at
least, as of yet and to date – we have not been signed – because we like the
ability to not have to do what someone else wants us to do.
J: So you mentioned your vocaloid is a girl. Does she have a name?
S: Her name is Fraya.
J: How did this come about?
S: Well, the idea of Fraya actually came from our guitarist
– well, not our guitarist, our keyboardist,
Matt – he likes doing character design and drawing. Now he did all the base original artwork for our CD’s, and
on the back of both of our CD’s right now is Fraya. She is a one-winged – similar to Sephiroth from Final
Fantasy VII – but she has one wing, and she’s kind of an angel that guides
people through the worlds that we create in our music. So, Fray is… We call her Fraya – I
don’t remember the actual program name, I’ve never really cared for it, it just
wasn’t that interesting to me. But
Fraya is our icon, if you want to say… our front-runner.
J: Okay. Now, talking about some of these tours, these shows
that you’ve played, give us a list of accolades, kind of the highlights of your
music career - bands you’ve played with, places you’ve been, recognition that
you’ve received.
S: We’ve done multiple things. We started out, and our very first show was at a local
Birmingham commission called SukoshiCon, it was the first year that they’d ever
done it, so we were kind of the highlighted musical – well, really the only musical act – but we were the
highlight for it. It started off
kind of with a rough start. It
wasn’t always the best, but not every first show is going to be the best, just
grand explosion of a show. From
there, we continued to play with SukoshiCon for a while, and we still play for
them on occasion, depending on availability. But we’ve also played for – again, we’ve played for
PersaCon, where we were requested to do the CastleVania cover show. That’s where we got connected with
Concept Galaxy. Concept Galaxy was
able to get us on with RealmsCon, and Lisa Futecalla(?) was there, also the
band Nylon Pink. We were able to
open with them. Finally, we also
did a local tornado relief show.
This, if you want to say, is one of the biggest names that we’ve got on
there at the moment. We were able
to do a show with the New York Dolls and Motley Crue, opening for them. So that was for the tornado benefit
show that was for the tornadoes that ran through Tuscaloosa in 2011, I
think. 2012? Somewhere in
there. Finally, just recently, we
played with the Protomen, actually.
We played at a venue that’s in downtown Birmingham called Zydeco. That was actually a pretty cool
experience, just to play with them and see their style and see their
entertainment aspect, because it’s a completely different approach to
entertaining the crowd than we have.
So, that’s pretty fun and pretty interesting to see all the different
things, and looking back and seeing all the different venues that we’ve
done. We’ve also played at – we
call it “NotSoDragonCon” – it was an anime convention going on that was more or
less an off-brand of DragonCon that was going on a few years ago, 2009, I
believe, or 2010. I’m horrible
with dates, so. So, we’ve done a
lot of different things. Let’s
see, what else… I don’t know much off of the top of my head, but like I said
we’ve done a lot of different things.
We’re hoping to do more things with RealmsCon eventually. We’re trying to do bigger and better
things, so it will be an interesting thing to experience to see where we can
go.
J: How about any upcoming shows? I saw on your website where y’all are listed for Kentucky’s
PokeCon with the Eric Stuart Band and a guy named Warky T. Chocobo.
S: That is, that is pretty true. Unfortunately, I’m not too well-versed on what all is going
on yet. We end up doing a lot of
conventions and a lot of shows coming up.
Our guitarist, Jacob, does most of our marketing and does most of our
contacting between the conventions and booking. So, most of the upcoming things, I’ll end up finding out a
little bit more information about it as we go along. I know we’re trying to get on RealmsCon, it’s what we’re
working on for this year. Also,
we’ve been asked to do different shows for high school conventions and stuff
like that, so it’ll be fun.
J: High school convention? Tell us about these high school shows.
S: The one we’ve got right now, we are still waiting on
final approval, and it is in Corpus Christie. We were requested to play for a high school graduation. It’s interesting, I’ve never done that
before. The high school has a
class of 250 students, and the event is a +1 event, so there could be a
potential 500 people coming, so it could be pretty fun. Again, I’m not really used to having
that kind of request, but we’re always open for a show.
J: And I’m sure with all these interesting shows and things
that you’ve been able to do throughout your career, there’s got to be some
juicy, horrible highlights.
S: Hmmm… we’ve had some pretty interesting things happen
before. We’ve had good and
bad. Obviously we’ve had some
things where sound doesn’t work the day of – we get there the night before and
set it up and then it doesn’t work the day of. We’ve had one convention where we were in Gulf Shores, we
had gotten everything plugged up and gotten everything ready to go and then
that night we blew a speaker. Oh,
not a speaker, I’m sorry, we blew an amplifier, and we burned through a couple
of cables. So, we’ve had some, not
just that one, where we didn’t have wireless. The wireless decided to stop working in the middle of a
show. But we’ve had some really
fun ones. For example, when we
went to RealmsCon. That was
probably one of my favorite shows.
We were part of a – it was a variety show that was hosted by Concept
Galaxy where it has a lot of different evil villains – it had a heroes v.
villains thing the entire night with a league of villains with Carmen San
Diego, Deadpool, Poison Ivy, Dr. Horrible. Dr. Horrible and Carmen were some of the big ones. But, it was fun. We ended up – during ours – it was a
back and forth thing where we would play a song and they would interrupt us,
similar to Saturday Night Live where they go on and do a skit and then we come
on and play and they would stop us in the middle of a song. Everybody kept trying to take over and
do their own skits. So it was a
really fun experience, and Deadpool really made our show fun because he kept
getting people into it and playing around. So it was a really fun experience getting to play around and
have fun – it’s not always just “we gotta play music”, we have to make sure
you’re into it and a lot of the background stuff can have an effect on it. So, it was a lot of fun.
J: Great job.
So now you’re going to be doing some demonstrating for us?
S: So, the first style I ever learned was finger style,
quickly moving to pick style and using picks. Traditionally, I mostly use pick style with Final Weapon and
I have been incorporating a couple of new techniques, but pick being the
primary one. The first thing I
always start out with doing – learning is always started with learning how to do
scales, just playing that basic scale pattern…
(Plays scales)
S: [I always start out with] playing a major scale and then
playing a minor scale and then playing all the other scales, just to get your
fingers warmed up. After that,
would be… we play a lot of different things, a lot of faster things and a lot
of slower things, some that require different techniques. Some would be considered
unorthodox. My technique would be,
like I said, playing with the pick starting out. The reason I started out doing pick would be I ended up
getting in a car wreck when I was a senior in high school, and because of that
it tore through some ligaments in my forearm, so it creates a lot of stress
when I’m trying to do finger style.
So it makes it a little bit uneven and it’s harder to play and build up
endurance that way. The pick style
allowed me to work on just the tendons and the ligaments that were working here
to be able to complete and get higher speed and velocity that were in my style
while still keeping that speed and accuracy that I needed. Originally, I would be playing…
(Music playing)
S: Doing it that
way, and then learning to…
(Music playing)
S: [Do it that way.] It gives me a lot more accuracy. The next thing I learned was how to
incorporate both, because there were times where I would find it hard to move
across the strings fast enough where there would be times I had to play one
note that would be awkward to learn.
I found easier ways to do it and simpler ways to start while I was still
building my technique and my speed with my pick. So I learned how to do finger and pick style and I use this
actually in ‘Azure Eternal’, one of our backing track songs. It has a part where I do finger-pick,
finger-pick, finger-pick. (Plucks
strings) So it gives a weird, different thing and it would be easier just to
demonstrate it than to do anything else, so.
(Plays music)
S: Learning that style gave me a little bit of an edge to
getting some of the techniques down that I needed to use to play some of our
newer music. Beyond that, I’m just
now getting into and learning how to do slap bass. I’m still not that great at it, but we have incorporated it
into one of our songs – one of the cover songs we did for CastleVania – and
learning that kind of gives it a different feel, because doing pick style you
use movements that are only linear, learning pick. That’s the best way to get the fastest speed. Doing slap style, you actually turn
your wrist. So, again, it’s
keeping all the pressure and all the strain off of these tendons, which allows
me to not have to worry so much about any pain or any fatigue that would happen
because of my – if you want to say – because of my “disability” with the damage
to the ligaments. So, the slap
bass, it’s – keep in mind, I’m still really new at it, so I’m not all that
great at it. It’s a learning
process, but…
(Plays music)
S: But, it’s something new. It’s fun, it’s a learning experience. All music is is a learning experience,
to me. So it’s fun.
J: Could you give us some samples, just some improv, of your
different techniques? The slap, finger-picking,
tapping, anything.
S: Okay. This
has been a new one that I’ve been playing around with and working on. It’s
smooth jazz, if you want to say.
It’s kind of just got a – it’s pretty and I like pretty music, so, we’ll
go with that.
(Plays music)
S: That was a fun one.
