Last year masked and anonymous Portuguese extreme metal outfit GAEREA played two packed shows in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection. And this Saturday, 11/23, they’ll be playing their biggest local date yet at Union Transfer, with opening night of avant-garde metal band Zeal & Ardor’s North American Tour 2024, for which GAEREA will be providing direct support, with Zetra handling opening duties. The night before the tour starts, 11/22, GAEREA will be kicking off their time in The States with a Pop Up Store and + Meet & Greet at our very own Tattooed Mom, where they’ll be selling and signing merch and getting to know fans from 7:30-9:30. GAEREA are currently touring behind their last studio album, Coma, which dropped last month on Season of Mist. I recently got a chance to chat with GAEREA’s vocalist about the band’s evolution over the past decade and what you can expect of their time in the 215 this coming weekend.
Izzy Cihak: Since this is a Philadelphia publication, I have to ask if you have any thoughts on the city? You played here twice last year. How were the shows?
GAEREA vocalist: I remember the two Philadelphia shows being sold out, which was quite impressive; we have good memories of that. We played Warehouse on Watts and it was nice, like a do-it-yourself kind of situation, but it was packed. Hundreds of people showed up to see us and Rotting Christ and the rest of the bands. Last time was one of the best shows, at this really cool underground venue.
Izzy: Underground Arts!
GAEREA: Underground Arts, exactly! Yeah, with all the crazy neon lights. It kind of looked like this Halloween party. It was one of the best shows I remember last year. So, we’re holding really high standards for the crowd, and our performance, in Philadelphia this time. And starting in Philadelphia, this tour is just going to be one for the books, for sure.
Izzy: You just released Coma. Have you had any favorite reactions to the music so far, whether things that have been written about it or things that fans have reached out to tell you? I know you haven’t really gotten to tour the album yet.
GAEREA: We did quite a few shows with the singles as they were coming out during the summer, but not with the album, so everything is gonna feel new for us. We’re bringing different setlists for different crowds and different cities, and a way bigger production. But the reaction has been quite massive. I know all bands will say this shit but, for real, for a black metal band or extreme metal band that plays around with so many styles, having this amount of people showing love to what we do is quite impressive, something I never thought we could have. It’s great to see. We’re all very busy since the release of the album, with all the preparation for this tour and other stuff going on for next year, so we didn’t have the time to check out all the magazines or all the reviews, but the reaction has been quite impressive and big for a band of our size, I would say.
Izzy: I know you consider the album to be a shift of sorts to something bigger, so I’m curious how you feel like the LP compares to previous releases in terms of sounds, influences, or even just the process of writing and recording it?
GAEREA: Oh, that’s a weeklong answer [laughs]. I mean, it’s a very different album. We’re very different people these days, just the fact that we don’t wanna be the fastest, or more dissonant than most, aggressive black metal band out there. There were moments in our short career where we thought we could become that, or thought, “Let’s make this very dissonant, aggressive, over the top, compressed record,” like Limbo. But then, as I think it should happen with most musicians, as you go on with your career, you kind of get satisfied with some stages of what you’ve done. We already did the black metal sort of shape to our sound, and this was our time to grow, not try to fit inside a box, like, “We really have to have blast beats on this part, otherwise people will think we’re something else.” On this album we didn’t fucking care. It’s a very organic creation process.
And the way we recorded it, we did what most bands when they’re starting out want to do: go to the woods and be in a studio, living there for a month and recording this album, and have all these band moments. For the first time, we actually did that. We locked ourselves in the studio: sleep there, cook there, laugh there, cry there, drink there… record there at some point. I think a lot of that shaped our dynamics, because we’re just used to being together when we were touring. Now we had to work on a different level and create something with all these emotions on the table. It’s weird to try to explain it, but the way we recorded it, we knew it was going to be a very crucial way of doing it, and that would shape a lot of the sounds in Coma. A lot of the creative decisions were made in the studio because we had that time and that energy around us.
Izzy: You just released a music video for the title track last week, which makes it sort of like your latest single. So I’m curious, how did that particular track come about?
GAEREA: It’s a very urbanistic song, as you can see in the video. Everything was recorded in our tour in Asia earlier this year, around February and March. We were sitting on this for quite a few months now, and I’m so glad we finally released that. It’s a title track of a very irrealistic but also quite nerve wracking record, in my opinion. It’s a song that deals with most of what you would feel with the record. The record tells these stories that could be memories, fantasies, dreams, nightmares of a person that is trapped in a coma. It plays with all those questions that we don’t really know all the answers for, like are we alive when we’re in the state of coma? Are we dreaming? Are we living in a different world for a bit, or forever? All of these questions interest us. That’s the motive for this song, all these Utopian irrealities of a big city, being trapped inside the city. All these shapes and textures and rawness of living in a massive city would shape you inside this dream.
Izzy: Like you said, you’re just about to kick off a US tour with Zeal & Ardor, who are also so cool, right here. How excited are you to be on the road with them and play some really massive venues across America? The venue here is literally twice the size of the last show that you played here.
GAEREA: Some folks at the label were mentioning how important this venue is. It’s just a fucking gorgeous venue… I love Zeal & Ardor, not because I love all the songs, but because I love how incredibly talented Manuel and the rest of his bandmates are. They’re a real organic rock band that will put everything out there in a show. It’s fucking flawless… not just the fact that they’re really good musicians, but that they feel every note, every moment of that set with such a real emotion, real energy, all these things that makes us humans that want to feel something made by other humans in a show, in theater, in the movies. It’s all these things that make me play live music. But yeah, being able to be direct support for them, it’s another small dream come true. It’s just something you never think of, and then it can happen, and you go with it being the most prepared that you can.
Izzy: You said that you’re gonna have a slightly different setlist for different nights of the tour, and also that you’re touring with the biggest production you’ve had, at least in America. What can be expected of the live show on opening night this Saturday?
GAEREA: Oh, that’s a surprise!
Izzy: Fair enough…
GAEREA: Come to the show and see for yourself! It’s our biggest production in America yet. We are able to do so much more, and we’re very proud of having spent the last eight months designing this show, and being very meticulous with all the little details.
Izzy: This Friday, the night before tour kicks off, you’re actually hosting a pop up and meet & greet at Tattooed Mom here on South Street, the famous like punk rock area. What can be expected of the event?
GAEREA: We love to do these things. We love to hang out with our fans and get to meet the people that support us. We just let them talk most of the time. I mean, we hate to talk about ourselves. It’s more important than just like, be there and sign some records. We really love to meet our fans. I mean, going to such a popular, legendary place… the vibe is fucking cool. It’s all these places that we would go, as people of alternative culture. Being able to do this in Philadelphia is just phenomenal. It’s a great way to start the tour. We can hang out with our fans, we can sign some stuff, we can listen to music. We can just laugh and have a really good time and chill before our most important tour.
Izzy: You said that prior to recording this album, you didn’t all spend a ton of time together other than on the road, but you have spent a lot of time on the road in recent years, so I’m curious if you’ve developed any particular routines or rituals while touring?
GAEREA: For us, it’s all about the fact that we are good friends. We’re all kids having fun. A lot of people that meet us don’t see the band that they see live. We’re having fun, we’re having the best moments of our lives, and this is what we were born to do, and we’re enjoying every fucking second of the way without getting trashy being involved in stupid shit. We’re very serious with what we do, but we have our own fun as musicians, as people, and that really shapes the way this band is these days. It’s a very stressful environment every now and then, because this is our job, this is what we do, and everything should come with all that sense of responsibility. Things are very serious, but things are also very fun, and we have so much fun on stage, even though it’s these cathartic moments that destroy us for the next two or three hours after the show, but it’s what we’re born to do!
Izzy: Not to detract from your own music, but considering that the year is coming to an end, I’m curious if you’ve had any favorite music of 2024?
GAEREA: For the first time this year, I’m finally catching up with releases. Now there’s a bit more time to not just listen to my band. I mean, this year’s Knocked Loose just knocked everything out of the park… such a fucking massive band that they’ve become. The new Poppy destroys. And, of course, the new Blood Incantation and the new Linkin Park. As you see, we aren’t even listening to black metal right now. All these new, cool bands that we really like, they all deserve our respect because they’re all pushing boundaries within their own genres. It’s fantastic to see. After 10 years as a musician in a band, finally there’s new kids coming to the shows thanks to the big bands right now that bring all this new blood to concerts like ours. It’s just fantastic to see that we’re finally seeing some new waves in the extreme music genre, or alternative music genre, where everything is starting to feel more fresh. That’s exciting to see.
Izzy: Finally, what’s next for you? What are you hoping and planning for 2025, in addition to the handful of dates scheduled for Europe in April?
GAEREA: We’re gonna play a shitload of festivals, for sure. Some of them are already announced in Europe. We’re sitting on a lot of things I can’t tell you right now [laughs]. But yeah, it’s gonna be a massive, massive touring year. I think we only revealed like 10% of what we’re gonna do. We’re completely focused on this tour, because I see it as a groundbreaking tour that can be historical for these bands and fans. It’s three bands that have all the power to make memorable moments and a memorable evening for everyone involved. After that, we’re gonna start revealing what we’re gonna do next year… There’re so many other tours and shows and other ideas.
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