Hello and thank you for taking the time to talk with us.
Can you present the band for the first time and give us some background on how everything started?
JJ Friends was born from the idea of Jose Jarque (voice) who after several bands decided to focus efforts on creating a group in which the closest musician friends participated. JJ Friends was born, 11 songs were written and the sound was worked on, a raw sound, pure hard rock with influences from the 70s and mix of 2018, a challenge that I think we have achieved.
Our style is pure hard rock.
How have those previous experiences with bands impacted on your creativity now and in the style and direction of the band’s sound?
All the components come from different backgrounds, with a wide career, between 20 and 25 years in rock. The impact is the power to make our rock more serene, more worked and with everything learned in the scenarios.
Our style is hard rock, we love it, we feel good, why change? No, we will not change; maybe we can play with more metal parts or more pop parts, but always with the hard rock base.
What inspired the name of the band?
Friendship…being able to work with great friends and what better then to translate it into the name directly.
Was there any specific idea behind the formation of the band and also in what you wanted and your sound to offer?
Yes, the main thing was to gather those friends with whom we felt the same for rock and from the beginning we wanted to achieve a sound, powerful, seventies but at the same time modern today, I think we achieved it with a mixture of riffs and sounds.
…And now?
The idea of our band is the work, we create the themes, we polish them in the rehearsals and once finished, we continue working on them, re-polishing, until we are ecstatic with the subject.
Since its inception, how would you say its sound has evolved?
The band has little tour at this time, it only has one year of life, but it has evolved giving way to new songs within hard rock, more compact, more real.
Do you let things grow and evolve organically or deliberately look to try new things?
We are rock sound, we must listen to ourselves, and we are completely organic.
Probably throughout the band there is a wide range of inspirations; are there any that has particularly impacted not only on the music of the band but its member’s personal approach to and ideas about creating music?
Really like everyone we have musical references, ranging from Beatles, Rolling Stone, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Whitesnake, Deep Purple, Motley Crue, Scorpions, Van Halen, and in what gives us now the music we can name, Inglorious, Black Stone Cherry, The Dead Daisies, Richie Kottzen, and many, many more.
Is there a process in the composition that usually guides the writing of songs?
Previously we started with a riff; from there we composed a base melody and started to work on it, a thousand changes of structure, melody, etc. … until leaving a complete and compact base, then as indicated above, work without rest in the song.
Where do you most often draw inspirations to the lyrical side of your songs?
All themes are the product of our experiences, both personal and visual, sentimental etc. … a hard day of work, the feeling for our music, lack of love, love, party, etc. …Even a theme in which we reflect the feeling of the first minutes of being a father.
Are you a band that enters the studio with songs in their final state or do you prefer to develop them while recording?
When we enter the studio we have or try to have everything defined and very worked; really in the studio we go very fast and do not earn too much money with us studies, hahaha.
Tell us about the live side of the band, probably the band’s favourite aspect?
The party, we are a band that has fun on the stage, we try to give the warmth to the public, we want them to enjoy as much as we do; on stage we are partiers, we involve all the public and we want them to sing with us.
It is not easy for a new band to have a regional impact, let alone nationally and farther away. How are you finding it?
We are still in the process, it is a very difficult road, we know it, but we will not stop until the end.
Once again, thank you very much for sharing your time with us; something you want to add or reveal for the readers?
Give them the grace for your work and for including us in your magazine, we are delighted and we want JJ Friends to be heard in all corners of the planet.
Check out JJ Friends further @ https://www.facebook.com/JJ-Friends-969137536525542/
Pete RingMaster 17/01/2019
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
That predatory air retains its presence within The Demagogue, the following song also a court of threat and contagion which almost swaggers around ears as the guitars spin their sonic threads and rhythms pounce. Like a fusion of bands like Testament and Slayer, it hits the spot; increasing its temptation as calmer climes are ventured and melodic intimation embraced. It’s subsequent rising heat and intensity brings it back to its original sonic inference before Saviour explores an even darker trespass of menace and seduction. As we suggested, Infrared is not set on reinventing the wheel of thrash metal or even their core sound but there is a bold lining of adventure and imagination which makes their music and especially this track stand out.
thumping heavy beats. Taking mere moments to hit its stride the song enthralls the senses further with an energetic stroll of predatory riffs ridden by the excellent vocals of Klein. There is a dark almost carnivorous tone to the guitars and certainly the bass which offers constant intimidation even when the melodic flames of Raber and Grewenig ignite air and passions, and it is this depth of sound which grips tightly as the smouldering charms of the excellent song flare up throughout to provide another richly appetising aspect to the song. The slip into a more hard/alternative rock aside with again Klein impresses powerfully is unexpected and thrilling, that moment alone questioning that earlier thought that there is not much new going on. In invention that can be argued for sure. As the rising crescendo of passion and intensity climbs to forge a tremendous climax, the song is simply a virulent contagion which lingers wonderfully.
