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Interview with SERPENT ASH

Fuh , feels like Kofee with Kapnap .uuhhh..late night with gapnap and Serpent Ash?..uhh..anyway ..

gapnap.com proudly presents upcoming power metal band , SERPENT ASH !

Okayyy people , so this will be my first time interviewing some real SHREDDERS from our area (Petaling Jaya) .hopefully this will inspire some of you wankers out there.

My friends , Teik hoe and Faizal from the band Serpent Ash . How long we know each other ?like 3-4 years ? yeah..anyway , this 2 shredders are RISING…so guys if you happen to bump into one of their gigs , do yourself a favor and get your ass to check em out.

Faizal with a RG1527

Teik Hoe with an Ibanez K7

Interview:

gapnap : Hi Shredders , its great to have REAL shredders giving their input on gapnap.com. Its an honor .

So guys , can you tell us a lil background on Serpent Ash , like what genre you guys play and how you guys got together ?

Teik Hoe :Thanks for letting us be part of your kickass interview. This truly an honour to be interviewed by a great shredder such as yourself.

We are big fans of power metal, so that’s the genre we chose for our music, I guess! Faizal and I were actually friends since secondary school, though we didn’t play really play guitar back then. We’ve been wanting to form a band for the longest time actually, and never got around to it. More like never had a chance to do it coz we didn’t know where to find the other band members. It was pretty much just the two of us with nowhere to go. Anyhow I was introduced to this boy,Kevin Low, who plays drums, and who also happened to like the same genre of music. Wait a minute, I think you were the one who introduced him to me, or was it the other way round? Lolz. It was around April 2006, where we finished writing our first song. And we sent it to Kevin, who liked the song a lot so we offered him if he were like to form a band with us.

As for the band name, it’s kinda embarrassing/lame actually. We were having drinks with Eugene and Zachy and gang, and they were talking about bass woods (typical!). Zachy mentioned ‘Swamp Ash’ and Faizal, back then not really knowing much about gear and stuff, misheard it as ‘Serpent Ash’. Well it sounded kinda cool/epic so we decided to adopt it as our band name.

Faizal: We play power metal. We’ve known each other since high school in Anderson, Ipoh.

gapnap : That is great , what guitars and setup are ya’ll currently using (for live shows and recordings)?

Teik Hoe :I use an Ibanez K7 guitar (Dimarzio Evolution 7 on the bridge and Air Norton 7 on the neck) and a BOSS GT-6 I bought second hand from Kelly of Alcentric sometime ago. I use this rig for live shows but I’ve yet to use it for home recordings though. At home I usually just mic up my Roland Microcube only because I’m too lazy to use the GT-6, with all the cables lying around cluttering my room and what not. Hopefully one day we’ll get to go into a studio and do some REAL recording someday..ehehe.

Faizal: I use an Ibanez 7-string RG1527. DiMarzio X2N-7 for both neck and bridge pickups. For live shows, I run it through a BOSS GT-8 multi-effects processor through whatever amp the venue provides. In terms of settings, I mainly rely on the GT-8’s “5150 Drive” amp sim for rhythm and the “Edge Lead” (some Hughes and Kettner amp sim, I think) for lead.

For recording, it’s the same. I just plug the GT-8 into my soundcard’s direct-in and record.

gapnap : What do you feel about your 7 stringer guitar and setup? Does it play a BIG ROLE (neck thickness/comfort) in your playing ?

Teik Hoe :I’m really happy with the K7, the back of the neck is pretty flat and although not super thin, the neck is ergonomically designed. Although the neck is wide it doesn’t feel overwhelming to our small Asian hands. We sent our guitars to Tham <0122350670> for setup and he does a really good job. Action is low but not too low to the point it’s hard to bend/vibrato.

And yes I would say it plays a very BIG ROLE in helping my playing. Unlike you, who seem to be able to shred on any chunk of wood, I am very dependent on playing a well setup instrument to minimize the slop, hehe… And what’s more, we always expect to be able to play at only a fraction of our abilities for live shows. So, better safe than sorry!

Faizal:Yes, definitely. Especially the low B, hehe. On a serious note, both our guitars are set up by Tham (his work is top-notch). Low action and a thin neck are absolute necessities for me. Without that, it’ll be pretty much impossible for me to be able to play both rhythm and lead comfortably.

Serpent Ash and friends at Lowyat plaza , Winner of WCG battle of the bands !

gapnap : Tell us more about your song writing , How you get inspired and where you get ideas for those killer licks ? Oh yeah ! How often you guys practice anyway ?

Teik Hoe :Inspiration normally comes from just listening to good ol’ power metal. Well, sometimes ideas do come from other genres as well. You never know when u can get a good concept out of a song, regardless of it’s type.

As for licks/melodies it mostly revolves just fiddling around with the guitar, utilizing whatever theory knowledge which may help.

I don’t practice as much as I should, ashamedly! Most of the time I just keep playing our material over and over again till it just sinks into muscle memory. And that’s not to say we don’t make mistake over and over again..argh!

Faizal:Teik Hoe and I handle the song-writing for the band. Sometimes we collaborate and sometimes we just write on our own.

For the collaborative tracks, we’ll write individual parts and try to arrange them in such a way so that there’s actually a song and not a bunch of random riffs and chord progressions. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. Hehe.

For songs that we write individually, we’ll pretty much come up with a complete song and just demo it to the rest of the band.

In terms of inspiration and ideas, we just try to write stuff that sounds like power metal.

Please don’t ask about practice. Whatever it is, it’s not often enough!

gapnap : Haha, I thought you guys get inspired by DOTA or warcraft or something , since its like super epic .

anyway , from the way you guys play , its like you guys practice 7 hours a day or something .Its cool to know there are shredders who can make it without practising haha

Oh yea , Who are your influence? Guitar heros and stuff

Teik Hoe :Haha! When it comes to influences, I would say the guitar heroes are usually not in the bands that we like..lol! I was very much into Alexi Laiho’s songwriting style and his solo composition, however not a big fan of his heavy picking style though. Lately I’ve been into Kiko Loureiro’s awesome technique and style as well. Although I like him a lot, it doesn’t mean I’m influenced by him, don’t get me wrong! It’s hard to catch stuff from great players like that. And then there’s of course there’s Yngwie Malmsteen, who has the tastiest vibrato ever and he does write great melodies/songs.

As for bands I really like Gamma Ray. Faizal introduced me to Kamelot, Rhapsody of Fire and Blind Guardian whom I find write awesome songs with neat arrangements. Hopefully someday we’ll be able to emulate such epic song arrangements.

Faizal:In terms of bands – Blind Guardian, Rhapsody of Fire, Gamma Ray, Kamelot, Helloween etc.

For guitarists, my heroes would be: Malmsteen, Rusty Cooley, Luca Turilli, Kai Hansen, GapNap v2.0 (you’re the best, bro!)….

gapnap : What the? gapnap ? haha..i think more like you guys are my guitar hero lah ..

Anyway , any plans on releasing an album/EP in the future?

Teik Hoe :Well we plan to produce a short EP someday, possibly consisting 5 or 6 tracks. We haven’t gotten around to going into a studio for a proper recording though. The idea of recording with a producer/sound engineer is nerve wrecking, what not with the amount of mistakes we’re gonna make! >.<

Faizal: We’ll see how it goes.

gapnap : Wow , that will be something we all can look forward too ..Serpent Ash’s EP..any Advice for the next power metal shredders ?

Teik Hoe :Er, not really in a position to give any advice to the younger power metal shredders who are better than me. Kids these days are getting incredibly good! Power metal of today is way faster and more technical compared to the power metal of the past. I recently saw this Power Metal band, Cellador on YouTube and yeah, that’s a pretty good example of how power metal bands are like today.

Faizal: Be epic.

gapnap : Okay bro . thank you for your time . you guys rock ! Its an honor to have you guys on gapnap.com Hopefully we will hear more about you guys in the future. Serpent Ash FTW !

Faizal and Teik Hoe : You’re the best, bro! Good show wei! *shakes hands*

guys , please visit serpent ash’s myspace page at www.myspace.com/serpentash0506 for a taste of their power metal tracks !

you can contact serpent ash at uptheash@gmail.com . I am sure they will be more than happy to play for your event

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