Chad Bowar: Describe Anthropia's sound for those not familiar with your band.
Hugo Lefebvre: I guess there's a lot of words to define Anthropia's metal. It could be simply
'heavy' on some songs, but also speed, symphonic, trashy, progressive,
atmospheric. I think this is one of the strong points of Anthropia; a lot of
styles so that you don't get bored listening to it.
The lyrics on The Ereyn Chronicles are based on the writings of Quentin
Borderie. What was it about his material that was so inspiring to you?
Actually I am not a huge fan of fantasy stories. I like it, but for example I only read The Lord Of The Rings. As Quentin told me the story of the Ereyn Chronicles, I was captivated.
This guy is quite an actor too, so he really engages the audience when he tells
his story. And the events of the story are so surprising. Amryl, the hero, is
not a mighty warrior with a great sword, just a little guy who wonders what he
has to do. You really travel and escape in this story, and that's what I liked.
What is the basic plot of Part 1?
Well I'll try to make it simple. This is a very delicate time for the little
kingdom of Ereyn. It used to be governed by artists, scientists and wise
people. But nowadays Empyr (the great realm nearby) always tries to corrupt
Ereyn's people, and the situation is unbearable for Amryl, our hero, who
decides to leave his own country to search for a legendary oracle discovered by
his grandfather Arquel (the best Ereyn's king of all time). So he leaves and faces a lot of events (he even becomes amnesiac and loses several months!). Part I ends as Amryl finally arrives unconscious on horseback in a strange landscape where a dark skinned man wakes him.
What does the band name Anthropia mean, and how did you decide on it?
Well, before deciding to be a professional musician, I went to engineering school and one of my classes was thermodynamics. In this class, I became familiar with the notion of entropia. This is an abstract value which measures the degree of disorder of a system at the microscopic level. This value never decreases, it always increases. I decided to put the "Anthro" prefix ("man" in Greek) to illustrate the human disorder. Sometimes when you turn on the TV, and you see are all these horrors like wars and murders. Well, this is the human disorder and unfortunately, as in
thermodynamics, it never decreases.
Describe your writing and recording process for the album.
The writing took maybe one year. I analyzed the chapters from Quentin's story
and decided to write nearly one song per chapter/main event. Actually the ideas come into my mind on their own. I just had to record them in order not to forget them. When I have a lot of ideas, I begin the writing job. For the recording process, I always record a demo version at home, a "draft". When I have to record the songs for real, I begin with the guitars, because it is
the main instrument in Anthropia, and I'm then really free to change some
riffs. Afterwards comes the drums, bass, vocals and arrangements.
You had some guest musicians, but this is mainly a solo project. How come
you decided to go in that direction instead of putting together a full band?
Well, it is true that sometimes it is mentally helpful to have a full band. But you know I'm quite a lonesome guy, and I really like to do it all by myself. I have been deceived so much in the past with people that I trust, and that actually spit on your back and do bad work. So I decided just
to do as much as I can to do the things by myself. It is a 24 hour a day job, but that's my way. Of course I'm not totally alone, Damien Rainaud (drums) plays on the album, also Yann Mouhad (lead guitar) and Nathalie Olmi (In Vitraux's singer) will join me on tour. These guys are really
great friends and I completely trust them, so, no problem.
