Exclusive Interview: Ophelia’s Eye talk “Fight For Us”!

As musicians, Swiss Metallers Ophelia’s Eye have roots that go way back, having played together under other monikers but with their freshly released EP “Fight For Us“, which we have the pleasure of reviewing earlier this week, they have created something of a new beginning with a new line up and a renewed energy. Clear influences in both Melodic Death Metal and Metalcore genres can be heard within their sound with inspiration coming from the likes of Killswitch Engage and Arch Enemy going a long way to creating their foundations. We had the pleasure of speaking to them about their past, present and future not too long ago and here is what they had to say…

You originally released music under the names Project Penny and Red Fire Dragon so what made you change your name in the past year to Ophelia’s Eye and release “Fight For Us“? How different were the styles of those bands compared to this one? “In the previous band “Project Penny” only covers were played but no original own-written songs. The name got changed to “Red Fire Dragon” before our drummer Marco joined in 2017 but the band was still a cover band. This changed when our lead-guitarist Remo joined in 2018. The band then started out writing their own songs. In the beginning of 2019 the decision was made to change the name to “Ophelia’s Eye” as both names occurred to be to generic and not fitting the band’s music. Therefore, the style of the own-written songs remained the same, but the name changed to a better fitting one”

The name Ophelia’s Eye comes from “The Sandman“, a novel by E.T.A. Hoffmann, with the character Olimpia’s name being adapted to Ophelia. How much of an influence has the work of that novel been on the band lyrically? Do you see yourselves for example doing a concept album around the work in the future? “Olimpia is for us more a characterization for the goal we want to achieve with our music: In the course of the book, Nathaniel’s perception of Olimpia changes as he observes her through a pocket lens in her room: “But as he looked sharper and sharper through the glass, it was as if moist moonbeams were rising in Olimpia’s eyes. It seemed as if only now the sight was ignited; more and more vividly and vividly the glances flamed.” (page 28) And toward the end of the story, Nathanel is enchanted by Olimpia. He calls her “heavenly-beautiful,” admires her every day, and is desperate and driven by longing. We, too, want to “enflame” the audience, bring them to life and cast a spell over them. Through our songs the listeners should also lose the connection to reality – at least for a while. Usually our lyrics are inspired by our own experiences, but it is not out of the question for us to make a concept album to the book in the future”

The production value, the mixing and mastering of the EP is very high indeed; who did you work with to achieve that? How important was it to put out something that didn’t sound raw with this release? “First of all thank you! We worked with Sebi from SOS BASEMENT recording studio (https://www.sos-basement.ch/) and we are really happy about the whole process and the outcome of this release. It was a key point for the recording to have a high quality, voluminous production for us since our first release should just be a blast and as we all are inspired by the good productions of Parkway Drive, In Flames and Periphery. Of course this will remain a goal of all further productions as well to keep the standard”

There is a lot in common between your sound and that of the early Metalcore era of 2003; both clearly influenced by the Gothenburg sound. How do you feel about being compared with bands of that nature? Of those bands which remain, who would you like to go out on tour with should the opportunity arise? “We feel honoured to be compared to such great bands and it is clear for us that you hear our influences of bands we listen to on a regular basis out of our songs since we think this is a normal process of the subconscious mind. Actually there are a lot which would be great to tour with but if we had to choose we would definitely go for Killswitch Engage (by the way: this was our last concert we attended all together before the Corona outbreak) or Caliban”

How much of a scene is there in Switzerland and how has that helped or inspired you so far in your Metal lives? Are there any bands that we might not be aware of that you could recommend from your neck of the woods? “Normally when thinking of rock and metal mostly countries such as Scandinavia or the USA come to mind bur for sure not Switzerland even though bands such as Gotthard, Eluveitie, Messiah or Celtic Frost had played a part in the early metal history. But if you dig a little deeper you will find a lot of great underground bands which work hard, a sworn-in metal community and also one of the venues considered the best by international metal bands the “Z7”. But since Switzerland is rather small and metal seldom lands in the charts here, it is indeed difficult to take off as a band from here in Switzerland itself. Sure – we could highly recommend “Expellow”, “Royal Desolation”, “Sickret” or “I, Delusionist” which all deliver hard but still melodic metal in the range of Core as well”

What’s next for Ophelia’s Eye? “We are already working on our next release which will be a Single with a story video as well, start playing concerts again and a tour is also on the radar”

“Fight For Us” by Ophelia’s Eye is out 7th August with merch available here.