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Interviews:
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 | Drew Creel | Band:
Mevyn
Date: 2007-01-31 23:31:19 |  It’s not everyday that you discover a new band that you never heard before that makes you go wild. Well, that happened to me when I came upon the myspace from Austin US metal band Meyvn (Pronounce: Maven). I decided to order their album and when I heard it I was blown away. So an interview with the people behind this amazing band became a necessity for me. Guitarist Drew Creel was nice enough to call me at my place and we had a very friendly and informative chat.
The beginnings of the band
It started in 2003 I was looking for a band at the time. And I met de keyboard player who was looking around for a guitar player. So we ended up in a band but that band did not provide us with an opportunity to do what we wanted to do so we started our own band. And that band is Meyvn. We found a drummer and the 3 of us wrote a couple of songs. And with those songs we attracted Rick Clark [the vocalist] and Ken Liao [the bass player]. Just around that time the keyboard player left. The rest of the band started to record the songs and we made a self financed and self produced demo in our own studio in 2004. After recording the demo we started to play our first shows. And we were playing a lot of shows around our base which is Austin Texas. They call it the live music capital of Texas. Lots of places to play and there are a lot of people that like to come to us to hear us play. We are pretty fortunate that we got started in the city that we did. By that time we decided to get us a second guitar player to increase our sound and pull off some of the songs we recorded so we got Jon Simpson on board. Later we also went through a drummer change we now have Reuben Posey on drums. After we got our new members we recorded our album ‘Splintered Skies’. It was again like the demo self financed and produced by me Drew Creel. We recorded the album and hired David Dreesen to mix it. We have a Do It Yourself spirit in the band. For a progressive metal band in Austin Texas were there is not much metal at all you have to have that kind of do it yourself type of spirit in order to get anything done at all. Because Austin is typically know as a blues music scene with people inspired by musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughan. There are quite a few metal heads though. We bring in 300 or 400 people. We also play in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.
Signing with Killzone records
Stuart the label manager heard our demo that got his interest so then came to one of our shows. And that was the first time he got punched in the face in a moshpit! He really enjoyed the show! Apparently the crowd was a little rowdy that night. But he knew then he was on to something. He signed us after we recorded the ‘Splintered Skies’ album. He wanted to distribute the album for us and we signed a very good deal.
Playing live and touring
We hope we can play more places because the reaction to our debut album has been very good. We are surprised at how far away the reactions are coming. We get a lot of good responses from Europe and South America and Japan. We are thrilled with all the good reviews we are getting in the national and in international magazines. And we are very pleased with all that. It’s more than we expected. The positive international reviews generated more interest in us, in the US as well. People over here come and look at us wholly different now. We are no longer just a local Texas band. It’s great to go and play the shows now. More people come to see us because they heard a lot of different views and other exposure that we been getting. It’s starting to pick up for us. We have a couple of local shows and perhaps a few festivals in the summer here in the US as well. They have not been announced yet.
About the US metal scene
The metal scene is the US is improving. It has exploded. A lot of progressive bands and power metal bands are coming over and are touring the US. There are also a number of festivals that are growing. And more festivals that are spawning of of that. It’s really a great time for metal music in the US right now!
The 2007 European tour
We are very much looking forward to play at the prog-power festival in the Netherlands and we are looking around for possibilities to tour Europe after the festival. We are looking at some shows in France, Belgium and Germany as well as the Netherlands. We are going to try and make the most of our trip over there. And try playing as much as we can. We are not sure yet if we are going to headline. Chances are that we found a popular band to open for and tour with. We have not really confirmed anything yet. But we are really working hard to make it a good tour.
The new album
We already started to write some new material. We hope to get the new album out without to much of a delay. We are hoping that after prog-power Europe and the European tour there will be a lot of interest in the band. We will follow up with the releases of the second Meyvn album in 2008 because we want to strike while the iron is hot! There is a lot of momentum around Meyvn at this moment. So the worst thing we could do is sit on our butts for a while and loose that momentum. Right now we are working really hard to keep the momentum going. And keep booking these shows and festivals. So come and see us play! We will not disappoint.
Henri Serton
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