interview by: Nikita

foreword by: Roberto Martinelli

With Nikita, the beauty is in the details, but not necessarily the attention to them. Like, she went out and got us all this pretty neat interview with power metallers Eternal Flight on the occasion of their album Positive Rage, released by Cruz Del Sur Music. Thing is, she didn't write an intro, so it's up to me to come up with something snarky. Anyway, Eternal Flight are French, and they seem to have taken to Nikita as much as they enjoy cheese. No, really. Cheesy food, cheesy music, it’s a marriage made in heaven.

Maelstrom: I’ve really enjoyed spinning Eternal Flight! It’s a powerful and accomplished offering where “speed” literally meets “grace.” I’d love to see you all play live! Are you playing live now or planning to tour? Where and for what venues?

Gérard Fois: Hi! We in the band are really happy that you enjoyed so much the album, thanx for the compliments and the great review! We don’t make any real tour; we play from time to time. It’s difficult to put a tour right now ‘cause we have only one album out and even if Cruz Del Sur put some promo effort on it, it’s not a big independent label able to push us like we would like for tours. When we play live we put it on the news section of our website.

Maelstrom: What does the name of this CD, Positive Rage, mean and who is the Morphoenix? Why is this image representative of the band?

Gérard Fois: “Positive rage” are words taken from the song “Back into the Light.” The positive rage is the way you feel when you create something, you’re in a state of grace, you feel the power rising in you, and you’re kinda reborn every time you take new important steps in your life. I think it was cool to have a mascot that represents that because the Morphoenix is a mix of a phoenix, a man and Morpheus (from mythology). A creature having all their powers. Plus it gives us the freedom to use this character in some concept stories, like we did in the trilogy: Prelude, “Back into…” and “Morphoenix,” that deals with the transformation of a man at the moment of his death into the Morphoenix.

Maelstrom: The vocals are super-skilled with the unique timbre and dexterity that cuts through the very dense, action packed musical arrangements. The vocals seem like they enter another dimension and take wing in those upper registers. How did you develop this vocal style?

Gérard Fois: Waou!! So much compliments only for me! you put me in a positive rage feel!!! I’m an autodidact and I always sing what I feel inside without thinking too much if people will like or not, honesty pays, doesn’t it!!?? I think that one part of my originality comes from the fact I love many styles of singing. I was learning from high pitched voices like Rob Halford, Geoff Tate, Ian Gillan, Bruce Dickinson, and Carl Albert, but also more bluesy or rock ones like Ronnie James Dio, David Coverdale, Glen Hughes. I also like people like Seal and other pop rock artists like Sting, and Paul Macartney! Recent singers that impressed me were Russel Allen and Jorn Lande. I like to make my vocal lines interesting, technical but at the same time I want them to express feelings.

Maelstrom: I am only looking at all your last names (and your photograph). You are like a good- looking saucy mix of French and Italian. Are you all living and rehearsing in France? How was this project assembled and where do you rehearse now?

Gérard Fois: Yes my parents, even if my name doesn’t show it, are Italians and it’s funny cause I always chat and talk in Italian with Enrico, the boss of my label! But we all live in France in cities not far away from the Italian border, called Annecy (Christophe, Nicolas and I) and Chambéry (Alexandre and Sébastien). These are not big cities but are really cool, we are surrounded by mountains and lakes! We are also near bigger cities like Lyon and Grenoble, and we’re also at only 45 kms from the Switzerland border (Genf).

Maelstrom: The combination of French and Italian automatically makes me think a couple of you guys must know how cook. Do you ever eat together and what is the meal and beverage of choice?

Gérard Fois: In our area we have a lot of variety of cheese so we make some meals out of it like tartiflette (potatoes with a cheese called roblochon melted on it with cream and onions and pork; fondue (you put three kinds of cheese like gruyere, emmental, comté in a pan plus white wine and eat with bread and in the end you put some eggs and melt them), raclette (it’s a long cheese that you make melt on potatoes accompanied with salami and other pork meat stuff). We also cook pastas in different ways and I’m the specialist of salted tarts! For the beverage it’s better to use white ones for the meals from our area but we have some many great red wines too; in France it’s unfair to only cite one or two!

Maelstrom: What do you like most about playing with Eternal Flight and what are your plans and dreams for the coming year?

Gérard Fois: It’s the chemistry we have together and the sound and songs we create that excites us! We like the adventure. We love when we see the positive reactions at our concerts and when people congratulates us about the album and the show! I love to write music and a cool thing about Eternal Flight is that we don’t have too much boundaries cause we can play fast , powerful songs and more subtle or progressive ones without being a boring sounds accumulation! We hope we can play more often live (we’re working on it) and we’ll record the new album at the end of the year. We hope to have more fans like you Nikita! Our goal is to make the band more known and get it bigger and sure to have a lot of pleasure doing music! Please check our web site for more info and news and listen and download free MP3s! Take care of you everybody, we hope we can visit you one day and have fun and play live!!!