Joao Goncalves – Orpheus Omega

Orpheus Omega are one of my favourite bands, and for anyone who’s had the pleasure to see them live, it would probably come as no surprise why. These Melbourne locals are one of the hardest working bands in Australia and play a blend of melodic death metal that channels the classics like Dark Tranquillity, yet retains a uniqueness and intensity to them that is solely theirs. Shortly before I first started writing for Metal Obsession and properly investing myself within the local metal scene, Orpheus Omega were one of the first local bands I discovered. They opened for Amon Amarth when the Swedish Vikings toured here in 2012 and that was my first real exposure to our local scene. Sure, I’d seen others before this but no band I can recall having seen before them had quite an effect on me and really made me sit up and pay attention to Australia’s metal scene. For me, this is owed to Orpheus. Since the release of their debut ‘Bleed the Way’ in 2011 through to last years follow-up, ‘ResIllusion’, the well-oiled machine that is Orpheus Omega have never let up once. After their most recent successful venture over to Asia with their ‘Archways Across Asia’ tour earlier this year, the band have since been hard at work on their third studio album, with much having happened between. With all that being said, it was my recent pleasure to speak with Joao Goncalves, guitarist for the band, about all things Orpheus Omega.

Going on to speak about the ‘Archways Across Asia’ tour first, I asked Joao how that experience was for him and the band. “For us, it was two parts: it was fun because we’ve never done it before and we really wanted to enjoy ourselves over there, but also it was kind of challenging not knowing what to expect as far as crowds and venues were concerned. It doesn’t matter how many times you play a show, there are always things that will pop up inevitably that you weren’t expecting, but in retrospect, it went really good, the organisers were phenomenal, all the people who showed up to the shows great, the support acts were fucking awesome, and it ended up becoming one of those things that we still look back on and go, ‘fuck, that was awesome, we’ve got to do that again!'”

With the end of the tour soon came the release of the eponymous live DVD, of which also features a documentary chronicling the bands experiences while there. When asked about how the response for the DVD has been thus far, Joao had this to say: “[People] have been been messaging us back and forth about how much they enjoyed it and how funny they thought the documentary part of it was. The response has just been really good. I’m pretty proud of it personally and I’m pretty sure the rest of the guys are as well, man.”

His fondest memories of the tour? “Apart from eating? To be honest, there’s so many. Even our own interactions with each other was just so much fun. You know, walking around Taiwan late at night looking for food because we were hungry, and stupid shit like sitting around talking shit with people and getting drunk off our arses. When we played Wake Up (the annual Taiwanese metal festival), it was the first time we’ve ever played a festival. You’d just look down at the crowd and see a big circle pit start up and it’s like, ‘fuck, this is fantastic!’ The shows were phenomenal. But the interactions with people who were there to see us, people who we got to know, and even the guys looking after us – the promoters and tour managers – it was just really fun and enthralling for the whole thing. It just disappeared. We were there for two weeks and it felt like we got there and had to leave the next day. It was nuts, absolutely nuts!”

Going on to speak about how the recording of their new album has been coming along, Joao was enthusiastic: “As soon as we got back we already had the idea that we would start on album number three, and we sat down with a few of the ideas we already had written down, because, like any band, once you’ve written one you start writing the next whether you want to or not. Between organising all the DVD stuff and all the merch and stuff that came with the tour, we jumped straight into writing, as well. We’ve got about 6 tracks down which I would confidently say are pretty much complete. We’re exploring a few new things that we haven’t done before. It’s really exciting to be able to meld that in and still hear it and go, ‘fuck, that’s sick! That is us and what we’re trying to do!'” Since the release of ‘ResIllusion’, Orpheus have gone on to do and experience much. I mused these changes must have affected their sound and how they plan to progress as a band from this point forward. “Without a doubt, man. You pick up so much [and] it’s good to get perspective from overseas in that regard, both musically and professionally. It will undoubtedly influence how we move forward with the next album and the album after that. It’s going to be a really good album for us. It’s a combination of a lot of things coming together for us and we’re trying to tell a story with it and we hope it comes across as such. We’ve got some big thoughts for this so hopefully they all come through.”

Following the sad departure of bassist Dan Ralph in October this year, Orpheus invited longtime cohort Nathan Mesiti to join the band. With fresh blood in the studio, I asked how Joao felt Nathan fitted into the Orpheus mould. “Nathan tried out when we did our first bass try-outs after Milky passed and he did a great job then. We had 3 standouts throughout that process and Nathan was one of them. When Dan decided to leave the band, we had to sit down and have a discussion about where to now and who’d replace him and it was kind of unanimous, everyone said ‘Nathan’. So we brought him in and said ‘we’d like to give you a shot at this again if you’re interested.’ [Nathan’s] been so passionate about the whole thing. The moment he heard that, you could see he was absurdly excited to be a part of it and he was going to give his all to prove that he was the right person and really become a part of the family we’d started. He’s done so much work in the short time he’s been in the band, it’s like he’s been here for years. It hasn’t been an awkward transition; it just gelled in really easily. I mean, we’ve known Nathan for a while now, so that’s not surprising. But musically and professionally, he’s gelled in so nicely it’s phenomenal. I couldn’t have asked for a better replacement and I think looking forward at what Nathan’s been doing with the band and what he wants to do I’m really excited to see what he brings; not only to bass but to the live performance, professional aspect, and overall production of Orpheus Omega.”

Managing to fit in one last question, I asked after Orpheus Omega’s last tour for the year: their appearance at the Reverence Hotel on December 13th to help celebrate Trendkill Magazine’s 1st Birthday and end of year Christmas shenanigans. Having already teased online they’ll be featuring as part of their live set for the night a new song off the forthcoming third album, Joao noted, “The excitement level’s really high because we’re really excited about this particular song. We had three to choose from initially for us to play and this one’s fast, energetic, and it’s heavy as shit. So we want to have all those things available to our fans and even the people who haven’t seen us before.” Joao promises people will be ‘blown away by the track’. “For me it’s my favourite track on the album and we’re not even finished yet. I’m really confident in what this track can do for us not only on a musical level but also on an entertainment level. I think fans will really pick it up and I think people who haven’t seen us before will love it as well because it has a bit of everything. It’s really exciting to see where we’re going with it and I think anyone that makes it down will love the show. This new song’s really going to turn some heads!”

‘Trendkill Magazine 1st Birthday / Christmassacre X-mas Show’

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