DragonForce – Herman Li

DragonForce. They’re a name almost everyone in the metal community knows. For better or worse, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard “Through the Fire and Flames”. But over the years, this extreme power metal sextet from Britain has both been lauded and criticised, many times quite heavily. But in 2010 when long-time frontman ZP Theart left the band, many questioned if this would be the end of DragonForce altogether. Enter 2011 and Marc Hudson. And with him, a whole new energy and life to DragonForce’s music. After the commercial and critical success of ‘The Power Within’ in 2012, the British guitar heroes return with their latest offering, ‘Maximum Overload’, an album that’s theme touches on our current digital age of utter information overload. So with that being said, I recently had the pleasure to speak with the one and only Herman Li on a behalf of Metal Obsession. A veteran of speed metal guitar styling’s, and a personal inspiration of mine, we discussed ‘Maximum Overload’, the many changes and experiences this album has brought the band, whether they might return to Australia soon, and Herman’s eclectic, and always interesting, guitar style.

A mainstay of DragonForce’s sound is, of course, their ‘big, epic choruses’. And this is no less true of ‘Maximum Overload’. The new album continues the trend of the music’s intensity. But as Herman states quickly after, ‘When I say “intense”, I don’t mean it has to be fast. The melodies can cause some kind of sensation: you want to [clench] your fist and punch the air.’ Further adding, ‘There’s that kind of power or epic feel to it, and that is present in all DragonForce songs these days; even the slower ones. You still get that intensity, as well as our trademark fast, raw sound we have. [Maximum Overload] is definitely able to bring all these new elements and mix them together to make a more dynamic album.’

Having listened to the new album already, I can certainly attest to this. And I questioned Herman as to whether he felt it was in part due to the fresh energy Marc Hudson has brought to the band since becoming the permanent vocalist for DragonForce. ‘With Marc’s addition, he’s able to help us evolve through his abilities and his work ethic.’ He then further noted, ‘I think whatever happened, [though], we were going to evolve musically this way anyway.’

One of the more exciting aspects of “Maximum Overload” is the variety of fresh, new ideas it’s brought to the table, at least in terms of DragonForce crossing off their lists a significant number of things the band had yet to experiment with. First and foremost is the use of guest musicians, and not of the power metal variety you’d expect. Instead, DragonForce employed the talents of Matt Heafy, lead vocalist of Trivium – an individual known for his death growling, and something of which DragonForce have happily embraced here. Heafy features here on three separate tracks, “The Game”, “No More”, and “Defenders”. ‘[Matt and I] share similar personalities. We’d always chat about stuff like [this]. And when we were recording the album, we actually didn’t even think about a guest vocalist like that. But when we heard some of the songs, we thought, ‘we need something here, something with different backing vocals.’ This subsequently led to the thought in Herman’s mind of using death growls. ‘Matt’s name just popped up in our heads,’ Herman continued. ‘And to be honest, the theme of the album is about breaking all the rules we set for ourselves. Which means that in the past we didn’t get a producer, we didn’t do cover songs. In the past, we didn’t get anything like death metal musicians from other bands. So it’s about breaking all your own rules that you’d set previously.’

“Maximum Overload” also marked a transition in locale, with DragonForce making the conscious decision to move outside the comfort zone of their own recording studio and into the famed Swedish office of celebrated record producer, Jens Bogren. ‘It was interesting to work with someone different,’ Herman began. ‘I didn’t go in expecting what it was going to be. I just went in with an open mind, [and] it worked really well to the way we were developing together.’ When asked if DragonForce would do this again, Herman’s response was humble. ‘It’s almost hard to say because it’s so early. In two years time, or even a year’s time, when we start working on the songs again, it depends how the songs come out – what kind of state of mind you’re in. You take this experience and add to everything you’ve done before.’ He then made an insightful comment I hadn’t previously considered. ‘My logical thinking is you can’t think about that until you’re going to make the album. Because with all the information you have by then, it will be different from now.’

‘Maximum Overload’ out worldwide September 5

Lastly was DragonForce’s decision to use cover songs on the new record. ‘Because we’ve never done a cover, it’s actually original for us to do one. Even if by the time we’ve done a cover it’s not very original, because for most bands, they do a cover when they first do a gig. We never even do covers. In fact, I think we covered one Iron Maiden song once. And that was it.’ Adding on, ‘We kind of got sick of hearing cover songs that sound the same as the originals. We always thought, ‘what’s the point of that?’ So, we’re like, ‘Okay, let’s do a cover!’ But we agreed we were only going to do one if we could find a song that was going to work and could sound “DragonForce-ish”. We then found the Johnny Cash song and we thought this could sound like DragonForce.’ I noted to Herman how DragonForce managed to take a track that you’d never expect to work as a metal song and make it feel and sound completely energised. ‘We’re happy about that. I haven’t heard any negative feedback yet, so that’s good,’ – he then laughed and joked – ‘which is unusual for us!’

After noting how he and fellow guitarist Sam Totman work so well together and bounce off one another stylistically and musically, Herman made the joke, ‘I’m probably the only guitar player that would work with him!’ [laughs] ‘At the beginning we sounded quite different,’ Herman went on, ‘but we now sound far closer. We influence each other now.’

Perhaps one of Herman’s biggest trademarks is his unique method of taking the influences and music of his childhood and allowing it to flow through his own music. Primarily, this is referring to his knack for incorporating the sounds and themes of arcade game music, circa the late ‘80’s to early ‘90’s. ‘A lot of the games had great tunes back then, great soundtracks. And now when I’m making guitar noises, what I think is cool is what sounds like [those games]. It’s something we can relate to from the past.’

Herman made mention later on in reference to his highly technical and speed-driven sound, ‘It becomes natural. Because if it’s not natural, you basically can’t play fast.’ This ‘natural’ method equips him with what he needs if he ever forgets a solo from a song he hasn’t played in many years. ‘I listen to it and I just hear the notes – almost like someone talking in a way – and you’re just repeating the speech yourself. It’s like you’re learning a vocabulary. It becomes a natural movement to you after a while.’

Managing to fit in one final question, I closed with whether DragonForce may return to Australia any time soon. ‘We’re working on some shows next year. It will definitely happen. Every time we come to Australia we have a lot of fun, but it’s so far away. It’s always workable, [though]. Last time we did Soundwave and that was really good for us!’

And with that spelled the close to a fascinating interview.

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