Interview with . . . Eloah

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Eloah, a progressive rock/metal band, has a new album, Proud to Love You, available in all of the usual places. The band’s lead singer, Elmar, has joined us on the blog for an interview. Keep reading to find out more about Eloah and what makes their collective heart tick.

Please welcome Elmar of Eloah to the blog!

Who is answering the questions?

Hello everybody, my name is Elmar, I am the singer, guitar and piano player of the band ELOAĦ.

Band/Artist Name: ELOAĦ

Tell us about your latest project:

Our latest release is called “Proud to Love You.”, a collection of ballades and soft rock songs. The tracks on this album were inspired by different emotions around love – from ecstasy to agony, from serenity to heartache, but with a clear bias on the pleasant aspects, inspired by personal experiences with (romantic) love, all derived from different emotional states. Sometimes happiness is the prevailing feeling in an actually bad situation, this is what the song “Proud to Love You” is about, a positive, hopeful song.

Then there is love that you experience to be so fulfilling that next to this fulfilment there still is some excess emotion asking you to be cast into song, this is what “My Heart Shall Be Your Fire”, “You Are A Diamond”, “Wonderful Beautiful” and “A Winter’s Tale” are about. Then, of course, there was the (probably) most famous type of love song where you are longing for and dreaming about someone. This can be either purely joyful as in “The Purest You” and “Caterpillar”, or a bit painful as in “Child Within” and “Tuesday Morning.”

Emotional pain and despair sometimes accompanied romantic love at some point, thus two songs about these emotions with quite self-explanatory titles are on the album as well, “How Could I Ever Have Hurt You?” and “Why Can’t I Forget You?”

Finally, there is a song I wrote for one of my sons, another kind of love thus, who provided me with most of the lyrics –“King of Winters”, he was about five years old then; and two songs that take the whole topic less seriously, more tongue-in-cheek “Sugar Refinery” and “Time to Say Goodbye” to end the album on a both positive and light note.

Where was your first concert as a fan? As a performer?

My first concert as a fan was Metallica in 1993, and around that time I also had my first (solo) performance as a singer/songwriter in a pub in Klagenfurt in Austria (just me with my acoustic guitar).

What is the secret to writing good music?

I don’t know, since “good” is certainly a matter of taste. But I guess that any good music should come from the heart – how an artist realises that is a different story, but without feeling, music is – in my opinion – probably not good.

Do you have a bucket list? If so, what’s on it?

No, I don’t have a bucket list. I do have plans on what I still want to do, and while I am busy realizing all of that, new things to be done appear, and others disappear – it is all fluent, a list would not make sense…

What was the last thing that you read?

Your interview questions. Ok, just kidding (although this is true) – the last book I read (actually I am still reading it) that is relevant in this context is called “Mastering Audio” by Bob Katz – I can really recommend it to anybody who is recording and/or mastering music.

What are you listening to at the moment?

Mostly our own music and the pre-mixes for our upcoming album. And the latest track of MAESTRO, Black Bishop – a fantastic master piece of melodic rock, if you ask me.

If you weren’t a musician, what would you be doing?

Actually, during my day job I am a physicist and manager at a research centre. And I have trained some martial arts for more than 20 years. And I love (and play) music. Last but not least, I am married and father of two sons. Does this answer your question?

Who would you like to collaborate with in the future?

I am grateful to cooperate with the fantastic musicians involved in the current projects: Orion Roos, Peter Douwenga, Johan van der Meer, Lila Herderberg and Dominik Mittergradnegger. A continuation with this dream-team would be my desire also for the future.

What do you want people to know about your music?

It is music from the heart for the heart. The styles may vary (a lot), and we like weirdness and funny stuff as well – but at the core, it is music from the heart. So if you like to take your time for music, delf into it, please give ELOAĦ a try – you might enjoy it.