Crimson Moon: How did the band get started?
Carlos: Starts in early 2014, as an idea from German L. for a new musical project. With a demo, he decided to contact Carlos and Jose to introduce them this new project. A while later, they contact Linda, who is known for being part of a previous metal band and the last member to join the band is Claudio Montufar who used to played the bass with Carlos C. in another project.
Crimson Moon: What kind of music do you play?
Carlos: We try to use different aspects of metal and music, we define our sound as modern metal style.
Crimson Moon: How has the band response been?
Carlos: Awesome, until today everything´s going well, we are friends and also band mates, each member have their own responsibilities and we all are working very hard as a team.
Crimson Moon: Where did the band name come from?
Carlos: The Black Portrait, represents ourselves, the way we feel music, we play different styles of music, but metal always has been the style we love, so “The Black” represents that dark side of us in music, our desire to play aggressive music, and “Portrait” it’s us, how we represents ourselves, the way music is a portrait in our lives.
Crimson Moon: Introduce the band members:
Lin Orellana: Lead Voice
German Lazaro: Guitar
Carlos Centeno: Guitar
Claudio Montufar: Bass
Jose Sotomayor – Drums
Crimson Moon: Who writes the music? Lyrics?
Carlos: German L. wrote two songs and the rest came along with the interaction of all the members, and all the lyrics in our debut EP that will be release this spring were written by Lin O.
Crimson Moon: And where do the lyric ideas come from?
Carlos: Pretty much from life experiences, with metaphoric senses.
Crimson Moon: How many albums/CD’s have you released
Carlos: At this moment none, we are currently recording our first EP, we have just released an auto produced single named “Vacant”, which had great diffusion and acceptation from the public in our local area.
Crimson Moon: Tell me about some the songs on the latest CD
Carlos: Some of the songs were written by German L. The rest of them came along with the interactions of all the members. You can expect sounds from aggressive riffs to mellow parts, and progressive in some of the songs. Also, clean and growls vocals interaction.
Crimson Moon: Do you have any side projects?
Carlos: German is the only member who has an active side project.
Crimson Moon: Who are some of your musical influences?
Carlos: Death Metal, Progressive metal, Core.
Crimson Moon: Which current bands?
Carlos: The Faceless, Mare Tenebrarum, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Quo Vadis, Textures, The Black Dhalia Murder.
Crimson Moon: What is the band like when you play live?
Carlos: Lots of energy and chemistry.
Crimson Moon: What was the best band you played with?
Carlos: So far, we’ve only played with local bands.
Crimson Moon: Have you guys ever played in another country?
Carlos: No, we already received some invitations to play outside, we’re looking forward to it.
Crimson Moon: How big of crowd shows up at shows usually?
Carlos: Well, metal shows in our country aren’t big at all, for being a new band, the response have been what we have expected it to be.
Crimson Moon: How is the crowd response when you play?
Carlos: Pretty good, we had a great response and support from the crowd and people have shown a lot of interest in us.
Crimson Moon: What is the scene like over in your country?
Carlos: As we mentioned before the scene in Guatemala is really small and divided, our country still has some socio-cultural issues with metal music, we expect that improve in the future.
Crimson Moon: What made you want to be in this band? And if you weren’t in this band what would you being doing now?
Carlos: We all love music and we all have been in other bands previously.
Hard to tell, I guess some of us weren’t expecting to be on a band, so, maybe in other musical project or just the regular routine we had before the band.
Crimson Moon: What does the future hold for the band?
Carlos: Lot of hard work, EP recording is one of our priorities right now, we are currently tracking the EP and since will be produce outside the country, we also are planning our first video, and the massive diffusion of our music all over the places, we really expect a lot from this project, we are very excited for the future of The Black Portrait.
Contact them at:
https://www.facebook.com/theblackportraitgt
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheblackportraitGT
https://theblackportrait.bandcamp.com/releases
theblackportraitgt@gmail.com
