Music
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Here we have classy Russian rockers the Funeral Honors, having just reached a showcase on Slicethepie the future looks bright for them. So flip the track on and read on for fun, a very comical gig moment and the question you have always wanted to ask! Lada Riva or the Moskvitch 408?
Piewatch – Firstly, who are The Funeral Honors?
Just two dudes: Damon and Michael – The moving force of the band.
Piewatch - Let’s talk about the bands history, how and where did you meet?
Damon: Back to school in the year 2000. We were on the trip somewhere in Europe; we decide that someday it would be fun to make a band. It was a joke for that moment. In 2006 I moved to USA and in 2 years I met Michael in the music store I worked in. Michael visited his brother in LA, and we decide to meet. We talked a lot about music and all, and thought that it would be great to make our old idea real.
Michael: I persuaded Damon to quit his job, and move to my brothers flat in LA, where I had a garage and everything to start making music. In a couple of weeks my neighbour joined out band as a drummer. Damon and I made a lot of demo tracks in approx. a month. Later we found a bass, and decided to make some shows in a local clubs. We had one gig in Miami, where we met Tim Gauf, a producer from Moscow. I worked with him before with my former band. He offered us to record an album in his studio in Moscow. We could not afford to record high-quality album in USA, so we moved back to Russia, and started to make the record. After a couple of months we had an album called “Bad Dreams Still Mine” ready.
Piewatch – What plans do you have for raising the 15k?
TFH: Our fans are the main source of investments. We are doing gigs and trying to attract more and more people to support us on STP. We are making some videos right now to attract fans and investors in the internet. Our family and friends will also take part.
Piewatch – What made you switch to Slicethepie from Sellaband?
Damon: To my personal opinion Sellaband users do not care much about the music. They will only invest in you if you have at least 30% of your goal already invested. There is no fair competition, I mean, if You have a load of money from the start You can successfully reach the goal of 50000 dollars pretty fast and it doesn`t matter whether your music is great or awful.
On Slicethepie you can only get financed if you`ve been chosen from thousands of bands, it means that the music really matters, your success depends directly on you talent. That’s why we chose Slicethepie.
Michael: STP made us believe that two dudes from Russia can make music people from other countries would like. It makes us happy!
Piewatch - You set a target of $100,000 on Sellaband; do you fear that £15,000 might not be enough?
Michael: If you have $100000, you may not pick between two things. You can do both of them. The more money you own – the more freedom you have.
£15,000 is enough to make it all sound and look professional, the only thing you have to do is determine what should be done first of all, and what is not too important. Anyway there is only one chance to do the best you can.
Piewatch - Who do you feel are your main competition in this showcase and why?
TFH: Every band who made it to the showcase is awesome, they all sound different, and all of them has it`s unique sound. We don`t think that this is a competition actually. There is no rule like – “Only One will survive”. Every band is moving to its goal. The only difference is – some succeed, some do not!
Piewatch - If you received the £15,000 financing tomorrow, what would be the first thing you spent it on?
Damon: We have an album recorded and mastered already, but we are not happy with how it`s mixed. So the first thing we are going to do if we receive the £15,000 is mix the tracks properly, `coz in Russia there are no high-level mixing engineers and producers who could help us achieve the best result, and make this tracks sound like we want them to.
Michael: Promoting this album is going to be the next step we are going to take.
And of course, we`ve got a freight-train of new songs which we`d like to release, maybe as singles or as another album.
Finally, we are going to do as many gigs outside Russia as we can!!!
Piewatch - Describe the Russian music scene at the moment
TFH: The success depends not on your talent, but on the thickness of your wallet. No rock music. No support for independent bands. If you want your music played on the radio – pay, If You want to participate in some big fest – pay. If you want your video on TV – pay. It doesn`t matter how good your material is.
The only thing an independent band can do is playing in a small bar or club for a hundred dollars. How can you record an album with a hundred dollars?
Russian people do not accept singing in English, though we think it`s the only language suitable for singing. But if we want our music to be hea - Piewatch
Here we have classy Russian rockers the Funeral Honors, having just reached a showcase on Slicethepie the future looks bright for them. So flip the track on and read on for fun, a very comical gig moment and the question you have always wanted to ask! Lada Riva or the Moskvitch 408?
Piewatch – Firstly, who are The Funeral Honors?
Just two dudes: Damon and Michael – The moving force of the band.
Piewatch - Let’s talk about the bands history, how and where did you meet?
Damon: Back to school in the year 2000. We were on the trip somewhere in Europe; we decide that someday it would be fun to make a band. It was a joke for that moment. In 2006 I moved to USA and in 2 years I met Michael in the music store I worked in. Michael visited his brother in LA, and we decide to meet. We talked a lot about music and all, and thought that it would be great to make our old idea real.
Michael: I persuaded Damon to quit his job, and move to my brothers flat in LA, where I had a garage and everything to start making music. In a couple of weeks my neighbour joined out band as a drummer. Damon and I made a lot of demo tracks in approx. a month. Later we found a bass, and decided to make some shows in a local clubs. We had one gig in Miami, where we met Tim Gauf, a producer from Moscow. I worked with him before with my former band. He offered us to record an album in his studio in Moscow. We could not afford to record high-quality album in USA, so we moved back to Russia, and started to make the record. After a couple of months we had an album called “Bad Dreams Still Mine” ready.
Piewatch – What plans do you have for raising the 15k?
TFH: Our fans are the main source of investments. We are doing gigs and trying to attract more and more people to support us on STP. We are making some videos right now to attract fans and investors in the internet. Our family and friends will also take part.
Piewatch – What made you switch to Slicethepie from Sellaband?
Damon: To my personal opinion Sellaband users do not care much about the music. They will only invest in you if you have at least 30% of your goal already invested. There is no fair competition, I mean, if You have a load of money from the start You can successfully reach the goal of 50000 dollars pretty fast and it doesn`t matter whether your music is great or awful.
On Slicethepie you can only get financed if you`ve been chosen from thousands of bands, it means that the music really matters, your success depends directly on you talent. That’s why we chose Slicethepie.
Michael: STP made us believe that two dudes from Russia can make music people from other countries would like. It makes us happy!
Piewatch - You set a target of $100,000 on Sellaband; do you fear that £15,000 might not be enough?
Michael: If you have $100000, you may not pick between two things. You can do both of them. The more money you own – the more freedom you have.
£15,000 is enough to make it all sound and look professional, the only thing you have to do is determine what should be done first of all, and what is not too important. Anyway there is only one chance to do the best you can.
Piewatch - Who do you feel are your main competition in this showcase and why?
TFH: Every band who made it to the showcase is awesome, they all sound different, and all of them has it`s unique sound. We don`t think that this is a competition actually. There is no rule like – “Only One will survive”. Every band is moving to its goal. The only difference is – some succeed, some do not!
Piewatch - If you received the £15,000 financing tomorrow, what would be the first thing you spent it on?
Damon: We have an album recorded and mastered already, but we are not happy with how it`s mixed. So the first thing we are going to do if we receive the £15,000 is mix the tracks properly, `coz in Russia there are no high-level mixing engineers and producers who could help us achieve the best result, and make this tracks sound like we want them to.
Michael: Promoting this album is going to be the next step we are going to take.
And of course, we`ve got a freight-train of new songs which we`d like to release, maybe as singles or as another album.
Finally, we are going to do as many gigs outside Russia as we can!!!
Piewatch - Describe the Russian music scene at the moment
TFH: The success depends not on your talent, but on the thickness of your wallet. No rock music. No support for independent bands. If you want your music played on the radio – pay, If You want to participate in some big fest – pay. If you want your video on TV – pay. It doesn`t matter how good your material is.
The only thing an independent band can do is playing in a small bar or club for a hundred dollars. How can you record an album with a hundred dollars?
Russian people do not accept singing in English, though we think it`s the only language suitable for singing. But if we want our music to be hea - Piewatch
Discography
LP - "Bad Dreams Still Mine" 2009
Photos
Bio
the Funeral Honors is a Russian-American rock band formed in 2008 in Philadelphia, USA. The band is comprised of Damon Walker (lead vocals), Michael Rubin ( guitar), Vadim Russkiy (bass), Denis Zelenov (guitar) and Yuri Makarov (drums). Kamil Gorgeous left the band after the release of their 2008 debut album, Bad Dreams Still Mine.
Formation and debut album (2005–2008)
theFuneralHonors origins date back to 2005, when Damon Walker and Michael Rubin decided to form a synth band, influenced by Depeche Mode and german synth-pop bands. The band called Crucial, with Damon on vocals and keybord and Rubin on guitar and synths. They`ve mostly tried to copy the other synth bands, trying to find their own sound, and in 2006 the band self-released thier demo-album "Disappointed Eyes". Crucial started to do gigs in local synth-oriented bars and cafes, gaining fan-base and searching for promoters. The band needed a label, but after a year of fruitless searches, the guys quit this idea.
Soon after the Crucial collapsed , Damon and Michael switched to guitars, and harsh vocals. Though the synth-sound still prevailed on their new tracks , the greater influence from bands like Metallica, Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, was obvious. After approx. 6 months of creating new material guys`ve had nearly 20 demos, and were searching for a studio to record the album. Damon says: "We decided not to go on with the idea of us being a synth band, thats why we wanted a new band, with the brand new name". The name was a problem for a long period of time, when finally was found in the "English phrasal verbs vocabulary" before the first gig. Michael: "The club asked the bands name, so we had to find it quick just before the show, otherwise the gig would be cancelled"
The band started doing gigs and gained some popularity in the underground scene of Philadelphia, even thought they`ve had to call for additional musicians at every show. The problem was actual even after Kamil Gorgeous joined the band as the permanent second guitar. After Kamil joined the band, they`ve decided to rent a studio to record the debut album of The Funeral Honors. For that purpose, guys had to sell all their musical equipment, and ask Damons classmate Antony to become a partner and a manager of the band. Antony sold his old car, thus the required amount was found and the recording began. 10 tracks, 9 new, and one from the early synth-pop period, re-arranged Kingdom On Sand, included on the album. Tim Young from Metropolis Mastering Studio, London, mastered the album.
The debut album "Bad Dreams Still Mine" was released 02/27/2008
Slicethepie and the Moscow period
Gigging was pleasant, but the financial status of the band was poor, while recording new tracks required money. In 2009 Damon found fan-fundraising site slicethepie, a service that connects talanted musicians with investors and fans. After nearly 9 months of rallying and promoting, the trio from Philadelphia have reached their financing target of $10,000, and finally started putting into place plans to record a brand new EP.
Guys have had a lot of material from the previous sessions, but they`ve also made 6 new demo tracks. For a long time they couldn`t decide what tracks should be picked. The new tracks were played on every TFH show, to understand whether the tracks are worthy to enter the EP. At the end they`ve picked 3 tracks to be included on the EP. Michael found out that recording would cost less if they record in Moscow, RF. Damons family, along with Michaels lived in Moscow for a month or two each year, and had property there, so there were no problems for a band to get to Moscow and find a studio. By that time Kamil realized that he`s not ready for the next step, and announced that he is not excited about making music anymore. So Damon and Michael had to move to Moscow as a duo.
The recording took a lot of time, due to the fact that guys had to find musicians. They`ve placed an ad on russian music site musicforums looking for a bass and drums. Yuri Makarov and Vadim Russkiy and Denis Zelenov responded, and after two auditions they joined the band, initially on a trail basis as a studio session members.
Meanwhile, TFH tracks are played on BBC radio in the UK, and on some local Moscow stations, gaining the band additional audience. After a month in the studio the tracks for the EP were ready. While the band was preparing to release the EP, the russian promoters invited the band to take part in Metro On Stage 2012 festival, held by Metro newspaper, after they saw the band playing one of their shows in a local Moscow club. On Metro On Stage 2012 the band exploded the crowd with their sound and energy. The Funeral Honors was also an official support band for The Rasmus on their Moscow show 20/09/13
The bands EP "Policy Of Flirt" released on 08/21/2012
Band Members
Links
