Interview Aaron & Oli (face to face)

Hello guys, could you introduce the band to our readers?

Oli: We are RavenEye, and I'm Oli.

Aaron: And I'm Aaron.

Oli: We are two third of RavenEye. We are a rock band, and we go ont he veins of Led Zepellin, Soundgarden, Queen Of The Stone Age.

Why did you decide on this name?

Oli: I grew up in the UK, and always like ornitology and became really fascinated by the corvids, such as the crows, the raven and many other birds. They are quite unique and intelligent birds, not that it's a reflection upon us in any ways [laughters]. But anyways I wanted to use something like that for the band, it doesn't say too much about our style, it's quite neutral, we like it.

It seems like Oli has a huge reputation in blues, now moving to rock. Why changing to a different style and audience? Did you want to come to big festival like this one?

Oli: [laughters]. Yes! I love the blues and grew up with the blues. My dad helped manage for a while and got involved, then I had a label that got involved, but I was never really personaly involved in the choices or in my carreer. I wrote the sound, played the music and toured, and I loved that, but then I started writing heavier music and I realised that I had learned enough and wanted to go on my own. Not to get big or play bigger festivals, but just to play real. You cannot fake music, at least I cannot. And we have now been involved in a crazy couple of years. We do everything ourselves: we book our tour, we book our hotels, we drive, we load our gear, it's now just the three of us the whole time.

So you are a pretty new band, with only one EP out, and still we have seen you opening for Slash or Deep Purple. How did you manage that?

Oli: I have no idea. It's been incredible. Because really, the EP was just to get local gigs in England. Nothing more. So that people know what they are expecting from us. But all the sudden, things started snowballing and growing. It's been an amazing ride for us. It's good because it puts pressure on us for the next album because we want the next album to kick ass. And we think it does. We had so many songs to choose from, and we really crush them down to the ones we really care about, the ones that say what we really want to say. Because we care a lot about the lyrics and the content we put out. Not just the music. We want stories, things we do, people we love or hate, you know...

So how was it to tour with Slash, or with Deep Purple?

Aaron: Both were incredible. To me, Slash is a rock god. And to see him in a corridor, or have him ask about where I'm from, is so humbling. And his band is incredible, his crew is incredible, everyone was awesome and we had to pinch ourselves sometimes, as we are such a baby band. Same thing when touring with Deep Purple in France and in Spain.

Oli: yes we kind of forget about this, and it get automatic for us. But you know it's just the three of us, and some of the journeys are 14 hours drive. For example we were in Bilbao, played at 9PM, then left the festival, drove 7 hours overnight to get here. We slept in the van for a couple of hours and played our show.

I think you also toured with Blues Pills, another one of my favorites, how did this go?

Oli: Yes and we love them! They are so good and so sweet. They are an amazing band.

Aaron: We did a big run through the UK with them, and we ended in Northern Ireland, and we had a lot of fun there with them. They are a great, very solid, tight band. They have a great crowd, people like that psychedelic thing, also I think they have some new material out.

And today we can see you at Hellfest, how does this feel?

Aaron: This festival is awesome, we walked around in there before our show, the Lemmy statue on the hill is great. The theme is fantastic! We heard about it before, but had never been here before, it's so well thought out, it's beautiful.

Oli: And there are some amazing bands! And the sound is really good. It's incredible. And again we pulled out this EP, just to get some gigs, and we end up on the main stage! Unbelievable!

It was pretty early but well attended, how did your set go?

Oli: Oh yes! You know my voice always wakes up at 7PM, and usually the gigs are in the evening. And early in the morning I usually sound like GRRRRRAAA [laughters]. But for some reason, I guess my body knew what I had to do and my voice was better than it ever was in the past few weeks. And when you know your voice is just right, you can push yourself to do better things. Singing is such a fun thing to do...

With a power trio, Oli ends up with a lot of singing and guitar playing, never thought about adding a guitar or a singer?

Oli: Absolutely not! We like that power trio stuff. I have a double amps setup so I can change my sound when I need. We do also two piece song where I plug Aaron through my amp, and just hold the mic and jump in the crowd. We are always working on our sound too. We are trying a new setup on the bass side to make it sound even bigger. So we want to push the boundaries, but keep it as a three piece band and I don't think that's ever going to change.

Do you think we have a vintage blues rock revival these days? I'm thinking you guys, Blues Pills, but many others such as Buffalo Summer… And why do you think this is a popular musical trend?

Oli: They are a lot of bands, doing pretty well, this is true. It's just a cool sound. It's timeless. Any age, from eight to whatever, this music speaks to everyone. It's got that natural sound, and it's played by real bands too.

I also had the pleasure to review your EP, which went fav' of the week a while back. Can you tell us a bit about the composition process of that EP?

Oli: The EP was a bit special. I was in Toronto, by myself for a while. So I locked myself away and wrote it all. I'm from Yorkshire, but I moved to Toronto for a couple of years. I played everything on the demo, all very bad [laughters]. And then we recorded it on my sound equipment.

You had no label for this EP if I remember well. Do you have one now?

Oli: Yes we are now working with Frontiers. We are so excited to be with them. The album is planned for the end of September.

In my review I could not resist mentioning Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Joe Bonamassa or Led Zeppelin, which one are you the happiest with? And the most angry with?

Oli: Without a doubt Jimi Hendrix makes me the happiest. He is the one who made me start playing music. I heard one song and that was it. I think it was "All Along The Watchtower", and it was for an Audi TV advertising. And then I got the Smash Hits album and I fell in love with it. And that's it, I wanted to do music

You also have a nice set of guitars yourself.

Oli: Yes, two of them are Hoffner guitars. The semi-hollows one. I love them.

Anything else in the plans you can share with us?

Oli: As soon as the album is out, we are going to be touring all over Europe. nothing yet announced but we will keep you posted.

Thanks a lot, I’ll leave you the last words for our readers…

Oli: Thanks for your support!