Chromium

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Credit: Mindless design and imaging

Chromium Are:
Jared Gunston – Guitars & Vocals
Matt Engelbrecht – Guitars & Vocals
Hannes Matthysen – Drums
Shaun Pearson – Bass Guitar

Born from the small town of Port Elizabeth South Africa, Chromium immediately pushed forward to break the stereo-type of a small town band. With 2 albums behind their name, a DVD on its way plus a third album in the pipeline, nothing can stand against the strong offence of Chromium!

Chromium

Interview by Scream

Interview answered by: Jared

Photography By: Chris Preyser

Theinterview

Headbang Today: Welcome brothers! Welcome to Headbang Today! We are thrilled to have you a part of the Headbang family! Straight to the meat! You’ve recently released your second album ‘Confessions Of A Hero.’ earlier this year. How does it compare to your 2007 release of “Intro Of Spectre” musically? What have you done differently?

Chromium:
We concentrated a lot more on details this time, since our first album was more of an “experiment” this time we could try new things since we’d already figured out what our “sound” was.  Truth be told, when we released that album it felt good and felt right.

Headbang Today: The name ‘Chromium’. Tell us the story behind it and how it originated.

Chromium:
A band name is defiantly one of the hardest things to come up with, it was a random find but the meaning is perfect, go Wikipedia it and you’ll see

Headbang Today: You’re planning on touring the United States from early 2010 onwards. The downside of that is that you’ll be missing the 2010 World Cup back home! Yet the pros obviously outweigh the cons by far! How are the plans going though?

Chromium:
As we speak our UK/European tour is being confirmed, we’ve seen a few drafts of the tour and its looking at about mid march for about a week or so in UK and the same in Europe.  We are in constant communication with our USA agent and that is being planned too.  Keep checking our gig guide for those details!  Can’t wait to meet new fans from around the world!

Headbang Today: Tell us abit about your nation-wide tour. How’s it been and do you have any crazy tales from the tour that you would like to share with us?

Chromium:
It’s defiantly been a bonding experience as a band.  We’ve all figured each other out, and have met some crazy people along the way.  Not too sure how much detail I can go into but we’ve had a few crazy stories.. From girls trying to sell themselves on to certain members, to dodging cops on the way home from a show, it’s been a crazy ride of insane proportions! And it hasn’t even begun yet!

Guitarin

Headbang Today: Your main influences are big names in the industry such as Dream Theatre, Metallica, Trivium and so forth… which two international bands would you love to share a stage with one day?

Chromium:
Metallica and Iron Maiden

Headbang Today: Name your favourite local SA bands…

Chromium:
Knave, Only Forever, Agro, Sacrifise (please check spelling!!!)

Headbang Today: Which region within South Africa would you say have stood out the most for you during your nation-wide tour? Which city bares the craziest breed of metal head, Durban, Cape Town or Jozi?

Chromium:
Durban defiantly, they are still a strange breed though!

Headbang Today: You’ve entered the Global Battle Of The Bands competition in September this year. How did that go?

Chromium:
We’ve made it through, now waiting for the final to be announced!

Headbang Today: Give us your views on the metal industry here in South Africa. How do you think we as bands, fans , promoters and media can work together to improve it?

Chromium:
Exactly what you just said there. WORK TOGETHER.  We all know that everyone gets something out of everyone else, but if it’s done in a manor that brings the industry closer then we can’t lose!  There is too much competition for a prize that is so much further than where our heads are.  Let me explain, you wanna live the dream right? Coming from a small town that meant !@#$ all to Johannesburg. the same could be said about Johannesburg, how big is it compared to the ultimate dream? Almost invisible.. so stop fighting and lets work together to help the few that will hold their heads high and make it to the dream!

Drummer

Headbang Today: A typical day in the life of a Chromium band member?

Chromium:
Sleep. eat. day job. party. sleep

Headbang Today: Apparently you’ve now got a third album in the pipeline. How many tracks have you worked on since the anouncement and can you give us some more exclusive information on what we can expect?

Chromium:
Way way way heavier, we’ve decided to try write a lot of tracks in Standard Tuning, well our normal Tuning is usually Drop B, but we’re in standard C# for those new tracks.  Gonna bring back the trash!  It’s also got a slight Swedish tone to it too.  But we’ll see how it turns out!

Headbang Today: How do you feel about NASA bombing the moon? Do you rate the U.S thought Osama was hiding in that crater?

Chromium:
NASA bombed the moon?  Really? *surprised face*

Headbang Today: You’re planning on releasing a DVD soon… What material should we be looking forward to along with a documentary?

Chromium:
A live performance, music videos, bonus features and documentary telling the story of Chromium up till where it is today.

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Headbang Today: Have you headbanged today?

Chromium:
Not yet but i can guarantee it’s gonna happen later after some vodka! m/

Headbang Today: How often do you guys get together for rehearsals and what usually goes down before, during and after your jamming sessions?

Chromium:
Once every few months, and we usually jam metallica covers, and maybe 1 or 2 Chromium songs. Seriously..

Headbang Today: Last but not least. Do you have any strange pre-show rituals before doing a gig that we should be aware of?

Chromium:
A few beers, a shot or 2, er, and that’s it hey. sometimes I’ll put on a rad Music Video before I leave to remind me of what I wanna achieve!

Headbang Today: Give us your thoughts on:

Emo bands and their followers: Smile! Linkin Park writes the best break downs?

Your Groupies: Our what?

Headlining for a Headbang Today Festival one day: Awesome!

Port Elizabeth: Miss it, and hope we’re making them proud!

The future of SA metal: It’s growing and if we stick together it could become something amazing one day!

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Headbang Today: Any last words?

Chromium:  Thank you to everyone who’s ever been to a show, bought an album, or just commented on our page!  We read everything and appreciate it! mmmmmmmmmwa!!

Instructions to all headbangers:

1. Download THIS WALLPAPER.

2. Buy their album: Confessions of A Hero!

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