Dysrthymia plays the Magic Stick this Sunday.
Dysrhymthia has been one of the quite intriguing and diverse bands of the progressive metal genre since it’s debut early in the past decade. The Philadelphia based trio has four albums fused together by the band’s love of metal and jazz throughout their albums, with their latest album “Psychic Maps” released in the summer of 2009.
Since then, the band has been out on the road relentlessly behind the effort. Their current tour puts them on tour with like minded progressive metal band Cynic. Before a show in California, I had a chance to chat with guitarist Kevin Hufnagel about the band’s unfortunate case of lost gear a few nights before, as well as the types of music that helped inspired him to start doing music.
Here’s my interview with Kevin:
AM: How did the band hook up with the guys in Cynic for this tour?
KH: We had met Paul (Masdival- Cynic frontman) through a metal journalist that we both knew. It was good because the guys in Cynic had already heard of us and liked the integrity in the music. We just did some dates in Europe and everything went really, until we flew from Europe to L.A. a few days back and we made the flight just fine- but all of our gear and merchandise never made it on the flight back. It’s one of those things that the airline has no clue where it’s at and you can’t get a straight answer out of anybody. So, we had to buy all new gear a few days ago until the gear makes it back to us. But the first night of the show was really good.
AM: Do you feel that “Psychic Maps” is the band’s most diverse album to date?
KH: To be honest, I don’t feel this album is our most diverse. I would say that our 2nd album, “Pretest” is probably our most diverse and had the most variety. With “Psychic Maps”, we honed in on a darker sound and came from a darker place when writing this album. We still wanted to make inventive sounds, but we really wanted to beat the listener over their heads with the music from this album.
AM: What sort of music helped inspire you to form a band like Dysrhythmia?
KH: I would say that the first music I ever had and took a liking to was classical music- it was in my house for as long as I remember. But when I was probably in the 3rd grade, I started hanging out with these metalheads at school and they got me into metal right away. Jazz was one of those things I got into through different guitar teachers that I had over the years. I was fortunate to have teachers that really had an open mind about music and liked lots of different genres.
AM: How would you explain the band’s evolution over the years?
KH: Well, our first album is one most people don’t know about because it’s more or less a glorified demo and only 300 copies were ever pressed. We took a big leap in writing between our first and second album and I felt we really progressed as band during that time period. For our third album, it had a pretty live feel to it and it was more stripped down and raw. This album brings things kinda full circle.
AM: You release a solo album a few years back- what sort of release did it provide for you?
KH: Well, it’s an all acoustic guitar based influenced and very heavy on finger style picking influence. I think the mood is more melancholy than my stuff in Dysrhythmia. I like a lot of quiet music and this was intended for me to get up as a one man & guitar deal at a coffee shop or something. I have a second solo album ready to go, but this time, it will be far more electric guitar based than the first one.
AM: The band toured a bit with the soon to be defunct Isis- what are your feelings on their impending breakup?
KH: There are a lot of bands that don’t know when to quit- and Isis didn’t want to end up being one of those bands. The guys felt that they had hit their peak with their last couple of albums and wanted to go out on top.
Dysrhythmia plays with Cynic at the Magic Stick on Sunday, August 1st. Tickets are $15 and are available at www.ticketmaster.com. Additional band info and tour dates can be found at www.myspace.com/dysrhythmiaband.
