Emir Hot: featured in john west interview

News:
15-07-2008:
A snippet from a recent John West interview. The interview is in two parts and covers much of John West's vocal outings, including Royal Hunt, Vitalij Kuprij and Chris Caffery.

JW: Yeah, but I’ll do some of the songs from Earth Maker live when I go out this year with Emir Hot.

HR: Ah, yeah, Sevdah Metal! Can you tell a little bit about that?
JW: Actually it was a studio project in the beginning, recommended to me by Mike Terrana, and they had tried a few other singers and it was just sort of like, out there for everybody to really capture it. The songwriter and the leader of the band was a Bosnian guitar player who had something in mind as far as what the singing was going to be, and he just couldn’t capture it with all these different people trying. And Terrana had played drums on it, and said, “You really should try John West if you’re going for something….maybe this guy can deliver”. And Emir had known me from Artension and from other works, and Royal Hunt. You know…he flew me out to London, and we did the recording, and you never know how things are gonna go. It could be some studio work and you sorta shake hands and that’s it—and we just got along so well. And the songs came together so well and just sorta like came to life. And the opportunities have been presented now for live performances; you know, to make more out of it, more of a band kind of vibe. And I’m all for that. You know, when something shows a little spark, I say, feed the flame. And so, here we go. We’ll go in July to Croatia and Bosnia and Italy for some shows, and supposedly even more shows in the late fall. Hopefully it won’t coincide with deer hunting.

(both laugh)

HR: Hopefully not. That will make your bandmates very upset, I’m sure.

JW: I’m going to have to have at least a couple weeks to get a deer. It takes me that long. I don’t just take the first one I see; I have to be picky.

HR: Oh yeah?

JW: I just enjoy being out there, really.

HR: I bet you do.

JW: Yeah, so, it sort of blossomed into something more than I thought it would be. And it’s very unique. Certainly not like anything else that’s out there right now, or anything else I’ve ever heard before that.

HR: Yeah, I heard some samples. It sounded very good and very different!

JW: Yeah, it’s cool. Emir’s an awesome dude, and just talent. And Terrana couldn’t do the summer leg, so I got John Macaluso to do it. So he’s gonna be on the road with us, and he’s always a good time, and he can play the stuff. It’s crazy stuff. Whoever plays it is going to have to be on top of their game, because it’s just wired. It breaks into these, like, polka sections. Bosnian…folk…metal. It’s bizarre.

HR: That’s awesome.

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