Rozhovor 01.05.2023 Lomor en - HELLMAGAZINE

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Alan Rohan

LOMOR




interview with Lomor group
From Reunion (island of France)
A return to old-school thrash metal. Lomor, a relatively young group that was formed in 2018 (if we squint our eyes) honed in on the classics - old-school thrash metal, and they did it very well. The young follow-up to well-established bands such as Slayer or Testament is reaping considerable success. If things continue like this, and I really hope so, in a few months, a few years at the most, we will have a crusher here that will sell out big festivals.

       
 

Alan – Hi Lomor. Except for a few individuals, your band is not that well known in the Czech Republic and probably not even in Slovakia, although since the end of last year, there have been mentions here and there in some magazines. So you could introduce yourself to us.


Eric – Hi Metal Heart! We are a power trio in Lomor, with a basic set of guitars, bass, drums and vocals. We made a quit thrash old-school stuff... with somtime metalcore or punk touch maybe. And yes we came from a little island called "Reunion Island", an overseas department of France. And here is Eric, guitars & vocals, who is answering ... nice to be here!

Alan – Lomor is your joint group of who played where before Lomor.


Eric – Personnaly, Lomor is my second real big project. I was formely known as "Babouk", guitars and vocals in my old band "Black Babouk", back in 2006 'till 2016. Black Babouk were more a fusion of saturated guitars, locals sounds of our island or other very different styles of world music.

Alan – The group dates back to 2018, is that true? Or is it a little different?

 
Eric – Well, Gurvan (drums) and I, we meet together in 2018. But we really started the project in mid 2019 after having participated to a tribute for Slayer in our landmark "Studiotic". Micha (bass) joined us in early 2020.

Alan – There was a minor (big) problem. That you were actually created during the pandemic. Your debut was Kanyar L'Enfer, what can you tell us about it?


Eric – Yeah, what a hell when you see this s_it hit your project... ha ha ...! Here on the island, we felt the impact less than in Europe or elsewhere. The thing took a little longer to come...  And at the end we have been very lucky to make some great gigs during the pandemic. Kanyar L'enfer was not our first composition but it was the first with reunionese creole language lyrics. This is our second mother tongue here on the island. So we decided to release it as soon as possible on platforms. We wanted some materials rapidly to communicate on our project.

Alan – Right from 2022, you started working on a full-length album. They actually spent the whole year on this. You started in January and the CD/LP came out in December, that's a long run.


Eric – Yeah, this has been long run for multiple reasons. First, from the start we decided to try to make a "real" production for this album to catch attention the more we can. So we contacted Sébastien Camhi from ArtMusic Studio in France in early 2021 and he accepted the project. But he's a quite busy and very demanded guy! So we had to wait for almost one year to get a slot. Moreover we took a very long time to finish every details of each song. We made a lot of demo at our own to be ready for the d-day for the real record sessions. Finally, we faced some difficulties to produced the vinyl or to set the date release, you know. But we made it ha ha ha

We are very happy to have been able to work with Sébastien Camhi for this release! The sound he produced is awesome and very in step with our songs.

Alan – We'll stick with a year's worth of work. Have you always released a song to the world as it was finished? Or how did everything actually go? Because waiting a year to finish an album and then looking to play would kill you for a whole year.


Eric – Well, Lomor is very new and nobody was awaiting something from us. The delay was long but we really tried to do something huge and visible. So we took the time to release something finished yes!

Alan – Recording, mixing, mastering, and did anyone else help you?

 
Eric – We spend good money in this production. This was the bet! So we contated professionnals from music industry to accompany us (Did I mention Sébastien Camhi? Lol!). For mastering, Sébastien put us in touch with Kai Stahlenberg from Kohlekeller Studio in Germany. However, many people and friends here helped us a lot during the whole process with many others aspects: music videos production, photos, promotion and more. I would like to thank some of them as Ian, Nico, Miky, Tic and more that I can not mention here as it would take you hundred pages of the magazine ha ha...

Alan – Video material was also released for the album. To what song? And people's reactions?


Eric – Our most viewed music videos is at this day "The Great Defender" with 11k views. I would say people was very impressed the first time they saw it. Nicolas from Kissiprod.SiPik has made an awsome job for this video. "Psykoz" was released too some months before and it was a more "sweat-ish" or "crowd-ish" thing, you know! More rock'n roll stuff.

Alan – You've taken over prestigious metal festivals pretty quickly, at least in Reunion. Did you dazzle that much with your music/artwork?


Eric – Well... I think people did not necessarily expect a band of this style on the island. Before the album, concert halls and festivals were enthousiasts to propose our music. The sauce took and fans were very amazing. They support us a lot here. Metal bands are presents here on the island (Warfield, The Hill is Burning, Feed The Ire, Behind our Reflections...), but Thrash was absent I think, till now...

Alan - Best of luck. This year 2023, you are going to a lot of concerts. But also quite a big tour of France. Information?


Eric – We are working on it. Difficulties are huge for us (airplanes tickets, organisation from here, gears transport, etc). But we have some encouraging leads. Not confirmed for now but we hope to be in France in september or october, maybe december this year.

Alan – Apart from France, do you have offers outside of the island and France? Festivals?


Eric – Yeah, we are already booked for the "Maytal Festival" on May 6 in Mauritius Island. This is our little sister island near us in Indian Ocean. We are very excited to be present for this edition this year. We can't wait to burn the stage out there!

Alan – We could also read positive praise in various zines. Where have they already written about you? Which radio stations did you talk on? And brag about yourself, you have a lot to brag about.


Eric – Yep, we had a lot of positive feedbacks from music industry in general and a lot of webzines. We are very grateful for thoses articles and interviews. The famous one and the one we are very proud of is the #238 of "Rock Hard Magazine" edited on January 6 this year all around France. M. Charlelie  Arliche did us the honor of apperaing in the "De plus en plus net" section of the magazine. I think we can say that our thrash is a new wave thrash, as people say, but with more old-school roots or less festiv as current thrash production today. I don't kown in fact ha ha ha...

Alan - I assume you are big Slayer fans. Connecting your music and Slayer work? You have addressed me (us), really a lot.


Eric - When I was a teenager I discovered all the real thrash of the 80s and it blew me away. When I took up the guitar, I naturally tried to reproduce their music and it stuck. For me there was no doubt that this is what I would like to play. I started to play James Hetfields riffs you kown. I used to say he learned me how to play guitar! Then came Kerry King in my playing from the post "Black Album" epoch... Seasons!!!!!

Alan - Let's lighten the whole conversation up a bit. Do you have any funny stories while shooting an album or video clip?

 
Eric – Well, "The Great Defender" footage was very exciting and amusing. We really had fun to make it. I remember the close up shooting of our face with the blood. We drank blood this night, literraly. I didn't know blood was so sweet! Ha ha ha

Alan – Thanks for the interview. And if not this year, maybe next year, we'll see you somewhere in the Czech Republic, Germany, or Slovakia at a festival. You have something to show.


Eric – Thank you a lot for this nice interview. We hope so to travel around for big shows. Share an like as our epoch is demanding for that to be visible...

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