“Nightwish is one of the top-notch bands in metal history” – interview with Myrath

One of the most interesting and unique bands that are circulating the metal scene is definitely Myrath, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to interview lead singer Zaher Zorgati and keyboardist Kévin Codfert about the new album, tours and Finnish metal bands.

Hey Kévin, how are you doing at the moment?

Kévin Codfert: I’m actually doing a load of boring stuff. Booking the tour bus, booking the flights, organizing everything for the tour, and making sure that I get paid on time. All the stuff a musician doesn’t want to do. But we need to do this kind of stuff if we want the tour to happen. So yeah, it’s okay.

Wonderful. Yeah, the new album will be released in March. Are there any tracks in it that started one way and then changed completely into something else?

Kévin Codfert: Yeah, definitely. A load of tracks. But I have a specific track, “The Funeral”. We started the composing process during the previous album, “Karma”. And it’s a long journey. This song is about a friend of mine. His wife died from cancer and we wanted to do a kind of homage. So basically, we started by composing a sad song and we saw that it didn’t fit the homage.

So we created a kind of duality between the happiness of the song, with a lot of major scales, and the sad lyrics that create it. And we were not 100% confident with the song, as there is a lot of arrangement. It was very difficult to do. Just before the recording process for “Karma”, we decided to wait two more years and release the song for this album. So the journey for this song has been kind of difficult.

Zaher Zorgati: For myself, I think some songs have been stored since, I don’t know, maybe more than three or four years. Not complete songs, but some ideas. And then Kévin tried to visualize the best ideas and tried to keep coming up with other good ideas to complete the chain.

One of the things I deeply admire about Myrath is your very clear musical identity. And yet it seems that with every album, you constantly come up with something new and innovative. Do you think that innovation can exist with coherence?

Kévin Codfert: Yes. Basically, yes. Because coherence is the fact that the same brains are processing, I mean, the similarity between “Hope” and this album is that there are almost the same band members. So, the way we process it, and the way we try to put our ego aside and improve ourselves to discover new music, to try to understand, for example, African music on this album, makes us willing to improve and to find different ideas. So, it’s totally coherent. Our way of processing and doing things is very solid from our point of view.

How do you navigate when there’s a creative disagreement within the band?

Kévin Codfert: I think that the one who screams louder will win the game. It’s impossible to compose with five musicians. You put five musicians in a room, and it will take a long time to get something finished. So, with a pragmatic approach, and sometimes it works, sometimes it can create some tension. One guy, sometimes me, sometimes Zaher, is saying, “Okay, I have a vision, let’s do that“. At first, some members can say, “I don’t like it”, but everybody is professional, so we need to play the song live. And some ideas that, for example, some band members may not like very much, they can also learn over time to understand what the main picture is behind. Plus, with the post-production and the recording process…

Zaher Zorgati: Because it’s also too late. No, I’m just joking. I mean, there’s no taboo in music and composition, even though the spine of the composition in the band is Kévin and me, but we try to put all the members equally. But as Kévin said, it’s very hard. That doesn’t mean they don’t have ideas; they have brilliant ones. There must be only one, maximum two captains on the boat. Kévin is the real captain of the boat. Then, as he said, I try to make a balance with Kévin, because when somebody has their own vision, sometimes the whole thing goes okay, or it goes wrong. So there must be like a counterweight saying, “Oh, listen, let’s try this“. And Kévin, of course, he’s very open-minded and everyone has his own ego, but hopefully Kévin doesn’t have too much ego…

Kévin Codfert: I try to fix my issues with ego. The only thing is to stick to the schedule. Making a decision isn’t about being right or wrong; it’s about sticking to the plan and delivering on time. Sometimes we need to quickly find ideas and make decisions, even if they’re not the best. But it’s the case with every project.

Zaher Zorgati: Yes, I mean, for the composition, it’s not too difficult in the band. In Myrath, everyone comes up with an idea, but the main skeleton of the song, the only ones who are really capable of doing a full song, like an intro, the middle of the song, and an outro, apparently, it’s Kévin and me. And the other guys contribute by coming up with good ideas, trying to decorate the song, and making it pop.

Wonderful, that’s amazing. So, who is the funniest person in the band?

Zaher Zorgati: Morgan, without a doubt.

Kévin Codfert: I agree.

Zaher Zorgati: Morgan and then Kévin. It’s not about jokes. He doesn’t tell jokes. He is funny, the way he talks, the way he makes fun of other people makes him funny. For example, he makes fun of me, Anis, Malek, or Kévin, sometimes in certain situations, and we laugh at it. The way he expresses it is really funny. But he doesn’t tell jokes. I can tell you some jokes when we meet.

What excites you the most about the future of the band?

Zaher Zorgati: Every album, we hope for the best for them, of course. And sometimes, of course, you have good expectations, sometimes you have deceptions. Like, “Karma”, for example, because it was a big mess with the leak. But, for example, with “Shehili”, it was a really good echo since its release. “Legacy”, of course, is one of the best echoes and returns about the album. And now, with the “Wilderness of Mirrors”, I hope it will make better echoes.

So every time we hope for the best, also in promotion, in music videos, in social media. We are very hopeful, but the market is very tough, very big, and there are good names, good bands, good challenges between the bands and so on. That’s why we could return to your first or second question. That’s why we try to innovate, we try to come up with new ideas, new forms of ideas and mixing, as we did now with the African sonorities and African sounds and stuff, which is not common in metal music, to be honest.

For myself, I’ve never heard a metal band play African-style music with metal. So I hope that we are the first. I hope people will receive it, because some people are very narrow-minded. They want to stick to the old albums; they don’t want to progress, which can also reveal our musical ego, because there are a lot of fans who want that kind of “Desert Core”, or “Tales of the Sun”, or “Hope” album. They want that band, they want that identity. But we have that small musician ego, which pops up to try to get out of this monotony, to innovate, and to refresh your music.

In a good way, of course. But it’s in a good way, because we do it for ourselves before we do it to the fans. So, if we are pleased, it’s normally relative. It will please the fans because it comes from the heart, it comes from the guts. And it sounds like these guys, I’m talking about Myrath, of course, the fan who will listen, he will certainly listen and say, “This is a huge work, this is like hard work. This song is so complicated, so rich, so different from the others. There’s no similarity.” So there is effort put into each album.

Are there any bands from Finland that you like, that you’re inspired by, that you listen to?

Zaher Zorgati: Actually, I like Beast in Black. I like Beast in Black so much, because we know the guys, we know the singer, Yannis, and we know Anton, the main mastermind behind Beast in Black. And Matias. So they are very, very nice, very humble people, and very good musicians and artists. So yeah, even though it’s not my type or genre of metal, I like the commitment of this band. I like Anton’s commitment; he was one of the first musicians to create that 80s style in this era. Because he has been doing this for many, many years, and it works. It works because of the band’s hard work, especially Anton’s. So I say hi to them.

Kévin Codfert: That’s funny, because I also wanted to talk about Beast in Black. I’m not a fan of this genre, but what I saw, because we toured with them, is the level of professionalism and the level of commitment to making sure the show is the best possible. And I think nowadays this is a good way to be a rock star. 20 years ago, the good way to be a rock star was to drink beer and this kind of stuff, and now it’s not working at all, this kind of stuff. You have to work on your computer for 10 hours a day because you have logistical tasks to handle. You have to go on stage to be prepared and to understand the music business with a real professional approach. And those guys understood.

Zaher Zorgati: And of course, if you speak about history and about being a fan, of course, Nightwish. There’s no doubt. Nightwish is one of the bands that motivated me and us, as band members, to follow their steps, their strategy, the way they work, and the way they innovate. Nightwish is one of the top-notch bands in metal history.

Which song from Wilderness of Mirrors would you choose to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest?

Zaher Zorgati: “Breathing Near the Wall“. Definitely, because it’s a kind of, let’s say, mid-temp, innovative African pop metal stuff we tried to create. And when we received the final mix from Jacob, we ended up with something strange, but I enjoyed it very much. So from my side, it would be this song.

Kévin Codfert: From my side, it would definitely be “Mama Africa“. But six minutes, it’s impossible for Eurovision, so we have to choose “The Funeral”.

Zaher Zorgati: For me, there are some songs that I like most, better than the funeral in the album, of course. But for Eurovision, definitely “The Funeral“. It’s the Eurovision song, definitely. I meant to say “Les Enfants du Soleil“, but I didn’t want to say it because I contributed a lot in the song. It’s maybe hard to understand for Eurovision guys because it has an intro, some storytelling, and an outro. It’s very progressive. That’s why I chose “The Funeral“.

Guys, thank you so much for this interview and for being such good sports. Is there anything else that you want to add to our viewers and readers?

Kévin Codfert: Yeah, we can’t wait to play and to meet you guys, and it will be the case. That’s funny, because on the poster for this previous tour, it’s written ‘first leg’. And a lot of people are saying, ‘You are not playing in Denmark; you are not playing in Finland.‘ And I told them, please read correctly. If it is written first leg, it means that we will do a second leg. So be a little bit patient. And it will happen very soon. So the second leg will take place in September or October of this year. And we will play a lot. I mean, it will be almost 40 gigs, I think. We will do the UK, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, and Belgium. And I think everybody will be happy.

Zaher Zorgati: Yeah, I can’t wait to sing the new album. I can’t wait to sing the whole new album.

Kévin Codfert: I’m not bothered about playing the new album. I have no issue. But some members think we should strike a balance between the new and the old, which can make sense, especially for the countries that missed Myrath because of COVID. And they are still waiting for “Shehili” and “Karma”. So it’s not a bad idea to find a balance. For the second leg, we will see because it will be a little bit different.

Zaher Zorgati: Yes, I think so. Because the first leg is mostly Eastern Europe, the second leg is Western Europe. And in Western Europe, we played in nearly all the cities mentioned. So it will be more of a new album than the old ones for the second leg, probably.