I spoke to Amie and Gemma from Dakesis at Bloodstock shortly after they played their set on the acoustic stage.
Festivalphoto: You’ve just played the Jaegermeister acoustic stage here at Bloodstock. How did you enjoy it?
Gemma: It was fantastic. It was so much fun, we had a great reaction, huge crowd, and it was just incredible really. It was our first time playing Bloodstock so it was really special for us.
Aimee: We come every year, we’ve been here since the dawn of time when it was indoor, and went through that transition, so to actually play is just amazing.
Festivalphoto: Have you done acoustic sets before or was this a new experience?
Gemma: We’ve not, no. Our frontman and drummer went to the pub and got drunk. He got a text from a friend asking if he knew anyone who wanted to do an acoustic set the next night, and they said ”yeah we’ll do it”, so they got up and jammed through a few songs at this tiny Thursday night acoustic night, and then literally a few weeks later we got offered Bloodstock. We were like ”we’ve never done this before, are we going to be able to do it”. Me and Amie have been in Germany for a week so we had very little time to practice everything. It’s very different but fun to change and adapt everything for the acoustic style
Festivalphoto: Were you at Wacken then in the mud?
Gemma: We were yes.
Amie: The first two days were like this (sunny) then the rest was torrential rain. An awful lot of mud
Festivalphoto: For anyone who isnt familiar with Dakesis, can you tell us a little bit about the band.
Gemma: We’re based in Birmingham. We’re not all female – the guys have gone off to get food, so just me and Aimee here at the moment. We’re a mix of prog and power metal and all the melodic end of the scale of metal. A bit tongue in cheek sometimes – when you’re singing in a genre thats high fantasy sometimes its very silly – Power Metal is silly. Although we take being in a band very seriously we don’t take ourselves seriously at all – Dakesis is fun and silly.
Festivalphoto: I do think some bands take themselves a bit too seriously sometimes
Gemma: You can’t sing about mighty forests and dwarven kingdoms with a straight face – you just can’t do that.
Festivalphoto:Have you got any tour dates coming up
Dakesis: We have. We’re going on tour at the beginning of September with Axenstar who are a Power Metal band from Sweden, and thats UK and going to be our first time in Scotland. We’ve actually got quite a good fanbase in Scotland even though we’ve never played there, so that’s going to be really exciting, to play for people who’ve been fans for a long time but never had the chance to see the band before. It’s mainly North – Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and some other places in between.
[NOTE: THIS TOUR HAS SINCE BEEN CANCELLED]
Festivalphoto: Have you got an album out?
Dakesis: We released our debut album in November last year so it’s still quite fresh really. It’s called ”Trial by fire”. The first three years of the band all went into this one album so we’re pretty proud of it and to have it out. We’ve started work on album two already and are hoping to have that out next year sometime.
Festivalphoto: Where can people get the album?
Amie: They can get it from us at www.dakesis.com or the usual place – amazon and iunes, all the online retailers.
Festivalphoto: When you buy albums, what format do you prefer – CD, download, vinyl?
Aimee: CD’s
CD’s Gemma: and Vinyl.
Amie: Definitely something physical you can hold in your hand. I also prefer to buy direct from the band as well. Until you’re in a band and understand the business side you don’t realise the difference between buying direct from a band and buying it from HMV or something. It’s nice to be able to support other bands and musicians
Festivalphoto: It’s also usually cheaper to buy from the band than to go into HMV.
Amie: Yeah, and you’re giving more to the band that way, you’re helping the music community.
Festivalphoto: What was the last album that you bought:
Gemma: It was the new Sabaton album, which is incredible
Amie: The new Ihsahn album.
Festivalphoto: Very different those two
Amie: We’ve got a very varied and eclectic taste in music
Festivalphoto: OK thanks very much for your time.
