By Mark Uricheck, Music Contributor, NEPAtoday.com
 

Joe Karavis is pleased with the response his band Beyond Fallen has received from other areas of Pennsylvania, and even Europe.

"The area that we're from though, it seems to be lagging a little bit behind" he says.

Watch out NEPA, because Karavis and his band are out to change things, with the release of their new CD of sonically brilliant, crushing, Dream Theater meets Slayer brand of heavy metal entitled "Lost in the 
Shadows".  He's optimistic; "hopefully this will kickstart things" he says.

Even if NEPA music fans haven't exactly been knocking down the band's door yet, the guys in the band wouldn't know it.  Since their inception two years ago, Beyond Fallen have been downright stalwart in their ideals.  They've forged ahead with their own sound and vision of what they believe is great metal, and they've refused to cater to mainstream musical tastes and adjust their sound to bring in a larger crowd.

Talking to Joe Karavis upon the release of the band's new CD, you get the feeling there is a renewed spirit within the band, and that the band's fortunes are about to change.

"We're trying to get a little more visible, in front of everybody with this record" says Karavis.  "We're getting played on the radio more, like in regular rotations at the college stations.  I'm also doing some 
on-air interviews at the stations, so we're trying to get more visible in that aspect".  Various local print media are set to cover the release of Beyond Fallen's new CD as well.

If Karavis' desire to gain more exposure on his home turf seems tenacious, it's not without warrant.

"When we go out and play, people will say to us 'where are you guys from?'.  We'll say 'we're from here' (NEPA), and they'll be like 'really?'; they don't know who we are.  So, obviously we haven't been 
doing a good enough job being accessible to the public.  People will come up and say 'I've never heard you guys before but the show was amazing'.  When you hear that, you know you're on to something pretty good.  But we'd still like to get a little more visible".

I had the chance to ask Joe Karavis a few questions about the band and the new CD recently.  Here's what Joe had to say.

NEPAToday: With "Lost in the Shadows", how did everything come together as far as writing and recording it?

Joe Karavis: Usually what we do is we write stuff on the spot. Sometimes the guys will bring in riffs.  Our music is really centered around really heavy, heavy riffs - stuff that will get heads banging. But often what we'll do is we'll stand there for hours and everybody will throw in ideas, which center around the riff.  We'll usually do that to get something on tape.   We'll have a basic structure of maybe a chorus and a verse, and I'll take it home and work with it.  I'll listen to it on my computer and come up with lyrics.  The riffs kind of paint a picture, when I hear the riff I think of a theme for the song. It just kind of flows, it's kind of spontaneous.  Then we really work on it and fine tune it.  By the time we get to recording it, we're almost sick of playing it.  We got done doing this CD, and we were were like 'let's write some new stuff'.  You're just listening to the stuff like 100 times.  But that's how it goes; it's pretty spontaneous, 
everybody has input, and it's like a song by song jam.

NEPAToday: So how did the addition of new drummer Tom Carden change the dynamic of things for the band this time around? Was it a big adjustment?

Karavis: It was a big adjustment in a positive direction.  We had about half of the album worked out and written before Tom got in the band, and the second half we did completely from scratch.  It really did change the dynamic, some of the things Tom does.  He does all kinds of stuff; progressive rock, progressive metal.  He's changed the dynamic of the band by coming in and doing the things he's doing,  and he's made everybody a lot better.

NEPAToday: It seems like on this record, and even on the last one, that you guys are more about the musicianship and the musical nuances than some other local bands.  Was that a result of your influences or is that a conscious effort?

Karavis: I don't think that it was really conscious that we were going to go out and do that, I think more than anything else we wanted to write an album that was metal, and what our interpretation of metal 
would be.  That's what we set out to do.  I don't like to be called  'old school' because I think some people are getting the wrong impression of the band.  You know, 'they're an old school metal band, they only play covers'.  Just because it's not just screaming doesn't mean it doesn't sound modern or it doesn't have a place in contemporary metal.  I think it definitely has it's place.  I think part of the problem when it first came out was we played some covers, and we got branded as that.  That's what we're trying to get away from.  But we still use the time tested things that metal is all about in our music. We think that it's going to have more staying power than things that are a flash in the pan.  Metal is timeless music.  You don't want to get stuck with a label, with nostalgia or something like that, because you'll become irrelevant.  I think the musicianship is very important.

NEPAToday: There's a great instrumental piece that opens "Lost In the Shadows".

Karavis: Yeah, having two guitar players in a band you can do alot of that stuff.  That was a combination of Steve (Jasuilewicz, guitarist) having one idea and Mike (Johnson, guitarist) having another.  Steve does the rhythm part behind it and Mike plays over it.  In one part, it almost sounds like violins playing.  You've got the guitar overdubs, it sounds really cool.  We thought it was a good idea to start the record out with something like that.  When we do it live, that's the way we do it. It sounds really good, how it comes across; it kind of builds.

NEPAToday:  I know that the band has a European distribution deal with Hellion Records in Germany.  How's the response to the band been from Europe?

Karavis: Everbody we've got feedback from has been positive.  You can go on our website and we've got comments there.  We've got more that are coming with this new disc.  We just mailed out promo copies.  The response to the first record was really positive.  With us, we don't even like the first one anymore.  You know, we've moved on to the next one.  The response from people overseas, it just seems like they're so knowledgeable about this type of music over there.  They write to us all the time.  We get stuff from Greece, Portugal, Belgium, all over the place. It's getting to be more and more.  I think the first disc was out for about a year I think before it started to get any response from over there.  It was the beginning of this year that we started to hear about it.  I guess some people got a hold of it, and passed it along, the it went to some magazines, things like that.  I'd like to take the band over there, it's just a matter of expense. You know, who knows what's going to happen.  Everybody says 'if you guys went over there you'd be great'.

NEPAToday:I know that you've been in a few other metal bands Joe, how does the Beyond Fallen experience measure up with your past band experiences?

Karavis: For me personally, the friendship that we have is probably better than with any other band I've been in.  The chemistry of the music is a lot better.  Different bands, I had different roles.  One band, I wasn't the primary songwriter - there was one main songwriter. In some ways, that's ok.  But if you notice, those situations only last for so long.  There will be one guy that does the writing, and other 
guys will come in - like interchangeable parts.  This is a pretty tight-knit group, I hope that it can continue.  Everybody works really hard, and we don't have any problems at this point.  In this band, 
everbody's holding it together.  They're all really good at what they do, and they're down to earth, friendly people.  When we get out and play, the band is really accessible.

NEPAToday:What does it take for a metal band, not only in this area, but anywhere to survive?

Karavis: That depends on what somebody's definition of surviving is. If you want to make money and live off of it, you're not going to do it doing what we're doing, around here.  What we've found though is 
there's so many fans of what we're doing, we just need to work a little harder at reaching them.  When people come out to see us, we make new friends every time we play.  So, we're hoping that the ball keeps rolling.  I don't know if there's a formula, we haven't quite figured it out yet, what's going to interest people.  We can look at other bands in the area and say 'ok, they're drawing people, let's do what 
they're doing', but that's out what we're about.  We're going to keep doing what we're doing.   We'll keep our focus.  It's rewarding for people to like what you're doing.  There have been times where people didn't know we were playing, they'd just been at the place where we were, and the response has just been unbelieveable.  If we could reach more people and they understand what we're doing, I think we're going to get a good base.

NEPAToday: What's been the best part of these last two years, and where would you like to see the band in another two years?

Karavis: Probably the best thing was when we finally got this album and these songs done, and then we went into the studio and started to record them.  They started to come to life, and we heard the sounds 
coming out of the speakers - it was just so rewarding.  After all the work the band put in, then we got a new drummer, we'd lost our practice space, Steve's dad had passed away right in the middle of us trying to do a lot of things, we had a lot of things going on.  For us to listen to that when it was finally done was so rewarding.  We worked so hard to be able to write those 10 songs, and we made them the best that we can make them.  That was the best, for us to have this CD and be able to share it with everybody.  In two years, I really don't know.  I hope that I'm still doing it, that I still have the enthusiasm and the energy.  Whether or not we're interational sensations really isn't a concern.  We just want to be able to make music, and people who know metal, we want them to give us the thumbs up.  When you get a thumbs up from those fans, you know you did something right.  If we could still be doing that in a couple years I'll be happy.
 

For more info on Beyond Fallen, "Lost In the Shadows", and the band's 
upcoming shows, visit www.beyondfallen.com, and 
www.myspace.com/beyondfallen.