Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood impacted your musical direction?
A: I’m Adam (Djensen), singer and guitarist of Arcade Stories. I work as a mechanical fitter for a day job, and I’m also a father. Music played a big part of my childhood, I would get hold of CDs and just obsess over the ones I liked. I really liked Nirvana growing up, then the older kids in my street introduced me to bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden. Going through school I started getting into heavier stuff, like Slayer and Slipknot. Vol. 3: Subliminal Verses was actually the first album I bought myself! With all this musical inspiration I was keen to play music, I wanted to play drums at first but it was too expensive. At the age of 16 I ended up starting on acoustic guitar, and I’ve been playing ever since!
Q: How are you planning on growing your fan base and sharing your music with the world? What message do you have for anyone who is about to discover “Arcade Stories”
A: We’ve been trying to utilise social media more to share news and new releases, as well as trying to get on as many playlists as we can! To anyone about to discover Arcade Stories, I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed producing it!
Q: Who is the most inspiring artist for you right now? And where do you find inspiration for making music?
A: It’s so hard to pinpoint the most inspiring artist for me, but if I had to pick it would be Northlane. Not only for their amazing talent but putting Australian metal on the world stage, they are killin’ it right now. I think we find inspiration for making music from the bands we look up to releasing awesome music and the bands we’re mates with doing the same. It’s this drive in the scene that motivates everyone to keep it alive by releasing great quality music.
Q: Can you tell us about the story or message behind the song, “Attack Sequence.”
A: The theme of Attack Sequence is mankind’s ability to create ever more advanced weapons and methods to cause destruction. The alien theme came from the idea of “what if we discovered aliens and they were the same as us, what would we think?”. The chorus lyrics for example are “We’re searching for nothing, an end that can’t be seen”, a search for power that will result in nothingness, and the unpredictability in doing so. “Don’t waste your breath on me, our vision is complete”, we can’t be told to stop, either because of cultural inertia, distrust or instinct.
Q: How would you describe your sound in one word for potential listeners?
A: Electric
Q: Did you face any challenges while writing or recording “Attack Sequence”?
A: While writing the vocals I had the chorus finished, but ended up completely changing it. Then it was a challenge to decide which version we liked better! The chorus vocals utilised a different technique than I’m used to, it took a lot of tea and honey to get it right.
Q: What is the message of your music? And what are your goals as an artist?
A: Our aim is to deliver intriguing music, when writing lyrics for a song I think of it like writing a short story. Our goals right now are to keep producing songs that our fans will love! And to get our music heard by as many people as possible.
Q: Who is your dream artist to collaborate with? (dead or alive)
A: Chino Moreno
Q: What is your advice for people interested in pursuing music as a career or for those trying to enter the industry?
A: Don’t wait to get started. Pick up the instrument you want to play and get writing! If you make a mistake, don’t beat yourself up, try and learn from it to put on a better show for next time.
Q: If you could go back in time and give a younger you some words of wisdom, what would they be?
A: I took a hiatus from music for a couple of years in my 20s, I would try to stop myself doing that! If you don’t use it you lose it, I had to re-train my vocals and it felt like I forgot a lot of the music production side of things.
