Ever since their genesis in the late nineties, Agora has steadily grown to become one of the biggest metal bands in Mexico. Next on their to-do list is to reach an international audience. The first step towards that goal is ‘Empire’, an English-language version of their surprisingly heavy 2020 release ‘Imperio’. Singer Eduardo Contreras and drummer Eduardo Carrillo sat down with me to tell me more about this initiative, as well as some important episodes from the history of the band.

“We got the idea to do an English-language album long ago”, Contreras explains. “In 2005, we recorded English versions of two songs that we did on our record ‘Zona de Silencio’, which have never been released. The idea of doing some more songs or a record in English started from there, but we never had the time or the budget to do so.

I’ve been singing in English my whole life. When you start a band and you’re playing songs from Metallica, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Skid Row… Those are all English-speaking singers. So that part really wasn’t that hard. It was very natural for me. And now I feel more confident, because I realize the world is quite tolerant of a slight Spanish accent. That makes me feel really comfortable to sing in English right now.”

“Since we’ve heard this kind of music, it’s always in English”, Carrillo agrees. “Even here in Mexico, just a few bands sing in Spanish. Most of the bands here sing in English, so I think it’s going to be easier to start with English and then translate it into Spanish.”

From Zero

The translations for ‘Empire’ have been done by the band itself, with some outside help. “We did it with a friend who is an American native”, says Contreras. “We’ve also had a lot of friends listening and giving us directions and opinions. The subjects that we write our lyrics about are not very common, so the translation was a very, very hard thing to do.”

“A lot of metaphoric stuff”, Carrillo nods.

“That’s it”, says Contreras. “A lot of images. But we did our best. The next record is going to be English and then Spanish, I guess, haha! You can match the syllables pretty easily. Maybe we can do it so that the song doesn’t have to have the same subject in English as it has in Spanish. That can be a way. Either way, it’s going to be a great addition to our career.”

Because crossing the border is necessary in order to make the next step in Agora’s career. “In Mexico, we are already at the top”, states Contreras. “I don’t want to brag, because we’re not the richest or the most important band in the country, but we did everything we could in Mexico. And so we need to try another market. See other people. And if that’s Europe, which we are really pumped about, then that’s great. We want to play at Wacken, Download or Hellfest, but if we have to play a bar, we will be there.”

“We know that we’re going to start from zero”, Carrillo assures. “That’s a reality. And if we can reach some of those festivals, that would be cool. But we WANT to do this. We love playing in front of our audiences in Latin America, but this is something we have to do.”

Finding Gold

The English lyrics aren’t the only first on ‘Empire’. It is also the first album Agora recorded without a keyboard player in the line-up. “From the beginning of the band, we have always had keyboards as a part of the arrangements”, Carrillo nods. “We used to have an amazing keyboard player, but our guitarist Manuel Vázquez, Nat (Contreras’ nickname) and I have always had something to say about the keyboards. So it’s not so difficult that we have to compose all the keyboard parts for the album ourselves. In fact, Manuel and I both make music for media, movies, tv and commercials, so we are used to keyboards. We have to orchestrate a lot of things and we have participated in the keyboard compositions from the beginning.

Of course, the other thing is that we recorded two tracks with Derek Sherinian. Imagine that! We were looking for silver and we found gold. On the song ‘Colossus’, ninety percent of the keyboard arrangement is from Sherinian. The other one, ‘In the Name of Destruction’, is a co-collaboration. Sherinian did some things and the band did the other fifty percent of the song.

He works so quickly! We’re going: maybe you could try to do something more or maybe this harmony or try something different. And five minutes later, he sends us the next files. It was an amazing experience. I really love the sound he put on the album. In fact, I could do it again, haha!”

“I guess he does all things like that”, adds Contreras. “He jams a lot. And so we had to figure out how to put that jamming in our songs. But it was amazing. For my taste, he is the best keyboard player in Dream Theater. Because of his vibe, his sound. Jordan Rudess is a monster, he’s an alien. But this guy is more of a rockstar and I really like that.

He put something on his social media, telling everyone that if they want him to play on their record, just let him know. So we did and he agreed. I guess he won’t accept every amateur band, but Lalo (Carrillo’s nickname) and Manuel were basically speaking the same language as him, so it was amazing.”

Playing live without keyboards demands a little more creativity. “We are playing with a clicktrack and a sequencer”, says Carrillo. “In a lot of songs we can even leave out the keyboards and it’s still going to be okay. But if the song really needs the keyboards, we have the clicktrack available.”

“Even for the solos there is a solution”, Contreras assures. “The guitarists are playing the keyboard solos in ‘En la Nada’, for example.”

United

Apart from now being short of a keyboard player, Agora has had a very stable line-up throughout their career, not having had any other line-up changes for nearly two decades. Carrillo in part attributes this to a very tragic chapter in the band’s career. “We had a very serious traffic accident in 2006”, he explains. “We were going to tour and believe me, we very nearly lost our lives. Everybody got hurt. Everybody needed surgery.

The time to recover was about a year, a year and a half. Suddenly, you stop talking about music and the band. Suddenly you have to ask your friend: how are you? Are you okay? Can I help you? All our families were involved with this situation as well. I think this accident really changed the dynamics in the band.

Of course we sometimes get angry with each other, but I don’t know, man… When you see your friend lying on the highway without knowing what to do and without a cell phone that can help us… It’s tough. But I think it also made the band very tough. Very united. I think we can take a lot from each other, because we know there is something more important than the band. It’s a family! A very good family. In fact, if we’re not on tour, the first people I think about is them. I’m not tired of seeing them. I enjoy their company.”

“Our van with us and all our equipment in it got hit”, Contreras clarifies. “It was around 5 AM. Doing the trip at night was a very bad idea, but our promotor was with us and said he was doing this trip all his life. And as a matter of fact, this time, the trip took his life. Everyone else was hurt, but we all survived. It was a really serious thing that made us stop for a year and a half.

Everyone has a job apart from the band, so we could live our lives as normally as possible for that time, but the band was never out of our minds. We did our acoustic album ‘Silencio Acústico’ in this period. It was a very hard time for the band, but we got out stronger.”

This was also the time when the band’s song ‘Renacer’ took on a whole new meaning. “We needed air ambulance, because we were out of Mexico City”, says Carrillo. “A lot of our fans collected money for us by selling things. “Renacer” means “reborn”, so when we came back, everybody knew: this song now means the rebirth of the band.”

“They took that song like a hymn”, Contreras nods. “We end every show with that song and the crowd always goes nuts.”

Substance

While the aforementioned ‘Silencio Acústico’ may be a bit of an anomaly in the band’s discography, Agora is a truly progressive metal band in the sense that they consistently refuse to release the same album twice in a row. “That is the most important thing to us”, Carrillo states. “That’s also the issue that causes most of the arguments, haha! We always try to find something new. We listen to a lot of music. I think Eduardo is always the channel that maintains Agora being Agora.

All music is so immediate now. If you release an album now, it will already be old next week. As a musician, you have to make music like a machine. And I think music suffers from that. I’m a romantic. You have to live some things, you have to suffer some things, so you can put them in your music. If you want to make hit after hit after hit, it’s okay, but it will start sounding the same after a while, because you are not experiencing anything new. You will only be repeating yourself.”

The biggest change on ‘Empire’ is the greater degree of heaviness caused by the seven and eight string guitars. “When it came to composing the melody lines for this one, it was hard for me to hear the vocals in such a low range”, Contreras admits. “It’s tough to do something different every time, to have another way to express somethings that you never did and maybe are difficult to you. But that’s what gives the music some substance too.”

It helps that the band members aren’t alone. They get involved with each other’s parts. “When we recorded ‘Zona de Silencio’, I’ve seen these guys argue for hours over two bars”, Contreras grins. Carrillo adds: “If another band member wants me to play a certain part on the drums, he has the confidence to talk to me about that and vice versa. But we’re musicians and we have our egos, so sometimes it might be difficult. But if we argue, we can open a beer later and everything is okay.”

“We always think in dynamics”, Contreras states. “We have ballads, progressive metal songs, even hard rock songs. That gives us different ways to communicate with people. Compared to our earliest work, we wanted to be a heavier band. ‘Empire’ might just be the heaviest Agora is ever going to be.

We’ve been playing with different bands as an opening act. Recently, we have played with Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard. So for that, we wanted to be able to put together a set that isn’t quite as heavy. That is another reason why our songs and albums are so dynamic. When you play a gig where you aren’t the headliner, you have to adapt the setlist. And another day, you are playing with Carcass or Morbid Angel. Or Symphony X. We have the tools to make people engage.”

Movement

However, it is not the constant search for new musical perspectives that causes the relatively long breaks between Agora albums. “Mexico doesn’t have a very strong national metal band fanbase”, Contreras points out. “So to promote an album really well, you can’t just take a year. You have to take a minimum of three years to play in every part of the country where you have to play. And it’s not because of the distance. Fans simply might not have gotten the chance to listen to your album yet, so you have to go and show them your music.”

“Mexico is a great market for metal music”, Carrillo emphasizes. “We have big festivals. And if foreign bands come to play in Mexico, it will either be sold out or there will at least be a lot of people. But it’s different when you’re a Mexican band. And I’m not complaining, because Agora is one of the bands that can play in front of a lot of people, but it’s not the same, man. If Epica, Helloween or Lacrimosa comes, it’s going to be a huge show. And the fans are amazing. But as a national band here in Mexico, you have to put in double the effort.”

The band has seen the Mexican music industry become more professional since their start in the late nineties. “There are bigger budgets for each production and the world has gotten smaller and smaller”, Carrillo explains. “When we started out, there was nothing. Just a few heavy metal concerts, but in the underground. There is a movement here of people who like heavy metal now and it has become a little business. Not the biggest business, but a business nonetheless. I’m not saying the Mexican scene is the best in the world, but I can tell you there are bands here who can be compared favorably to the international bands. Endorsements and other ways of building relationships between musicians and brands can help the scene become bigger and more professional.”

Listen to ‘Empire’ right here: