Progressive metal band Fallen Symmetry left an indelible mark on the Peruvian metal scene with their 2016 sophomore album ‘Renacer en la Tormenta’. ‘Rehenes’ (2022) shows the next step in the band’s evolution. Singer Gustavo Fernández Zaferson talks us through the musical journey of the band.

“We set out to make a better record than ‘Renacer en la Tormenta’”, Fernández explains. “Because ‘Renacer en la Tormenta’ was a very important record here in the metal scene. Our scene has its own classics. There was an official exhibition on Peruvian heavy metal at the Ministry of Culture here in Peru some time ago. There was a wall with some of the most renowned albums in our metal history. And among many others, ‘Renacer en la Tormenta’ was there. So the stakes were high for us.

And we knew it. We had changed a couple of members, and people who are part of our family – friends, fans, people who work with us – all asked: will these guys be able to do another album like that with the new musicians? We changed both guitarists, and the guitarists had a huge impact on ‘Renacer en la Tormenta’. It’s a very guitar-driven album. We didn’t even have a keyboard player at the time. ‘Rehenes’ has keyboards, which for me completes our sound. We have finally arrived at the complete sound of the band.”

Sensation

“Every album we have done has somehow been an evolution for the band. We take our time; we take three or four years to make a new album. There is a huge difference between our first album ‘Code Black’ and ‘Renacer en la Tormenta’. Maybe ‘Renacer en la Tormenta’ and ‘Rehenes’ are closer in sound, but it’s still another kind of sound.

Keyboards make it totally different. Many people don’t like keyboards in metal – and that’s fine. But for me, if you do it well, you can reach a sensation that can only be made with keyboards. We felt it was the final element missing in the band. Our three most important songs on ‘Rehenes’ all start with a keyboard riff: the first song ‘Alpha & Omega’, the title track ‘Rehenes de un Falso Paradigma’ and ‘Carta de la Tierra’.

The inclusion of keyboards, and especially our current keyboard player Frank Córdova, is amazing. He really put his stamp on the band with those compositions, right from the start. For me, it feels like we have finally found our own sound. ‘Rehenes’ is the way the band will probably sound in the future for me. That is our sound, and every step forward we will take is going to evolve from that.”

One Step Further

Interesting to note is that Fernández’ vocals continue to improve with every Fallen Symmetry release. “I have been lucky enough to work with people who have helped me very much to reach a more confident level of singing in a band with such proficient musicians”, he states. “For ‘Renacer en la Tormenta’, it was the producer of the album: Adolfo Gazzo, who is also the vocalist and producer of Peruvian power metal band Nautiluz.

Nautiluz is an outstanding band. Adolfo is so good at vocals, harmonies and getting you the right tone. He is a great producer. For me, the best producer in Peru. He helped me a lot on that one. I felt it was a step forward from ‘Code Black’. I just felt it was on a higher level.

For ‘Rehenes’, I was working on my vocals with Argentinian heavy metal singer Javier Barrozo. He played with bands like Lörihen and worked with Walter Giardino from Rata Blanca. Very important in Argentina and Latin America in general. We worked on the songs together; he was my vocal coach for ‘Rehenes’. He also had an impact on me to take it one step further. We also sing a song together on the album.

There are parts that are easy, and there are parts that are not so easy. You block yourself and you don’t know what to do. In such a situation, it is very important to have someone with a clearer mind who can lend you a hand. Someone that you trust. Javier Barrozo was perfect for that. The style he does is very similar to what we do, so I was working with the perfect vocal coach to get me out of trouble. A lot of the final result has to do with who I had as vocal coaches on both records. Kudos to them.”

Honest Feeling

As their band name and the title of their 2012 debut album ‘Code Black’ imply, Fallen Symmetry started out with Fernández singing in English exclusively. These days, however, most of the band’s lyrics are in Spanish. “That was a very painful decision”, the singer admits. “Since ‘Code Black’ was released, we had certain followers who were not Spanish-speaking people. And obviously, you make the world your audience when you sing in English.

But we had this strong revelation, if you want to call it that, that we should prioritize making it possible for every Peruvian to understand the lyrics that we were singing. Sometimes, I simply had the feeling that people didn’t understand.

That was an honest decision; it had nothing to do with business or strategizing. It was just an honest feeling that we had when we played our shows. We felt that people might want to understand the songs and the lyrics a little more. But we will always have one song in English on our albums.”

Fewer Words

On last year’s digital-only EP ‘Crónicas del Codigo Negro’, Fallen Symmetry even revisits a few songs from ‘Code Black’ with Spanish lyrics. “That was a challenge”, Fernández says. “Not only for me, because not only the lyrics have changed. The songs have been brought up to the current sound of the band. Even one or two riffs have been changed. That was the task: let’s bring those songs up to the sound we have now. I like the outcome; I think the songs are more interesting this way.

Lyric-wise, I did a very simple thing that allowed me to make the process much easier. Someone pointed out to me that on ‘Code Black’, I tended to have vocal melodies with too many words. And that got stuck in my head. One of my friends in Argentina told me: if you put fewer words in, you can play more with the melodies, and you will let the songs breathe.

Just that mental note alone made the translations to Spanish much easier. I thought: I’m going to sing the same thing, but with fewer words. I gave it some long hours, but it wasn’t impossible. I figured it out. And I loved it. It allowed me to play more with harmonies and vocal styles. It’s something I definitely will be using in the future.”

Full Circle

Many of Fallen Symmetry’s releases feature high-profile international guests. “After ‘Code Black’, we came up with the idea that on every album, we want to honor one of our heroes”, he explains. “The thing that makes me happiest about those collaborations is that with every one of them, the Peruvian metal scene gets to know more about them. Even with all the things those metal gods have done.

In some cases, they have ended up coming to Peru as solo artists because of the momentum of the songs we recorded with them. Our first big collaboration was with Zak Stevens from Savatage, Circle II Circle and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, who is a huge metal hero for us. We recorded the song ‘Fields of the Fallen’ with him. One year after that, he came to Peru to play at Lima Metal Fest. That year, they had Primal Fear and Rhapsody as headliners. Every other band was Latin American. But the promoter needed one more act. He thought of just bringing in an international singer and letting him work with a local band.

He chose Zak Stevens. And then magically, we were doing a one-and-a-half-hour show with Zak Stevens, playing Savatage, Circle II Circle and our song we recorded together. It came full circle. And then it happened again, with Mark Boals. And then again, last November, when we were touring in Argentina and ended up on stage with the two Argentinian singers who sing on ‘Rehenes’.

Somehow, it has always come full circle like that. And even though we don’t think it will always come full circle, every full-length Fallen Symmetry album will have a collaboration and an homage to one of our heroes. The final objective is to honor them.

Sadly, we do have some sort of rule in the band: after we have reached that full circle, that song is never played again until we meet with the collaborator again. So ‘Rehenes’ en ‘Aún en Pie’ will not be played live, because we have just played them with those guys in Argentina, and we will not play it again until we meet again. That’s the way we’re trying to make it something special.”

Crazy About Football and Music

When speaking to Fernández, the Argentine tour from 2023 is still fresh in his memory. “We were booked to play there in 2020 before the pandemic”, he explains. “So it’s good to finally have checked that box of playing in Argentina. It went very well. We were playing shows that somehow we knew would attract a lot of fans.

The first night, we were opening for Jezabel. They are great friends and an amazing band. They are the first generation of South American power metal, along with Angra and a couple more. Because they are such an important band, it was a huge honor. And it was awesome. People were coming from different places outside Buenos Aires to see the show. And Argentinians are crazy about their football and their music!

The second night was great too, because we were playing a festival called La Campana del Infierno. That was awesome. It was in an open field seven hours outside of Buenos Aires, with bands from Brazil, from Uruguay, from Chile… We were the only Peruvians. It was amazing to share that Latin American metal experience in Argentina. Very cool festival! I recommend it to every metal fan. We had a great place on the bill too: we played on Saturday night at 11 pm, right before the last band.

After that, we had to travel back to Buenos Aires, where we had to play on Sunday, at a rock place called Casa Colombo. We played with El Legado, Javier Barrozo’s new band. An amazing hard rock band with an eighties feel. We knew that people were going to come to the show, because there was anticipation for his new band. And we just had a great time promoting our stuff in Argentina.”

The Best Show on Earth

Fallen Symmetry’s music has brought them everywhere in Peru as well. “From what I have seen and experienced, there is metal in every corner of Peru”, Fernández states. “As crazy as that may sound. I took a course on music business in Canada. My teacher was a metalhead – and the rest of the class hated him for that. He always said: the only genre of music that can tour the world without being world-famous is metal.

If you put a metal band from anywhere in the world somewhere, there will be metalheads interested in seeing stuff they don’t know. They want to go to a show. If you can’t do a big show in front of fifty thousand people, many of those people will go and see some bands they have never heard of in their own regions. Because one: you love to spend your Friday or Saturday night listening to music. And two: you want to check it out because maybe they are good, and they are bringing merch, or an album that you will love.

Even if it’s very small, there is a metal scene in every part of Peru. The scenes outside Lima might not be that big, but it’s still a scene. In various places outside Lima, the crowds are good. They are not huge, but if you have 100 or 200 people going to your show and enjoying it, because that’s the way they want to spend their Friday or Saturday night, you have to make it the best show on Earth.

In Lima, I would say that overall, everything is two or three times as big. More shows, more lighting, more places to play, more bands… But every part of Peru has bands, a group of people that go to shows, promoters, bands and albums. There’s not one town here where you go outside and don’t see anyone at all who likes metal.”

Spirit

“I first became aware of hard rock and heavy music in the late eighties. I think I was eleven or twelve. More or less the age you get interested in music. What I heard on the radio was stuff like Bon Jovi, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Poison… That sort of music was everywhere. Then, as I grew up, came the upgrade: Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio, Metallica, Judas Priest… All those classic heavy metal bands.

Since then, I have been discovering bands I love in every era of rock and metal. Even bands today: you can put on an album from last year, from a band that has existed for less than five years, and it can blow your mind. I don’t close the door on new things. My spirit is the sound of the eighties, but I can definitely be impressed and influenced by what is going on right now.”

Soundtrack

When Fernández was discovering music, Peru was going through a difficult time. “Not only the economy; we had to deal with terrorism”, he emphasizes. “I lived on the seventh floor of a building in Miraflores with my parents. And two times, the windows exploded because of bombs nearby. It was that close. At that time, of course, it had an impact on my mental state.

Whenever I had a little money, I would get out of school around 3 PM, and get off the bus four or five blocks from where my parents lived. Miraflores is a very commercial area, and at the time, there were three record stores on the way to my house. I bought whatever was available in hard rock and heavy metal. There were quite a few things. More than now, even though we were going through a very difficult time and importing was not easy.

But you could always find a little Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Ronnie James Dio. So I took them all. And for those years, all I was, was a big fan. I would go to my room, put on the record, listen to it three or four times, and make up my mind about it. That became the soundtrack of those days for me. That music saved me a lot of times. And that made me a fan. What’s more important than that? If an album can do that for you, that’s your type of music. And you should be loyal to that.”