The latest interview with Cellador founder Chris Petersen posted via True Metal Lives has been transcribed and posted here to our site for all mobile users to view. We were informed the version posted on True Metal Lives was difficult for mobile users to access.

Cellador interview: Chris Petersen

By: Matt Coe

What was your childhood like as far as music – who pushed you into the metal realm and eventually picking up an instrument to begin playing?

Chris Petersen: Well in my immediate family there isn’t anyone who is musically inclined at all, sucks to say. I got into playing the guitar when I was a teenager, about 15 years old. I had a circle of friends – five of us growing up from junior high school going into high school. We just got into metal music- sort of the more American stuff that we could find. This was right around the turn of the millennium, the 2000’s so the internet was around. From there through the internet we moved from mainstream metal to the more underground style bands.

Soon after getting into the music genre a couple of us wanted to play instruments, in particular I had one friend named Andy got a guitar for Christmas. That was the first of my close friends who got an instrument. I purchased my guitar from another friend as he got a guitar and an amp for his birthday, he didn’t stick to it. I started noodling on Andy’s guitar, so this second friend I purchased his guitar and amp for like 80 bucks. I dove into it head first, I was very adamant about wanting to learn. The first three years I was playing every single day. It was the thing I had going on at the time.

Within a year I started playing in my first band, which was just high school kids. I always took it seriously as early as I can remember.

Cellador began in 2003 under a different name Apostate in Omaha, Nebraska. Did you find it a challenge gathering the right musicians with the same outlook and abilities in that area compared to say acts developing from New York and California?

Petersen: Yes, it’s always been a challenge and has never really let up! (laughs). The difficulty is finding the right kind of guys for this type of music- which by the way, this more melodic European style bands, power metal… all of my high school friends I had were starting to get into two-three years starting to play the guitar. Since I was 18 I was trying to form a band like Cellador. It’s always been sort of an uphill climb to find people who like a similar style of music who are competent in their instrument and who have the time, motivation, and ability to take it to a band and actively play, actively record, and actively push this music on a worldwide basis.

I don’t think it gets any easier- we initially started in the mid-west and that put things at a difficult level being in a mid-sized city. Even when we moved to Denver, Colorado- the metal scene is quite a bit bigger but still, it doesn’t matter what genre it is it all depends on what you are looking for and to find people around every corner to play this type of music is a challenge. I think the whole country as a whole- let’s say the last time we needed a guitar player, or even before I started to sing when we were looking for another singer, we always keep the entire country into consideration. We have a member now who lives in California. I have an idea of where this music is more popular than elsewhere, but it’s a niche style of music no matter where you go. As long as you are persistent you can keep the band together.

What memories do you have surrounding your first two demo releases “The Burning Blue” and “Leaving All Behind” in 2004 and 2005?

Petersen: “The Burning Blue” question comes up a lot. That was basically a self-produced demo. They were recorded pretty much live, we mic’d the drum set and all of our amps, plus our singer at the time. We did that at our rehearsal space, the first one was 8 songs or so. Four or five of them were recorded that way, even way before that we recorded one song in a studio that was in Lincoln, Nebraska. The guy was a friend of our bassist’s at the time. That was a miscellaneous demo of a demo- I don’t even remember if we sold those or just gave those out. They were just CD’s we made ourselves, I put the artwork together. “Leaving All Behind” was self-recorded, I purchased some recording equipment- that was more in the style of a traditional studio recording even though we did it at our rehearsal space. Doing the drums first, tracking guitars, like a normal recording. That’s the first demo we became known for, we started selling it at shows, the one that Metal Blade got ahold of back in the day. That was a starting base for us- we put that online. The early people who heard of us know that better than “The Burning Blue” demo.

You signed with Metal Blade who released the “Enter Deception” full length in 2006, which made quite an impression on the scene as many considered you as complementary to Dragonforce, while I believed you had the songwriting talent to separate from the pack. How do you feel about the recording, production, and performances this many years down the road?

Petersen: I am really proud of the album, given a lot of the circumstances that went into how it was recorded. We were kids at the time- our drummer was only 16 years old, he was literally still in high school, and the rest of us were 20 years old, give or take. When I look back at that album now, I’m immensely proud of it, speaking as somebody who wrote the songs and recorded on it, I also never considered it as similar to Dragonforce as everybody always gave us (that comparison). Like a lot of people, I have a lot of different influences both extreme and melodic, and I had this idea of trying to combine them. I was a Dragonforce fan, I think I was one of their early fans, I liked what they were doing but I wanted to do something organic, much heavier, something more raw with an energy.

We were a lot younger back then, given the immaturity levels that we had at the time, the fact that we were able to put it together and the raw emotion you can feel from that album, it’s something to be really proud of. Being all these years, I still hear from fans on that CD. With the amount of time that happened after the release and then not putting out another product for a while, it almost feels like the album developed sort of a cult following. I think we did top it with this new CD, but it’s going to be up to the fans to truly decide. For Cellador fans who are waiting for our new album, it’s going to be hard to topple that first album.

There would be a 5 year break between releases as “Honor Forth” came out independently in the fall of 2011, with you also taking over on vocals while playing guitar and bass for the EP. Can you explain some of the circumstances surrounding your hiatus, relocation, and lineup changes? Is this the reason why Metal Blade didn’t release a second full-length?

Petersen: Yes. Looking back on that, we had a lot of plans that we were about following up “Enter Deception”. We were working with a management company that Metal Blade had helped set us up with that was a month to month probation to watch us develop. They had a lot of interesting things to tell us, opportunities and what not. Ultimately I think the attitudes of the band members, we just couldn’t hold it together. Everybody was ambitious, but just in their own way. All the band members had their idea of where they wanted to take the band to the next level with the next album. We couldn’t keep it together- I think Bill was the first to go, we weren’t getting along, he wanted to move on.

In the short term after that happened, we thought things were coming back together after we found another guitar player, but then the singer and drummer went off to do their own thing as they weren’t really feeling what we were doing with Cellador anymore. They wanted to move into a different direction musically, we weren’t communicating very well. It sucks how it went down, I wish it was a cut and dry thing, but the reality was communication just sort of gradually started drifting away. I in particular was discussing with the record label where we were going to record the second album, the time frames, I started having two different guys who were in the loop about recording and producing the record, it was getting more and more difficult to communicate with the band members to make it work.

Ultimately it came to one day where I couldn’t get ahold of any of these guys- they made it very obvious that they were done without specifically saying it. That was about the time where I wanted to reform the band with different members. At that point it was time to relocate- I moved out to Denver in 2009. And it wasn’t just me- there was still two members of the band that were part of the band. Nobody else ended up coming out, and I wasn’t going to get in touch with the label until I have a materialized, definitive lineup ready to go and recordings, because I didn’t want to let them down. We had tours we had to cancel, we had recording time scheduled and we couldn’t leave up to that expectation, so I thought it would be a good idea to not get in touch until I had things I could show them with the lineup, here are the songs.

It took longer than expected, we were going through members. Guys auditioning in town and elsewhere. I had a false start in 2010, that was kind of when the songs for “Honor Forth” were starting to be written. I was already demoing vocals on all the songs, at the time I wasn’t thinking I was going to be vocalist yet- or ever. “Honor Faith” EP started to come together when I was in Denver. We started rehearsing those initial songs in 2010, I started tracking them in 2011, and by that point I was starting to find the members that are in the band now. Nick and James, the drummer and bassist respectively, I found them together right at the tail end of 2011. They heard me on the vocals, we found a guitar player Caleb. I met Diego the keyboardist online earlier in 2010. We started finishing up the EP and hung onto it for a little bit, as we were hoping to find a vocalist to replace my vocal tracks. We auditioned many guys and it got to a point in 2012 where we were ready to go, the band discussed this and James knew I just had to record the vocals. I knew I could sing, but I didn’t know how I was going to sing and play guitar at the same time. I didn’t have that ability yet. We stopped looking for vocalists- it was a six year endeavor to find the next Cellador singer. We had a real hard rehearsal schedule starting in late 2012- four days a week, every single day and we would rehearse these songs and I did my best to expedite I guess the learning to sing and play at the same time. It got to the point where it was competent in 2013, and that’s when we started playing out shows. We kept the vocal tracks and officially released the EP then, passing it along.

Are Nick’s health issues under control- as it seemed very serious in November that his stomach virus almost cost him the ability to drum ever again based on his description of the events on social media?

Petersen: Yeah, I think Nick is the guy in the band who has nine lives. He has had a few run ins now. I guess that turned out to be a stomach virus that just went overboard, he had to be hospitalized for a day or two but he didn’t lose any ability to drum or long term never damage. It was a scare where he was drifting in and out of consciousness with a fever. At least that was the last he was telling me, we’ve been practicing since then and he seems back up to speed. A year ago he cut his hand really bad too, and we had that posted up there too. He healed from that as well. He has some neck and joint injuries from when he was in a car accident a while ago, that is probably more of a cause of concern. I hope he’s okay, he seems okay right now.

You have another full-length on the horizon for 2016 release. What can people expect from Cellador and how do you believe the band has evolved over the course of your decade long-plus endeavors? Will this be another self-released effort or are there possibilities as far as a record deal on the horizon, either stateside or abroad?

Petersen: We are very close, and I know we’ve been saying this all year. I can tell you right now, as far as I know it is going to be released worldwide. I can’t quite announce the means of which yet, but hopefully very soon there will be something about that. The album is basically- the production is exactly how I was trying to get on Enter Deception. It’s really polished, the drumming is top-notch – it was recorded at a much more leisurely pace. In fact this album took us a good 6 months to finish from start to finish. We paced ourselves a little bit better- we did the tracking in a home studio so we were much more meticulous this time. With Enter Deception, we had the 4 track EP that ended up on the album and I had basically 5-6 months to completely write and do pre-production on the other 4 songs. Not to mention going into the studio and getting everything done in a period of three weeks. It felt a little more rushed. This one was a lot slower, we recorded things exactly how we wanted them to sound. We nitpicked on what material to use and what not to use- whereas with Enter Deception, we missed at least one song as one song didn’t make it and another song didn’t make it past pre-production.

Let’s change the riffs, the leads, we have huge choir vocals on these songs- there are 9 vocal tracks on every song. We were able to layer the vocals on this one and make them sound really good. Everything sounds pristine. I think the songs are more varied on this CD- I know a lot of bands say that, and sometimes it can be a good or bad thing. I can tell you that the songs being varied is nothing but a good thing for us. The songs are still intense and heavy, fast- but I think the Dragonforce comparison from the previous album is not going to be as prevalent on this one. A lot of different elements going on, and it’s going to be nothing but a positive gain for us. We will be announcing very soon all the details of the new album.

How do you view Cellador in terms of live performances versus the studio? What have been some of your favorite places to play or particular shows/festivals?

Petersen: We sound live how we sound on (the) recordings, I can say that. We want every element to be top notch, all the leads, all the riffs, all the energy. We want the tempos to be there, we don’t want things to be slowed down live. We want to emulate how the recordings sound – the recordings are 100% how the band should sound in my opinion. Translating to live, we want them to sound as close to the recording as possible. We have played all over – going back to Enter Deception into breaking into the Denver, Rocky Mountain club scene in Colorado, we’ve played small clubs to 1,200 capacity theaters here in Colorado- and back in the day too. We did a tour of 2014 with Hatchet and Exmortus that took us all through Texas, Oklahoma, all through the West Coast, Arizona, Utah, California. We saw some iconic metal venues and played some smaller stages as well. We have a lot of equipment for a five-piece band- huge Marshall stacks, and a huge eight-piece drum set so we prefer at least medium size stages so we can move around and get all of our equipment up there. We like intimate venues where people can sort of spread out. I would say the Marquee Theater here in Denver we have supported a lot of national bands there, and I would say that’s an appropriate size venue for us to play as one of our favorites.

What is your opinion of the heavy metal scene and community currently? Where do there need to be changes, modifications, improvements for the future generations to keep the movement alive and kicking?

Petersen: You know I think it has changed, especially given the great prevalence of streaming music online. MP3’s in general are ubiquitous to music in general where 10 years ago it was still a big, major thing. It’s become the only standard versus when a band first started on a national level. I think the metal scene has declined, I think it reached a new level or a mini-peak when Enter Deception came out. Maybe it was just because all this stuff was new to us and we were doing national tours, we had all sorts of press on our minds and we were paying attention. The Myspace format was a big thing, magazines… there was a mini-resurgence, at least with power metal. There is a Facebook group now called the US Power Metal Connection that I am now a member of, that’s a vibrant community of people. It’s a discussion of melodic metal bands from all across the world- I don’t think this style of music will ever disappear. It’s so niche and underground – whenever a genre of music stays like that, those are the people who continue to buy CD’s, they buy vinyl- that format is more popular now than when our first album came out. As long as you have those sorts of attitude where people can communicate, discuss, share bands that they’ve found… people said in the late 1990’s metal went into a huge decline, I was pretty young so I wasn’t a part of the scene yet. The similarity may be that the people who stay into the scene become that much more pure of a fan, much more entrenched in the genre. It’s a quality versus quantity. You could have tons of fans who have heard about you, or a small handful of fans who are completely devoted to. I see a few bands who have this, they are in a similar style as us.

Power metal as a genre has a worldwide following, but often seems to be considered more of a ‘red-headed step child’ in terms of support stateside, while extreme, thrash, or symphonic metal gain steadier support. Any theories you may have regarding this?

Petersen: Right, and I notice that even more. I still love the genre, I love all the same bands and have all the CD’s- since I’m older I can see more of that description. So be it- if that’s the nature of the fans of the genre, they are very devoted fans and we don’t discriminate to our fans. No matter what the stereotype is- one benefit you can be proud of is once you make a fan in this style they seem to be very devoted. They read your lyrics, they still buy CD’s, they follow you more on an online basis. I can see where the ‘red-headed step child’ concept comes from. Another thing is we don’t mention the term power metal- we mention melodic metal or melodic speed metal, I don’t think we are a straight up, power metal influenced band. I do like a lot of thrash metal bands too- the first couple of years when I was playing guitar all I wanted to play was Slayer, Metallica, and Megadeth and other underground thrash bands. I didn’t get into the Stratovarius and Helloween style bands until after that. I guess it’s just, you could be right on the fan base… but I can see the benefit from it.

Do you still keep in touch with any of the ex-members of Cellador like Bill Hudson or Michael Gremio (aka Michael Smith), and are you happy for their successes in other endeavors? What have all the lineup shifts taught you that makes the current lineup stronger for Cellador?

Petersen: Yeah, I do keep up with both of those guys now. Bill actually filled in for us when we needed a guitar player for a show we did in April. He flew out and we are in steady communication. Mike as well, I know him better on an online basis. We did get together about a year and a half ago when I went back to the town where he lives now. There was a period of time where there was some bitterness there, that’s for sure between certain members. It’s water under the bridge now, it’s kind of like an ex-girlfriend where the bitterness dries up and you think of it as a past event. You think of things you had in common and the experiences that you were able to share together. The things you have in common, both being into the same type of music and both being musicians.

They support what I am doing now with the band. I am proud of their successes too- Bill is doing a lot nowadays. It sounds like he has stopped drinking a couple of years ago and he’s put his best foot forward in the industry. He’s played with several well-known bands and with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which is pretty mind blowing actually. I think Mike also was doing White Wizzard for a little while, he got do a couple of European tours and a few festivals, things like that. Obviously they are both world-class musicians as well.

Who do you consider some of the most important players in metal that helped shape your outlook on guitar, songwriting, or overall output?

Petersen: I used to be a huge Megadeth fan and still to this day I am intrigued with Dave Mustaine. I still follow all of his career, so if I had to boil it down to one person, he’s my favorite guy in mind. Megadeth is still one of my favorite bands and I still think they are as relevant as ever. He’s got an abrasive personality, but I know he’s a success.

What activities or hobbies do you like to pursue in order to re-charge your musical batteries so to speak when you have the free time to do so?

Petersen: Fitness and nutrition is one- I am very into weightlifting, staying healthy and staying fit. It’s probably as important to me as music itself. I do a lot of other things in addition to music- I work in a finance related field kind of doing my own thing in that regard now. I read a lot, I like to travel, stay outgoing and stay social.

How do you envision the 2016 year to go for Cellador activities – are there any plans for videos, possible festival appearances, special guest appearances anywhere, etc.? Are there any immediate touring plans to support this new release – and will it be more of a series of regional tours or do you hope to hook up on some longer touring situations?

Petersen: The world is 100% our playground, I can tell you that. We’ve had prospects, we’ve been working with our management for the last two years and like I said, we’ve had some delays. I think 2016 is going to be a definitive year for the band. We are real close to releasing our album- we do have prospects in mind for a video, and we are talking about that right now. We had a couple of festival offers in 2015 that we couldn’t solidify for logistic reasons. Our agent is waiting on the release to put things together- I am confident to say you can see us on the road 100% in the United States, and we have new ties in Europe and it’s fairly safe to say I wouldn’t be surprised in some European ventures coming up this year as well. This is finally the year where we jump back onto the world stage.