Frozen Crown - We sure choose to be more ‘into you face’, yes. But we are not a band who completely change our direction to something that is not Frozen Crown anymore

Italian band Frozen Crown is one of the world's most famous bands in the genre. With over 18M YouTube plays, 25K Spotify followers and 5M streams, this formation is at the top of power metal. 'Winterbane' is their new third album and features 'haunting melodies, tasteful riffs, speedy guitar leads and catchy refrains in an outstanding mix of classic heavy metal, aggressive modern day power metal and captivating female vocals' .
The first two albums 'The Fallen King' and 'Crowned In Frost' showed a more symphonic side of the band.
A new record, 'Winterbane', was recently released, you can read its review here 
Following this release, we had a nice conversation with vocalist Giada "Jade" Etro , of course it was also about the pandemic and future plans.

For our reads who don’t know you , who is Frozen Crown, how did it all started?
Frozen Crown is a band from Italy, we play heavy power metal, very classic from some point of  view. We started back in 2017. Federico Mondelli, who founded the band, was looking for a singer. He made some auditions  and I won the contest (haha) We started writing songs, for the first cd and we found other members to make the band complete, that’s how it started.

Why Power metal? Not that there is something wrong with that of course …
Frederico had the desire to write heavy power music, because it’s just the kind of metal he always loved. But you can also hear a lot Swedish melodic death metal in our sound. That he put in the new album.  Soo he found the singer that also love that kind of metal. I grow up with bands like Blind Guardian. But I also liked the power of voices like Floor Jansen, who is nog singer of Nightwish. We both walking together in this direction. It’s just a way we both always loved.

I like the band because it’s not just strictly power metal, that you say Nightwish is a good example I think.
Something else, the band has announced that they’re parting ways with Thalìa Bellazecca (guitars), Alberto Mezzanotte (drums) and Filippo Zavattari (bass)  through social media. The three members decided to leave Frozen Crown last year in order to focus on their personal projects. I think this was a very difficult time, how did you survive this as band?
They took the decision to leave the band in 2020. We announced end of the year, but it was something that happened true severely months. For us it was not this big problem, because we had the time to work on new solutions and found some great new members. Like Fabiola "Sheena" Bellomo , Francesco Zof and Niso Tomasini. We are very happy with the new members because they are a breath of fresh air in the band. That’s why we could make this album with new energy, new power and in the end we are happier than ever.

Next to this, what are the highs and lows till now?
The only thing is. Like everyone, this corona virus is sure a low moment because you missing the gigs and contact with fans and things. That’s for every band the same I guess. That was the hard part of our story so far. The interesting thing is we decided to take the contest with our fans in a other way. We were aware from the fact that we needed to find a way to let them know we still alive. We open our own YouTube channel where we publish almost weekly some new video interact with them. We making some live streams, we can chat and we publish some video’s where we undercover about the process of writing songs and things like that , too keep in contact with the fans.

https://www.youtube.com/c/FrozenCrown/featured

In a lot interview bands and artists say they don’t like doing streams of live streams. But you did it? Why?
We never did concerts on live streams, we just made some acoustic sessions of what we were busy with. The ‘live streams’ we made where more chats with band members and fans.. something complete different than a concert on live stream. Soo I agree what you say about making a live streaming of concerts, I understand why other bands don’t like that. It’s hard and there is nobody really not that satisfying for bands or fans, in my opinion. We not wanted to do that, but we wanted keep connected..

With over 18M YouTube plays, 25K Spotify followers and 5M streams are at the top of power metal. How important is the impact of streaming like Spotify or Youtube to you guys as a band?
In this days it’s more important than ever. Because there was no change to play live, having a lot followers sure have an impact in this times of pandemic we living in.. because it is , like I said, the only way to be connected, so yes that impact was Hugh.

It’s indeed important, but a band doesn't make any money from it... so why still release records?
Yes, true. But you know , typical metalheads still buy records. That still want to have the physical stuff. That’s why we still can record, because a metalhead still buy a cd or vinyl. That’s the good thing about being in a metal band. Of course you can’t make money with Spotify, it’s just a good way to make people learn to know you better, but it sure helps in that way.. but like I said, metalheads are still old-school on that, we lucky (haha)

Also when I go to hardcore, punk or any other festival there is more younger people (mostly) than on a metal festival. It’s maybe because of that? A little older generation who still buy records? And the younger generation not?
That’s true. But also, the younger generation don’t have the money to buy a lot records. Back in the days I think people where start working on a much younger age than nowadays. The younger generation now got a job on later age, so they not have the money when they are younger. They go to festivals, or concerts, but barley have the many to buy supply’s about the bands they like because of that reason.

Let's also talk about the latest release 'Winterbane' The first two records 'The Fallen King' and 'Crowned In Frost' showed a rather symphonic side of the band. This is 'into you face' metal, energetic, fast, hard, is that a conscious path you have followed as a band or am I seeing it wrong?
No, you see it right. We decided to make a more ‘into you face’ path , we were working a lot on heavy riffs. Inspired to melodic death metal. We just wanted to explode that side of us. We moved a lot keyboard sound in this record. We just wanted exactly doing that, follow this path.

The closing “Blood On the snow" even shows a dark side of the band. Is that done on purpose? Will the next disc go in that direction? Or are you not working on that yet?
I don’t think we going to follow that direction for the future. But we wanted to experiment more on it, it’s the latest and the longest song on the album. Frederico loves bands like Anathema and some darker and gothic bands. And I been singing for years in a gothic metal band to. We have writing this song in a proposing to having fun, and write something that we have inside, that we simply can’t put in the other songs.

How were the regular reactions till now?
We had reviews that were enthusiastic. We always been happy with review of record, by record. But this one was reviews with a lot fireworks on it, absolutely wonderful. So we are really happy with the reactions in it.

That’s maybe because you guys don't necessarily stay on the same path, and dare to leave the comfort zone, maybe because of that? i think, in these times, people are looking for new stimuli, and that's what you guys are also doing ‘adding new stimuli’ to the power metal sound
We sure wanted to hide an evolution in our sound, but not become something complete different. We sure choose to be  more ‘into you face’, yes. But we are not a band who completely change our direction to something that is not Frozen crown anymore. Soo we experiment, but want to walk our own path. But of course, nowadays, but the fact on the internet everything is fast going. Is sometimes frustrated because you release the album, and one month after some people are already asking for something else, that’s not how we work. Ten years ago, a band released one album every five years. Now, it’s just under your nose, you can listen to a lot stuff on Spotify or things like that. For Free, you can’t give an album the right reward and that’s sometimes frustrated yes. Because making an album comes from the hart. That’s maybe the darkest site of the internet. That people get used of getting everything under their nose, for free..

Like everyone else I guess this COVID 19 times give you a lot problems. How did you survive this times?
In my opinion that times have not been that bad for music. Ok, people be not able to go to festivals and things. But we still  had time to check our video’s to keep in contact, to stay connected in a way. Soo in music terms it not been that bad, except the part of not have concerts. The fans still wanted music, so they moved to the internet to find it. That’s why we happy we had this YouTube channel. That’s why we also wanted to release a album in the middle of this corona times, because people are there. They not going anywhere at all (haha).

But the fact that you can’t play that record live on stage, or bring it on stage, it is not a good thing to then? You need to show it on stage, right?
That’s the frustrating part, of course. Going to festivals and concert, and everything around that, is my favorite part of making records and music. We had so much fun on the festivals, when we hang out with other bands. The true connection with fans and everything around it, yes that’s a part that been missed. I hope we can do that in 2022.

In the meantime there are again possibility’s to play live again, here in Belgium there was Alcatraz Metal Fest. How big is the hunger and when will you play live again?
The Hunger is very big. At the moment, the only gig we confirmed is in Norway. At the Oslo Festival. But, in January 2022 we will see if we will manage to go back on tour. And play on the festivals that will take place. But it’s all unsure, it’s a mess. So, we only can hope things get better next year and sure go on tour than. We very hungry for that.

What are the future plans, next to concerts?
We just hope for the concerts, that’s the most important plan now. For the rest, we just going on with our YouTube Channel. It just gives us a lot of satisfaction and we will focus on that mainly, we want just to find a other way to contact with the fans while we waiting to go back on tour. That’s it right now. We just mad new music, with our new members. Other music video’s been planned for the next months.

What are the ambition – next to world domination – and is there something like an end goal?
I want to be the new Floor Janssen (haha) As band we want to play in every country in the whole world, it’s just amazing to see every place in the world, in real That’s our biggest ambition maybe, to play in every country around the world, an visit all this places.

Is that not something every band want? It’s not you ambition to become rich with your music and play in Wembley Station or something like that, become world famous maybe? ?
I want to do my own work, and choose myself what to do with music. And not let others decide me what to do. Improved with what I really love, and not too losing my passion for singing when I doing it pure for the money. And singing something I don’t want to.  I think that answer the question?

It’s only strange, every band or artist tell me almost the same, when I ask. But there are bands and artists who choose a path to make more money with music, even it costs them a part of the passion
Money is important, for sure you have to work in live. But maybe I would do it to if I got the change, who knows? People make this compromise for a reason. But without the passion? I don’t know.

Thanks for this nice interview, we hope to see you in Belgium someday soon or later …