The band started out as 2 high school friends (Marcos Carvalho and Daniel Santos ) that played guitar and loved bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Manowar and Iron Maiden, started to jam on weekends...this was around 1998. After a wile, they started to create a few songs, and from then on, the seed of what came to be FANTASY OPUS was set. Marcos Carvalho is the only remaining member from that seed. From the current line up, the next to join the band was Nilson Santagueda, around 2001, he got in touch with the band after hearing the self-titled demo launched around 2001. The next to join was Ricardo Allonzo, our drummer, much later, probably around 2012, and we got in touch through a mutual friend. Leonel Silva both joined the band around 2014, just as we were getting ready to work on THE LAST DREAM. Ruben Reis was a former Marcos’ guitar student, and he had both the skills as well as the taste for the same musical elements. Leonel Silva was a long time known friend of the band, he is known as the singer of MINDFEEDER and both bands knew each other and had a lot of respect for each others work along the years in the Portuguese underground metal scene.
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
As explained in the previous question, the band grew from a few friends jamming on the weekends. The first songs we worked upon had mostly thrash metal as well as tradicional heavy metal influences to it, so our name at that time was BLACK THUNDER……but our first singer called Luis Guerreiro had an enormous collection of cds, thousands of metal cds and kind of exposed all of us in the band to it. At the same time, around 1999/2000 there was a big boom of the so-called power metal genre in Europe, that really captivated us with bands like Gamma Ray, Hammerfall, Rhapsody, Stratovarius, Edguy, Angra, Sonata Artica and many others getting the spotlight. We were also exposed to the neoclassical metal sound with the likes of Malmsteen, Symphony X and Nation. So when we decided to go ahead and record our first demo, we had already quite of few of those elements in our music. So we started to look for another name. We also had the idea of trying to conceive our own stories and universe connected to our music, so we just combined FANTASY, and OPUS, which means “work” in latin.
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are
there any local bands you could recommend?
The band is based in Lisbon, Portugal, except Marcos Carvalho that is living in Edinburgh, Scotland, for te last year and a half. The scene in Portugal is a lot better that it used to be around 10-15 years ago. Underground concerts have bigger crowds, the overall level of the bands has also gone up a couple of notches. Especially in Lisbon. There are a few good bands we can recommend that we know or that we played with, such as MindFeeder, Toxikull, Midnight Priest, Deadly Force, Hourswill and Tarantula. They all sound different, so it’s a good mix of metal styles.
3. How would you describe your style?
We used to describe it as Progressive Power Metal. We definitely think that our music and particularly “THE LAST DREAM” have all those elements, and its quite useful as a starting point for a fan, to get a sense of what the band is all about. However we feel that this genre thing is becoming more and more bizarre, with so many bands catalogued as progressive that arent progressive at all, except for the fact that they use a few odd time signatures here and there. Progressive is about pushing the envelope musically and also concept wise. If you are doing the same thing over and over again, as most bands do, then its not progressive anymore. But this would be a different discussion. To the point, at the moment we just think of ourselves as a Metal band.
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your
works?
We Released our first demo in 2001, which was self titled; We released our debut album in 2009, called “Beyond Eternity”, and in 2018 we released our second album intitled “THE LAST DREAM”.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
Yes, we are already working on the next FANTASY OPUS album, we are working on about 5-6 tracks which are about 75% done. We plan on starting to record a few demos and doing pre-production later this year. At the moment, it looks like its going to be a conceptual album, continuing with the story behind “THE LAST DREAM” epic that constitutes part of this album.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
At this moment, we are playing the Milagre Metaleiro festival in 24-25th of August in Pindelo dos Milagres, Portugal. We are working on setting up a few more dates in Spain and pergaps a tour around the end of the year, but nothing confirmed.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
The plans are to promote “THE LAST DREAM” as much as we can, play live, connect with fans and friends, and in the future record more albums and grow the bands following.
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
You can listen from digital platforms like Spotify, or you can buy the album from the pure Steel Records webshop Here.
You can also catch a glimpse of the album preview and see some of our videos in our Youtube Channel.
Or if you want to get in touch and follow the band, just reach out in our facebook Page.
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your
music for the first time?
We would like to be remembered for putting out amazing music that makes people want to come again and gain for more.
Thanks for Interview, cheers.
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