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Knightfall is a very interesting power metal band from the USA, formed by Keith Dombrowski, which sounds much less traditional than what we usually listen to in the genre. We’ve done a nice interview with him, discussing topics on fantasy, composition and, especially, how music is a powerful way to connect people of all kinds.
I always like to start our interviews with an introduction, so could you tell us a bit about yourself and how your interest in music came about?
Absolutely! My name is Keith Dombrowski and I am the composer, orchestrator, and founder of the Symphonic/Power Metal project Knightfall. I started music at a young age of 7 after my mother enrolled me in Violin classes at the Thayer Conservatory in Lancaster, Massachusetts, USA. She saw a love for music that started even earlier from watching musical films and going to plays with her. I picked it up quickly and played for 3 years under the Suzuki Method. I loved the Violin, but sadly I developed this weird issue where I would grind my teeth when drawing the bow on the string. The sound it made just had this weird affect on me that at the time no one could explain. Later I was diagnosed on the spectrum but high functioning. A couple of years went by until one day I sat in front of my Mothers acoustic upright piano. I spent hours pushing on the keys hearing the sounds and what they could. After that day I never stopped practicing. I started writing songs maybe a year later. Many of them had 80’s influences with high falsetto vocals. Then I found Metal with Megadeth in 1991 to start. Later I found Nightwish in 2000 and from then on all I wanted to do was Symphonic Metal. I did a ton of musical theater during this time and performed in many shows until 2007. I worked hard at making my music career a reality and joined up with Tod Miller and Evince Ethos in 2007. We added Jessica Mercy in 2008 and the three of us wrote a bunch of really good songs. We put out an EP in 2009. In 2010 we parted ways, they rebranded to Anaria and I moved away and put the dream of music to the side. I stayed working by having a day job and doing bookings and promotions, helping my friends bands until I met my wife in 2013. I then went on a permanent hiatus from music until 2019. I taught myself a little guitar and played the piano from time to time. But effectively I had stopped music. At the end of 2019 after many tough losses. My wife urged me to buy a new keyboard and start playing regularly again. So I did, and all these ideas came for songs.
I really love so-called “studio bands”, which is what I like to describe bands that aren’t meant to be fixed-member bands (as Avantasia used to be). How did the idea of going with Knightfall come about?
You hit the nail on the head. When the idea came about for Knightfall, the idea of doing it as a studio project was directly influenced by Avantasia and Guitarist/Composer Magnus Karlsson. I also remembered that Delain started as a studio project. That’s why they had Marco and Sharon singing on songs. I said to myself with modern technology I could do this remotely and find people from all over. Only problem was I hadn’t worked on production since 2009. I knew I needed to get myself re-educated with everything. My wife told me about her best friend’s husband who was a very accomplished multi-instrumentalist, Patrick Goble. I soon found out he taught even things like production so I started taking classes with him. As I learned I kept sharing demo’s with him and he was really into what I was doing. So we got to the point where I asked him if he would like to help me make this a reality, he said yes and suddenly the idea that I might actually get to release music hit me. I said to myself well now we need a name. I knew a lot of the themes I would explore would be with a fantasy/medieval base. But for the name I needed something that would share my desire to bring the code of honor and chivalry back. I needed it to have Knight in the title. After brainstorming names, many I did not like at all. I remembered this TV show called Knightfall. So I double checked to see if anyone was releasing music professionally under that name and it was clear. So I went with it. It also in a roundabout way pays tribute to my favorite band Nightwish as well. So I had the name and I had a guitarist. I need to find a vocalist. A friend told me about Fiverr. I searched for days, listened to close to 200 singers before I found Dee Wolf. Her voice was different, deeper and soulful. Our first release was going to be our 80’s tribute “Waiting For You” and she fit it perfectly. So I got in contact with her and she said yes and boom Knightfall was born.
One thing I found interesting is that your project is classified as Melodic Power Metal, but there are songs with different influences on other metal genres, including a very modern sound in many of them. How do you describe your music and how did you get to this sound?
I always call it Symphonic/Power Metal with 80’s fusion. That’s the simplest way to describe what you’re hearing. However there are other genres that influence the work I do like Musical Theater, Pop music, and other styles of rock and metal too. The idea behind bringing in influences this way is to create albums that have something for everyone. The core of what I do is influenced by Nightwish. Their music in the early 2000’s is what inspired me to want to write Symphonic Metal. But I also love a variety of other bands and genres, Queen, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Simon and Garfunkel, pretty much any 80’s hair band, Avantasia, musicals, movie scores, and the band that started my journey into Metal, Megadeth.
If it sounds good to me I enjoy it immensely and all music offers lessons and direction. I have tried to create something that has its own identity, but something that you can also hear where we come from. Much of the music on this first album is very keyboard driven. I use East/West Sounds Online VST library with an MAudio 88 key and Interface to help create the orchestration. I have tinkered with some of it too and created my own sound on certain instruments like the strings by blending some of the sounds together. I write instrumentation with emotion allowing it to guide me. I will tell you now that the things I do are far from conventional because I never retained any music theory and I can barely read music at all. I do everything by ear. Which allows me to kind of break the “rules” a little. Only because I don’t know the rules. Hans Zimmer hears all these sounds in his head and when he works with his musicians he pushes them over the boundary of their instrument to get some of the sounds you hear in his scores. He is an innovator and has done things to advance instrumentation that honestly no other composer has. This type of approach inspires me to dare to try different things. The next album will bring in even more stylings like traditional power metal, Gothic Metal, Progressive, a more aggressive 80’s tune. For the first time I have a much slower piano driven track. We will continue to experiment with genre crossing because I love blending all of it together.
Power metal has been a very European type of sound for a long time. When I think of American power metal, I almost always think of Manowar and all that “true metal” and leather thongs on men covered in oil. How do you see the power metal scene in America? Or better still, how is the metal scene, as there have been a lot of really good bands emerging in recent years that aren’t just stuck in the old ways of thirty years ago.
The preamble of this question definitely got a laugh out of me. American Metal bands that seem to be popular usually are a form of modern metal. Disturbed, Falling in Reverse, Metallica, Korn, Megadeth, Slipknot etc. None of them represent Symphonic or Power Metal at all. There is however a growing number of Independent bands beginning to emerge. They all just need exposure and help finding their fan base. A couple of examples of this would be Questbound, Sacred Symphony, Valkyrie’s Fire, Eternal Ascent, Garrett Campbell. Just to name a few. It is definitely a fight, and because there are so many amazing European bands out there, I do feel like US based bands can sometimes be scrutinized heavier than others. Metal in general here in the states is still alive and well. I also think it’s growing, I am seeing more bands or artists putting out music than before. I also think shows like Stranger Things, Peacemaker and Cobra Kai featuring rock and metal like Metallica, Scorpions, and Wig Wam. Got some people realizing that Metal is fun. I have friends and family who hardly listen to Metal at all but when listening to Knightfall they are shocked to hear that it’s not all growl vocals. That the melodies can be beautiful. I think here in the states there is a misconception about Metal. People don’t realize just how diverse it really is. In comparison to how it was 20 years ago, the Metal scene has grown a lot. Covid hurt a lot of the local venues, but now I am seeing a lot more shows popping up featuring Metal acts even at the local level. I am back working with my friends at Speed Demon Promotions to help grow the local and independent scene even more.
Which bands have influenced you? There’s a strong influence on groups like Stratovarius, Nightwish (Tarja’s era), Warlock, Doro and Rhapsody.
The list of influences is massive. I will always state Nightwish is the biggest influence on me. “Once” is my favorite album of all time and “Ghost Love Score” is my favorite song of all time. But I derive influences from so many places. Stratovarius was my first Symphonic/Power Metal band I heard which helped me find Nightwish in the first place. Megadeth’s “Symphony of Destruction” was my introduction to Metal and changed the music I listen to. I do love Warlock, Doro, and Rhapsody. Avantasia and Magnus Karlsson’s studio albums. Kamelot, Battle Beast, Delain, Hammerfall, Blind Guardian. The list could end up a mile long. There are also my Musical Theater influences like Phantom of the Opera and Rent. I love the 80’s hair bands, everything from Dokken, to Winger and Danger Danger. I love film composers Hans Zimmer, James Horner, John Williams, Howard Shore, Danny Elfman. I have pop influences like Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Lady Gaga. I grew up with Creedence Clearwater Revival, Simon and Garfunkel(my Dad’s favorites) . My Mom was into musicals and loved artists like Yanni. I may not have used all of my influences on the first album but as I do more music more of these influences will show themselves in my compositions.
I also saw that your debut, Destiny Calling, is a novelistic vision of chivalry, with lots of themes related to power, honor and bravery, avoiding compositions that I’m sure came out of a Dungeons and Dragons session (and I’m not against those who do it, I also like it as a tabletop RPG guy). Would you tell us a bit about the composition of this album?
Sort of. The songs do have the themes you mentioned. I also included musical retelling of pieces of literature in there like “The Musketeer” and “Remember My Name” . I love Fantasy. It’s my favorite genre of Film, TV and Book. I have read everything from Game of Thrones and Harry Potter, to Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Inheritance Cycle (Eragon), and the Prydain Chronicles. If it’s fantasy or Medieval I love it. I particularly love everything I can find that has King Arthur and his Knights in it. I named my youngest son Tristan after the Knight of the round table. That being said, there isn’t really a concept to “Destiny Calling” it’s more of a bunch of mini concepts pulled together as a whole. Every song essentially has dual meaning. The lyrics say one thing but in many cases they are fantasy lyrics masking a metaphor of sorts. “Starfall” for example without directly stating it, is about the end of the world and even though its based in fantasy, the “Starfall” is actually doomsday, if our government leaders decided to launch all of their nuclear arsenal all at once, the amount of missiles going into the air then coming back down to earth would like like a “Starfall”.
Now the character on the front of the album is a character I created when I was 15 named Vadin Muur. He is the fantasy embodiment of myself, or at least my mind. I created him to help create sort of a mental armor during years of bullying and after a suicide attempt.
Eventually built an entire world around him called Drakea. I have quite a bit of history and an outline for books written around all of this. Which I am currently back to actively working on. I used him for the album because in the story he really embodies the meaning behind “Destiny Calling” that song is a call to action to become who you are supposed to be and answer Destiny’s call. Vadin is kind of my Mascot, I use him as the character name and look for any game I play. So it’s fitting he is the Mascot of Knightfall. He will be appearing in a game I am scoring. He will be a card in Lovanaverses Musical Trading Card Game. I am also in the preproduction phase of creating an open world game based on my story Warrior’s of Drakea with George Acker, one of the guitarists for Knightfall. I have already written almost all of our second album and one of the songs is directly about Vadin on it called “The Demon Warrior”. It is funny you talk about Dungeons & Dragons, I ran a campaign using my world as a test to see how the players would react to the story and characters and it went over very well. Too well they never wanted to end the sessions.
How did you choose the vocalists? What I can see is that they’re not just there as “hired musicians”, but that the songwriting was done in such a way that it fits their singing style perfectly, as well as having songs with male vocals that aren’t just one guy with a very high voice.
I already talked about Dee Wolf, finding her through Fiverr. So the next person to come on board to sing something was Jessica Mercy, my dear friend from the Evince Ethos days. I reconnected with her shortly before releasing our first single. I told her what I was planning and she immediately offered assistance and told me if I needed anything just ask. Jessica has always been such a kind person and a general pleasure to work with on music. So I asked her if she wanted to sing on the album. She said yes and was going to do one song. I shared my demo’s with her and she chose “Starfall”, but told me she really wanted to do “Farewell” too. What was funny is the two songs she chose I wrote with her vocal in mind. That’s how I knew it was meant to be that we work together in a big way on this album. This was kind of bringing into reality what we started all those years ago. Shortly after this I released our cover of “Invincible” I posted it in a Power/Symphonic group on Facebook, and several people started talking with me. Gideon(Fairyland) and his wife Charlaine loved what I was doing and we became fast friends. They both had a project called Wood’s of Wonders and understood how hard it could be to start up a project like this so they offered to help if they could. Wonderful people, both of them. Charlaine posted Invincible to her page and Pete Rawcliffe saw it and commented. I replied and then went and listened to his band Crown Solace. I was BLOWN away by his vocals. I male sopranist is rare and he was so good. I knew I had to have him so I messaged him and he listened to the songs I had in mind for him and he agreed. Pete and I are working on more stuff to come as well. He is a genuine treasure of a human being and a great friend. I told Pete more about the rest of the album and mentioned the kind of vocals I was looking for. He recommended Stefani Keogh who contacted me and immediately wanted to do “Warcries”. Pete and Stefani had never sung together so I turned “Children of Time” into a duet so they could finally make that a reality. I wanted to make a music video for “Starfall” Jessica told me her husband Sergio Salvucci could help make that a reality. I started talking with him and hit it off so well and he said he could mix and master as well and we decided he would be the producer on the album. He also provided the guitar on “Destiny Calling”. George Acker contacted me directly after he saw an interview I did. At first he was just asking questions because he was working on his own symphonic project. After we talked I invited him to the project to play guitar on a song which turned into three. During the creation of “Hero Walks Alone” I needed to find a growl vocalist and Stefani told me about Marcos Peñate. I heard his work and loved how clear his diction was and invited him aboard and he agreed. I enjoyed working with him so much I wrote in a couple of other small growls for him as well. I never intended on singing on this album but, everyone kept telling me my baritone on “The Hero Walks Alone” was really good and we ended up going with it. I also sang on “Destiny Calling” Dee was supposed to come back and sing that part but scheduling conflicts prevented that from happening. So I ended up doing it, which made it the first time in 15 years since Jessica and I sang together on a song. I was still two singers short. I wrote “Raise Your Fist” with Noora Louhimo of Battle Beast in my mind. Charlaine recommended Susy Eskarlett and she had that similar grit to Noora. After recording, the vibe of that song still wasn’t right. The song was a call to action. It needed something more. So Sergio and I had the idea to add Jessica as a second singer on the song, and I wrote the growl for Marcos and that worked perfectly. Finally came down to casting “Remember My Name” . I shared my vision with Jessica and she had a musical theater background as well so choosing her as the Narrator made sense. But I needed someone to play Achilles on the track. I posted an audition notice. I had over 20 vocalists contact me to audition. I originally wrote the part as Tenor, I heard a lot of great auditions. Adrien Djouadou told me he was a bass singer when he contacted me and asked if that would be ok, I said yeah make it your own. He altered the melody to fit his vocal style and gave me this amazing vocal. I had never thought of making it a bass part. His performance sold me on it though so the part went to him. He will be singing on more Knightfall stuff including the song I wrote for my Dad that is currently unreleased called “Not Ready To Let You Go”. We also had a bunch of wonderful vocalists help us with the viking army on “Warcries” and some backing choir on “Remember My Name”. I have been blessed to find such amazing talent in the pool of independent music. I am also equally blessed that they all trusted in me and decided to go on this journey with me.
We’re from a Brazilian music website, so I’d like to ask you if you know any bands from Brazil
I adore Angra, “Heroes of Sand” was on repeat or in my playlist for years. I still go back and listen to it often. It has been bittersweet to listen to after the loss of Andre Matos though. I still can’t believe it’s been 5 years since he left us. I also of course know Sepultura; they have been around since I was an infant. I never got into them as much if I am being honest but I know their music. I am also a fan of Dan Vasc. I love his voice and charisma. He just seems like someone you want to be friends with. I hope somehow he sees this, I would love to have him sing on something with Knightfall. I actually reached out during the creation of “Destiny Calling” to see if he might want to work on the album and I never heard back.
I really want to thank you for taking the time to answer this interview. Now, leave a message for our listeners. Let’s go!
I want to thank you all for taking the time to read this interview! I hope you all check out Knightfall and enjoy the music that we have created for you all to listen to. There are so many great artists on this album and they all have other projects so definitely check them all out as well. I want to thank Groundcast Media for having me as a guest as well. The support you all show us is greatly appreciated! Now go out and heed the call, be a Knight in someone’s life, thank you again!
Related Links
https://www.instagram.com/knightfallband/
https://www.facebook.com/Knightfallmusicproject/
https://www.youtube.com/@knightfallband