Getting to Know… Halogram | Interview 🎤

On Interview #58, Brent Faulkner gets some awesome insight from Javier Iglesias, the guitarist for instrumental prog rock band, Halogram. 

“We don’t really think we are unique at the moment as our project in an early stage… Hopefully, once we got a good amount of songs, we will develop our style to a specific direction and our listeners will identify it.” That’s a completely honest and thoughtful answer from Javier Iglesias, the guitarist and source of our insight about Halogram.  Halogram is an instrumental progressive metal/rock collective comprised of Iglesias and bassist Dani Mourinho. On Getting to Know…Halogram: Interview #58, Iglesias does a fantastic job of providing some background, influences, and the current and future direction of the band. Without further ado, here’s Interview #58!

Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype (Faulkner): Let’s get this started off right. For those who may not be familiar with Halogram, what would you say makes your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

Javier Iglesias, guitar (Iglesias): What a tough question to start the interview! lol Well, it’s a bit difficult to explain it; we don’t really think we are unique at the moment as our project in an early stage. With each new song we are trying new things so hopefully once we got a good amount of songs, we will develop our style to a specific direction and our listeners will identify it. About the live situation, we didn’t have chance to take Halogram into a stage (yet!) but either Daniel [Mourinho] (the bass player) or myself (Guitar) have loads of experience in live performances and we know what the audience like to see and hear!

Faulkner: Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did Halogram form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

Iglesias: Daniel and I met playing at a festival back in 1997 in Galicia/Spain. We were playing in different bands at that time and coincidentally, 3 years later, we ended up working together, as professional musicians in the same band, touring all around Spain for 2 years.  We had similar music tastes and we were sharing albums and discovering new bands during that time. We always talked about creating our own project but due our work commitments we couldn’t find the time to do it so. After that period, Daniel, decided to move to London but we always maintained contact and kept sharing music ideas between us and it was in 2017 when we both had some free time to dedicate to the project. That is how HALOGRAM was born! Our goals are still the same as when we started the project; to make the music we like, and we always wanted to do. As we are very realistic, we are not aiming to be the top new artist of the metal industry… just want to release our music and get it to the maximum audience possible.

Faulkner: Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

Iglesias: The goals didn’t change; as I’ve mentioned earlier our goals atm are to continue writing new songs, try to get to the maximum audience as possible and to grow our fanbase

Faulkner: Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

Iglesias: Metallica and Dream Theater. Those 2 bands really helped me out to take the right direction for the music style I wanted to do.

Faulkner: Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.

Iglesias: The craziest story that I can tell is, 1 year ago, when I was playing with one of my other bands, we had a huge mobile stage, those made from 2 lorries combined together with some extra metal parts and they transform into a really impressive stage. Each lorry has their own hydraulic system to high up and to transform the whole structure into the stage form, and its controlled by one member of the stage crew using a remote control. We also had a huge curtain covering the front stage and is also controlled remotely to roll/unrolled it. Well, the crew in charge used the wrong button trying to unroll the curtain and activating the hydraulics of one of the lorries.  We were sound checking at that moment with almost all musicians on the stage. We didn’t know what was happening until we heard a huge crash noise and we noticed that the stage was falling apart…. You should see us jumping off the stage! It was quite high…about 2.5meters. We were very lucky on that day, nobody was hurt. But the stage and some gear were quite damaged.

Faulkner: Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

Iglesias: I would say the “The Falling Man” is one of my favorites. Mainly because it was our first song as Halogram and during the writing process we had a clear idea of which direction we had to take for the future songs and the choices to define our music style. Also, the theme of that song (the 11th of September events) is very significant for me, very shocking day…It was engraved in my memory forever!

Faulkner: Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

Iglesias: I know that Daniel, apart of bass, he plays trombone and bagpipes. I am a collector of action figures and I love crafting. I’ve been collecting them for more than 12 years and I have all figures in the studio…they really create a very nice environment, which inspires me a lot during the writing process.

Faulkner: Closing this thing out, what is Halogram currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

Iglesias: We are currently promoting our new single “Obsolete Future”; we are very proud of it and we had the producer of “Born of Osiris” in charge of the mixing and mastering. If your readers like the Progressive Metal/Djent style we think they will enjoy it as much as we do. Also please help us to get to our goals and comment/visit/like/share/subscribe to our social media pages!  We really are open and enjoy answering any questions and interact with our fanbase. Thanks again for this interview!

Halogram Socials & Such: Facebook • Instagram • YouTube • Spotify

Photo Credits: Brent Faulkner, Halogram, The Musical Hype