Pic courtesy of: Eternal "We’ll like to be recognized because of our sound, the aggressiveness in it, and how evolving it is; you know to be able to tour outside Costa Rica and we’ll also like to be recognized for the fact that we come from such a small country"

CR: What would you say is the “goal” of Eternal right now? What plans do you have for the band and if you could manipulate the future how would you like Eternal to be known for?
William Suárez: Well right now our goal is to record our first full length. After that promote it and luckily be able to get a label that is willing to distribute it internationally. We’ll like to be recognized because of our sound, the aggressiveness in it, and how evolving it is; you know to be able to tour outside Costa Rica and we’ll also like to be recognized for the fact that we come from such a small country, where is hard for musicians to get notice… but is like you say, all of this if “I could manipulate the future”.

CR: We have always had a couple of thrash bands here in Costa Rica, but the genre have never really had enough bands as for us to say that we have a thrash metal scene; do you think Eternal is helping “fill” this void? And what local bands do you consider the pioneers of the genre in our country?
William Suárez: We hope we can accomplish that, but there is a lot of work ahead of us. The positive thing is that we have had a lot of support from people that like many different genres and that helps broaden the spectrum of possibilities that our music can have when it comes to spread it around the country.
Now that you mention it, I have to congratulate Arsenal, I saw them celebrating their 100th live performance. This is something to admire, in spite of all the difficulties of playing metal in such a small country this guys just keep on going as strong as they did in the beginning.

CR: Can we call Eternal an old school thrash band, or that will just be “labeling” you guys?
William Suárez: As a matter of fact we don’t really like been label; obviously we play thrash metal; but one of the principles of the band is to be open minded, so that we can learn new things and use that to create a more original sound. I don’t really find it very appealing to play just like other bands have done it before.

CR: Lets talk about your demo… how many copies of this material did you guys put out, and how did you distribute it?
William Suárez: We put out about 120 copies, we distributed through several stores in San José that gave us the opportunity to do so, and we also sell them at the concerts.

CR: How many copies have you sell so far?
William Suárez: Approximately 100

CR: What would you say was the “toughest” part of putting this material out?
William Suárez: Basically…everything! the entire recording process as well as the art for the album, it is pretty difficult when you put all this on the bands shoulders to carry and when you don’t have a lot of money to do it. But we did have a lot of people that helped out; you can check that out on the actual demo.

CR: The demo has that “feeling”, “smell” however you want to call it, to the now famous 80’s Metallica thrash era; what were your main influences when you wrote and recorded this demo?
William Suárez: In fact there is a very heavy “vibe” of that era as you mention, but the entire influences were, Kreator, Slayer, Metallica, Sepultura, Morbid Angel and some other stuff.

CR: The length of the songs (with the exception of Rotting in Anger) is very “old school thrash” if I may say, long songs of about 7 minutes or more, they are long for today’s standards of course. What advantage do you see in writing and playing songs with such duration?
William Suárez: Well, we have more possibilities to develop our ideas through out the entire song; the whole idea when you write a long song is to make it entertaining so that you won’t get tired of it.

CR: Lets talk about the lyrics now; Eternal’s lyrics are not inside the topic area of that 80’s thrash scene, you know when most of the bands wrote about, war, nuclear explosions and zombies off course! You guys focus more on personal issues; how do you like to focus the topics of the songs and why aren’t you guys interested in dealing with those topics that the old school thrash scene was sort of obsess with?

	Pic courtesy of: Eternal " We like to talk about a diverse set of circumstances, from external issues to more spiritual issues of the human behavior; they can be on a straight up way or as metaphors."

William Suárez: Of course we are!!! But we just don’t like to focus on one particular topic; in our upcoming record you’ll be able to hear about religion, street problems, murders and death, etc… We like to talk about a diverse set of circumstances, from external issues to more spiritual issues of the human behavior; they can be on a straight up way or as metaphors.

CR: Eternal’s music is not only founded in good old thrash riffs, you guys also put a lot of solos and instrumentation on the songs that really gives it a “refreshing touch”; which segments of the album would you say portray Eternal’s style the best?
William Suárez: I would say that we try to make the solos and the riffs as unconventional as we can; a more creative bass line and a very well worked drum. We just try to make the music as entertaining as we can!

CR: How long does it normally take you guys to write and play a song? Is it more of an inspirational process than an organization issue?
William Suárez: It’s a long process; I think it combines both, inspiration to come up with good ideas, then take the time to actually put it together and see what works and what doesn’t; you have to take time to make a connection of all the instruments and to work each one until they are to your satisfaction.

CR: Your demo has a song that is becoming one of my all time thrash favorites, Rotting in Anger; the chorus line, hell the entire song is extremely catchy, all you need is to listen to it one time to get hooked on it; if you had to pick from that ability to write catchy songs or to be extremely technical, which one would you be more interested in Eternal having?
William Suárez: Thanks for the complement! Both are important really, when you play live it becomes more evident when you see people chanting at your songs. So it’s basically taking things and balancing them (between technique and rhythm) when you are writing.

CR: Without a doubt the release of your demo is one of the most important moments in the bands career, but apart from that, can you think of another instant that could be consider maybe as important as the release of your first production?
William Suárez: I think more than an instant, another important factor that has helped the band stay alive is our ability to received criticism, and thanks to that we have corrected like a million things. It’s all about remaining open minded.

CR: The demo has a sort of speak very dirty sound, the sound is not of the best quality, but for some reason this factor actually helped the record have a beeper, more rooted in the “underground” sound, still the sound is not the best, so what would you change in a future album, is there an specific factor that you will like to focus more on the next project?
William Suárez: Mmmmm, basically what sort of lacked the most was the drum sound, a little in bass presence, and the equalization of the guitars. And its not like we didn’t notice, but there were just some technical problems that presented themselves when we were doing the final mix. But that was our first experience recording, from which we learned a great deal and people can certainly expect a way better sound for our second production, its all about improving.

CR: In Costa Rica is very rare to see a band promote its material around the country, you know with country tours and things of that matter, do you think this will be a good way for Eternal to gain more recognition, and do you see the band doing this anytime soon?
William Suárez: Of course it will help, but since we are in such a small scene you have to pick very carefully the places you want to go, so that the whole thing doesn’t end up taking only debts.

CR: Which national band do you think has helped the scene the most or perhaps which band right now do you think is the most representative of our scene?
William Suárez: Because of longevity I would say Alastor S.E. which has gone abroad a couple of times, also Sight of Emptiness went last year to a festival in Great Britain. And finally we have here some bands that can compete with a lot of foreign groups, like Katharzys, Corpus Necromanthum, Azterion, Arsenal, etc.

	Pic courtesy of: Eternal "Another important factor that has helped the band stay alive is our ability to received criticism, and thanks to that we have corrected like a million things. It’s all about remaining open minded."

CR: What thrash band in your opinion has had the most impact on the World?
William Suárez: Metallica with their first albums no doubt.

CR: If you could pick a band, any band, who would you pick to go on a World tour with Eternal?
William Suárez: Many really… maybe Sodom or Kreator, or any band from Costa Rica.

CR: What is the perception that you will like international metal fans to have of our national scene?
William Suárez: That we have good bands, quality bands that have noting to envy the Europeans or the Americans, and that it is a good investment to support our bands.

CR: Any idea when can we expect the new material from Eternal, and how can someone get a copy of your demo?
William Suárez: We are thinking about starting the recordings in March or April, to take everything well rehearsed and “perfected” to studio. So as the recording goes along we’ll be letting the people know of the release date.
With regards of how to get a hold of our demo, well we still have a couple of copies for sale in Legacy store in San José, or you can contact us at eternalthrash@yahoo.com , eternal_cr@hotmail.com , or at www.myspace.com/eternalcr.

CR: What do you think we the media is missing or lacking when it comes to promote or better yet, when it comes to fairly criticize our local bands?
William Suárez: Well, many just focus on what’s “in” you know on what’s fashionable at the moment, and I cant really blame them because that’s obviously what gives them some dividends; but in radio for example the programs were you can listen to national artist is very small and in TV are almost nonexistent. Pride is what they are missing!

CR: Well man thank you very much for your time, and congrats on a killer debut, if you have something else to add, please feel free to do so…
William Suárez: Just on behalf of Eternal thank you for the opportunity and all the good comments. And to the public, we just hope you like our work, thank you!