Review Fix Exclusive: Blackning’s Elvis Santos Talks EP, Upcoming Tour

Review Fix chats with Blackning’s Elvis Santos (Drums/Backing Vocals), who discusses the band’s origin and goals for the future.

Review Fix: How did you guys get together?

Elvis Santos: Blackning came from Cleber asking me to join in a project with him, in late 2013. It was something about a new band. So, we met, talked about what he had in mind and planned some goals. Then at the beginning of 2014, we started righting some songs, that would become our first album, Order Of Chaos. Then, we called Francisco Stanich to play bass with us, that came right on time to record the Order Of Chaos bass lines. In this “power-trio,” we’ve done the Order Of Chaos (2014) and ALieNation (2016), and a Brazilian tour for each one of those. We did some big things with this line-up, like opening-acts to Onslaught, Krisiun, Exciter and Sacred Reich. In 2017 we changed the lineup, first with a second guitarist, “Zozi” Fernando, then, with Ricardo “Brigas” in charge of the bass guitar replacing our friend Stanich.

Review Fix: What is your creative process like?

Santos: In Blackning, everyone comes with ideas, there isn’t something like someone is in charge of bringing new ideas, that’s for everyone in the band. In general, instrumental stuff comes first, then we try some rehearsals to feel the song, make some changes for making it sounds better, and than start righting some lyrics. Our lyrics, basically, are reflected from things we watch happening in our country, our lives, our diary situations, not only about a politician, you know? It’s about talking about things that happen to you, what you watch in the news… It’s basically, a point of view from someone living some situation.



Review Fix: What do you think makes this band special?

Santos: I think is our truth in our job, there are no fake things, you know? We’re not the guys that record stuff we cannot play to kinda take credits about what we can’t really do. It’s about bringing everything each one of us can bring, about everything, not just playing, but all process that involves the band, I mean, we live for it, our lifestyle it’s based on it. And we try to show that to our fans, that everything Blackning does, it’s what we believe. I think that our fans can see that and have empathy with that as well.

Review Fix: How would you describe your style?

Santos: We’re a Thrash Metal band on its essence, but we don’t limit our selves to it, you know? We love rock n roll and death metal, we listen to a lot of hardcore, punk rock, and etc. And in the end, it’s a fast and heavy song in a mix of everything we listen. But, old school Thrash Metal is what everyone in the band likes the most.

Review Fix: What are your goals for this EP, after your previous two studio albums?

Santos: Well, we released that EP like a preview of what we’re planning for our next album. We’re just about getting on the ALieNation European Tour, and we thought: “We have different people here from the last thing we released, so, let’s show up to these guys how Blackning sounds with the new line-up.” So, in a week we’ve written these two songs and started the recording sessions, 1 day for drums, 1 day for bass, 1 day for guitars and 1 day for vocals. Just like that, as quick as you can get! We’re really happy with the result and with all reviews we’ve seen ‘till now. It has been great.

Review Fix: What’s the standout song? Is there a story behind it?

Santos: The title track, Eyes in The Mirror. The song tells how life is vulnerable, that in certain despair point in your life, you can watch yourself being so little to some situations, that you can’t see any way out of it, you try, but you can’t fight with it by yourself. We see these situations happening constantly, people that are so deep in a problem that can see a way out, and the only way to its death. It happens a lot with some artists, especially when involves heavy drugs.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Santos: Well, right now we are focused on a great setlist for our first South American tour, that will happen very soon, and we gonna release all details about it as soon as every negotiation gets done, and we gonna be able to share more details of it! We actually have some good riffs and raws ideas for some songs, but we’re going to put all efforts on that after this tour, to start recording the new album around November or something like that, and we’ll certainly have it released in the first semester of 2019.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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