Review Fix Exclusive: Noah Veil And The Dogs Of Heaven Talks ‘Voices Carry’ And More

Review Fix chats with Noah Veil of Noah Veil And The Dogs Of Heaven, who lets us know about their single “Voices Carry,” as well as their upcoming album “Forever Immortal.”

About Noah Veil And The Dogs Of Heaven:

Noah Veil was found as a John Doe in November of 2007 on a beach in Atlantic Canada, water in his lungs, heart stopped, the victim of either an accident, foul play or attempted suicide. Searches of Canadian and international databases turned up no records matches on DNA or fingerprints, nor missing persons reported matching his description. Afflicted by amnesia and with no one stepping forward to identify him, it was taken under advisement not to actively search for relatives or associates by publishing his image, due to the uncertain nature of his circumstances. With no idea where he was from, when he was born, his name or who his family is, he was legally adopted by the family of the man who discovered him, with whom he has lived since.

Sylvain Montenegro was raised in isolation in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains where he was home-schooled and had infrequent contact with people outside his immediate family, his primary exposure to the outside world being the internet. At the age of 20, with the aid of his older brother, he managed to manipulate his parents into moving the family down into civilization and was able to begin teaching himself music programming and production.

Atlantic Canada is known neither as a breeding ground for hard rock/heavy metal, nor techno/industrial, so Noah Veil took to Craigslist to find a musical partner. Placing ads in major metropolitan areas around North America, in January, 2014 he received a response from SF Bay Area programmer and aspiring producer Sylvain Montenegro. Finding common ground in their shared enthusiasm for metal, punk, techno, power pop and goth, the two began collaborating via fileshare, which led to the production of their full length album, Forever Immortal. With Veil recording and uploading the basic foundations of vocals, guitars, bass and drum machine, Montenegro assumed responsibility for programming synths and loops and editing. He was also to enlist and record session drummer Christopher Clifton to replace the drum machine tracks and stellar vocalist Rachel DuMouchel for additional vocals. The process was completed with Veil traveling to California to co-mix and take photos. The duo signed a licensing and distribution deal in August, 2016 with German-based record label 7hard/7us.

Review Fix: How did the band get together?

Noah Veil: We met through an ad I posted on Craigslist looking for someone to collaborate with. I live in Nova Scotia and had some material I wanted to record and wanted to work with someone who knew something about production and programming electronica. Unable to find anyone with similar tastes here, I placed ads on Craigslist in a number of metropolitan areas throughout the US and Canada, hoping to find someone I could work with via filesharing. Sylvain answered the ad I placed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2014. We didn’t actually meet in person until I flew out to California in April of 2016 to sit in on the final mixes for the album and do promotional photos.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Veil: At first, I’ll usually write a song or develop a version of a cover we’ve decided to do and record minimal scratch tracks at home (guitars, vocals, drum machine). In the case of our song After Hours, Sylvain sent me some music he’d recorded and I wrote lyrics, melody and a bridge section. I then upload a stereo render for Sylvain to hear and come up with synths and loops. We email or IM back and forth our ideas until we agree upon a final form, at which point I will lay my final tracks and click track, which I then upload as individual files for each track. Sylvain brings a mixed render and click to the drummer we use who records his own tracks at his home studio and replaces the drum machine tracks. Sylvain then lays his final tracks, everything gets mixed, and Bob’s your uncle.

Review Fix: What’s your standout song on the new album? How was it written?

Veil: I think Dancing With The Damned is the biggest stand-out, in terms of musicality. It’s the most arranged, the most orchestrated, the most involved and the most dynamic. I developed it over a year or so before Sylvain and I began working together. It began like most of my songs, with a guitar riff and a melody; this time, the riff was for the intro and outro and the melody is what became the verse. From there, other parts would come to as a result of playing what I already and singing along, trying out different things, etc. Lyrics and titles usually come last, but often I’ll have a title I’ll have come up with and written down some time in the past and will find that it is ideal for something I’ve just written. In this case, though, the title came after the music.

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2017?

Veil: To generate some real awareness and a large audience for our album and music internationally. We’d also like to land a strong distributor in North America, as well as relocate to Germany where our record label is so we can be more accessible to the European markets for live touring and promotion.

Review Fix: What makes this a special album?

Veil: I think we’ve not only come up with a sound that contains elements that are familiar without being derivative and not easily pigeonholed, but I think the songs are extremely memorable, with very strong hooks. We approached every song as a single, more-or-less; if we didn’t feel every part of a song was memorable, it didn’t make it onto the album.

Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?

Veil: I’d like them to get that hair-standing-up-on-the-arms feeling you get when you hear a great rock song. I’d like them to feel like driving their car fast as well as wanting to have sex. That’s how great rock music makes me feel.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Veil: Hopefully a successful second album and tour following a successful first album and tour.

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?

Veil: We’re approaching this as more than just music and albums. We’re very interested in multi-media, so we want to develop this into a continuum that would include artistic videos that contain more than just performance, a unique and visually-stunning live show, even anime, graphic novels and video game tie-ins. We’re both very inspired by David Bowie and Rammstein as well as Japanese pop culture in this regard. But the music will always be at the foundation of it all.