Full Metal Jacket: Armored Dawn Frontman Chats with Hot Press

Eduardo Fagundes Parrillo is a stand-up bloke. Born, raised, and still living in São Paulo, Brazil, he studied medicine before beginning a healthcare company with his father, a former professional footballer. One of the fruits of their efforts is a VIP box at Palmeiras’ new stadium, which is where you can find Eduardo most weekends.

Unless he’s opening for Megadeath. As frontman of Armored Dawn, his luxurious tresses are more frequently seen flying six ways from Sunday than slicked back; and his feet are firmly planted on monitors rather than the ground. But perhaps that’s not such a huge surprise – after all, Brazil is one of those places, like Scandinavia, that boasts a remarkable number of quality metal bands. Eduardo, having been led down the metallic path by Black Sabbath at the age of 15, explains that a transatlantic connection played no small part. “At the end of the ’70s, and throughout all the ’80s, Brazil received a lot of vinyl from Europe,” he explains. “I was lucky to have a great friend who travelled to Portugal every six months. He brought the news of new heavy metal bands that might take another two years to get to Brazil. I was always up to date! All the alternative radio stations played a lot of European heavy metal bands too; I think we come from this school.”

If that school had a carefully-constructed metal syllabus, Eduardo’s band weren’t exactly the obedient types. Armored Dawn aren’t afraid to go a little off-script when the mood takes them. A prime example is their use of keyboards. Not exactly a staple of metal, the instrument is embraced early and often on their new LP, Power of Warrior.

“I’ve always liked the combination of the piano and the guitar,” Eduardo says. “I feel it’s an almost perfect combination, which reminds me a lot of other moments of humanity. When writing, I actually create all the melodies on piano, and then we transport them to guitar. Since we like to take the listener to medieval times, with great battles, that requires a special kind of mood and atmosphere – and, for that, we need the keyboard all the time!”

Indeed, times past are described again and again on the record – is it fair to say that tales of antiquity are a particular fascination? “I’m glad you asked,” Eduardo states. “History inspires me, and enchants me – I’ve come to know several cities in Europe and all of them have wonderful histories. I would say, in answer, that the colours around me look different when I enter castles.”

Armored Dawn is a sextet: in addition to Eduardo, there’s drummer Rodrigo Oliveira, bass player Fernando Giovannetti, keyboardist Rafael Agostino and guitar players Tiago de Moura and Timo Kaarkoski. While they didn’t literally revert to medieval times in recording the album, they did recognise the importance of leaving the digital world behind. Decamping to Jailhouse Studios in Denmark, they worked on reel-to-reel tape – something Eduardo says made all the difference.

“Digital recording compresses everything,” he states. “When it has that sort of uniform style, you can lose the touch that each musician brings to their instrument – the variations within each song that actually communicate emotion. So we wanted to use the equipment that could transmit that feeling.”

The gestation of the record, which saw the band breathing new life into material from their debut effort Viking Soul, was overseen by Tommy Hansen – who is renowned within metal circles for his production work with Helloween.

“That was a dream come true,” smiles Eduardo. “He is spectacular – we called him The Wizard. He’s so intelligent, and so knowledgeable about this sort of music. His studio is one of the best, and he knows all the shortcuts for a massive production too! “He changed so much for this album. He added a lot, both in terms of ideas for composition, as well as the arrangements themselves. He even played a keyboard solo on ‘Far Away’.”

In amongst the soaring battle cries and rallying anthems, there’s even a love song tucked away, in the shape of ‘My Heart’. It’s not your usual Armored Dawn fare – was it a challenge to switch to something sensitive?

“I don’t think so,” grins Eduardo. “I am a romantic guy, despite being rude sometimes! But really, who has never fallen in love and missed someone? How many people, at some point when saying goodbye to someone, haven’t felt like saying: ‘When will I see you again?’”

While a romantic streak is an asset for any metal-leaning band – look no further than Thin Lizzy if you need evidence – it’s their reputation as a hard-rocking live act that’s seen Armored Dawn win fans by the bucketload – some celebrity metallers included. “Playing with Megadeath really was like a dream,” Eduardo says. “I greeted them, and played for their public on their stage. Who wouldn’t love to do that? We weren’t able to talk to them a lot – there was a huge delay in the stage being assembled. We both had to run through our soundchecks, so there was little time left to exchange experiences – but we’ll certainly meet again.”

And the band are planning to meet Irish fans in the not-so-distant future too.

“I’ll play in Ireland. I really wsant to get to know the country – and I’ll can do that with or without the band! I’ve been close before, but I won’t miss the opportunity this time.

“We’ll go to Europe to support Fates Warning in January. We recorded a version of the Dropkick Murphys song ‘The Rose Tattoo’ and we want to play it for you guys – we want to know if you approve!”

Approval has been pretty wholesale thus far – it’s hard to see that stopping anytime soon. As anyone who listens to their superb Power of Warrior CD, free with this issue of Hot Press, will see, for Armored Dawn, the only way is up...