Kill City: Melodic Heavy Metal from Ecuador
Kill City: Melodic Heavy Metal from Ecuador
Kill City: Melodic Heavy Metal from EcuadorMelodic heavy metal could rage from anywhere in this great big world. Ecuador is a country found in northwestern South America, where the almighty Kill City resides, and they are ready to hard rock the planet in nothing short of an epic way! The band has just released a stellar new single entitled All The Dues – a follow-up to their mesmerizing Darker Days full length manifesto from 2024! Fans of classic bands such as Queensrÿche, Riot, and Dokken will be over the moon and into the stratosphere when discovering the audio entreaties Kill City has to offer. Highwire Daze recently interviewed bassist Andrés Miranda to find out more about this explosive new band on the rise. Read on…
Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Kill City, and how long the band has been together.
Hello Highwire Daze magazine! I´m Andrés Miranda and I play bass in Kill City. We´ve been together since 2019.
Where is the band based out of and what is your local music scene like there?
We´re all from Guayaquil, Ecuador. Actually, our band name comes from the sound of “Guaya-Kill”. There are many local bands playing a wide variety of genres. From indie, to heavy metal and pop. Guayaquil has a lot of talented musicians who make the city´s nightlife vibrant and enjoyable.
Is there any overall story or concept behind the All The Dues single?
Not particularly. We have a unique way of creating our songs. Usually someone brings an idea of a riff to the rehearsal room and then, that idea goes through a process we call “Killciteo” a term we invented to describe how each band member contributes their own creative touch. During that process, Chemel Neme, our singer, usually comes up with the vocal melody even before any lyrics are written. The words start to take shape over many rehearsals, and the final lyrics are typically finished after the song’s structure is complete.
How close is Kill City to releasing a new full length or EP?
We´re working on it! We´ve already recorded and mastered four songs for the EP, and just last week we recorded the drums for 3 more. We’re aiming to release a 10- to 12-song EP hopefully before the end of 2025.
What could one expect from a live Kill City show?
We go on stage to play our music with everything we’ve got — all our soul and energy. Our goal is to deliver the intensity of our songs through powerful riffs, raw vocals, and a solid, heavy rhythm section. We love when we see the people getting that energy from our music and banging their heads while we play our stuff.
If Kill City could open for any band either now or from the past, who would it be and why?
Well, I´m pretty sure there will be no one single answer. Despite we all have great chemistry on creating our songs and we all love rock on general, we all have different influences musically. My favorite band since I was a kid is Megadeth so, I´d love to have that experience of sharing stage. Probably the others band members would love to open for Helloween, The Beatles, Def Leppard, King Diamond….
Has Kill City ever played here in the States or is that something you would like to do in future days?
We haven’t. We hope to play there in the near future.
When you look back on the first Kill City album from 2020 entitled Last Man Standing, what do you think of it now in retrospect?
Well, we´re proud of our first album. It has some songs like Last Man Standing, Against Myself and Sigue la Voz that we still love to play every time we rehearsal.
And what was it like to release that album right at the beginning of a worldwide pandemic?
It was weird but we got the best of the situation for our band. We had some songs created, but when the pandemic began, we all got locked in our homes so, we managed to continue on the composition process, using all that “free time” to work on demos on the app GarageBand. So, that worked for us, and when the time was right, we got together and finished the recording. Nowadays, a lot can be solved with technology, so we got interviewed through videocalls and all the marketing was through social media.
Darker Days is such an amazing album! Select two songs from Darker Days and what inspired the lyrics?
Thank you very much. I would choose Speak of the Devil which talks about all the temptation that comes from the evil way of making the things work only for our benefit, and resisting it and choosing the right path, even if that’s not the easiest one.
The other song I would choose is Bitter Smile which talks about the routine in our lives and the urge of making what makes us happy before we lose our minds.
Are you involved with any other bands or projects outside of Kill City?
Nope. I´m a Kill citizen 100%
What’s up next for Kill City?
We love creating songs. After the upcoming EP, we already have maybe a dozen more songs to record.
Any final words of wisdom?
Yes, thank you for giving us this space Ken. It’s a pleasure for us to talk about our music. I encourage everyone reading this to pursue doing what brings joy to their own life.
LINE-UP:
Chemel Neme • Vocals
Juan Iturralde • Guitars
Xavier Diab • Guitars
Andres Miranda • Bass
Luis Neme • Drums
(Interview by Ken Morton)
Thank you to Markus Eck of Metal Message ᴳᴸᴼᴮᴬᴸ • 𝐸𝓈𝓉. 2001 for setting this up!
