Hey all, Josh here with another update to tell you about our friends in Seven Kingdoms:
Not a lot of people know that Seven Kingdoms and A Sound of Thunder go back over 15 years together. I first became aware of them when we had just started ASoT and Nina took me to see Blind Guardian. 7K was opening and put on a great show!
Before long we were up and running and breaking out of our local area and had the opportunity to play with 7K and meet everyone. I'm not sure Camden Cruz knows this but DeLand Rock & Metal Festival was the one and only time my dad saw me play live. He was already in his 70s and really had know concept of what we did until that night but he was incredibly excited and proud when he saw us play. That memory means the world to me. And so I'll always be grateful to Camden for booking that great show and inviting us to play.
It was also around this time I became aware that Nina Osegueda and Sabrina Cruz are possibly the two shortest people I've ever met, somehow harboring immense voices within their tiny bodies. Seriously, if you stacked them up in one trench coat you'd have the single most powerful metal vocalist of all time *and* they'd be allowed on theme park rides.
ASoT ended up being first to adopt crowdfunding, running our first campaign for Time's Arrow way back in 2012. After a lackluster experience with a label crowdfunding was not just a light in the dark but a path to bigger and better things. It's allowed us to be exactly the band we want to be with no compromises for the sake of fitting into any niche like labels usually want. (Are you all ready to hear my pirate metal rant for the 37th time?) Our fans allowed us to do and make so many great things that no label would have ever funded (animation, comics, art books, etc.) and just be weird and unique.
And that brings me to "The Great Goat Rodeo", 7Ks single and video from 2020. It's just one piece of their impressive catalog, but it always stuck out in my mind as a perfect example of 1) something a label would never let a band do, and; 2) the exact reason why crowdfunding is awesome for bands. It's such a bizarre niche-shattering title for a band that is nominally power metal. Labels hate this kind of stuff. Fortunately, the fans went for it. I love to see bands being weird and unique and not giving a fuck about what people want or expect from them.
Cam and I have been in touch fairly regularly over the years sharing crowdfunding ideas, comparing notes on what works and what doesn't, etc. For me it's all underlined with respect for long-timers who have stuck to their guns, insisted on being true to themselves, and continually leveled up as players & performers.
Seven Kingdoms has a new album called Sono Sola on Kickstarter right nowand you should go back it. They deserve your support. More importantly you deserve good music & quality merch and they always deliver. So go get your face melted, cover your buns in their sweatpants, and help grow the 7K legend.
