I’m with Kobra Paige of Kobra and the Lotus. This is an honor to sit down with you on this interview. To let the readers know, I first saw you as a guest vocalist on the Kamelot Haven tour in 2015; I loved your performance so naturally, I became a fan of yours ever since.
I know it been a long journey, now that Prevail l and ll are out with rave reviews how does that feel?
Kobra Paige: Oh it’s wonderful, it’s wonderful to have it all as one piece finally for people to hear as well because we’ve been sitting on Prevail ll for two years almost, because everything was done all at one time, so it’s really great to share with people and see how they react to it and see which one’s hit home the most for people, that’s been quiet a beautiful experience and I feel like those, this moment of people showing their stories as we’ve been on tour this last month and a half have been really wonderful gifts for us to hear, it’s been pretty inspiring.
The definition in the dictionary of Prevail: “Prove more powerful than opposing forces; be victorious”. You were battling Lyme’s disease during the process of writing and recording the album, “Prevail“ is a perfect choice. Tell us the story of your struggle and on being victorious.
Well, I guess when we did this album, I was really on the height of my infection and I already been pulled off the road once but this time, it did come back and worse than ever, and I was very fatigued, I had a very chronic sore throat, really tough brain fog. I know it’s just having a tough time coping with like life because there is a lot of other life happening around that, and they just didn’t feel good, so I guess that would be quiet a tale of triumphant and overcoming something because we did this body of work together and it was during one of the toughest times of my life, as I remember it. Sometimes really wonderful things can come from your struggles or come from the really, really raw emotions which are where a lot of these things came from, and I think that the expressiveness wouldn’t have been the same if everything was not as it was at that time.
Initially, this was a Pledge Music Campaign with the release of Prevail l, Prevail ll was to be released later in the same year. It was delayed and released in April. Who’s decision was it to hold off on the release?
It was our decision ultimately in the end, but it was a highly suggested option that Napalm had brought forward to us when we had signed to them, it’s a very, very good suggestion and I couldn’t have actually imagined if we hadn’t done it this way. I really think good things would have been missed and lost and would’ve overwhelmed people because it is a lot of music to take in, and there is probably the most dynamic album musically that we’ve ever done, if I put Prevail l and ll as an album, yeah, so it is, it was great. I think people needed this breath.
The hit Let Me Love You, there are three versions of this song. An acoustic version, a metal version, and a Japanese version. Do you speak Japanese?
I do not speak Japanese, I just spent a month and a bit working very hard on “Let Me Love You”, reworking it, rewriting it in Japanese and with someone and we did many lessons and she was on Skype the whole time, it was six hours we were in the studio that day just making sure everything I was doing was pronounced as well as possible, so it was a very fun experience—
Well, I liked it, I don’t understand the language, the anime characters, the whole aura of it is enjoyable.
Yeah, thank you.
Is this the song you feel people can relate to the most?
Absolutely. I certainly feel like this is a highly-relatable song to almost anyone I know actually, because I don’t really come across so many people that say that they don’t want love in their life and I don’t mean like a lover but just full acceptance and understanding who they are and just to be seen, truly seen, and also to feel lovable, that’s something that is so tough for people to feel. So I really do think that this song it’s a cocky estimate to me, but I would say it’s 90% of people at least feeling.
I would like to talk about a couple songs; this double album is full of emotion and powerful lyrics what is the inspiration behind them. Okay?
Losing My Humanity, the line “who are you to bring this sickness to my mind.” You watch the news, and we are being pounded constantly with negativity. Humans with no Humanity.
This is a really interesting concept because this song is actually relating to external things that are seemingly losing their humanity or it’s slipping away and it’s also a massive inter-reflection into yourself, so that can also be who am I to let this sickness into my mind, because ultimately, we choose how we see our world every day and it really impacts how we behave and treat other people and treat ourselves. So “Losing My Humanity” is about these moments where our humanity can slip away, I don’t think that it’s our true nature to do things that are malicious or out of insecurity, I don’t think that’s the true nature of humans, however we’re ramping with bad stuff and we do bad things and we think bad things and it’s just to really, really pull it back down from a big scale to even the individual scale.
In yourself.
Yes.
You Don’t Know.
Yeah, you know, well that’s just I think another human anthemic message of you can’t write someone else’s story, you can’t know or decide what feelings they have had and the experiences they have had, what they have been traumatized by, we just don’t know each other very well, usually ever and–it’s important to remind ourselves of that, otherwise we can also be trapped at our own ignorance and it feels frustrating to be misunderstood—
Yes
But we misunderstand people all the time so–
We don’t give people a chance.
Yes, yeah.
Now, when I watch the video and really listened to the lyrics, I see a part of you, even though you are singing and yes you write the song but it’s about your battles, “You don’t know what I’m going through…. You don’t know me.”
Absolutely, yeah I wrote that, those lyrics fully with the passion of you don’t know me and also I was just struggling with everything that was happening with my health, and in my family at that time, there were some very, very significant things happening, and I just felt like, I felt perceived by everyone including my band, and that’s an assumption that I just, I’m a person that flows along and everything is just always together, and I have to go through nothing, and I felt like I had the weight on my shoulders and the weight of the world and also the band, the album, it’s like been my risk, my–in terms of financial risk and I just had this immense, heavy feeling, that I felt like no one knew or could even begin to understand unless they were going through it, yeah.
Light Me Up. To me it’s a very touchy and emotional situation when someone is being bullied and not feeling well about themselves–
Yeah
–they want to take their own life, you wrote in the video at the end, “if you need help, reach for help”–
Yeah
I know those are not the exact words but what brought you to this emotion? There’s so much going on with some celebrities and musicians that we know and love they’re taking their lives.
It’s interesting because I feel like there are more people that think about taking their lives than we ever know, and it’s just–it is hard to be a human with a mind that we have and the way our thinking can just take off and pull us down a hole and I think as well our world has become very increasingly twisted from social media, I think the new generations just have the worst chance at having a substantial amount of confidence and genuine self-esteem for themselves and they’re on Instagram at age 10 with all these things forced down their throat and I see girls in make-up, little girls in make-up saying their single in their profiles and they’re 10, and I’m like, oh my God, I thought bullying was hard enough to go through when I was that age. And those kids I can’t blame kids that are bullying because when you grow up you see it was way more complicated than that. They were struggling in their own way, the kids are just kids, kids are meaner, brains are undeveloped, but it does form you to something pretty I believe you wear those scars in some way unless you work on your patterns of shaking them off somehow and I just think it’s just such a screwed up situation now and you do see kids as well at 13 years old, it’s very common to take their life which I just blows my mind because they’re still all kids, there’s this huge amount of pressure to have purpose in this world and live up to what you think you’re supposed to live up to without anyone telling you, you make your own reality, it’s very scary—
The video tugs at your heart, but what I like about it is it ended on a positive note–
Yes
She went and held out her hand for him to come off the ledge. If you haven’t watched the video, watch it, powerful!
Absolutely, yeah.
I like that part because there was significant meaning and it wasn’t ended on the boy jumping. There was someone watching and being there to help.
Yeah. That’s always important; it’s important to not end in a depressing way and remind people that there’s another option and to lift you up again.
You’ve picked a Fleetwood Mac song to cover, “The Chain.” And in the lyrics, you’ve changed them around to be more upbeat and positive. The feeling I’ve always had of you is very positive, very down to earth and I think that was why I was so drawn to you from day one. So tell us about “The Chain.”
Yeah, well I love Fleetwood Mac.
There’s a lot of fans that do.
Yes, and I thought it would be so fun to do something different that people aren’t expecting from us, and then also, we needed a closer for the album both albums, so it has to be something that had really significant message to wrap all of it up, and I thought okay, The Chain, it’s not usually the most uplifting lyrics if you hear the real version–
Yes, right.
But I thought it was a wonderful opportunity just to make it our own, so yeah, it says embrace your love and damn your lies, you know, instead of damning whoever she’s mad at but, yeah it was so fun to make.
I enjoyed the video, each of you starts from a different place, like the pied piper people following each of you to all come together in one spot.
Thank you. Yeah, and I think that’s what music does, and that’s why I’m interested in music is because it brings people together from different walks of life and it connects them, and I just think that is amazing in the world we live in, any music just anything that connects anybody that way.
This song is not on the Prevail series. Soldier off High Priestess, it breaks my heart what a fantastic video, very emotional. What is the story behind this song? Is this an experience through someone you may know?
I don’t have anyone that actually was in the military in my recent family generations, however my parents, they did do some I guess volunteer service in Calgary, where I’m from, and they would take us to Memorial Day every single year and Remembrance Day and we would watch everyone, all the soldiers come out that were in the city and I thought that it was really sad that I knew nothing about that world anymore, it’s actually really separated if you’re non-military family, I think it was something that used to be much more embracing and noted when it was a big part of life and everyone was enlisted, it’s just not, we just– we don’t grow up remembering the history very well anymore and really putting emphasis on the fact that there are people that do die for you to live in your country and half died and I just thought it was really important to, to bring that back for people to see and it was my way of us paying a tribute as well. And so, we tried to keep it as authentic as possible, we do the research—
I was emotional at the end.
Yeah, and bringing also again the positive aspect of the battle, just the fact that within the war, war is not good but within the war, there are people that do have benevolence with them, what they believe they’re doing and I wanted to highlight that. And so, it was written about the benevolence of the soldier and what their purpose may be in my perspective, what they would think their purpose within it was, yeah.
Let’s switch gears a little bit. You’ve brought another guitarist with you on this tour. Ronny Guiterrez. Give us the insight and what does he bring to the band?
Oh, my God. We have waited since 2012 for Ronny really, I mean he just came out, Jasio he’s been the guy and it’s been amazing and there just hasn’t been the right person to come and join him by his side, it takes commitment and a lot of perseverance to also be doing this and personality and everything and it was just so strange they met I think a year ago at Namm but he was not interested in doing like a higher gun projects anymore because he’s done a lot of that and he’s still doing some staff with Inner Circle this year but when he saw that we were looking like okay, they’re looking really for someone to come be part of the band right on the next albums and join our family, he was like, hey. And actually to be honest, we got more auditions than we’ve ever seen but we didn’t even look at them when Ronny messaged us, because we just knew we were like, yeah, that’s the guy, we just–everyone felt it and he brings his own unique wonderful energy to the stage.
Ronny, will be a permanent band member?
He is permanent, yeah. I don’t think this is changing now, which is pretty amazing.
I have to ask you about the tennis shoes. I see you’re wearing something different in the shows.
Tennis shoes? Yeah, that’s funny, I, so I didn’t ever really hear of them being tennis shoes, I just saw, I thought that they were classics. Yeah, classics and I just wanted to wear something that I could start jumping around in much more and I can, and I feel so comfortable, and I was just like, I’m done with finding boots all the time and worrying about my balance and, I have been progressively moving towards things that are less involved with animal products, and I just love them. I think it’s just like, this kind of like fun punk rock all like almost throwback that suits like the little tiger inside me.
Do you have your logo on them?
No, they have hearts, yeah.
Oh wow, nice.
Yeah.
Something more comfortable.
Yes, something more comfortable and something just classic alternative, it like reminds me of when I first start to go on the shows, which I think has been kind of fun. I’m loving it.
Lastly congratulations on a great double album I love it, and I’m so happy for you. And most importantly congratulations on being victorious against Lymes Disease.
Oh, thank you.
Again, thank you so much for sitting down with me. Is there anything else you would like to say to your fans?
Just thank you so much for supporting live music, it is so important to keep spreading the word with music you like, living your passion, feeling passionate in your life and thank you so much, we really appreciate everything that everyone does, so thank you.
Thank you.
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