Interview Azura

Born from a desire to escape through music, Azura blends progressive metal, fantasy storytelling, and dark atmospheres into an evolving musical universe shaped by games, imagination, and personal experience.

1. Azura began in 2020 at Otago Correctional Facility as a writing project and a way to escape into another world. What was happening in your life at that time, and how did music become a form of escape and expression for you?

I was early into a 6-year prison sentence for church arsons. The gang culture inside was dominant so I would use the unit's acoustic guitars to escape.

Because video games have been in my life as early as I can remember, with The Elder Scrolls becoming a favorite, I began writing music and making up characters and stories inside The Elder Scroll's provinces to distract me from my surroundings.

What began as an instrumental list of tracks (The Midden) ended up being 4 or 5 albums worth of music.

2. Azura has developed into an ongoing musical universe inspired by epic fantasy, ancient worlds, and dark atmospheres. When you begin writing a new piece, do you usually start with a musical idea, a story, a character, or a particular imagined world?

The characters I write aren't really my focus, but by telling a story in that world I get to reference places like Winterhold and Anvil, and that evokes the memory of those places in my mind. So when I would write a song, I would already have the album's story mapped out, and I would then wait for a musical idea to come to me.

3. Your music combines progressive metal with elements that feel closer to a fantasy soundtrack, with influences ranging from Opeth to Jeremy Soule and The Elder Scrolls. How do these very different influences come together naturally in your songwriting?

Listening to Opeth as much as I did growing up must have had an affect on how I think of music.

Although I am primarily a drummer, whenever I did pick up a guitar it was to learn 'Patterns in the Ivy' or tracks from Ulver's 'Kveldssanger' album, and other melodic songs that used finger picking and arpeggios.

I listened to the Blackwater Park and Deliverance albums a lot growing up, but the Damnation album probably affected me the most.

For Azura I had to write all of the guitars, and I wasn't able to use a computer to tab parts out.

This meant I had to expand how I played the guitar, so naturally what I had learned practicing cover songs would affect my writing.

As for Jeremy Soule's compositions, the lesson here is about how much more important music becomes when it is connected to something larger than itself, like a fantasy video game world.

And this can be done without lyrics simply by naming the track, like 'The Streets of Whiterun'.

If you've played Skyrim, and you listen to that track now, it can move you in a way that is hard to explain.

4. Long-form compositions are an important part of Azura's identity. What attracts you to longer songs, and how do you keep a composition engaging while allowing the music to develop gradually?

Writing story songs that last around the 10-minute mark require layering. Parts and riffs get repeated a lot, so when a listener hears them several times, it helps to hear something different in it each time. This means while the guitars are strictly repeated, the drums are doing something different and are building up momentum, keyboard melodies and harmonies are added, along with vocals being harmonized. If you do it right, nothing feels repetitive.

5. The contrast between distorted guitars, clean vocals, keyboards, and darker atmospheric passages creates a strong sense of different environments. How do you approach balancing these elements when building a song?

I definitely want there to be darkness in my music, but it can be challenging for me as I don't use harsh vocal growls in Azura.

I rely almost completely on guitar distortion for this. I also use the lyrics to tell dark stories.

For example, 'The Fate of the Brass Ring' is about being tricked by a Dremora, escaping unharmed but ultimately losing a loved one to the evil creature.

6. Fantasy and ancient-world imagery are central to Azura. Are your songs connected to a specific mythology or fictional universe, or are you creating your own world and mythology through the music?

Azura is taken directly from The Elder Scrolls. She is an evil Daedric Prince that player's can interact with inside the game.

The music I write for Azura is all influenced by that IP, with some exceptions.

One exception is the EP I recently released called 'Death Blood Soul' which was influenced my the MMORPG Runescape 3.

Death runes, blood runes and soul runes are the 3 highest tiered runes in Runespan, and RS3 is a game that I've played so much that it was hard not to want to draw some kind of influence from it.

7. As a solo studio project, you have complete control over the creative direction. What are the biggest advantages of working alone, and what challenges come with being responsible for virtually every aspect of Azura?

Working alone means I can write an entire album from start to finish and know that it will tell a complete story the way that I want.

A minor downside is having to record or program all of the instruments myself.

The biggest downside however is doing the production alone. I am not good at production, I don't have much patience to learn how to produce properly, and I can't afford to pay for quality results right now.

8. You have already released a full-length album and an EP. Looking back at these releases, how has your approach to songwriting, production, and storytelling evolved since the beginning of Azura?

The first album 'The Midden' is completely instrumental. It was written late 2019. I wasn't very comfortable with singing back then, and didn't understand my vocal range properly.

Even in the EP this is clear, everything back then was extremely experimental.

I actually haven't written an Azura song since around 2022, when I took a break from metal and started to write music for a more pop genre for a while.

9. New Zealand’s Northland region is now the home of Azura. Does the landscape, isolation, or atmosphere of Northland influence the mood or imagery of your music in any way?

Although I'm new here, I already prefer the more isolated parts of this place.

I lived in Christchurch for 16 years and was getting really sick of the busyness of that city.

When I write music for Azura again, I think I'm in a better place now to do that.

The nature and landscape of the hills are amazing views, along with the ocean and harbours around the Bay of Islands.

10. Azura is described as an ongoing musical universe rather than simply a series of releases. What can listeners expect from the next chapter of Azura, and where would you like to take this world in the future?

I have 3 more story albums to record. They were all written during my time in prison.

'Winterhold' will be the next full-length album. The first two tracks from the 'Death Blood Soul EP' are also the first two tracks for 'Winterhold'. It will be 7 tracks that tell the start of a story.

I have another album called 'Tomes of the Necromage' that is much darker in tone, and quite long at around 10 tracks, and a final album called 'My Evil Heart' which is supposed to complete the entire story.

Musique | Azura

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