Scorpio: North America and Europe are separated by the Atlantic ocean and long distance, sothere are no many people here, who know SILENT EXILE. Please, tell your history, howdid you meet and decide to found a band?

Cedric Rioux.: I met Fabrice and Sylvain in a jam session at a bar of the Montreal suburban area in 1996. I was then playing in a Blues-Rock combo named THE SMACKS. The guys were playing in a little bit more hard-rockish group called SECRET TEARS, which was constituted of long time friends. Both bands were doing covers and, at the end of the evening, we discussed (Fabrice, Sylvain & me) about the idea they had to start a progressive metal project. A couple of weeks later, after hearing their first drafts, I finally decided to join them. The drummer we had at the time then quit. Denis came two or three months later, shortly after we placed an ad in a local newspaper. We then changed our name for SILENT EXILE and composed most of the material that you can hear on "Dancing With Death" while we were looking for an appropriate singer. Chriss was the last one to join us in 1998. He was, before doing so, playing guitar and singing for a heavy metal band named CHROMATIC SHADES. We entered the studio in summer 1999 and released our first album entitled "Dancing With Death" in January 2000. We then worked very hard on the promotion of this album. DWD was reviewed in about eighty magazines, webzines and other fanzines besides of winning CD of the Month awards in many of them. The excellent reviews we got helped us to get distribution deals in many countries.

S.: What are your last news? What about new album?

CR.: We are currently dedicating all our free time working on our second album. We really hope to get in the studio in late 2003 to begin the recordings.

S.: How many song do you plan to include in SILENT EXILE's second release?

CR.: Well, there are now 9 completed drafts and a few others which are not totally finished. We have not yet decided which ones are going to make it on the album, but we plan to include approximately 60 minutes of music.

S.: Is it already titled?

CR.: Not yet.

S.: Are there differencies between "Dancing With Death" and your new work?

CR.: To my ears, it sounds a little bit heavier and also a little more explorative in terms of chording, soloing and rhythms. But don't worry! It will be a logic follow-up of the first album. We sure evolved a bit since DWD, but we still are Silent Exile. So people can expect a lot of melodies, rich orchestrations and ambiance.

S.: You made video for "Broken Dreams". Why did you choose exact this composition? Because it's great ballad or because it's the shortest one on "Dancing With Death"?

CR.: In fact, we have live video footage from all our songs, but we chose only to put this one on the internet because it is the shortest and it takes less space on our website.

S.: Will you make a video for new album?

CR.: We still don't know if we will release a commercial video, but we will surely catch some live events on film. So later we could have the possibility of releasing a live video or DVD.

S.: Some bands put on their CDs media sections, which include video materials, will you do so whenever?

CR.: Maybe. That's a possibility we have already discussed for the second album.

S.: What about your stage life? When will fans see you on Prog Power festivas in USA? :)

CR.: Obviously, not now. Actually, we are concentrating ourselves on preproduction only. We want to release our second album before doing more gigs. In the past, though, we did opening shows for NIGHTWISH, SYMPHONY X, PLANET X and UNDER THE SUN.

S.: I've read your questionaires on the website and saw, that you, Chris and Sylvain called IRON MAIDEN their best band, but there is no MAIDEN's song in their best playlists. Why? :)

CR.: Well, the playlist we have on each member's page is showing what we are listening at the present time. It is not a best ever playlist. One may have a favourite band and listen to something else at a certain period of time. By the way, those playlists are periodically changed.

S.: All your favourite collectives are prog, power, heavy. And what about other metal music styles?

CR.: We grew up listening to prog, power and heavy, so these styles hold a big place in our hearts and minds. We are, of course, open to other genres and we actually listen to a wide variety of music.

S.: How do you like interviews, consisting of only standart questions such as "Tell us about the history of the band.", "How would you describe your style?", "Who are your musical influences?", "Are you in contact with record labels?" ? Do you use "copy/paste" method, answering these questions? :)

CR.: I guess that those "Standard Questions" are inevitable because we are quite underground and there is a lot of people who don't know us. We don't think that there are bad interviews. We feel very happy each time we have the opportunity to speak publicly about what we did and we try to give the most detailed answers that we can. We are also conscious that interviewers have a tremendous amount of work to do and they are doing it in their free time. We feel committed to these people because they have the kindness to promote our music. We don't really use the copy/paste method, but I must admit that some answers may look very similar from one interview to another, especially when the question is exactly the same.

S.: What was the most interesting question somebody asked you in the interview?

CR.: I don't know. So many interesting questions were asked. Maybe: If you could have worked on the movie soundtrack of any movie (past, present, soon to come), which movie(s) would it be?

S.: What language do you speak in simple life, English or French?

CR.: I personally have to speak English everyday at work. But otherwise, the language we ordinarily use is French.

S.: Quebec can be titled metal province of Canada. There are many groups in your region... But most bands are financially independent, so that's the most problem. Are there no metal labels in Canada?

CR.: Yes there are some metal labels: Warfare, Indica, MPV and many others. The problem in Quebec was, at the time we released DWD, that the metal scene almost exclusively consisted of trash, death or black metal bands (like MARTYR, ANONYMUS, CRYPTOPSY…) or more mainstream sounding groups (GROOVY AARDVARK, GRIM SKUNK…). There was not much room for prog-metal and nobody wanted to finance our project. We did not want to make compromises on our sound, so we decided to assume all the costs by ourselves. This is the great thing about being Іfinancially independentІ: You can record whatever you like.

S.: Two month ago I contacted LAST BREATH from Montreal. They play heavy/thrash and though they were founded in the end of 80's, released only one album "Ashes To Ashes" (1994) and two demos because of financial problems. Nobody wanted to release their works, and now LAST BREATH have stuff for almost 2 albums. Do you know them?

CR.: Not personally. I know that Fabrice (our guitarist) met Patrice Moore once because they were both teachers at the time. Of course, we heard about the band, but we thought it had splitted up long ago.

S.: Are you going to continue your selfprod. serie or will also contact big labels?

CR.: We will do both. The second album will surely be a selfprod, but we will also contact labels in case they have something interesting they could offer to us for subsequent recordings.

S.: What can you say about contacts with people from CIS?

CR.: Yes, recently we received a lot of e-mails from people of Russia and Ukraine. It looks like people there are just beginning to discover DWD.

S.: Have you contacted distros and labels here, in Russia and Ukraine?

CR.: We are currently in contact with some of them. I cant tell you more because, at the moment, no deal is done.

S.: Do you know something about Ukraine and CIS states?

CR.: CIS was born from the ashes of USSR in 1991.Ukraine (cap.: Kiev) is one of the eleven (?) states that constitutes it. The fact that you ask this question at this specific time is quite interesting because here in Canada, the senate just voted a motion to recognize the starvation of 1932-1933 as a genocide against Ukrainian people. The motion still has to pass the chamber of deputies. If it does, the fourth Saturday of November will be dedicated to the people who died in this genocide.

S.: And what about metal-scene of our region?

CR.: Well, unfortunately we don't know much about it. I guess that distance is the main reason why. However, if you have some recommendations we would be happy to hear them.

S.: Message to your fans and our readers. First in French, after - English translation.

CR.: Nous voudrions remercier nos fans d'avoir ouvert leurs c?urs a notre musique. C'est un honneur pour nous d'etre entres dans leurs vies. Nous voudrions aussi saluer les lecteurs de MetalList. Vous etes tous cordialement invites a visiter notre site internet (qui contient des photos, des extraits sonores et plus…) au www.silentexile.com' . Finalement, nous souhaiterions remercier M. Scorpio pour l'entrevue et aussi pour son precieux support.

We would first like to thank our fans for opening their hearts to our music. It is an honor for us to be part of their lives. We also want to salute the MetalList readers. You are all invited to visit our website (featuring pictures, soundclips and more…) at www.silentexile.com' . Last but not least, we would like to thank you Mr. Scorpio for the interview and for your precious support.

S.: Thanks! I'm pleasant to hear such words. Good luck!