We speak with the members of Escapist to dive into their journey as a band. They share insights into their creative process, the inspiration behind their music, and what fans can expect from their latest and upcoming releases. Don’t miss this exclusive look into their story—check it out below!
How would you describe your music to someone who’s never heard it?
Rather than giving a cliché answer like “this is something you’ve never heard before,” we’d say it’s a potion made of electronic and metal music that will inevitably make you feel something. We’ve been getting a lot of feedback recently, and the listeners say it better than we ever could. Our favorite comment so far is: “It appears the ultimate life form has been found.”
How has your sound evolved since you first started making music?
Initially, we played metal in a band together, and that definitely impacted our sound overall. We love metal music, and we believe we’ve found a very organic way to blend guitars and screaming into our songs. In terms of our evolution as ESCAPIST — there are two of us, and most of the songs we’re releasing started as demos each of us created individually. So we’d have this “kindergarten” version of a song and then… it would go through years of refinement! The music has grown with us as our tastes and creative appetites have evolved. In recent years, it often feels like when you’re working on music, you’re connected to some kind of collective mind that just knows what to do. There were tracks we initially planned to include on the upcoming record — at the time, they felt like our best work. But over time, we realized they weren’t strong enough, and we decided they didn’t deserve to be on the album.
What’s a bizarre or unexpected inspiration behind one of your songs?
We’ll have more to share once certain tracks from the upcoming album are out, but since we’ve only released four songs so far, this question brought back some long-forgotten memories. We were struggling with the chorus for Halos (our first single) — we had the verses and the entire musical skeleton, but the chorus — both melodically and lyrically — was pure suffering. We were searching for anything: a line, a word, a sign from above… anything. One day, while driving to the studio, I (Sergey, vocals) heard LaFee’s Heul Doch on the radio and thought, “Well, that’s the way to go!” Something clicked in my head, and Heul Doch morphed into the word Halo, which also has two syllables… and here we are! In the end, the chorus in Halos doesn’t resemble Heul Doch at all, but I still consider LaFee’s hit the inspiration for it.
What’s the most memorable moment of your music career so far?
Releasing music is still new to us, and we’d say that’s been the most memorable milestone since 2019 — the year we truly became a band. We’ve spent years working on these songs, and we’ve got much more in the drawer waiting to be finalized (or hated and erased forever!). We’re incredibly grateful for all the feedback — it means a lot to us, and it shows we’re doing something right.
Tell us all you can about your latest release and where and when to find it?
We’ve released four tracks so far — all of them are on Spotify, SoundCloud, and all major platforms. We’d love to encourage people to listen on Spotify, as it helps the algorithm recognize that our music is wanted, which helps push it further. Our next single drops in April — it’ll be the final single before our full-length album release, so stay tuned for updates. We’ve got a lot of music to share!