Q: I’m always curious about the artist’s backstory. How did your stage name Thrillkiller come about?
THRILLKILLER: In my last band, Aries I served as the lyricist, in our debut album, A Time to Kill, the thrill/kill scheme was used and I felt the combination worked really well when I founded the band in 2015.
THRILLKILLER: I’ve always been a fan of Michael Jackson’s work, I was hired to recreate his vocals years ago for a job as a session singer and began to learn various habits of his to help complete my tool set as a singer. I noticed that whenever Michael is attempted there’s usually corners cut in terms of the vocals and I wanted to do justice to arguably his hardest song with Dirty Diana while also giving it our own spin.
Q: Was there a pivotal moment in your life when you decided to follow your path as a musician?
THRILLKILLER: I’ve always been a fan of music since I was a child however it was high school choir that got me to take voice seriously. I needed an elective and choir was the only one open at the time, so I gave it a shot and was told I wasn’t bad. I joined the boys acapella group around that time which also was a wonderful experience, after I started taking private lessons and the rest is history I suppose.
Q: Do you think your music has evolved since the beginning of your musical journey?
THRILLKILLER: Absolutely, I kept the music very guitar based in Showdown for the most part, with the second EP I began to experiment a bit more with different sounds and the band rose to the occasion. With Dirty Diana it signifies a leap forward in terms of our experimenting.
Q: What was your favorite moment creating “Dirty Diana”?
THRILLKILLER: I got the isolated vocal tracks from the original sessions Michael did for Bad and used them for reference on certain parts. I discovered Michael sounded like he has vocal nodes which led to the fantastic acting he did in the performance. It’s extremely rare for a singer to work on a voice like that and use it to optimize the performance even futher, seriously virtuoso stuff.
Q: What is coming up next for you?
THRILLKILLER: We are currently booked for VGMCon in Minnesota in a few weeks followed by various other conventions and shows across the US. We are set to drop a new single of ours, Dark Star which is our most ambitious song to date.
Interviewed by Alina Tran
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