After many years in the making, Calgary metal band Viathyn made their debut in 2009. Brothers Tomislav and Dave Crnkovic had been playing music together for most of their lives, but it wasn’t until four or five years ago that the seed for what would eventually become Viathyn was planted, when guitarist Jacob Wright caught Tomislav’s ear.

“Jake came into the music store I work at and started playing a very difficult guitar solo that I recognized. I actually got him a teaching job there first, and months later realized we should jam as a three piece. By the second jam, we wrote our first song together and knew it would stick.”

Finding a bassist turned out to be more difficult, however, and three years passed before the band finally became a four piece with the addition of Alex Kot, who had been referred by a friend.

According to Tomislav, “In early 2009, while we were at a local prog metal show, we were approached to open for the band Hibria. We accepted but didn’t mention we didn’t have a bass player yet. At that same show, we saw Alex and asked him if he would join. He learned the tunes quickly and fit in perfectly, just in time for our first show only a few months later.”

With the band’s sound rooted in power metal with elements of folk and prog, the vocals were the next obstacle to finalizing the line-up. In the end, Tomislav decided to tackle those duties.

How much of a transition was it from guitarist to singer/guitarist?

I will admit, it was the hardest thing I have ever had to learn to do. I either sang or played guitar my whole life, but never combined them until it was needed for the band. I have extreme respect for people who make it look easy because it took me a while to nail it. I still need to rehearse extra hard for the parts that are involved with rhythm and vocals. It was our own fault I guess because from the beginning we never wanted pedestrian rhythm or both guitar players doing the same thing. The challenge was to keep the complexity, while at the same time not sacrifice any aspect of our songs just for me to sing and play.

Where did the name Viathyn come from?

Early on, it stood for an inner being in all of us that could either be malevolent or amiable. Our music was to represent waking this being within us. We were hooked on having a band name start with “V” for some reason and tried forever finding something we liked. One of use brought up the name Leviathan, which triggered us to chop it up into our own word and spelling.

How does the writing process work in Viathyn?

We normally come together with some rhythm riffs, solos, or even drum lines, and play them for each other. We then build on it, playing out parts to see what would naturally come next or into it. We hash it out until we more or less have a complete song that everyone has a good feeling about. We only have a couple songs that a single member has written completely on their own. Each song on our up-coming album came from various circumstances. Two songs use to be one extremely long song later split up. Another we glued together with many riffs never hearing the entire song until it was recorded. We rarely kibosh someone’s idea until we all agree that it’s not working in that song. We try to keep things in the hopper in case we can use it down the road. It sometimes feels like it takes longer to finish a song this way, but I think we feel more like it’s our song. We can make our mark on it more than if we relied on one person to write an entire song. The one thing we really focus on is making each guitar player do something different. I find it annoying when I see a band with two guitar players playing the same thing all the time. I think we want to make it a more interesting listening experience. It’s fun writing like this. It’s the musical equivalent of playing Lego with four guys.

How is the full-length album coming along, and when can we expect it?

We are closer than ever. At this moment we have bass, vocals and backing to do and that’s it. We aim to promote it spring and summer, so the plan is to finish it by March 2010. It’s our debut, and I want to make it sound as good as possible. It seems tedious to some, but I love the process.

How much has the writing been affected by Alex’ use of the touch-style guitar?

I love that instrument! He uses an NS Stick, for anyone wondering. It’s an eight-string instrument with four guitar-like strings on a fretted fret board and four bass strings on a fretless fret board. I never knew about it until Alex showed up with it. He has made it work in a few of our existing songs. So far, we haven’t written any songs around it but we hope to. It’s too cool to pass up as a lead part in more songs down the road.

What’s it like having your brother in the band with you? Is there ever any family rivalry that creeps in?

Here is my chance to throw some jabs in about him…but I can’t! I think my brother and I are past sibling rivalry. We have our minor differences but a lot of people that have observed our song writing or rehearsing are amazed how much we get done with such little argument or negativity. It’s a unique and productive dynamic. I have extreme respect for all the guys in our band and their musicianship, including my brother. We all have our strengths, but he has a great musical ear and contributes beyond his excellent percussion ability. He can sing, play keys and guitar and knows when something could sound better. Nobody has an ego and everybody is talented. I think that’s why our band is so tight and works well.

One of your earliest gigs was opening for Stratovarius. How did that go?

Stratovarius obviously has a built-in fan base, but we had a lot of support show up (for us) and it was amazing. We came out of our shell that night and gave it everything we had. It was a little hectic without a sound check, but it went better then we imagined. Feedback from the bands and fans afterward was overwhelmingly positive. That was our best show to date. Mind you, we just started our stint on the stage!