Interview Fernando Lezama, Honduras main heavy metal band Delirium

Dear Fernando how are you doing?

Hello Heiko, for the moment I am fine thank you, hope you are well too.

The whole world is in a Pandemic Modus. How things are going with your family and the rest of Honduras?

Things are very hard in Honduras right now, we were already in trouble amid an economic and political crisis, then the pandemic came and it was disastrous for the fragile country economy. Many companies could not stand the situation and had to close operations, so a lot more people are unemployed, while they are dealing with death within theirs family due the Covid19 virus, it is a pretty dramatic situation. Sadly the government has proved it self incompetent and corrupt in the face of this wide world tragedy.

A lot of people in Europe do not know a lot about Honduras. Please tell us something about the country and city where you are living?

Honduras is a small country in Central America with a population of around 10 millions souls, I live in the capital city Tegucigalpa, it is a tropical country with beautiful locations, but also very poor.

How is the metal scene in Honduras and how big is Delirium in the Honduras heavy metal scene?

The scene is quite small, as you can imagine the general music taste of the people in this latitudes is very different and since the population is small the rock scene is small, nevertheless Delirium is a band with more than 30 years of existence with a long tradition in Honduras and the rest of countries in Central America that we use to tour. I would say that we are more persistent and resilient than big.

Please tell us how Delirium got started?

Delirium started as a bunch of school kids who wanted to play rock as the bands we admired like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth and the like. We started playing covers of this bands an others Spanish bands but soon we realized that we wanted to do original music so we did.

How is it possible that the album: ” Errante” was not available on CD yet?

The music market has changed so much in the past years, CDs are now a thing of collector, now the majority of the music consumption is on stream services or digital format, Nevertheless we released a CD in our country Honduras for that album.

Finally the album is on CD via Pure Steel/Karthago Records. How this all came into being?

This came to be because Joe Casto the other guitarist of the band came in contact with the people at Pure Steel and showed them the music wish they listened and liked, so they decided to give us a hand in the effort to put our music available for rockers in Europe that are a little tired of the mainstream rock or they have this strange taste for foreign, rare and obscure projects.

Please tell us about the lyrics. You are not singing in English language. So what is important for you and the band to write about?

Yes, we always wanted to sing in our mother tongue Spanish, because music in our language was so scarce, so we wanted to contribute with the cultural bagaje of my country. The lyrics usually take one of  two streams, the first is the sociological when you look into the outside, the other one is the psychological realm, when you are viewing into the inside, so a lot of experiences of all types are considered in our lyrics. The most important thing to us is to think in how we can construct a better society by creating better individuals.

What are the future plans with the band and is it possible to play live shows now in Honduras?

The situation is so uncertain right know, we are not able to play yet, and most likely the situation will remain the same for the whole 2021 year. We already have two years under lockdown with no concerts. But we will see, we have a lot of music ideas that we need to work on.

You told me that you listen to ISKC radio in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. How did you find out about this online radio station?

Oh yes! I love it, the wide spectrum of music that they have is amazing, you know, every genre of music that you can not really classify becomes progressive rock. I found the radio on the Tune In app!

When die you start learning to play the guitar and how did you start listening to hardrock/ metal music?

I started a little late, about 15 years old when I felt in love at once of this fantastic kind of music, I had to go head on into this world, I had no choice. I started listening rock at school trading long plays albums and cassettes with other kids, I know it sounds weird but in those days there were not Internet, YouTube or Spotify it was all a very physical experience.

What are some of your favorite bands/musicians?

It is so hard to say at this point now because they are so many, but some of my all times favorites are Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth and Baron Rojo.

What is your profession beside playing in a metal band? Do you have a family to take care about?

I went into the university and graduated from marketing and business, but worked many years as a consultant for development projects in my country and other Central American countries.

I do have a family to take care of, I have a beautiful wife and a 22 year old son. My wife has been with me for 27 years, I know it is difficult to believe that  living this life of third world country rock star.

Do you have a last word or something that’s on your heart you want to share with us?

Just to say thank you for the interview Heiko, and I hope this little interview help to provide a little bit of context to the music that  we play if you have the chance to listen it!

Rock on!