Dragonforce played the 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise and had a little fun with their classic "Through The Fire And Flames." Watch as guitarist Herman Li and bassist Alicia Vigil hit the water slide for a portion of the song, before Li jumps in the hot tub and shreds along with the crowd. And no – there was no underwater playing this time around.
More importantly, why is Dragonforce's music so fast and insane? In an interview with Paul Reed Smith of PRS Guitars, Li recently elaborated Dragonforce's style mostly evolved as a kind of "fuck you" to people that laughed at them originally.
"Looking back now, and I still remember, the only reason we were playing music is because we enjoyed it," said Li. "And we wanted to play onstage. I've always thought the experience of performing in front of an audience was exciting. It was the same thing with [co-founding guitarist Sam Totman]. But we made this band, and we thought, 'Well, in order to play live, we've gotta make demos and we have to get record deals. That's the only way we can get on tour and have a great time.'
"And at that time, when we started the band, playing guitar solos, any kind of technical, melodic [music] — with melodic singing — was kind of being laughed at a lot around the world, especially in England and America. People laughed at us: 'Oh, you guys play solos. That is so yesterday. Who cares?' And, 'You guys have singing. That's so cheesy.'
"So what happened is it actually made us do more of everything that people [were] laughing at us for. So we made double the amount of guitar solos, made it more melodic [with lots of] harmonies. It was kind of like a [fuck you] way to say, 'You don't like what we play? Well, you know what? We're gonna go an extra mile and take it to another level to the extreme.'"
