Diemonds frontwoman Priya Panda discusses problems band encountered with record label

Diemonds frontwoman Priya Panda discusses problems band encountered with record label

Diemonds singer Priya Panda was recently interviewed by Ian Sutherland for Metal Talk and spoke about the difficulties that the band encountered when associated with a record label such as Napalm Records for their previous album Never Wanna Die, which was released back in August 2015. Last month, Diemonds released their fourth and self-titled studio album on their own.

Panda stated: “…. we had limited runs of CD and vinyl but they’re already all sold out. We’re no longer on Napalm Records; they’re the ones who put out ‘Never Wanna Die‘. We really wanted to take control of the creative process from point A to point Z. Our roots are punk, our roots are making things with our own hands, going on the streets and giving out flyers. We built this thing from out of nothing and maybe we’re right back where we started but I have no regrets. We’ve got to do a lot and experience a lot and most of that has been done ourselves and it feels good.

A lot of what happened over the last album cycle was out of our control and we gave up control and we saw how that affected us, affected our band, affected our press, it affected our creative process, it affected our inter-personal relationships. I guess in the end we all have our strengths and we’re control freaks [laughs].

It’s a good outlet for us to use our strengths so when it comes to the artwork and design CC gets to do all that. When it comes to booking and logistics there’s Dekay and when it comes to the PR and the press and a lot of the writing that’s all me and it’s a team. The team just became disjointed as we added more people to it and we gave up control. We’d have a press person telling us maybe you should talk about feminism and maybe you should talk about being a woman, maybe you should talk about this or talk about that. I was like maybe I should just talk about whatever the fuck I want to talk about. It’s my record, it’s my band. I’m not here to put a spin on anything, I’m just here to make music and be myself. We’ve taken the reins back and we’re punk again, though maybe more in the attitude than the song writing.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Priya Panda at Metal Talk.