Unfortunately things had been unstable for a while now…. The band had been together for almost 9 years, and through all of the problems we’ve had to deal with over the years, the tension just began to build. Things were going pretty decent for us up until the end of the last show that we played. After that we wanted to focus on new material, so we began discussing where we wanted to head with the new writing… unfortunately it seemed Alex wanted to head in one direction, and Chris S. wanted to go in the complete opposite direction. It kind of left Chris H. and I right in the middle. Herring and I wanted to take what the band was known for and continue in that style, but we also wanted to unify things a bit more… play more like a band and not 4 musicians trying to compete with each other for sonic space. During this whole time of not seeing eye-to-eye, Salinas decided to join a Queensryche cover band, and eventually diverted his full attention to them. They began to show him some of their original material, and the music was much simpler than Power of Omens, which is what he, was looking for. Between his new found direction and the current turmoil in the band… Chris decided to part ways with us. At the very same time, Alex, unwilling to compromise with the rest of the band in regards to fine tuning the writing, decided to call it quits as well. So we were given two big blows within the span of a day or two. At first Herring and I were unsure of what we were gonna do, but it didn’t take long to realize our love for this band and our desire to forge on.

Well believe it or not, we’ve already been auditioning, and have already found two hopefuls. It looks like we’ll me making a couple of “new” announcements here in the next few weeks. If all goes well, we’ll begin the writing of the next CD at the turn of the New Year. In fact, we already have one song written that is being used to determine the new guys’ writing styles and how compatible it is to Power of Omens.

The new disc was received with somewhat mixed reviews. Don’t get me wrong though, much of it was wonderful… and so many people have said nothing but great things… but there were a few who did not like the CD specifically because of the vocals. Stating that Chris sang in a high register too often, and was annoying for those who could not get into it. Personally, I loved what Chris did on Rooms of Anguish, but there were a few who felt otherwise. The cool thing though, is that we picked up a lot of new fans with this CD and maintained to keep quite a few of the old ones. As for MetalAges, they have been such a wonderful label. Deron, who runs the label, has been working hard to make sure we get the exposure and recognition that we’ve worked hard for. He’s done so much more for us in the short time that we’ve been working together, than what our first label did the entire 4 years we were with them. MetalAges is a still in its early years, but the way things have been going, it will soon be a label that will earn its respect among the prog community. I see a lot of great things happening for this label and I for one am happy to be a part of the MetalAges family.

(Laughing) That’s a good question…. I think I’m still trying to find that out. The question sounds like your asking about a new league of super-heroes (Laughing)… Well if you’re referring to where the band name came from, Alex and I were on the phone one-day discussing band names. After about hundreds of ideas over a 4-hour conversation, we happened to stumble across Power of Omens. I think some of the suggestion was due to our interest in Fate, Prophecies, Nostradamus, and having the power to change ones fate if you could only see what lied ahead.

Well, San Antonio, as wonderful as a city as it is to live in, the prog metal scene here is just not happening. We do have some incredible support from a guy by the name of Robb Chavez who runs a local cable access metal show, Robb’s Metalworks. He really supports the music scene and promotes the hell out of metal here in San Antonio and South Texas. Playing videos from all sorts of bands, and every month showcasing a local band’s live show. He aired our first show as Power of Omens, and ironically enough, he’s going to air some videos shot from our “last” show. It’s too bad we don’t have more guys like him running around here. San Antonio had been a great city for metal in general over the years, but recently a lot of the nu-metal crap and hard-core has been taking over much of the scene here.

We don’t play live as often as we would have liked. Not having the band all in one city made it pretty difficult. However, with me moving to Dallas and the rest of the members up there as well, that should hopefully change after we finish the next CD.

Flamenco style guitar playing has been something that I’ve been into for years. When we first put Power of Omens together, I decided to incorporate a little of that style into what we were writing at the time. It also found its way on the second CD, and has been so well accepted by the fans that it has become something that will forever be a part of the band. I absolutely love Spanish guitar playing, so much that I am currently finishing up a solo CD of nothing but that type of playing.

Well the way we saw things was that there was already a Dream Theater, we didn’t need to jump on their bandwagon. Although some have said that we have a Dream Theater influence, I don’t think we sound anything remotely like DT. They've always been a big influence on us, we'll never deny that but we would never intentionally try to sound like them or any of our other influences… Fates Warning, Queensryche, Rush, and Kansas. We try to take an approach that is different from most bands. For me personally, I’ve never tried to mold myself after one particular player… instead I have a lot of guitarists that I look up to; Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Jason Becker, Jesse Cook, Ottmar Liebert, Al DiMeola, Yngwie Malmsteen, and the list goes on.

Well we went through quite a bit during those 4 years. As soon as “Eyes…” was released, we lost our bassist Matt Williamson. We eventually found his replacement as well as a keyboardist. It took the guys nearly a year just to learn the material so that we could go out and play some live shows. Well after only a couple of shows, we lost both guys… so nearly a year and a half wasted by this time. At the end of that year we were asked to play the first US ProgPower festival in Chicago/Lansing IL. So we were fortunate enough that Chris Herring found out about the bass vacancy in the band and was interested in auditioning. He came in, learned the setlist, and played the show with us. After the show we decided to start writing the next CD… we didn’t have the songs written until the end of the year, at which time we started to record them. We had some problems with the actual recording and had to basically start again, which really sucked!!! Anyway, the CD was finished, mastered and sent to the label by June of that year. Well, here came another problem…. The label was in financial troubles that we were unaware of, and the release date kept getting pushed back… we finally got tired of waiting, found some loop holes in our contract, and took the re-mastered CD over to MetalAges. After a few months of getting loose ends tied up, the new label stepped up and finally got our CD released.

A day with my girlfriend and no worries in the world… hahah

It’s always a possibility. Now that we’ll be in Dallas, we’ll be right down the road, and as I mentioned before we’ll all be in one city, so playing more shows for us will be a reality. Which will include road trips. If you think we could get a good turn out there, then I can’t see why we wouldn’t play Midland.

Any combination of these bands, Zero Hour, Evergrey and Symphony X.

I would still have to say Dream Theater is, but there are so many upcomers that are really making a splash in this genre, such as Symphony X and Evergrey and I think it’s great to see new blood making waves in our prog community.

Trust me, I’d make sure that I’d aim perfectly for that safety net…. (Laughing)

What are your influences??? Why the name Power of Omens??? And lately, Why 4 years between releases???? I have those question so burned in my mind that I think I answer them in my sleep…(Laughing)

Is it true that musicians get laid a lot??? (Laughing) of course my answer would have to be…. WHAT??? You get laid in this business??? Seriously though, I think I would actually like to see someone ask, “Would you hit the road if we sponsored your tour???”

Well, at the moment, we’re finalizing the current (and hopefully last) line-up of Power of Omens. As soon as we’re a complete band once again, we’ll be working on new material at the start of the New Year, and will hopefully be able to release something by sometime mid 2004. After that, playing live, doing as many shows as we possibly can.

Thank you all for being so supportive over the years, and we promise, Power of Omens is still very much alive, and will be back just as good, if not better than ever!!! Without you, this band has no future… thanks for being there and giving us hope for tomorrow!!!!