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"It started in '92 and it had a completely different line-up, two of the members were from a band called Obituary, but then like six years went by and then the music, the direction totally changed and we never did anything to follow up the album, like a tour or anything and I couldn't write melodic vocal patterns but the music was really calling for it, so I was playing with a new drummer and we got a new singer and eventually we got this line-up which is Cristophe Lambouret from Out, he's from a French band and Ian, the drummer, he used to be from Benediction about ten years ago, then me and Shane, we've been working together in Napalm for ten years." "I could write screamin' stuff and hardcore stuff and good rhythmical patterns but melodically wise if I could come up with a melody it was based on the guitar line so it was one dimensional in a way, so I needed someone to add that extra input from a completely different angle and Christophe did all that stuff." "There's a producer named Colin Richardson and he'd done a bunch of Napalm records and he'd just finished the first album by Out which was an unknown French band and Roadrunner picked them up and I was like, "Colin what do I do, man, do we need a singer?" and he was like, "what about this guy", I was like wow, he's got dynamics, he can sing and scream and all the things we need, really, He was interested and when he sent back the first four-track tape that I sent him it had some really good stuff so I said yeah, let's do it. Then we had four rehearsals, five, then did the record. That was last year, but it only came out a month, two months ago." "Some book called 'Raism'. It was the first chapter in the book and it was like 1989 and I was like, there was something about it, I don't know what it was but it just hit me like that's the name of this thing, this vision." "Well, six years in the making but really the last two years is when I started taking it serious, I had a daughter five years ago and Napalm did four albums inbetween 500 shows or something so in the end, I knew if I did another album I wanted it to be completely different but to have obvious links but to progress and learn how to use all the sequencing and all the machinery and stuff better." "Well, I've done a lot of reading on conspiracy theories, anything from extra-terrestrials to unexplained phenomena and 'The Bible Code', when I read that I was like Wow! there's some truth to this thing here, there's some crazy stuff. After that I was just like, man, there's another book, 'Behold The Pale Horse', by William Cooper whichI read which totally freaked me out and I felt an urgency to inform some people about some things. Conspiracy theories are a major obsession. Outside of music and my daughter it's pretty much it, I'm inspired by some pretty strange things.The fact that people don't get told what's really happening is a big part of it. From an early age there was a lot of anger involved because of that, but then I realised how much you can find out if you look and if you read and stuff and I was like whoah, this is insane. If this is really true, and so many things in the book were true and have happened because it was ten years old. I was like if this is true then this is fucked, and we are fucked, and I was like look at this, look at this, and in America, it was everywhere. On the Napalm tour we did, it was everywhere. It's really more concentrated in America. I was like shit. If you look at the cd and you put it in a computer, there's a text file explaining some of the angles, some of the interesting points, it's about fifteen pages worth of gobbledegook." "They're so engulfed in their life that they don't even notice, really. It's so fast-paced that it's just common un-informedness. Some people don't accept that, that's why you have the riots in Seattle...." "Hmm. I'd say it's not the type of thing that you would totally digest in one listen but I'd say it's extreme in a lot of ways but melodic as well with a lot of other angles creeping into the style, erm, it's kinda conceptual, almost self-indulgent but at the same time simple enough to kinda catch your attention. People have their favourite songs, mine are different sometimes...It's hard to explain." "Well, we were absolutely gutted because when we mastered it the first seven songs flowed together so perfect, it was smooth and it was just like an achievement, we were really happy, then we were on tour with Napalm and when we got back the finished..see we went through the full process and it was right and somehow in the transferral the gaps became seperated where it would have been cross-faded and so it was a big fuck up really but they'd already pressed them and sent them out and we were helpless on tour and couldn't do anything so yeah, sorry. It should have been smooth but..." "Well, we signed for two, so...I need to suss out what I want to do, because there's a lot of electronic stuff, the last album was written basically around guitar, 'cos at the time all I had was a twelve string acoustic for a while and I was using that and this is going to be based from the opposite angle because it's hard to add other sounds to enhance it with all the guitar you can't hear it, it's a waste. So if you have the atmosphere already and then the vocals will work. Then you just fill the gaps with guitars. I can't really say, in a year I'll probably feel completely different. It depends on the new Bjork record, I suppose. She always gives me a whole new outlook every time I hear her new stuff, every time it's just better and better. It's just emotional real enigmatic sort of stuff, every angle, no guitar, it's just totally unique and original. You couldn't sample her voice without everyone knowing it's Bjork. She's completely identifiable, which is rare these days, y'know and she's a pop star, really, but she doesn't fall into that trap, she does her own shit, she always has." "Well we're just doing these gigs to see if we can do it, see if it's working, everything's good enough to go out and do festivals over the summer, but it'll take a lot of planning because Shane does other bands, there's Napalm, there's Lock-Up, other things, I have other projects like Little Giant Drug, that's another band that's another one that's hard to describe but completely different again but there's definitely a link between all the bands, the styles kinda creep into each other."
"Fuck knows. Ten years from now, I'll tell you." |
