Hi there, how's touring with Dillinger Escape Plan going at the moment, are they as chaotic and destructive as ever?
They are. This band is from another world, and superior to anything that mother earth has to offer. They destroy every place they get to, every single night of the tour, 33 shows in a row!
You're quite different from the other bands on the tour, how's fans reactions been to you?
Really good. I think all the bands on this package are different, it's not that Cancer Bats and DEP are doing the same thing and then we are another story, you know... but that's what makes it interesting. You don't wanna see the same band 3 times a night, do you?
We've been going down really well everywhere. Of course, as the opening act sometimes it takes a while to break the ice, the audience isn't warmed up at the beginning of the night and sometimes we have to play just 10 minutes after doors... but somehow there is something that Dillinger and us have in common, and the crowd realizes that and their fans are reacting really positively to us and buying lots of merch. I don't know what it is exactly that we have in common, we're just on the same page as people and musicians, and both bands have a pretty intense live shows I guess.
You looking forward to hitting some UK dates with Dillinger and Rolo Tomassi?
Fuck yeah. I haven't heard anything about Rolo Tomassi yet but I'm really looking forward to those UK shows, Dillinger are bigger there than in mainland Europe, so it will be awesome!
You take a wide range of influences, where have the main influences to your sound been coming from lately? Who or what inspires you?
Everything I see and hear around me, not necessarily just music - it can be sounds, paintings, museums, landscapes, people... I've been travelling in Tanzania and Morocco this year and this has inspired me more than any record I have heard this year.
The second part of your latest album output, Anthropocentric will be out soon, last time we spoke you didn't want to give a lot of details, are you able speak more about the style and sound as a companion to Heliocentric?
Musically, most people will say that Anthropocentric is heavier than Heliocentric. I wouldn't necessarily agree, I do think that Heliocentric was a pretty heavy album, apart from the piano-based tracks - it's just a different kind of heaviness.
Heliocentric was a stylistically very diverse album, and a very orchestral one. Anthropocentric gets by without big orchestrations, it's an album where the focal point is the core-band: drums, bass, guitars, vocals. We wanted to make an album this time around that is easily playable in a live-environment.
We have also played tracks like 'Epiphany' off Heliocentric live, but you need a contra bass, piano and 2 violas for that, so for tours it is not really an option.That's why this time we wanted to simplify the instrumentation a bit.
Lyrically, both albums follow the concept (a critique of Christianity) but stand on their own and approach the subject from different angles.
Each song on each album is part of the big whole, but also makes sense by itself.
Damnation Festival is on the list of UK dates you're on, have you heard of Damnation before?
Yeah, I've heard about it a while ago and we've been wanting to play ever since. Seems like a great festival with an awesome lineup every year, so we're really looking forward to it!
I'm a humble Damnation goer, why should I come check out The Ocean?
Cuz we destroy.
Are there any bands on the Damnation line-up, (Paradise Lost, Discharge, Anaal Nathrakh etc.) that you are really looking forward to catching?
Yeah, looking forward to seeing Anal Nathrakh, don't really care about the other 2 bands...
Your merch and products are gorgeous! Who designs them?
Martin Kvamme has been designing our past 4 album artworks. He's known for his works on pretty much all Mike Patton-related albums, that's how we found him too... I was just blown away by the Tomahawk album "Mit Gas" that he designed, and back then I dropped him a line, sent him some of our music and he was into it... that was 4 years ago and since then we've been working with him.
Some of the t-shirt designs are also done by him, others are done by Seldon Hunt and by a Fench guy named Thibault Brassart.
Robin set up Pelagic Records a little while ago, how's it been going?
Pretty good. Pelagic is a small label devoted to releasing music we love with extensive packaging and art. We believe that if fans are still to buy music as a physical product these days, you gotta give them a reason - and nice artwork and fancy packaging are the best reason.
We're releasing a combined version of our Heliocentric and Anthropocentric albums in a silver-foiled box with 4x 180 grams vinyls, a set of cards, star map and 2 gatefold covers inside; each with 3 revolving transparent silver-foiled PVC dials depicting the sun/earth and the planets orbiting around it... the same is available as a 4xCD box, including instrumental versions of the albums.
We're also releasing a band called Earthship in November.
I play guitar there, it's heavy stuff somewhere between Crowbar, Baroness and Iron Monkey... and another Swiss band called Abraham who sound a bit like The Beyond-era Cult Of Luna... check it out at www.pelagic-records.com.
We also just opened a unique new download portal that allows you to purchase a download first and then upgrade to CD whenever you want!
A festival experience can be amazing or terrible, have you had any experiences that could be classed as either?
An experience that sums up both sides was Sikelian Hell Festival in Sicily, we played there in July. The promoter rented a house for us on the beach, where we hung out 3 days before the festival, and every night he would take us out to the most amazing restaurant where platters of seafood and pasta were served until we were fat as romans and couldn't walk back to our house anymore (he would drive us back). It was awesome.
Then, on day 4, we went to the festival site... there was a huge stage in a soccer stadium, and we were like, wow... but in the end, no more than 100 people showed up. It was a disaster and we felt so sorry for the promoters. The next night Napalm Death headlined and there were like 200 kids, it wasn't much better. It was probably a crazy ambitious undertaking to pull off something like this in Sicily from the beginning, but they also had lots of trouble with local church authorities who were giving them lots of shit because of this Italian band Necrodeath that was supposed to play, and that is said to have Satanist lyrics... and you wouldn't believe it, but the church is still mighty powerful in rural Italy.
Which ocean related film? The Abyss, Das Boot or Jaws?
I guess this would be Das Boot. It is so horribly German... but it conveys the kind of dark, menacing, fearsome atmosphere that is behind our music best, I would think.
Many thanks as always for your time, best of luck with the tour and I look forward to catching you at Damnation.
Cheers man, thanks and see you there!
