Lost Between The Sound: An Interview With P.O.D’s Marcos Curiel

Marcos Curiel has lots to be grateful for. He’s the founding guitarist of P.O.D (Payable On Death), the San Diego nu-metal crew formed in 1992 who boast three Grammy nominations and over 12 million record sales. He strikes me as modest, downplaying his achievements and humbly attributing any success he’s had to his fans and “the beauty of music”.

When I ask him about the longevity of his band, he deflects the focus away from the band and towards his fans.

“We are very gracious and thankful for this and to fans that are so loyal. Whether in South America, Europe, here in the states or even Australia or New Zealand. People still come up see us doing our thing and we are still riding that wave until that wave stops.”

But he’s also quick to credit his band members and crew for P.O.D’s success as well.

“I think a lot of it comes from our upbringing – having the same sort of background – basically coming from nothing. And just aspiring to want to play music for people and just doing it, acting out on it and building a following. We were independent before we signed to a major label and kept saying that there was an audience there for what we were doing. It encouraged us to continue to do it and encourages us to keep doing it today even though we are 25, 26 years deep.

“We are definitely a second family on the road. We were basically teenagers when we started jamming together. Now we are full on grown men with kids and families of our own. P.O.D is our second family, you know what I mean? We’re probably together more as a band then we are with our own family sometimes. You know, we travel the world together. We are in an airplane, we’re in a bus… we are always travelling together as a band and with our crew”

Curiel is also a fan of New Zealand, having come several times in the past decade. Last time they co-headlined with NZ act Rapture Ruckus. Before that they’ve toured with Disturbed and played Edgefest. He begins the interview just gushing about our country.

“Given the opportunity, if I had to leave the states and go somewhere else to live and I always say New Zealand. . . Maybe I could even retire there.”

In recent years P.O.D have tried new directions, putting out an acoustic record (SoCal Sessions, 2014), and a concept album (The Awakening, 2015). I ask if the latest single, “Soundboy Killa” will be part of any upcoming album and Curiel admits that he isn’t sure at this stage.

“Well that is kind of a transitional single kind of thing We put that kind of to let our fanbase know that hey we’re working on new music, we’re still here – you know what I mean? I don’t even know if that’s going to make the record. Some people are like ‘That should go on the record!’, and we’re like ‘well… you never know…’ We’ll figure it out.

“Actually, we just signed a new deal with Mascot Labels. And they’ve taken us on, and hopefully releasing the new album in the summertime here in the States. We’re currently writing and working on pre-production which started in November. We were in the studio last week and we’re working through December, but we’re taking time off for holidays and we’re going to jump back in in January and head on tour here in the States. And jump back in and hopefully record that record in March and drop it in the summer.

“It’s been pretty cool, because we usually get one producer to do the whole record and on this album we’re working with different producers and different production crews. We’re working with HEAVY – they’ve done stuff with Sublime, The Dirty Heads. .. Just a bunch of different artists. And we’re working with Cameron Webb – he’s produced NOFX, Pennywise, Motorhead… He’s actually the producer of Soundboy Killer.

“We’re just trying different things, man. We’re at a stage in our career that we don’t really have to go out and say ‘hey, look at us, we’re a band.’ You know who we are and you either like us or you don’t. We have freedom to be able to experiment and do what we want, how we want to do it. Which, quite frankly, is pretty awesome.”

One interesting fact about P.O.D that draws attention is that they collaborated with the then-unknown Katy Perry for their song “Goodbye For Now” back in 2005. This remains a seemingly hot piece of trivia, despite the fact that the band have also collaborated with many other artists from acts like In This Moment, Suicidal Tendencies and Bad Brains.

Curiel wasn’t part of the band during that period, so never actually met her. He tells me what he knows about the collaboration though.

“They were working with Glen Ballard for Testify and she was one of his protegés – so to speak – that he was trying to get up and get out there in the scene. She was always hanging around the studio and wanted to go on a track. The guys became friends with her and she actually performed on the song on The Jay Leno Show, I believe. That’s how that all came to be. She will occasionally tweets about the band, tweet out how much she loves ‘Alive’ and certain songs. That’s pretty cool.”

POD are known as a Christian band, which earns them flack from both atheists and churches. In my experience, non-believers are often quick to condemn anyone of faith. And many conservative churches dismiss POD because of the company they choose to keep, playing along the likes of Marylin Manson and at metal festivals such as Ozzfest.

Marcos virtually scoffs when I ask him about this. “Do you know what’s crazy about that? I call it scenester stuff,” he explains, “I know vegans who are in hardcore bands, and I’m like, so what… you’re only gong to play with hardcore vegan bands? No, they’re playing with all different types of bands – you know what I’m saying?

I understand, I explain, my friends in Declaration AD used to get similar criticism. People would question their motives, asking things like “Why would a band of Christians choose to play alongside death metal bands? This strikes a chord with Curiel. He proceeds to explain that he tries to write music for all walks of life, not just Christians.

“Christian people maybe want to hold themselves to be the poster children, but that’s not what we’re called to do. We want to write music that inspires everybody. And so we took an approach that we’ll play most of the shows, because we want to play for everybody.

“But as far as being caught in the middle – we don’t look at it like that. We are a band of faith. Definitely we have our personal beliefs. We try to write music that connects with multiple cultures and different types of people.

“I think that’s the beautiful thing about being an artist. There’s people who are gonna understand your art, and some that won’t. The thing is, we’ve never really tried to become, at an early age we were a little more – so to speak – old in the faith. We never knew there was metal, or punk rock or any kind of scene that was a Christian scene. The band that we referred to as a major influence was U2. We’ve always look at them as inspiration. They had Christian roots and have written songs that are very conscient of humanity, or being positive in general, and we’re taken that approach – obviously playing a different style of music.

“And when we went to Singapore we found ourselves playing in front of Muslims. And they were singing ‘Alive’! And we were like ‘What the heck!’, we were tripping out at it. But at the same time, that’s the beautiful thing about music – it’s universal.

“What we get our inspiration and a lot of our confidence. First of all, it comes from that Chrstian faith, but we don’t go out and say ‘Hey, we’re this and that’s who we are.’ We’re just a rock band, man, that wants to inspire . We have our struggles and try to write songs about those struggles and we try to encourage all walks of life.

“The Beastie Boys, towards the end of their career they all about Free Tibet, and Jay was a Buddist, and they were playing with everybody, from Pearl Jam to Jane’s Addiction.

“You know how it is. Music should be universal. People have certain beliefs that drive their music, and that just happens to be ours.”

I feel that the way he concludes the interview is incredibly indicative of his character: positive and humble.

“We’re excited to get down there. We love your country and everything about the culture – the energy – and we cant wait to get down there and perform. Bring some Southern California vibes down there!”

P.O.D Australia/ NZ Tour Dates

Saturday 14 April Auckland The Studio

Sunday 15 April Wellington San Fran

Buy tickets for New Zealand: https://metropolistouring.com/pod-nz/

Tuesday 17 April Melbourne 170 Russell

Wednesday 18 April Adelaide The Gov

Friday 20 April Sydney Factory Theatre

Saturday 21 April Brisbane Eatons Hill Hotel

Sunday 22 April Gold Coast Coolangatta Hotel

Buy tickets for Australia: https://metropolistouring.com/pod/

P.O.D links:

Website: http://www.payableondeath.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/POD/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/POD

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/POD/

Exclusive Track Premiere: Barracks – Lovestay (Acoustic)

It has been quiet on the Barracks-front for some time, but now the Bay of Plenty band have returned with a different sound. Taken from the 2016 of the same name, Lovestay has been re-recorded acoustically. This stripped back version showcases Jared Ipsen’s stellar singing abilities accompanied by tender piano playing stunning guitar strumming.

The sparse new arrangement contrasts against Barracks’ usual post-hardcore style, but works well. Moody, chilling, and incredibly well produced, it serves to highlight the introspective nature of the song.

Will Not Fade has a wickedly funny chat with Jared and Tom to learn what Barracks have been up to lately, and get a better picture of how the world looks from their point of view.

‘Lovestay (Acoustic)’ recorded by Barracks at C&T Studios, 2016. Mixed and mastered by Nathan Sowter. Streaming video by Joe O’Connor. Cover art by Conor Coleman.

What have you been up to over the past few years?

Jared: At the end of 2016, we released the criminally underrated EP, em>Lovestay. Early 2017, we played a couple of big shows with Baroness and Alexisonfire in Auckland, and will probably ride those sweet waves for a while. After that, we were drummerless, so Hunter (bass / vocals) started learning how to play. We offered Jin an $1,000,000 advance to play guitar for Barracks. We weren’t interested in playing traditional guitar solos anymore, but there shouldn’t be, like, a rule of no solos.

Obviously opening for bands like Baroness and Alexisonfire has earned you someawesome bragging rights. Do you think you’re ever likely to go on tour with an overseas act as the support band?

Jared: I mean, that would require going on tour, wouldn’t it?

How do you make it work, with band members living in different towns?

Tom: We make it work like any family in an indifferent universe. But we still want to be there for each other… The occasional birthday card. A text sent to say “are you alive?” Or just a simple drum beat tapped out and recorded in the car at the traffic lights for the others to make a song out of. Regular people. Doing regular things.

Tell me your thoughts on music piracy. Is it even a thing anymore, now that streaming is so dominant? I ask because you featured predominantly on the Bittorrent site a few years back.

Jared: I think if someone is the type that doesn’t pay for music, they’re never going to pay for music, no matter how much they like it. For me, it was really the difference between people hearing our music for free or not hearing it at all. As far as piracy goes, one of the main ways that people rip music these days is straight from YouTube – we don’t have things like Limewire anymore. If people are just gonna do that, I’d rather them have a good sounding version that it be compressed to shit. Our last royalty cheque from streams was $6.79 for the quarter. Which then has to be split between five people. So you could say we’re doing pretty well.

This acoustic version is quite different from your other material. Are you officially
sell-outs now, or did that happen long ago?

Jared: I think there’s an episode of The EPening where you can see the exact moment we sold out.

Tom: I’ve always wanted to sell out. I had to wait until the others gave up on their artistic integrity before joining me in the creative slums. But it’s nice to finally have company.

But in all seriousness, why an acoustic version of an old track, rather than a completely new song?

Jared: Last year we played a few acoustic shows and a live to air on bFM, and people really seemed to enjoy it – or at least they didn’t tell us they hated it, so it seems fair to make that assumption. We thought it would be cool to record a few acoustic versions of our songs because it’s easy and doesn’t take very long. We have around 10 new songs that we’re working on at the moment, we just haven’t quite gotten the bass tone right.

Lovestay was written a few years ago now. Do you still identify with the person you were when you wrote it?

Jared: Yeah, definitely. I’ve tried to keep a theme running through all the Barracks songs, so Lovestay is really just an extension of the ideas from Ghosts, especially in tracks like Fallaway. The EP is about growing up and my pathetic attempts at being as an adult, and I still suck at being as adult, and probably will do for quite some time.

Conor Coleman has his finger in a lot of pies. I can’t even keep up with all the musical
projects that he is part of. He’s currently doing trap music. How did it come about that he did the cover art for this release?

Jared: My sister took the original photo for the Lovestay EP over in France. I had been thinking about cover art for Acoustay when I scrolled past Conor’s photo in my Instagram and it was a perfect fit. Then, I slid in to his DMs and asked if we could use it. He said yes. Then I gave him my email address, and he electronically sent me a copy of the photo in the original resolution. After that, I put it in to Photoshop and cropped it into a square.

I adore your social media presence. Do you brainstorm funny things to post, or does it
come naturally?

Jared: It comes naturally, unfortunately. All of the vlogs we’ve made have just come about from pointing a camera at each other while we hang out. It seems funny from the outside, but when you have to spend any amount of time with us, it can get pretty old.

What is the band’s consensus on Tenacious D? Is it good or bad to own multiple copies</strong of their CD? [Full disclosure: I’ve seen the D play live three times]

Jared: I mean, they’re fine. Say what you will about Jack Black but that dude has pipes, and obviously Kyle is a genius. I had one or two copies of their debut back in the day – it’s just one of those CDs no one remembers buying but every household seems to have a (two) copy(ies), like American Idiot. They’ve been nominated for Grammys and made movies and shit so it’s kind of hard to hate on them when they’re just doing their thing and having a good time. Wonderboy is a jam.

Tom: Personally, if somebody was in my car, going through the oooool’ CD Wallet looking for bangaz, and they stumbled across two copies of the ‘D, side-by-side, in the same wallet, I would be proud. Not only proud that I managed to convince someone to get in a car with me, but also that the lucky passenger could not only listen to the ‘D on non-stop rotate, but also hold the ‘D in their hand and appreciate the craftsmanship of that wee devil.

Why do you hate drummers?

Jared: They take too long to set up, they’re always playing around with other bands on the side, and you have to stop yourself from getting close in case they leave you again.

Tom: I wish Jared was a drummer so he would leave, too.

Do you prefer playing R18 or AA shows?

Jared: It’s a different vibe. As someone that’s been sucking at putting on AA shows for about 10 years now, I’m probably a bit biased toward them. R18 are usually pretty wild though, the only downside is making money for the Illuminati alcohol industry. The hard part of all ages shows lately has been getting people through the door – there aren’t too many young bands kicking around, so sometimes you just play to the other bands that are playing. We call it ‘communal band practice.’

Do you feel that the new Facebook react emoji things have helped you to express your
feelings better?

Tom: It’s a step in the right direction, where people have kind of given up on written and spoken communication. Print is dying, nobody uses phones for talking anymore, and the average age level of spelling and literacy is decreasing. So it’s nice to see emojis step up to the plate and let people know how they feel – with zero effort given (either by actually expressing themselves in well reasoned, thought out sentences or, god forbid, letting somebody actually see their face). I’m rather looking forward to the next step in communication evolution where nobody does anything out of fear of being embarrassed or having their overall life rating decrease.

I think that something that helps Barracks stand out is the focus on melody. Is this a conscious effort to eschew the clichéd approach within the genre of trying to sound as heavy as possible?

Jared: I don’t think it’s been a conscious choice as such to be more emo – I’d say we’ve always been a post-hardcore band that have lumped ourselves in with heavier bands, out of necessity more than anything. With the size of our scene in NZ, it doesn’t really make sense to split all the bands up into single genre shows. Also, screaming is hard and hurts my head.

Does this new single signal a wave of new material to come?

Jared: Nah, probably not.

Tom: Jared’s overall nihilism gets me pretty jacked up, so I’m hoping to work with that and try disappoint him further with the doomiest riff ever created and maybe made into a song. Stay tuned. Just don’t hold your breath. Like, tune in… But keep the volume low so it doesn’t distract you. Then when you least expect it, maybe, just maybe…

What’s next for Barracks?

Jared: We’ve just started an alliance in Contest of Champions, so we’re going to be going really hard on that for a while, see where it takes us.

Tom: A new song. Please. Just anything. If anyone in Barracks reads this… I miss you guys.

Jared: If anyone would like to replace Tom as the guitarist for Barracks, flick me a text on 0279038596.

Get Lovestay (Acoustic) here – smarturl.it/LovestayAcoustic

Barracks links:

BANDCAMP + MERCH | www.barracksmusic.bandcamp.com
INSTAGRAM l instagram.com/barracksmusic
FACEBOOK l facebook.com/barracksmusic
TWITTER l twitter.com/barracksmusic_
TUMBLR | www.fuckyeahbarracksmusic.tumblr.com
YOUTUBE | https://www.youtube.com/barracks

Joseph James

Echoed sounds collide: an interview with Rosetta

Philadelphia post-metallers Rosetta have recently released their sixth album entitled Utopioid [Will Not Fade review here] – a portmanteau of Utopia and Opioid. Utopioid is a concept album composed of four distinct sections that explore the extremes of texture and dynamic. It is also the band’s third independent release, offered for pay-what-you-want on Bandcamp. This is an interesting move in the current age of streaming, but the band not only recouped recording costs, but also achieved top-selling status on Bandcamp.

Believing Utopioid to be an album worth hearing live, Rosetta just underwent an extensive tour across North America. After a short break, they will embark on another tour throughout Asia and Oceania in a month.

Will Not Fade’s Joseph James chatted with guitarist Eric Jernigan about the album, the band’s philosophy, and touring.

Will Not Fade: Obviously you have reason to be proud of your latest record. What sets Utopioid apart from the other albums for you?

Eric Jernigan: Thank you! This is the first time everyone opened his contributions to direct criticism from another. As always the primary focus was to create something that spoke to us as individuals. But we also learned that each one of us does better work in collaboration, challenging as that process may have been at times.

With the four parts of the album, did you write each separate section in sequence, or did you write everything and then arrange them by mood? Because this album is cyclical, so I was wondering about the order it was written in.

We dedicated certain blocks of time to each movement, but if the creative fire went dark for a certain section we allowed ourselves to explore new ideas or tweak existing songs based on what we were in the mood for. Can’t waste time after all.

Does coming up with a concept make writing music easier or harder?

I think musically speaking many concept albums are born haphazardly and later sequenced to fit the story at the artist’s convenience. We avoided that by drawing the map for the concept shortly after we finished the first song structure, and we stuck to it religiously. It made certain aspects of writing feel more cumbersome, but we know it produced our strongest work to date.

Tone, texture and timbre are clearly important to you. What are some ways you try to achieve these things?

I’ve found lately that purposefully limiting the number of tools at my disposal can force some extra creativity to the surface.

To continue that discussion of collaboration, who’s idea was it to create the remixes of your songs included on A Dead-Ender’s Reunion? How does it feel hearing someone else’s take on music you wrote?

We’ve been friends with Will Benoit (Living Phantoms) for many years and deeply admire his work as both a producer and a songwriter. It’s a real treat to hear your music filtered through the mind of a respected peer.

With the recent record, you stressed that this was worth hearing live, and have tried to tour it more widely. Is it hard living on the road so much?

As long as we remain cognizant of the privilege inherent in sharing our music with audiences around the world it’s not hard. No one likes operating on minimal sleep for 30 days straight or sitting upright in a van for hours on end, but the reward is worth the effort.

How was the American tour you just finished?

It helped remind us we live in an unbelievably beautiful country. We found a few hours to visit Yellowstone National Park on a cold day in late October and saw a bunch of geysers, a herd of bison, and a pack of wolves. And then of course we ruminated on the crushing power of the supervolcano lurking beneath us.

What are you expecting from the upcoming Asia/Australia/NZ tour? You’ve chosen a good time of year as we are coming into summer.

It’s been 5 years since we were in Australia and all the rest of the territory is brand new for us. Couldn’t be more excited. Hoping as always to find extra time to meet interesting people and check out whatever sights we can manage.

sleepmakewaves are opening for you in Australia, and Spook The Horses in NZ. They are strong bands, and I actually thought sleepmakeswaves showed up This Will Destroy you when I saw them play together once [Review]. What is your process for choosing support acts?

Actually we’re the support for sleepmakeswaves in Australia, so we built the rest of the tour around that. Spook the Horses have been on our radar thanks to Robin from The Ocean and Pelagic Records, so we were stoked when our NZ agent suggested them. In general we aim to travel with bands who push music somewhere new and hope to make friends along the way.

I recently attended dunk!festival in Vermont, where Pelican and Junius were among the top billing acts. One thing I noticed is that they appear to have more cross appeal than many other bands who played the festival because they cross from post-metal through to doom/sludge territory. But then there was also Russian Circle, who don’t have vocals, and still have managed to achieve similar success. I realise that when Rosetta formed, the idea of post-rock/post-metal wasn’t so prevalent, but do you think that including vocals affects how accessible you are as a band?

To be honest accessibility has never been among our goals so we don’t spend much time thinking about it. Many of our friends in prominent instrumental bands receive unsolicited offers from random singers no one’s ever heard of: “Hey, obviously you left out vocals because you just haven’t found the right front person yet.” Likewise I’m sure there’s a contingency of people who’d prefer we didn’t incorporate screamed and/or sung vocals. Truth is none of that has any bearing on what we create.

After parting with Translation Loss Records, all your albums have been released independently. Talk me through that decision. How does staying independent compare to the option of re-signing to a label?

Translation Loss is a great label that helped us out immensely over the years. Independence simply gives us a more direct line to our listeners and vice versa. We value that connection.

If you were to give advice to a band starting out, would you still recommend the DIY route?

There’s no other way for a young band as far as I know!

When you first decided to offer your music at a pay-what-you-want price, did you expect to earn enough to cover recording costs? Has this helped you gain more exposure?

No, there was a lot of trepidation within the band on the eve of the release of The Anaesthete. We’re lucky to have a wide-ranging group of supporters who understand that music and art are valuable. I doubt it’s helped us gain more exposure, but who’s to say?

How does it feel to have gained best-selling status on Bandcamp?

We are immensely proud of that achievement. Again, we owe that honor to our fan base for their contributions.

Bandcamp offers different formats like FLAC and WAV, and I noted that you recently re-uploaded Utopioid at a higher res.. Do you care about how people access your music (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play etc…)?

For me the idea of caring about how people access our music is tantamount to exploring how people devote their attention to the consumption of music in general. If caring means I wish people would actively listen to our records rather than stream them from Youtube while reading pointless articles online, then yes. But I also recognize music serves different purposes for everyone.

Do many people still buy the physical albums when they are made available? Is there still a demand of supposedly outdated media like cassette tapes?

Yeah, with each album we expect more digital and less physical but demand for CDs and vinyl is actually increasing. We manufactured a small run of cassettes for Utopioid and have been psyched to see them selling through our Bandcamp page and at shows.

I see that you have offered bonus tracks on a few albums for the Japanese editions. Now that the internet opens up access to a global audience, do you feel that you still have separate markets based on location?

That’s a good question. For the most part I think the internet has effectively leveled things in that respect. Nonetheless, it’s tradition in Japan to have some bonus material on a CD. So far we’ve always had the extra tracks around so it’s fun to release them with a great label like Tokyo Jupiter.

Rosetta has been around for 14 years now. How does being in a band now compare to back when you started?

As you might expect the responsibilities of life outside the band weigh a little heavier these days. Luckily the balance is manageable for the most part.

Rosetta Asia/Oceania Tour dates

29/11 Kaohsiung TW – Paramount Bar
30/11 Taichung TW – Sound Live House
01/12 Taipei TW – Revolver
02/12 Singapore SG – Analog Factory
03/12 Kuala Lumpur MY – Rumah Api
05/12 Perth WA – Badlands
06/12 Adelaide SA – UniBar
07/12 Melbourne VIC – Howler
08/12 Brisbane QLD – The Zoo
09/12 Sydney NSW – Oxford Art Factory
12/12 Wellington NZ – Valhalla
13/12 Auckland NZ – Ding Dong Lounge
15/12 Launceston TAS – Greenwood Bar
16/12 Hobart TAS – Brisbane Hotel

Rosetta links:

Website: http://www.rosettaband.com

Bandcamp: https://theanaesthete.bandcamp.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rosettaband

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rosettaband

Instragram: http://www.instagram.com/rosetta_band

Ngā Tamatoa Waiata: An Interview With Alien Weaponry

Alien Weaponry are not your standard band. The three of them – brothers Henry (drums) & Lewis de Jong (guitar and vocals), and Ethan Trembath (bass) – are all still at highschool. They are also known for their unique brand of thrash metal delivered in both English and Māori. Singing in Te Reo sets them apart, but is by no means a gimmick. The music not only stands up on its own, but it crushes. After gaining success in two national music competitions, the trio have begun to garner notoriety, and are now booked to tour Australia and Europe in the near future.

After a string of relentlessly good singles, they are working towards recording their début album, which they are using Indiegogo to help raise funds for. I’ve wanted to interview them for a while, and I figure that now is a great time to do so, catching them on the cusp of the next stages of their success.

Image: Lisa Crandall

Will Not Fade: How are you at the moment?

Alien Weaponry: We are absolutely hammered by media requests but it’s a great problem to have and are so grateful that people seem to like what we are doing and want to write about it. It’s very humbling.

Do you ever expect to get far in Rockquest and Pacifica Beats, considering the nature of your music?

In all honesty we totally expected to fail and be hated at Rockquest. Looking at videos of other years finals we couldn’t find any metal at all and entered as much to make a statement about what we wanted to do with no expectation of winning anything. It took a few years but to their credit Smokefree Rockquest embraced what we were doing and the rest is history. I think the turning point was when we entered Pacifica Beats (also run by Rockquest) and decided to write a song in Māori for that. Some mates had entered in to Pacifica Beats two years earlier and they were a ska band and they won so we thought let’s get noticed and enter a thrash metal song. We fully expected to get noticed but not win. We won, go figure.

Do you feel like a success story? You already have tours lined up overseas before you’ve even finished school.

It’s pretty exciting really, yeah it’s happening fast now. People think of it a bit as overnight success but we have been together now for six years and we have spent plenty of nights playing in pubs around NZ to small audiences. It’s really hard to get your name out there. We are real happy it’s happening now. The European thing is happening faster than we expected. We fully had a goal to be playing at festivals like Wacken Open Air in Germany and thought we might achieve that by the time Henry was 20. It’s crazy to be doing that shit next year – it’s booked and happening! We have five festivals already and counting. We were approached by a big festival promoter in Europe straight after we released “Rū Ana Te Whenua”. A friend of his had seen it and showed it to him on his iPhone at the airport in Athens … next thing he is messaging us on Facebook offering us a slot … Crazy. We are now signed to German music agency Das Maschine.

What are the biggest struggles of being in the band? Does age factor into it?

Not really our age, although we do have to go to school and that can be a major drag when we are trying to get band stuff done. On the other hand it gives us a context for writing songs about frustration and conflict. We have occasionally had people write us off as a “school band” without ever hearing us but that’s not much of a problem anymore. We are obliged to have our parents or legal guardians with us at all times on tour because of the legal stuff with licences venues so that’s a bit dumb sometimes but they are not really a problem and they are a good support when we need it. I think now that we are all over six-foot tall the “little kids” tag line can finally be shaken off.

Does it make it easier or harder having two brothers in the band?

It’s both. You go from wanting to punch each other hard to understanding exactly what they are trying to do or say with songwriting. We haven’t had a serious punch up in a while now but we do get on each other’s nerves. Living in the same house makes rehearsal easier but it’s hard to get away when you need peace. In the end we will always come to an understanding because we are brothers. We can be pretty rude to each other though at times.

Many of your songs reference stories from Aotearoa history. Are these stories something you grew up with, or do you actively seek it out?

We know most of these stories from our dad and stuff he told us when we were kids. He used to point out landmarks and important Māori battle sites when ever we went on a road trip. He has a lot of books too. A history of Te Arawa has some mean as stories in it about early Māori conflict with English settlement. We are from Ngati Pikiao so the Te Arawa stories are often about our tīpuna. Now we live in Northland (Ngāpuhi) we are learning more about the northern conflicts and songs like “Urutaa” are partly about Northland events.

Obviously, as well as honoring your tīpuna with these stories, there is underlying political subtext. What are some key messages you want to share with your listeners?

It’s hard to grow up in a Māori speaking whanau and attend a Kura Kaupapa without having your eyes opened to the recent history of this country. Anyone learning our recent history will in some way or other adopt an activist mentality. It’s inevitable. We try not to be one-sided and songs like our upcoming song “Kai Tangata” tell the story of Māori on Māori conflict and the musket wars. It’s important to say it as it is. talking about the difficult and ugly subjects is what thrash metal does well.

I think it is awesome that you sing in Te Reo Māori. It’s like combining the passion of haka with the heaviness of metal. What prompted you to sing bilingually?

As we said earlier we had mates who had entered Pacifica beats, They are in a band called Strangely Arousing. They had also entered in Rockquest as a band called Aftershock. As Aftershock they played metal and we thought they were cool. They made it to the finals one year but won Pacifica beats as Strangely Arousing and playing as a ska band and it got us thinking what if they had entered as a metal band. It came naturally for us to write a song fully in Māori, it was a no brainer, we didn’t even really think about it we just did it.

I saw a Wireless video that involved you playing a koauau [a traditional Māori flute]. Are you planning on integrating some traditional instrumentation that one wouldn’t expect to find in metal music?

Yeah we have already recorded an intro to “Rū Ana Te Whenua” that will probably end up on the album version. We recorded it last year in the Waipu caves. Tom Larkin came up with a mobile recording setup and we went out to the caves. We had to do several takes cause tourists kept coming through. They must have thought we were nuts doing this stuff deep underground. The reverb is awesome though and total organic. Sounds wicked with the koauau and purerehua.

Ethan, I read that you scored your spot in the band because you could play ukelele. Are we going to hear you thrashing it out on uke for any songs on the album?

Nah probably not. I have just landed a sponsorship with Spector basses in the USA so unless they do an electric Spector uke then i can’t see it happening.

Do you have other contemporaries who sing in Te Reo? This is something I haven’t come across much – or at least within rock music.

We have met heaps of Māori guys in metal bands but non singing in Te Reo. Johnny from Amachine is a pretty wicked Māori speaker too and an awesome guitarist, We played with them a couple of years back. Average Mars Experience have Māori guys too. Wicked musos. They are an instrumental band but these guys should fully do some Māori metal.

What has your reception been like in other countries? Does it compare to how we listen to bands like Rammstein? I played your songs to many of my friends when travelling in America recently and most people loved it.

Yeah we have been overwhelmed by the number of positive comments from fans all around the world. Metal is a good genre for “foreign language singing” I think as the vocals are often more of an instrument than in other genres. Really we have nothing negative coming back at all. We do sing a lot of stuff in English too so yeah something for everyone I guess.

You have some creative options for your Indiegogo campaign. Who came up with the idea of jumping into the Waipu river?

When we first looked at the crowdfunding thing we looked at what other bands were doing and a Polish metal band was offering to immerse themselves in the freezing cold swamp behind their house. I guess the Waipu river is our swamp, but cleaner.

What’s it like working with Tom Larkin? I’m a diehard Shihad fan.

He is a hard man. We mean that in a good way and he is really good at calling bullshit if he thinks things are not going as they should or reaching full potential. As a drummer he worked a lot on Henry’s drum technique and is a perfectionist. We have another producer also working with us and it will be interesting to compare their production styles.

What can we expect from the upcoming album? I’m loving the singles that you already have out.

We have a bunch of new material written after “Rū Ana Te Whenua”. Some of it in Māori like “Kai Tangata” and quite a lot in English too like “Holding My Breath” and “Cult of Sanitised Warfare”. We are pretty excited to be going into the studio next month to finish it off. We will probably be doing some Facebook live streams from our sessions too.

What are some of your career highlights to date?

We have had so much happen to us lately. Being included in the lineup for Soundsplash is pretty awesome given we will be the first ever metal band to play there. We have a number of cross genre festivals coming up over the summer. Also we are booked on some huge European metal festivals next year. The high light as of today must be the Apra Silver Scroll Maioha Award. That was so unexpected and such a privilege.

And what are your upcoming goals for the future?

We would really like to be in a situation where we are doing this full-time as a living. Touring the world and being recognised for our unique approach to metal. It would be cool to think we had inspired a younger generation not only to get into music but into te reo Māori too.

Image: Lisa Crandall

Alien Weaponry are currently raising funds to record their début album. To support them check out their Indiegogo account: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/alien-weaponry-debut-album#/

Alien Weaponry links:

Website: http://alienweaponry.com
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/alienweaponry
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlienWeaponry
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlienWeaponry
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alienweaponry/

Joseph James.

All photos supplied, taken by Lisa Crandall.

Thanks to Niel Hammerhead for setting this up.

Interview: Judith Hoorens – We Stood Like Kings

We Stood Like Kings are a Brussels-based post-rock quartet who specialise in re-imagining scores for silent films. Their upcoming album, USA 1982 (out 22 September 2017 on Kapitän Platte), was written to accompany American cult movie Koyaanisqatsi, directed by Godfrey Reggio. The film explores the imbalance of nature when mankind takes over. The original film was scored by Phillip Glass, so Judith Hoorans explains why her band decided to write music to fit something that already has a soundtrack.

Hi Judith. How are you?

Hi Joseph. I’m absolutely fine, thank you. Happy to be here!

Tell me about your personal musical journey. How long have you been playing piano and when did you first discover post-rock?

I started playing piano as a child. My parents really wanted their three children to have a musical education, so we didn’t really have a choice. I first learned violin, before figuring out it wasn’t really my cup of tea. I remember being very afraid of my teacher. Then I switched to piano. It’s only later, in my late teenage years , that I became conscious of how much music meant to me and that I could do something worthy with it. It’s about at the same time that I discovered post-rock through a good friend of mine. The first band I really enjoyed was Caspian.

How did We Stood Like Kings come to exist?

I’ve known Mathieu, our drummer, since a very long time. We were both students at the same boarding school in Aalst, a little Flemish town located between Brussels and Ghent. Our supervisor loved music a lot and even provided us with a rehearsal room. We started writing pop songs, playing covers. A few years later, we had lost sight of each other but met again by chance, almost literally bumping into each other at university. That’s when I let him hear some post-rock, and he was totally up for it. We started a new band, and over the years, We Stood Like Kings took shape with Colin on bass and Phil on guitars.

Who is your favourite film director and why?

I don’t really have a favorite film director. I’m not a movie know-it-all, I like to enjoy good movies and I don’t really watch them the way that I like listen to music (which I do in a more professional way, you might say, paying attention to meter changes, tonalities, etc.). The best movies for me are the ones which make you forget all the things you have to take care of.

What process does We Stood Like Kings go through when deciding which films you’d like to cover?

Of course we watch a lot of movies, and at some point, it becomes obvious which one we should choose. I guess we discussed the choice of Koyaanisqatsi for like, 5 minutes. Our second project for Vertov’s A Sixth Part of the World was a bit more tricky, because we knew that the movie was a difficult one and would raise many questions from the audience due to its political nature.

One your website you include a quote from Godfrey Reggio that includes the sentence “Copies are copies of copies”. How well do you think this applies to your current project?

The way I would interpret your question is that in my opinion, nothing is ever really new. We are all different but identical at the same time. Though I would say that we have consciously chosen a musical direction that was different from Philip Glass’ approach. Bands are always inspired by other art forms, be it music or other kinds of art, and there are always many others doing stuff that’s close to what you do. The only way to make it really personal is to put all your soul in it. Trying to create something to really resonates within you. Therefore you have to find what’s yours and not someone else’s and use it as your strength.

You’ve covered Berlin, USSR – two lost empires. And now you’ve chosen the USA. Was that a conscious decision?

Yes definitely. We had the idea of making a kind of trilogy on the subject of fragile empires. BERLIN 1927 is like a snapshot of Berlin right before the outbreak of World War II. USSR 1926 shows a glimpse of the Soviet empire at the height of its power. It was only logical to focus on the USA, the Western lifestyle and how it came to its actual form thanks to the technological evolution of the last decades. How knows how it’s going to end?

How does copyright factor into what you do, seeing as you are playing music to match other artists works?

We certainly have to handle copyrights. The two movies from the 20s are still protected by what you call “screening rights”, which we have to pay for each screening of the movie to the Film Museum who has restored to movie and commercialized it on DVD. For Koyaanisqatsi, we have made an agreement also. Of course it’s never free to use existing movies and one should be really careful about this to avoid bad surprises.

Have you ever received feedback from people who were involved in the films you write soundtracks to? And were you in contact with Phillip Glass at all during this process?

Well, not for our first two albums obviously, because the people who made them are dead now. We have not been in contact with Philip Glass. But we have recently sent our soundtrack to the directing team of Koyaanisqatsi. We are eagerly awaiting their feedback, that’s the least we can say.

Last year was the anniversary for the battle of Somme. I watched a documentary about it which was filmed during the the battle, and a live orchestra played the score in time with the film. Do We Stood Like Kings do something similar?

Yes, it’s what we do. We play live, below the screen, while the movie is playing and we are synchronizing our music with it. Of course there’s just 4 of us and not a whole orchestra!

This work has taken We Stood Like Kings a whole year to write. Talk me through the writing process.

Of course the first step is to choose a movie to work on. That took us quite a long time, as we had to watch tons of silent movies before finally coming across Koyaanisqatsi. But it was love at first sight. Once the choice is made, the next step is to watch it over and over again while trying to decide which overall mood fits in which part. Of course you have to split it up in different parts, and that might be a bit tricky as we have to take into account the fact that the album’s going to be released as an LP (which can’t hold more than around 20 minutes per side).

The musical writing process itself has taken us about a year. It’s a kind a puzzle really. You’ve got ideas and you have to make them match the length of the movie scene you are working on. We can’t just let ourselves be carried away by the music. Some songs were very easy to write, other have taken us months. I think one of the oldest songs we started working on, “Night Owl”, was one of the last songs to be finished. We just tried out dozens of different versions of that one before we felt satisfied.

The album features 11 songs. Had you considered writing a seamless, feature length track instead?

In fact, the album is divided into 11 songs but live, they flow seamlessy into one another. I think it’s much easier to fit in today’s standards to have separate tracks. Movie soundtracks released on CD are also always divided into tracks.

You recently featured one of your songs from the upcoming album on the Open Language Volume II comp that our friends at A Thousand Arms put out. Has this help you reach a new audience?

Yes, we definitely reached new people by being on the compilation. We were also thrilled by the review from Heavy Blog Is Heavy. They seemed to have enjoyed the track a lot.

How are you feeling about the upcoming tour you have planned?

Obviously we are incredibly excited. We just came home from the first 6 shows of the tour. These shows were a kind of test because we’ve added a new light show to our set. Technically, there were a lot of new things to take care of, but it was a success and we’ll carry on that way for the whole tour. We’re super happy to visit a few new countries and cities we’ve never been before, like Ljubljana in Slovenia for instance. We’ve planned several shows in Eastern Europe too, for which we got help from Colossal Bookings. Were looking forward to these as well.

The message of this silent film is implict, rather than overt. Post-rock and instrumental music in general is also often up to the listener’s interpretation. Do you feel confident that your music matches the themes of the film well enough?

Of course, you can’t discuss taste and it’s up to every single person to decide whether our music fits the themes of film. Obviously, we hope that we succeeded to give the movie, which we love so much and has influenced so many directors, a new breath and approach. Our goal is not to try to replace Philip Glass, we simply were so touched by the images that we wanted to express musically the feelings that the movie had stirred in us.

After a show, a woman has written us that she felt our music was more hopeful than the original soundtrack. That it made her believe that our world might still as well be saved. Because if there is no hope, there is no point, right?

You are planning on releasing this album on CD and vinyl, as well as digitally through Kapitän Platte. Do you think the music is best listened to on its own, or with visuals supporting it?

I think we wanted to make music that both would stand on its own and mix up with the screening in a way that wouldn’t be too disturbing for someone wanting to “watch a movie”. For me, the ideal setting for this project is a venue with comfortable seats, a big screen and a nice stage. It’s really meant to be half-concert, half-screening. If people just want to see a movie, they should go to the movies, not the a movie concert. I guess the balance changes in every venue but we definitely don’t hide behind the screen.

We Stood Like Kings are currently touring Europe to promote USA 1982. Head along to www.westoodlikekings.com and click “shows” for more information regarding dates and locations.

We Stood Like Kings links:

Bandcamp: www.wslk.bandcamp.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/westoodlikekings

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/wslk/videos

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeAreWslk

Will Not Fade

Content for music lovers

Interviews