Obscura lors de leur passage à Nantes

Après avoir pas mal bavardé avec Dennis Röndum suite à son interview, je me dirige vers le tour manager, en lui rappelant que je devais aussi interviewer Obscura. « Ça te dérange si tu fais l'interview avec Hannes Grossmann ? ». Pas le moins du monde ! Le temps de rejoindre à nouveau le tour bus je parle donc un peu de Blotted Science avec le très sympathique batteur allemand, lui disant à quel point j'avais été époustouflé par The Animation Of Entomology et sa prestation hors de portée du commun des mortels. Nous parlons un peu des conditions de travail avec Ron Jarzombek, de la difficulté de tout faire à distance et de trouver le temps de faire tout ce travail entre deux tournées. Un peu plus et j'oubliais que j'étais là pour l'interroger sur Obscura ! Heureusement j'allais avoir un moment pour l'interviewer, interview qui se transformera d'ailleurs progressivement en une discussion et un échange de point de vues sur la façon dont est perçue le groupe dans la scène actuelle. J'ai volontairement orienté les questions vers le futur du groupe, son orientation musicale et sa place au sein d'une mouvance dont il s'éloigne de manière tout à fait consciente. Soyez prévenus, vous n'êtes pas prêt d'écouter un Cosmogenesis n°2.

How has been the tour so far ?

Very good. It's an underground death metal tour, with underground bands, very technical line-up. I like all the bands personally, and like our guitarist Christian [Muenzner] already said, we own all the bands' albums ! That's pretty much the best you can can get : on the tour, you're never tired of listening to the bands. Because it can happen very easily when you're on the tour for a few weeks, there's this band that you really don't like musically and you try to avoid watching ! laughs
It's not the case on this tour, it's a great line-up first of all, which attracts a lot of musicians I guess, and all people that are in techy death metal. It's really doing well, and it attracts good crowds.

Aren't you surprised by your obvious success, considering the complexity of your music ?

Sure, we can't complaint about about this, especially these days it's difficult with all the live shows and all the bands out there. It's a good thing you don't need a lot to record and release an album, and even cds are sketchy these days, with downloads etc, but you can easily record and release something and go on tour... I think with the bigger competition there is we somehow manage to get ourselves go as well as possible, but we still kind of grow in terms of popularity because we don't think “ok we're happy now and that's it”, we think more like “where can we go ?”, first musically, where it will lead us, if our record will be like... well, if nobody likes it. We should be happy that we are successful and we try to manage both but we never write something that we say “yes, this will attract a lot of people”, because you never know if it's going to be a kind of hit or something people dislike. We felt that we liked the previous album, but we didn't know if people would hate it, which did not happen fortunately ! So let's see what the next album brings.

You're currently the most successful band of « technical death metal » (even if you might not agree with the term). The genre has become mainstream over the last few years. What's your opinion about the resurgence of technical death metal ?

Yes, there is some kind of trend, maybe, with that labeling. But first of all, if you want to create a trend with certain kind of similar bands, for instance Spawn Of Possession, Gorod, Psycroptic and Obscura, there is some kind of similarity with how the music feels like maybe, though it's up to the listener. I would say in general you have to label something to create an audience, like technical death metal or whatever, to me it's all music, or metal. From a bigger perspective, it's like putting a sub-genre on it because if you label “technical death metal” that's maybe five bands alike and two of them are on this tour, so... The term to me, like any kind of term does not describe anything : technical, if people can relate to that, fine, I would say you need it for anything that you play. It might be fast, slow, easy or difficult to play, but you need some kind of technique to play, because technique is only a word that describes the motions you do to create a certain sound, and as far as that goes any music is kind of technical.
I don't really see ourselves in that kind of direction. It fits very well but we went on tour with Children Of Bodom, Devin Townsend... It also fits pretty well with Cannibal Corpse, the tour with them was awesome as well, but I don't really know if you can put a label on their music... To me the most important thing is that it is honest and sounds like Obscura, and a lot of people have been debating especially with Cosmogenesis, if we sound to much – or have too many influences – like Death and that kind of stuff. But there were only maybe two songs where we did that, two or three songs where we showed where we come from...

Yes, but I think it's because people were not used to listen to this kind of music anymore, because obviously when you listen to Cosmogenesis you hear the Individual Thought Patterns influence – and that's great, it's my favorite album of all time – but I thought “these guys understood how to make it sound like original, with their unique vibe”.

That's great to hear because we never wanted to rip off anybody, we just took some ideas because no one invents, or re-invents the wheel, no one, or maybe a few people like Jimmy Hendrix. Chuck didn't, but he had his own style.

You've always listed Atheist and Cynic as some of your main influences (covers in Illegitimation)...

I would say they were our main influences at that time, because Illegitimation is based on demos with the hold line up, from 2003 to 2006. But I've been insisting to put covers with our current line-up, we shouldn't always only feature old stuff because we already re-realeased Retribution, the first Obscura album. I thought it made sens because back there it was very influenced by Death, Cynic and Atheist and we wanted to put covers on the demos because it would be interesting to see what the actual line-up would make out of it. We kept very very close to the originals though because they were great, and we knew we couldn't make them better, it was just a fun thing that would make sens in the package. I think the influences we bring with the Cosmogenesis line-up are very different than just the old-school death metal, and Steffen with Thulcandra is related to Dissection and the swedish stuff and we all like Emperor a lot, while nobody told us “hey, you sound like Emperor !” because there are a lot of other influences.

What do you think about their evolution slide towards something different from metal, in a much more “progressive” way ? Is this something you plan to do with Obscura ?

I would say “progressive” is a term that sounds just like “technical” : out there you know what we are talking about but it's not related to its original meaning, which is bringing things forward. As far as this goes, sure, we want to bring things forward rather than just creating anything that is new and has not been done before : we would just relate to anything old and makes it differently. Because there is no sense in creating something totally new which sounds bad ! laughs
Progressive in general ? I would say that a lot of bands calling themselves progressive are not at all because they just sound like things that have been done twenty years ago. laughs And we didn't ! That's something I also have to stress a second time because with Cosmogenesis people thought there was this kind of retro thing in the air, with bands doing things which sound like the old ghosts, which is cool stuff, but it's been done. We don't see us that way, we moved away from this “oh yeah we want to sound like the holy 90's”, because it was an idea we had with Cosmogenesis : “nobody is doing that anymore, like Atheist and this cool kind of stuff, let's make it this way”. There is the roar sound, we made it a little more modern but kept it 90's, with the reverb on the drums and you know, the stuff. It's cool but we went away because I thought it's done and we don't want to be some kind of retro band. Progressing music ? Sure, I don't think for the next album it will get more crazy, more technical or more weird, maybe there are some rhythmical ideas we haven't done before, we don't know yet. There have been some ideas but nothing has been worked out so far. We will definitely go a step toward more melodies, more “songs” in terms of bringing back themes, be more compact... Have things one step easier maybe for the listener and for us, but still try to write interesting music... making it interesting without using like ten million notes per song, that's the direction we want to go I think, like a conscience within the band. Less stressing on the technical abilities, more about melodies and songwriting. That's also a thing everybody says, some of the stuff on the last two albums are very very hard to play, we want to get the same kind of vibe or ideas but maybe easier, because it doesn't matter how difficult something is...

More like Ocean Gateways maybe ?

Yeah, I could totally see that, maybe not like the mid-tempo thing, but having a very catchy song which is not obvious. Being catchy, creative, but not obvious.

Then I said in my awful not-as-fluent-as-I-wish-it-would-be english that I completely missed the point of Ocean Gateways on the album, and although it is an awesome live song as I was about to witness a few hours later, it was the path I wish they would not follow in the future...

Yeah, but I think this will happen a few times again, because to me it's important that the songs sound differently from each other. I see good albums coming out, with great ideas, but even with big bands it's like six of ten or twelve songs that sound rather similar in terms of sound, arrangements or anything. It's a style but the songs themselves should have a special sound, different melodies, different times, different faces from each other. It's something we want to do more, maybe slower songs, maybe more groove oriented songs, maybe happier songs... If you listen to albums by The Beatles, every song sounds differently from each other, they even use different instruments on some of them ! We're not The Beatles but I don't see the point of having an album with ten songs that sound the same, I think we'll go on songs that sound different, and you can make a clear distinction between them.

Are you working on new material ?

So far we've been touring a lot and didn't really have time to get ideas on the table and work as a group. I have many ideas for songs so far, which I collect and write down, because I forget it if I don't write it down, and try to do some arrangements, but we want to work together. We have to meet, the four of us, and discuss, rehearse and really learn the songs before we go in the studio, because that's something we did not do for the last album, we just wrote the stuff and recorded it. It wasn't necessarily the best solution for the recording process because it was really difficult, really stressful and this time we want to make sure everybody knows exactly which part is which in the song, what's happening, what's going on, internalize every idea and work on them as a group. That's something I would like to do, no matter how much stuff I write myself, it's just a matter of discussing it. We're positive with it but I don't see it happening very very soon, we're going to the studio maybe early next year or something like that because we want time to write, and first of all have a break after touring, focusing on different things maybe, because you don't get inspiration when you work all the time, you need some off time. I've ideas on the table which directly go, on my side, in the direction of little less crazy music, a little more catchy maybe.

One year after Omnivium, what you would have done differently ?

I would do the preparation differently, like writing and preparation process as a band... Also we made that mistake : we went on tour all the time then we wrote songs and didn't rehearse, we had guitar lines, bass lines, I recorded the drums but we didn't rehearse the songs, they were just there, they existed on the tabs. We don't want to do that again, we will make demos to see how it sounds before the actual recording, just making sure everything is coming out naturally. I like all the stuff we did, but if you talk about arrangements there are two things I would do differently. The first would be on the song Celestial Spheres, it starts with the intro riff and comes back with an AC/DC beat, I wouldn't play this beat ! The idea was to kinda make it catchy, which succeeded, but I would play a different groove there. Then on Velocity there are two riffs I wrote right before the solo, and the riff before that... I would take that out because it's not a hundred percent necessary, just stop right after the chorus, have the solo and then back with the chorus again, it would work perfectly. Everything else is cool.

Will there be a new video clip ?

Maybe, we don't know yet, but the point is that the album has been released for a year and because we were in the studio for five months we didn't have any budget left for the video clip. It would have been great to do a video but at this point I'm not sure if it's worth it. Maybe we'll do it if it's doable, because on the youtube channel there have been a video of Linus [Klausenitzer] with the three of us introducing him, it's a very interesting and fun thing to do and a friend has been helping us with that, so if it's similar with a good quality for a music video maybe we'll do it, if it's not we won't. I'm not sure if this would bring more promotion one year after the release, but why not...

You're touring so much, why don't you do a DVD ?

That's a matter of logistics and also money. Also I don't see the point of doing a DVD with only two albums, because we don't play any song of Retribution – we did on the last US tour, which was kinda cool but it did not really worked live because it's not anymore our true style and people don't know the song... Maybe with the next album it will make more sense. In general I'm a fan of DVDs, I made one myself, I think it's a cool thing, but I also think it should have something on it which is special and separate it from the releases ; I don't know what it could be...

Two good-looking female joggers literally running around the bus distract us from the interview... we skip to the next question

What do you think about the fact that it was the Cosmogenesis line-up that brought the fame around Obscura thanks to your history in very-well established bands such as Necrophagist ? Don't you think Obscura as we know it has really started with you and Christian Muenzner ?

I see it differently, I think Retribution was equally important because the band back then toured with Suffocation with its old line-up, and I think that some of that history led to the contract with Relapse Records. They were seeing Obscura had a lot of touring history, they invested a lot of time and money, they had an album and on top of that arrived two guys from Necrophagist and one guy from Pestilence, which is a selling point for a label. For me it was some kind of nightmare because I quit this band for a reason, it's not like if I wanted to do the same stuff again ! Here's the new band, “it sounds the same”, NO it does not !!! To me it does not ! We use some blast beats, there are some guitar solos. I can see the point with the guitarist because he wrote his solos in Necrophagist so maybe it's his style, but most of the drumming was Necrophagist idea, not my own. Nearly all of them, actually. But if you play in a band for four years you pick some of the stuff, for instance blast beats and phrasings you internalize, so I definitely see some kind similarity, especially in Anticosmic Overload in terms of how the riff is technically written and how the elements appear, that might be something that I can see why people relate it, but it's a very superficial thing that is on the record for maybe thirty seconds. People are all like that. If you see some of the most successful bands these days – and I don't want to bash anybody, they do what they do and it's cool – to me most of the stuff sounds very very superficial, and the elements are jumping into my face : “really, you're doing that ? It's so obvious !”. But most people don't listen to music as analytically as I do. The downside is you get weird comparisons that don't work out, if you're really listening to what's going on. For instance a few hours ago someone wrote on Spawn Of Possession's facebook message board that their new album sounds exactly like Obscura ! laughs
Sure it's metal, they have two guitars and drums, it sounds more like Obscura than Celine Dion but come on...

If the band had existed 20 years ago you would probably have become a huge seller. What's your opinion about downloading, the current music industry and the fact you're not likely to sell 500000 copies such as Death did with Human ?

I think we would have sounded totally different twenty years ago because a lot stuff we like wouldn't have been made and probably people wouldn't have accepted us if we had sound the same [as today]. Nobody knows but it's funny to imagine what it would have been like if we had make this music in the late sixties ! People would say “what the fuck is that ?” laughs
Album sells are constantly declining but we don't do that bad.

I think you're one of the best sellers in death metal today

In tech-death, but I'm not sure we can't catch Cannibal Corpse or something like that.

Yep but these are guys from twenty years ago while you've come up recently

Well, on the other hand Monstrosity, Malevolent Creation, etc, those guys don't sell anymore...

Indeed, but I can relate that you guys are quite famous in France, even teenager metal heads listen to Obscura...

Maybe here but it's different in Germany ! People are not so crazy about us there, but whatever. I think that in the music industry maybe the functions change but people don't, now with downloading and all that stuff...

Do you see it as a threat ?

Maybe, it can be both I think. If you're on label and everybody says “fuck the label I'm gonna download because artists don't earn a lot through distro sales”, which is true, we don't get a lot of money through album sales, but the labels give us the support for going into the studio, and also Relapse give us A LOT of tour support, flights and visas for the USA, all that stuff... Of course you have to pay it through record sales, but we don't have the money they have and give us, contributing to make us a fully functional band. That's something a lot of fans don't see, but you're still supporting your band when you buy on labels. Sure there are some rip-offs, but if they were no labels anymore I don't know how music would develop. How are you creating a good sounding record without money and time ?
What I like about downloading is that people can check out our stuff more easily ; if you use it this way it can be the same as going to a record store and listen to the album, but it's more like streaming, though. I would be happier if streaming was cool and less people would download, because if a song worths less than a can of Coke, people don't want to pay $0,99 for a fucking song, it's the downside of music industry. Always think “this is a cd, it costs ten or twelve bucks, it's not the end of the world”. For a 16 year old who has to spend his rare money on it – or anybody who has not a lot of money – it's cool if you can buy a shirt or show any kind of support like going to a concert, but don't expect to get anything for free, because there would be no bands, no music. It's a lie that music would exist without money, at least not a quality music that is accessible everywhere.
Don't get me wrong, the online stuff is very positive, I distribute my DVD online, I don't need any company for doing that. At this point I see it as a very positive thing if people use it wisely.

How did you get into Blotted Science ? How is to work with Ron Jarzombek ? And how the hell did you manage to learn these drum parts ?

We [Obscura] toured with Cannibal Corpse in 2009, and I did when I was in Necrophagist in 2006, that's where I met Alex Webster. At first Chris Adler was supposed to be the drummer but he didn't have the time because of Lamb Of God, and some stuff didn't work out with the other drummers and Ron sent me a message, but we were touring all the time as well, so I refused. In 2009 I said Alex that I would love to do it, four months later he sent me a message because they wanted a strict line-up with everybody involved, like in a real band, and Charlie Zeleny was more of a session guy. The point is that Blotted Science is a recording process because they are in the US, Alex is touring like crazy, I'm touring as well so it's hard to bring it on stage, I don't see that happening soon. But who knows ? We don't have any label, it's going through Ron's management and it goes pretty well but we don't have the support or money to set up a rehearsal because it would cost me a flight to the US. Speaking again about labels, if we had a label for that sure, but then we would barely make money on sales, there is always good and bad...
About writing: I received finished songs because they were written according to movie scenes. I had all the times and I figured out where the parts would be according to the movies, I counted it out and that's how it worked. I think it's mostly Ron's basic ideas, maybe some of Alex as well, but I'm not sure. I wrote my drum line and I'm very happy about that, don't bother me with the other stuff, I'm not good enough to compose like that ! laughs

This EP is purely amazing, and it doesn't have the loud parts that slightly disappointed me in Machinations Of Dementia

Yes, it's more Spastic Ink with heavy shifts coming on. We're very happy with how it's coming on. It's a cool project and also – something about progressive music once more – it's super technical, all 12 tones, and movie synch...

That's Ron's stuff, it has to be challenging

Yeah, exactly, he says that it has to be a huge challenge, and if it's not an overwhelming project he's not motivated to do it anymore. I have a different approach, I do it more for the fun, liking the songs. If we're going to do another album I'm totally ok for doing that again.

Is this the most difficult thing you've played on drums ?

Yes, I think so, definitely !

Ainsi s'achève l'interview, le manager me faisant poliment comprendre après 45 minutes d'interview que Hannes devait aller manger et se préparer avant le concert. L'occasion pour la fouine que je suis d'aller questionner les autres membres d'Obscura. Je peux donc vous révéler que Steffen ne savait rien à propos du Death To All Tour auquel Relapse l'a convié inopinément (bon, j'imagine que ça n'a pas du trop le déranger), même pas s'il allait passer en Europe. J'ai ensuite un peu discuté avec Christian Muenzner, qui ne peut pas jouer avec Spawn Of Possession à cause d'un problème à trois doigts de la main gauche (les nerfs ou les tendons, je ne sais pas exactement) qu'il traîne depuis maintenant trois ans et qui l'empêche de jouer trop longtemps. Il m'a ensuite confirmé à mon grand étonnement qu'il avait bien joué tous les solos de Incurso sauf un, et qu'il était sans doute un membre à part entière de Spawn Of Possession, groupe avec lequel il a l'intention de collaborer à nouveau, voire même tourner, si sa condition le permet. Ce sont en tout cas de très agréables et accessibles musiciens, qui s'attardent volontiers après les concerts pour discuter avec leurs fans. Si jamais ils passent près de chez-vous, n'hésitez surtout pas à aller les aborder, ce sont tout sauf des rock-stars.