I’m a bit of a webcomic fan, and there is no doubt in my mind that when it comes to character development and addictiveness, no one does it better than Jeph Jacques’ Questionable Content, which stars Marten Reed (left in above pic) as he and his circle of friends… exist. It is seriously the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning; I roll over, turn off my alarm clock, and I check QC.
In the series, Marten is the guitarist in the instrumental post-metal band Deathmøle, which fans of Isis, Pelican,Cloudkicker, and Cult of Luna should enjoy. Much like Metalocalypse’s Dethklok, this virtual band releases music, and has released all of their work for free (which you can download here.)
In a surreal turn of events, I was actually able to get an interview with Marten. It wasn’t easy, and don’t ask me how, but I managed to make contact with him and ask him a few questions!
Thank you for talking with me today. First thing’s first: introduce yourself!
Okay uh my name is Marten Reed and I play guitar in the band Deathmøle.
How long have you been playing guitar?
I started when I was like 14 and I am 24 now so about 10 years!
I mean no offense, but you seem to be the indie hipster type of guy, so what made you decide to be in a metal band like Deathmøle?
Well it sort of happened by accident, the other guys in the band with me when we were starting out (Amir [Bass] and Nat [Keyboard/Sonic Texturalist], Nat’s not in the band anymore since she broke up with Amir) were more into the metal stuff and I just kind of went along with it. And it turns out that playing metal is pretty fun! Especially now that we have an actual drummer.
On that subject, what music inspires you, metal or otherwise?
Oh most of the stuff I write is pretty Isisy or Pelicany I guess, then sometimes I’ll be playing a riff and Amir will be like “dude that is a total High on Fire riff if you speed it up!” So I speed it up! My girlfriend is actually way more into metal than I am, she’s all about Behemoth and Opeth and Deathspell Omega and all these other bands. I really like Gojira, those dudes write some great stuff and their drummer is CRAZY GOOD. But I listen to all sorts of things, mostly indie rock but some electronic things too. I guess I get most of my guitar inspiration from people like Hum or Failure or Isis, those guys were all really good at doing huge guitar sounds.
Prepare to get slammy as Joe lays down some answers for us regarding his band Malodorous who put out their first full length out on Amputated Vein Records, Amaranthine Redolence, back in 2007 which I’ve been playing regularly since I first heard it. With a new album in the works, it’s high time these brutal underdogs get some exposure.
You guys are working on a new album The Carrion Recoil. Since not many people have heard much about it for a while, what state is it in?
Its getting done a little bit at a time. Just about everything is written and rough tracks have been recorded. We are all very busy with work, school, and our personal lives, so the band takes a back seat alot of the time.
What is it like being a band spread across the country? How much harder does it make it?
Its neat. We are separated by thousands of miles and still make music. Its a wonder of the digital age. It makes writing a little harder not being able to jam.
Since I met you through the sevenstring.org forums, I’d say it’s safe to assume you’re at least a moderate gearfag. What kind of equipment are you, and everyone else going to be using on the next album?
I’ll be using my 7 string Schecter Omen 7 equiped with a Bareknuckle Miracle Man, recorded through a Line 6 interface. Mike uses a 7 string Ibanez RG, although I’m not sure exactly what model. He records with an old Zoom pedal via in direct in on his computer.
I recently got the opportunity to trade e-mails with Dan Briggs, best know as the bassist for prog-metal maestros Between the Buried and Me, to talk about his new band, the very different but equally-as-fantastic ORBS.
A supergroup of sorts, ORBS also features members of Fear Before, Cradle of Filth and Torch Runner. Their upcoming album Asleep Next To Science has been maturing for around three years, and I rightly gave it a resounding thumbs up in my review here.
Hi Dan! Thanks for taking the time to sit down and talk to us. So: why the name ‘ORBS’?
The name ORBS comes from the original demo of the song “Sayer of the Law”, the demo name for it was “orb party” because we always viewed the floaty piano cadenza section before the first verse, as a star kind of exploding with energy and floating through space. I told Ashley it always reminded me of the dying star scenes in “The Fountain”, but I don’t think she’s seen it yet!
Heavy Blog Is Heavy will be hitting up this year’s Summer Slaughter tour with Decapitated, The Faceless, The Red Chord, All Shall Perish, Veil of Maya, Cephalic Carnage, Decrepit Birth, Carnifex, Animals as Leaders, and Vital Remains. It really is the biggest extreme metal tour hitting America this summer. I mean, what other option is there? Mayhem and Ozzfest? Get the fuck out of my office.
So I’ll be hitting up the Cincinnati date here in a couple of weeks and I’ll be interviewing The Red Chord’s Guy Kozowyk, and I thought I’d open the floor up to some questions, so to speak. So, if you have any questions for me to ask Guy, let me know in the comments section.
Check to see if they hit a town near you after the jump!
ARRRGH, it be rough waters in the metalcore scene mateys! Ya got hundreds upon hundreds of blokes chasing the same booty and so it’s no place for a scallywag in such a turbulent living!
Obnoxious pirate-speak aside, I was recently given the opportunity to talk to Luke Kilpatrick of Parkway Drive and was able to ask him questions. Being in one of the most successful bands in a scene plagued by mediocrity and genericism, I was interested to hear what he had to say.
To get things started, please introduce yourself.
Hi, I’m Luke, or Pig as my friends like to call me.
What was the last thing you ate? Was it any good? I had some Cocoa Puffs a few minutes ago. They were alright.
Cocoa Puffs are shit. It’s all about Cocoa Pops, and they only seem to be good in Australia, they taste weird everywhere else. Last thing I ate was a chicken burrito at Chipotle. It was unbelievable!
As we know the new record, Deep Blue is set to be released June 25th in Australia, June 28th in Europe, and June 29th in the US. From listening to Deep Blue as well as Horizons, you all (as a band) have succeeded very well in creating a very engaging, almost ambient vibe. How was the writing process similar or different to “Horizons” or other past albums and is creating these vibes a conscious effort or something that comes naturally?
A bit of both I think. We wrote the songs fundamentally the same as in the past but we definitely brought in some new ideas and writing techniques. Winston actually tried to write the CD lyrically as a concept album. Whether kids get it, or care will be another story. It was good for us to do it like this, created a bit of a challenge and a new way of thinking. Winston [McCall - vocals] would have certain ‘feels’ he would like from a song and we would get to write the song to try and suit. Usually it’s the opposite… Write the music, add the lyrics. Maybe this created some ambiance?
I’m also aware of some studio updates from the recording of Deep Blue, would you care to speak about how the recording process was for Deep Blue in comparison to your older albums?
Almost the exact opposite. The focus was on playing as a band, getting the feel for the song and tracking it as we played it. Rather than concentrating on getting every hit on the drums, every note on the guitars and every word unrealistically perfect Joe preferred to have us play the songs as we do. It really worked for us and was a fun and challenging time really. It was something different in the studio and we loved our time in there.
Now, there has been a lot of talk going on about your new music video for the song “Sleepwalker”, I know I speak for many when I say it’s quite interesting as well as out of the ordinary. Is there a message being expressed? How does it correlate with the song and/or album? Any sort of clarification is helpful, this video has me stumped!
Yeah it seems a little confusing. It ties in with the theme of the album. The guy basically realizes the world is fucked and the city exploding represents that. Our friend is this crazy graphics dude so I guess that’s why it looks cool. I like the fact that it’s different. It’s not a band in a shed or on a rooftop with complementing semi-hot girl walking or running through the street. Those are so fucking boring and done to death.
If I haven’t already expressed my undying love for Uneven Structure, then I will now. They are, as I’ve said in a previous post, a band that epitomizes good music. Djent may be new, but I already feel that Uneven Structure are a master of it despite only having an EP out. So in my attempts hopefully deliver some good, exclusive content, I went straight for this man: Igor Omodei (also known by the monikers of Iggy and Eggeh), one of the genius guitarists and songwriters behind Uneven Structure. Within hours of emailing him, I got some answers.
NOTE: English is not his first language so if there’s something you don’t understand I apologize.
Introduce yourself for those who might not know who you are!
I’m Igor “Iggy” Omodei, I play guitar and write stuff for Uneven Structure
Uneven Structure is probably the most badass name in metal. How did you guys come up with it?
Haha, the explanation may be a bit less badass actually. It has nothing to do with the fact we use odd time signatures and unusually long song structures. Actually we’ve been looking for a name that would represent something like floating islands or weird architectural structures, deep, complex and big. It all ended up on Uneven Structure!
You guys released an incredible EP, 8, in December last year to a lot of positive feedback and I personally thought the lyrics were as amazing as the music. Who wrote the lyrics and what’s the whole lyrical theme behind it?
Thanks! Lyrics were written by Daniel and me. It’s all about the “egg or the chicken” dilemma. If divinities induced fanaticism or if it is fanaticism that created these, seen through this eyes of an oracle.
I find that one of the greatest things about being a music blogger is that it sort of pushes me into being more open minded and observant when it comes to discovering new bands. It has also given me the opportunity to exchange a few words with musicians in bands that I admire.
A reader sent in music suggestions to me at one point, and on his list were Painted in Exile, which were described as being kind of like Between the Buried and Me with more jazz influence. I knew I had to hit that up. Since then, I featured PIE in my first Sumeriancore Sunday post for The Number of the Blog. This captured the attention of their vocalist Robert Richards, with whom I exchanged a few emails.
Painted In Exile – Revitalized
First off, introduce yourself!
My name is Robert Richards. I’m 23 Years old, I’m from Seaford, NY and I’m the vocalist of Painted In Exile.
Painted In Exile’s first EP showed signs of progressive metal, but on Revitalized you guys really went all out, incorporating more clean singing, extended jazz sections, and songs that come close to hitting ten minutes in length. Was this a conscious thing with the band to want to be more progressive or did it just sort of work out in a happy accident?
Well Jimmy, When we got together we were looking to add more clean sections onto ideas that we already had. We had a fairly new member line up so we had a lot of new ideas that we wanted to get out. Everyone wanted to put their two cents in, so it was a semi-conscious effort to make the songs more clean sounding, and at the same time kinda letting the pieces fall where they may.
I understand there’s a full length album in the works?! How’s that coming along? Any cool details you can divulge at this point?
Yes, we are working on a full length as we speak! I’m very excited to be honest with you. Every Sunday we practice and every week James [Murphy--guitar], Eddie [Decesare--drums] & Mr. Lambert [Marc--guitar] show me stuff they have been collaborating on and they keep blowing my fucking mind, pardon the French.
It’s coming along great, I just wish we could pick up the pace a little bit–but we all have jobs and shit, and school, so we are trying our hardest to not let our fans down and drop this album as soon as possible. It’s going to be heavier, faster, slower, jazzier, more poppy and more evil… if that makes sense.
I also saw that you guys filmed your first music video, and in the process you managed to get the police called on you?! Care to spin us a manly yarn about what happened at the beach that day, and how that situation played out?
HA! Yes, we did film our first music video with Andrew Pulaski with Abstrakt Pictures. The day we went to the beach, we thought that we could drive on the sand, cause there were tire tracks all over the sand and no signs saying “no off-roading,” so we drove on the sand and unloaded the equipment and started filming. Then some fucking JERK-OFF, instead of coming to talk to us and say, you know, “What’s going on here?” so we could have explained that we were filming a music video, calls the cops and told them to tell us to leave. So they came down, told us to get the car off the sand, handed out summonses, then tried saying we had to leave. Eddie asked if it was illegal to film there, and they said it wasn’t, so we finished up and left… To be honest, the guy who called the cops is smart, cause if he tried coming over to us like he owned the beach and told us to leave, I probably would have put him in his place.
It wasn’t that much long ago when Cyclamen was still a one man project straight out of Hayato Imanishi’s bedroom (so to speak). Now with a full lineup, two EPs, and their first live gig under their belts, the new members are settling in quite nicely.
I recently spoke with new guitarist Olly Steele to find out what he’s been up to in the band.
So how’s everything going?
Yeah, wicked man. I’m just writing a lot at the moment, for Cyclamen of course… that’s it! I don’t do much except guitar.
That’s cool. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with!
And boy, how I can’t wait to share it with the people!
Is Cyclamen your first band?
Yeah, man!
That’s cool. Good way to start!
Aye!
How much material is written for the upcoming album?
Well, it depends. Like, we don’t wanna do a Periphery and have all our stuff known before it gets released. Fuck that. So… three new songs, and I’m sure one or two will make it on the album out of the ready known songs. So I dunno really, but me and Nano [Sigo, guitar] have written three new ones. Sorry, bit of a shitty answer!
After a long wait, The Crinn‘s full-length debut album Dreaming Saturn is finally being released TOMORROW (4/20/10) on Nuclear Blast records. Why should you care? Because it’s an awesome progressive tech metal concept album, is why. You shouldn’t have to be begged to check something like that out (and yet, here I am). To talk a little bit about the new album and what goes on in the world of The Crinn, I traded emails with Chad White for an exclusive Heavy Blog Is Heavy interview!
For those of you who don’t know, who are you and what do you do?
I’m Chad White of The Crinn, and I play bass guitar.
Labels and genres are often thrown around, to much protest by many bands out there. What do you feel about these labels (particularly “mathcore”)?
I don’t like labels, but I understand that they are necessary for people to be able to communicate effectively about everyday things, music being one of them. We have been called a lot of things, and mathcore is certainly not the most inaccurate of the lot. However, I don’t believe that we have much if any ‘core’ elements in our music, but what the fuck do I know.
Where did the name “The Crinn” come from?
“The Crinn” came from a night of drinking at a bar in Minneapolis. A mispronunciation and poor spelling of our waitress Corinn’s name, and here we are. We have beer to thank for so much. After Googling “Crinn” and finding some sci-fi short stories and the like, it really seemed like the perfect fit.
Your Nuclear Blast debut Dreaming Saturn is finally coming out! What was the deal with the huge delay?
The album was in the can July of last year. Nuclear Blast wanted time to do advanced promotion and get our name out there a bit more before releasing it, also their calendar was pretty full last fall and early this year, so we got pushed back to a more open time where it can be better promoted. Also, we are slow writers. It takes us a long time to write 15 minutes of material that we are proud enough of to showcase, let alone 45.
How did you guys get hooked up with Nuclear Blast, anyway?
Nuclear Blast came to us. Thanks guys!
From what I’ve heard of the new album, it sounds more progressive than past releases, with more experimentation and more refined songwriting. Was this a conscious effort or was it a happy accident? I’ve also heard you guys talking about using a “circular” writing style in the album’s teaser video. Tell us a bit more about that! It seems pretty interesting.
Dreaming Saturn was 100% a conscious effort. We set out in the beginning to allow our song writing style and musicianship to grow and expand. The circular writing pattern was designed to force us to keep thinking of the album as a whole. It is pretty easy to fall into a riff to riff song writing mentality if you are not careful. Though we have no desire to write verse, refrain, verse, refrain, bridge, refrain structured songs, it is nice to have moments to breathe within them. Those moments also set off the more aggressive and spastic spots in a pronounced way. We had a lot of fun with effects on the record as well, and I believe they really help fill out the sound that we are limited to with one guitarist, particularly live.
So Dreaming Saturn flows as one piece of music? And do the final moments of the album flow into the opening, making a huge loop?
Dreaming Saturn does flow as one piece of music. When we play the music live, we string it together, not necessarily all the time in order. It is interesting how many songs work together, even though they are not in sequence on the album. The end and the beginning do not form a loop however. The circular writing didn’t come that full circle.
What sort of music influences you? Any albums out right now that deserve major praise?
We are all influenced by a wide spectrum of music. It’s probably a cop out to say that we can’t really pick one specific style of major influence, but is is true. Obviously we are influenced by metal, jazz, 70′s rock and others. It would depend on which member you asked what order these things would land in. As for sick discs, I’m really into the new Cathedral, the new Daughters is out of this world, and I still can’t stop listening to Cynic.
Your music is very technically proficient. Are you guys formally trained musicians or was it just years of dicking around that made you so awesome?
I don’t know how awesome we are, but it was definitely years of dicking that made us what we are. John [vocals] goes to music school, but the rest of us are self-taught. Sadly, music doesn’t pay the bills, especially in the metal scene. What do you (and the other guys for that matter) do for money outside of The Crinn?
Yeah, music is quite an expensive hobby. I’m an executive chef, Cole [guitar] is a prosthetic technician, John deals cars, and Chris [drums] works as a personal care assistant.
What’s your 2010 calender shaping up to look like?
2010 is shaping up rather slowly if you don’t count our first world wide release coming out, but we have a new booking agent, so we should be getting on some tours soon, obviously in the states, and hopefully Europe as well.
Do you have any sort of plan or ideal vision of what the future holds in store for you and The Crinn?
Our vision is to balance our real lives with our musical lives in a way that allows us to do both without compromise. We’ll see how far we can get.
Is there anything else you’d like to talk about that I may have missed? Anything noteworthy going on?
We are just stoked for Dreaming Saturn to be out and amongst the masses. We’ve been sleeping on the disc for so long, that we really just want to hear what people think about it. Good, bad, or otherwise.
Thank you so much for your time! I greatly appreciate it!
No problem man, thanks for your interest in us!
Dreaming Saturn is out tomorrow on Nuclear Blast Records! To get a little taste of the action, go on over to The Crinn’s MySpace to hear two songs off of the album, and hear some of their past work as well.
Local music scenes are funny things. For the most part they are wildly hit and miss, but growing up I was blessed with a fairly diverse and talented one: one that has inbred time and time again, recycling members, nurturing talent like some rapey old school janitor with a hunchback and a frog for a wife.
AZWAI are the six-fingered middle child of the Worcestershire music scene. There are hills. There are woods. Plenty of places to hide your incestuous progeny; perhaps in a cow shed in the middle of nowhere?
This is where I found Malvern’s very own bastard sons – [corresponding to the photo above] Dan Stokes, Adam Murkin, Craig Taylor and Dan Taylor [unrelated. Or so they say. See above paragraph.] – slavering over their instruments and sodomising a dead rat. Luckily they were in a ‘playful’ mood, and after placating them with the latest Hollyoaks calendar, they agreed to answer a few questions.
[End of hyperbole. Ish]
CG: AsZerosWeAreInfinite is not what you might call a usual name. How and why did you choose it in particular?
DS: It’s based on a mathematical theory known as ‘God math’, which talks about zero as being an infinite number. In the beginning we just wanted to write hardcore but the more we wrote, and specifically the more technical our music got, the more the name stuck.
AM: Well in honesty, it was either that or ‘I’m A Pterodactyl’. We went for the one with the better acronym.
How did you all get started in music? What drew you to the heavier end of the musical spectrum?
DS: We stumbled across rock music in high school like everyone else, and found like-minded people. I began writing music when I was fifteen. I found that my tastes became more and more violent the older and grumpier I got, and that I had a burning desire to constantly push myself to the very edge of my abilities; writing songs I could barely play. Eventually, we wanted the music we wrote to cause an emotional reaction out of the people listening and the easiest emotion to provoke from a crowd is anger. We’ve always thought that anger and passion go hand in hand and we’re all very passionate people.
What is it about Malvern that produces such a plethora of brilliant bands and musicians?
AM: Must be the water…
DS: I think its because it’s ‘small town syndrome’. We all live in this town where there isn’t much to do apart from drink and listen to music, so eventually you have a whole gaggle of people in the same generation feeling the same frustrations of being from nowhere special. A band seems like the perfect place to vent those feelings and turn them into something constructive. Of course I could be way off and it could just be the water. The Queen does drink it. But I doubt she’s in a Converge cover band…
spelling of our waitress Corinn’s name, and here we are. We have beer to thank for so much. After Googling “Crinn” and finding some sci-fi short stories and the like, it really seemed like the perfect fit.
Sadly, music doesn’t pay the bills, especially in the metal scene. What do you (and the other guys for that matter) do for money outside of The Crinn? 
