Altar Of Plagues interview

"For us pushing the extreme making it must be as challenging as it can be"

17/04/2013 @ 13:54
Altar Of Plagues is one of the bands that is hard to give them a label, since not only they are experimenting endlessly but they are trying to move to different music genres. The release of their new album, "Teethed Glory And Injury", gave us the opportunity to talk with the leader of the band, James Kelly, to tell us about the album, how he understands the music, the future of the band and whatever came out of the conversation.

Altar Of PlaguesHello, how are you?
I am ok.

First of all, congratulations for another great album. I am really impressed.
Thank you very much.

Are you satisfied with the final result, even though Ι know it is too early?
100%. We spent a really long time working very slowly, we did not rush ourselves. We ignored people’s expectation because we wanted to do something for ourselves and we are so happy for the final result.

Altar Of PlaguesSo, Ι guess there is nothing you would like to change right now.
Definitely. You know when you finish you have to stop analysing the music, otherwise you could spend forever picking apart some parts and want to change everything.

How is the recording process? Do you have ideas and present them to others or you work in a studio, improvising continuously?
We are writing for a long time, before we decide to record anything. I tend to write everything on my own and then Ι start to send to the other guys demos etc. But usually everything is mostly written before we go to the studio. We certainly improvise a lot when we are writing, but when we go to the studio, it is more of a strict process, because unfortunately studios are extremely expensive, so you do not want to waste a lot of money improvising in there.

Altar Of Plagues - Teethed Glory And InjuryIs there any concept behind "Teethed Glory And Injury"?
There is, but this time we decided that we are not going to talk anyone about it, simply because we don’t want to dictate how people should listen to, we don’t want people to listen to and have an idea or image in mind. We want the music to speak for ourselves and let people hear or see whatever it is. The music makes them see or feel. We did this for the past albums and took away the magic overall and the special connection we had when you overanalyze it and explain it over and over to people.

So I guess there will be no lyrics in the official release.
Not yet anyway. We might do it later, we might share it with people. But not now.

What are the main musical influences as a band?
In the beginning, at the very core foundation is staff like black metal like Emperor, early Mayhem, as well as obscure staff like Ben Harrison (...) Finnish bands, but with much wider influences like electronic music, some folk music, some classical music, which I love very much. For us everything about influences is something that has a certain sound or certain mood or certain atmosphere rather than being in the same strict genre. I think with this album as well my interest in electronic music came to the foreground a lot more and it was something that it was more prominent and we are used a bit more of this time.

Altar Of PlaguesCould you tell us which the major differences are between "Mammal" and "Teethed Glory And Injury"?
The one thing that happened is to break away from the really long songs. We didn’t force ourselves to do that. We begun writing and all of a sudden we are finishing songs that were 4 or 5 minutes long, but they were a whole pieces of work and it didn’t feel to be longer than that. That was the first key difference. The energy that went into the new album was a lot more intense, more impulsive, more vicious. Since recording "Mammal", I have relocated to London, England and for the first time in my life I am living in a big, dense city. I grew up in the countryside in Ireland and I think subconsciously this had an influence in my tastes. The kind of music I listen to, even the way I interact with the world around me. I think all that has influenced the new album. All this sounds so industrial to me, something very metallic about the whole album and definitely this is a consequence of living in this environment for a while. I didn’t really listen to much metal music for a couple of years. I think for this reason the album is influenced much more than ever before by other genres and other styles.    

Altar Of PlaguesThe title of the album sounds a bit weird. Are you trying to say something specific with that?
Yeah. We are going to explain the album a little later, but it does have a meaning. It certainly represents the band. It is kind of like a bitter sweet thing to be a part of. It represents the struggle and triumph. Those terms are sometimes inexplicably linked.

In general, your approach is very experimental, with many electronic and industrial sounds, as you said before. What are you trying to achieve with that? What do you think these elements add to your music?
For me as a songwriter, it is more exciting to be able to go beyond the traditional template of drums and guitar and vocals. To me it almost adds another dimension to the music. Once we begun incorporating those elements, we were more excited because all of a sudden we have a whole new wall of sound we can explore and begin to write within. Basically, for me that it was all about. It was challenging as a songwriter to push things further and further.

Altar Of PlaguesIn your songwriting there is a lack of normal music flow, especially in your new album. There are many tempo changes, mixing of different sounds and styles. What attracts you so much to this kind of songwriting?
I think for me it is quite challenging to listen to, to write. We are a metal band and I think metal is supposed to be challenging, is supposed to be difficult and not easy to listen to. Being a part of the metal scene gives us the freedom to express ourselves in that way. There are so many bands which are supposed to be extreme like Cannibal Corpse. To me there is nothing extreme or challenging at all. They are like theater actors who play a fast riff and sing songs about blood and gore, just to be the most extreme thing kind of reach. For me it is completely opposite to extreme. It is like a horror movie you watch on the television, it’s not real, it’s not challenging at all. For us pushing the extreme making it must be as challenging as it can be. It is important to us.

I agree with what you say. Do you feel that you push the boundaries of the extreme music as a band?
I think musically we do. We have never been concerned with being outspoken about anything, get little attention etc. For us it is important to let music speak for ourselves. I am not sure I would consider to be extreme because we wanted to achieve something very different. We begun to explore extremity a bit. Especially with "Teethed Glory And Injury", we felt like that, it was just happened. We don’t try to be extreme in a controlling way. We don’t force ourselves to do it. We want it to be a path naturally taken. I guess in a way it’s all reaction to this post black metal thing we were entitled with and we never felt that were a part of it in a first place. Things we enjoyed in the songwriting in the beginning whether they were acoustic passages, long songs, we really begun to dislike a lot of that because they were here so often and lost sincerity and lost being interesting because so many people keep on doing that.

Altar Of PlaguesWhat are your major sources of inspiration for the music and the lyrics as well?
The simple answer is the everyday life, whether it is a relationship or an experience with another person, or an art I see in the museum, a walk through the park or anything like that. Lyrically, the darker side of our personalities, which goes hand to hand with our music which is so extreme. We are influenced by anything as I said. There so many different sounds and atmospheres within the same genre or style.

The song "A Remedy And A Fever" contains some ambient moments which remind me of the old Burzum stuff. Did you have this in mind or it came out naturally?
That came naturally. That vocal performance, that is Dave one of the other members, is one of the most extreme things we have ever done. When I heard that part it actually scared me a little bit which is challenging with the music you make yourself that has that effect on you. To me it is a rather special thing. So it came naturally to us the whole thing. Burzum is one of our influences, but what Burzum have done in the past is just there in the background.

Where would you categorize your music?
I could say something like experimental metal. That would be ok with me.

I agree, but in the extreme spectrum can you be more specific?
We get called black metal, but I am not sure if we are really a black metal band anymore. I admitted in the beginning. That was where we were but I don’t know if that is where we are anymore. I think that we keep up pushing our sound and our style. I feel comfortable going on tour with someone like Mayhem but on the other hand I feel comfortable playing together with Zola Jesus an avant garde pop singer. I feel comfortable in all those environments

Altar Of PlaguesWhat kind of music do you listen to?
This morning before you rung I was listening to Three 6 Mafia, a infamous rap group. I listen to pop things, I listen to a lot of techno. I don’t listen to a lot metal anymore, to tell the truth.  I do listen to stuff like the old Emperor records. I have a varied taste to tell the truth.

From what you are saying I can assume that in your next album there is a possibility Altar Of Plagues to be out of metal in a great percentage.
Yes possibly. To be honest, we don’t want to do metal anymore. We would like to do something new. So the next one might be heavy but there might be no guitars. We are always interested in changing and pushing forward. Right now our new album is in our minds anyway. We are satisfied with what we went through in the making.
 
What are your future plans, concert, touring etc?
At the moment we have a couple of shows. We take our time for that. We don’t want to rush or to go to a big and long tour, it is not the right representation. We prefer to have some shows rather than to take a van and tour for 4-5 weeks. The small shows have much more energy and the crowd can see the best possible performance we can give.

Altar Of PlaguesYou have been 6-7 years as a band. What are the reactions of the fans during all those years?
We are really slow burn. There are some bands which can explode immediately but for us it was always quite slow and steady. In every album we lose some but we gain a couple more fans. Some people hated "Mammal" because it was different than the previous one. Some others are going to hate the new one because it doesn’t have that long songs or sound similar to the others. Hopefully, it will reach a whole new audience because it has these different styles and maybe new people will listen to. It seems that we always gain new listeners, but it is a slow process for us.

Before we finish, would you like to say something?
Thanks for talking to me.

Thank you and wish you luck for the new album.

Antonis Kondylis
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