Press - Interviews

Black Astrial magazine, Poland

Interview April 2010

1.Hello! How are you doing? First of all, I want to tell you that “Everything is Fire” is one of last years most impressive records in my opinion, and Ulcerate (along with bands like Portal and Ehnahre) certainly is one of those few bands that are able to create something new within the field of death metal. However, I’d like to ask you if you feel that you have already reached a point when you achieved something that can be called your own style, a formula that is entirely yours? Do you think you will continue writing music in a similar way to what can be found on “Everything is Fire”, only trying to write better songs, or is it rather just a step in your evolution and you are not entirely sure what your future albums are going to sound like?

Thanks a lot, appreciate the words. In terms of reaching 'that' point, no not really, as there's still a lot of things on the album we'd approach differently now, but it's getting there. It's really difficult as we have no objectivity whatsoever, but the 'Fire' material certainly feels the most rounded in what we were trying to achieve.

The new material is a forward progression, we have no intent of repeating ourselves. It's going to be very important to us that we create an album that is very individual but at the same time something that people will recognise as markedly 'Ulcerate'.

2.I assume you are working on your next album right now. How much of it is already written? Can you tell if there are any differences between the new songs and your last album? Is the writing method in any way different than before?

Yeah, as of February we've begun writing full-time with an intent to have everything wrapped up by the end of the year. So far we've got one completed (for now) track, and 3 others that are in development. But we're doing a lot of self-critique and amendments as we go, so nothing is set in concrete. The music so far is a lot more 'open' tonally, particularly guitar-wise. We've always taken an unorthodox approach, and the new material is certainly representing that. Mood-wise, no strong departures here, possibly a little blacker overall if that makes sense. We're following with the linear structuring and drawn-out passages, so again, expect very long tracks.

3.You just came back from Australia, where you had a short tour with Beyond Terror Beyond Grace, how did it go? Why did you choose this particular band as your support act? Would you say that you have a large fan base in Australia?

The tour was great for the most part - the main centres (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane) were great shows, and more or less exceeded our (admittedly pessimistic) expectations. Getting to perform with Portal was a treat for us, that's a band that we've always held a strong curiosity in.

We didn't actually choose any of the supports - Beyond Terror guys contacted us about doing the tour, and they promoted and managed the whole thing for us (couple of the guys moonlight as a promotions company). Stylistically, we're not really in the same ballpark - but in terms of dealing with on a personal and business level, these guys were fucking great to work with.

We really had no idea of our status over there, and it varied from city to city, but we were very surprised with the turnouts, sold all the merch we took and got some very good feedback. So it was an eye-opener for us - we keep a very low profile, and never push our shit down people's throats.

4.What are your memories from the tour with Nile, Krisiun, Grave, Corpus Mortale and Hackneyed? Was that your first time in Europe? Did anything surprise you, or was it more or less like you expected?

Europe was a fucking great experience, very professionally organised and almost every show blew us away in terms of crowd reaction. It was our first time in Europe, and our first extended tour, and it's really given us the urge to get out and tour again. We were definitely surprised at how easy everything was - playing wise and lifestyle wise. The entire tour crew and bands were awesome people to be working with everyday, and we were continually discussing just how much fucking fun were having.

5.I know that you try to avoid musical ideas that sound similar to other bands. Does it ever happen you come up with a riff or pattern that sounds great and works very well within a song, but you have a feeling that you have already heard it on some other band’s album? It’s not always easy to determine whether you invented something or you are unconsciously repeating it after someone else. If you were not 100% sure that it is not your idea, would you still decide to leave it out?

For sure. Anything that remotely reminds us of other bands parts will be culled. There's no point having that shit on our conscience. Too many bands work off that plagiarism ideal as a platform for their whole existence, and it's just not something we're comfortable with.

6.It seems to be very important for you to control your art to the very last detail. From the writing process through producing the record to designing the artwork, layout and even the website and Myspace profile. It all works very well in my opinion, as through the union of all elements Ulcerate becomes a large, multidimensional being (excuse me for being a bit pretentious). A lot of bands fail when it comes to something more than just music, and it is sad to see a great record with terrible artwork (like for example Morbid Angel’s “Domination” – what the hell is that?). However, don’t you feel that there is a certain risk in doing everything by yourself, and not allowing people from outside of the band to have any input? Or do you see a greater risk in loosing control over some of the things associated with the band?

No there's no risk at all, even if people think that what we produce is worthless, at least they can say it's 'unique' haha. But seriously, I'm still of the opinion that the underground should remain as DIY as possible if you have the means and ability. I'm not really even sure that the term DIY exists for most bands these days - a lot of carbon copies with production from the same production houses and sporting album art and merch designs from the same 3 or 4 cliche'd artists. It's so fucking homogenised, and it just bores me to tears.

When I think of other people handling our art for example, I can't imagine staying passive for long without having strong direction ideas. I've said it before, that I don't think any of us in the band are the best players / sound engineers / artists / writers etc, it's not about technical proficiency at all. It's about conveying the vision, the ideas and themes that we've worked hard to establish.

7.Speaking of artwork, you did all the cover art for your releases. I know that your job is related to graphic design, but I’m curious if, as an artist (let’s not be afraid to use this word) you feel more like a musician or a painter/designer? What came first, your interest in music or visual arts, drawing etc? What techniques do you use? Is it only digital, or do you do some traditional painting as well? What are your influences?

Well, I am afraid to use the term 'artist' as I don't create works on a regular basis, and whenever I do they're in a design context (ie they problem solve in a graphical way). I'd say it's an even split between music and design, but I get more excited by music, whereas design I'm almost never satisfied. As a kid I used to be able to draw like hell, so I guess that came first. Have lost that ability out of lack of practise these days though.

In terms of the album layouts etc, all digital compositing work. I photograph and scan things and manipulate them as best I can. I get asked a lot if the works are painted or not, which is totally what I'm aiming for. I hate the 'Photoshop' look, and do my best to stay away from it, even if I use it as my tool. I can't paint, so I use various techniques to still try and get an organic feel.

8.Why did you choose drums as your main instrument? Was there any particular recording that influenced this choice, or was it more because you tried playing different instruments and playing drums simply seemed the best choice?

Not sure, they're just fucking cool! When I was 11 and 12 I started buying tapes, and found I could separate out what the drummers were doing for some reason, go figure. I play (or can play) guitar as well, but haven't the time to actually play on a daily basis, which sucks.

9.When it comes to recording, I know that you are in favor of a natural, organic sound rather than the processed/fixed drums that are so popular nowadays. As I understand, for “Everything is Fire’ only the kick drums were replaced with a sample of the same drum kit. Why wasn’t it possible to record actual sounds in this case? Was it because they would be “buried” in the mix?

That's the one, just the kicks. We did record the acoustic kicks, all the cleaner sections use mic-only. But by using that same sample throughout the heavy parts, you can always feel and hear them without having to resort to boosting higher frequencies and getting that fucking typewriter sound. I've only heard a few albums I really like with natural kick drums in an extreme metal context. At the end of the day, my answer is I just enjoy the sound of it more versus a mic'd kick, in this context.

10.Are you a drum fetishist? Do you have a favorite album that you particularly like because of the sound of the drums?

Yeah unfortunately. Don't think many drummers aren't! I like a lot of music that I really can't stand melodically because the drummers are ridiculous (funk/jazz mostly). Likewise with a lot of the really well produced pop albums, only for the drum tones. With metal though, it's the music I've always actually enjoyed the most, so I don't really critique albums on drum sound alone, particularly when a lot of metal is roughly produced.

11.In one of the interviews you mentioned Alex Hernandez as one of your main influences, and called him “possibly the best drummer to come out of death metal”. It’s not that I‘m going to disagree, because his style of playing is fantastic, but I’ve always felt that more credit should be given to Craig Smilowski, who laid foundations for that style on “Here in After”. Alex took it even further, buy I think Craig‘s contribution was very important. However, since I’m not a drummer, I’d like to know your opinion on the subject. And speaking of Alex, do you know his previous band, Fallen Christ? Their only album, “Abduction Ritual” is amazing.

Yeah for sure man, Craig is a fucking beast - I really really like his playing on 'Here in After' particularly. But I just think there's a little more fluidity to Alex's approach, or at least that's just my opinion. But yeah, Smilowski's style came out of nowhere!! But then again, so did Vigna's writing, and how do you not come up with great drum parts for those riffs!?

12.I know that although you are sometimes labeled as technical/brutal death metal, you are not really comfortable with such description. I guess it is because of all these “technical for the sake of being technical” bands that you really don’t have much in common with. To be honest, it is not easy to put a label on Ulcerate. Thankfully you do not follow any recipe, like all those bands that adopt certain style along with an image and lyrical themes, and end up as meaningless clones. Does it irritate you that so many bands, even those playing the most extreme and underground forms of this music, are acting like sheep and claiming it is a virtue?

Metal is the only style of music that needs to slap pathetic titles like 'technical' on the music to give it some redeeming quality (because let's face it, most 'technical' music is like listening to children with ADHD). It's turned it into a big competition, who can play the most notes in any given time. I'm more than happy with developing facility and chops etc, but in most cases, these 'technical' bands really have neither, they just exploit high tempos, often poorly.

And yeah, the adopting label and aesthetic thing is just something we have zero interest in. And I don't care if people can't label us, just call us death metal, that will suffice.

13.Do you see Ulcerate as an underground band? What does the term underground mean to you? In one of the previous issues of our magazine we published a controversial essay about the metal underground, in which the author argued that for most people “being underground” is an excuse for lacking the ability to make your band successful. What do you think of such opinion?

Yeah, I mentioned this earlier. To me underground doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sound or extremity, it's ethos and and a subversive approach. It's about maintaining a sense of integrity in the face of acclaim. And it's about not bending to fucking trends, and selling out on yourself. I don't think money even has to factor into it, a lot of the time monetary 'success' will come to those who have stayed true to themselves. You can split music into two categories - pop and everything else. Pop music is entertainment, written purely to satisfy the listener, whilst any form of honest music written, for lack of a better word, from the heart. And there are a lot of 'metal' bands that fall in that first pop category, so I don't think you can quantify 'underground' on sound alone.

14.The last question may seem as some kind of market research, but its just me being curious. Do you reed any magazines covering extreme music? If so, what interests you most –reviews or interviews? What kind of questions do you find most interesting as a reader? Do you think there is still point in making a printed magazine in times of the Internet?

Not really man, we only get Terrorizer and occasionally Decibel over here, and as much as I appreciate the effort and professionalism of these magazines, I don't really enjoy reading about bands I don't like, then getting punished with ads trying to sell me that shit. And invariably the bands I'm most interested in shy away from mainstream press anyway. I think this is where you get the conflict of interests in terms of that word 'underground'. A commodity like a magazine has to sell units to survive, and we all know, the more ads and pseudo-popular bands you feature, the more you're gonna sell. So the business model is fucked from day one.

I liked them as a kid as they can provide a great introduction to a style, but I never learn anything new from them. Their reviews are usually god-awful too, 4 sentences often cynically/ironically delivered. Web-zines play their part a lot better in terms of content.

15.Thank you very much for this interview. I can’t wait to hear the next Ulcerate album! Tell us about your plans for the nearest future and anything else that should be mentioned in your opinion.

Hey thanks man, likewise. For the rest of the year we're writing, with an aim to get the album released early 2011. Then we're looking to get out and touring. Rinse and repeat I guess.

Cheers!
- Jamie