THE AMENTA

Experimental and extreme

Almost 4 years have passed since their latest full length release "Occasus". After such a long time of waiting I have been prepared for something different and outstanding. I must say “n0n”- the newest album of those Australian freaks definitely lives up to all my expectations. It's very progressive in its nature, brutal and sick as hell. Also very different, compared to their debut release... OK, now I have a privilege of introducing you a Pope. Timothy Pope. The interview started off with a question concerning stylistic differences between "Occasus" and "n0n". I got the following answer...

It was always our intention to write an album completely different from ‘Occasus’. I hate bands that release the same album over and over again. It’s fucking boring. There are so many bands who think it’s acceptable to stagnate. It is not fucking acceptable. We never wanted to be one of those bands so we made sure that what we were writing was different. It’s also in the way we write. We don’t write guitar riffs and try to string them together in a song. I think we would get too bored by that approach. We usually experiment and follow what we find interesting. And that’s why the two albums are very different, we were interested by different things for each album, but there is also an evolution that can be heard by the listener.

-What kind of award would you like to get for your new album? Most brutal and intense piece of shit in last decades? Done! To be more serious, how did “n0n” turn out that way?
We’d take that award, that sounds pretty damn good. Or a Best Progressive Metal band just to see the faces of all those pompous “prog” bands. As far as I am concerned, aping bands from the seventies is not progressive. We are one of the few truly progressive bands out there today. ‘n0n’ turned out as it did partially through accident and partially through design. One big factor in the creation of ‘n0n’ was that we had all our equipment, the equipment that we used to write ‘Occasus”, stolen after a gig. So when we came to write ‘n0n’ there was no way we could fall back on old tricks. We had to use very few pieces of equipment. Subsequently a lot of the synths, effects and guitar/vocal processing was done on-screen with various different programs that we managed to coble together. I think the fact that we were using virtual instruments meant that we were able to think beyond what we would normally use instruments for. So guitars made ambience, keyboards made riffs and sometimes vocals were used as rhythms. As I had mentioned, we wanted to find something new and interesting to base this album around. The use of on-screen processors really fired our imaginations and we wanted to see how far we could take them. The result is ‘n0n’.

-Actually, I'm not sure if you aware how many metalheads consider Australian bands as the sickest and most devastating acts that have ever existed on the planet Earth. Listening to recordings of such mosters as THE AMENTA, THE BERZERKER, PSYCROPTIC or DESTROYER 666- to name a few, there's definitely some truth in that. What does it come from, in your opinion?
I think Australian bands, due to our geographical location, have a very unique situation in which to grow. Bands in Europe or the US have it much easier when it comes to touring. You can jump in a van and be in another country/county in just a few hours. In Australia we have a few cities spread around the rim of a huge desert. So for us to tour requires hours and hours of traveling just to get to another city. Subsequently bands make music in a very insular fashion. We make music primarily for ourselves initially as it is hard to get it heard around Australia let alone overseas and as such there is very little reason to soften your attack. We aren’t going to make money so there is no reason to dilute our music for public consumption.

-What kind of feelings does this common opinion give to you? Are you proud to be a part of such sick scene, or really don't care what other people say about Australian metal bands?
I’m not unimpressed but I feel very little patriotic pride. I think of most Australian bands as no different to their international counterparts. Of course some of the bands you mentioned are friends of ours but I don’t think we form part of a “scene”. THE AMENTA don’t really fit into any scene so it is hard to feel any pride though I do think that bands you have mentioned are pushing the boundaries and are original like us. But I don’t think they are scene driven bands either so I think you would get a similar answer from them.

-Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did your artistic journey started that you ended up doing such extreme stuff? Is extreme metal music something that appeared in your life accidentally? Have you tried to express yourself in a different, maybe even more extreme way?
I have always been interested in experimental music. I like making sounds from things that aren’t meant to be used that way. Even as a kid I made soundscapes with whatever was lying around. I remember taking apart our piano and playing with the guts of it because it seemed more fun than playing the keys. Later I did a similar thing to create the track “2” from ‘The Soundtrack to the Hidden Earth’ included on the ‘Occasus’ Deluxe Re-issue. I always liked music that I thought was extreme. When I was a kid I thought METALLICA were extreme. Then I kept searching to find music that went even further. I think the first extreme metal albums I got were two tapes, one had ENSLAVED’s ‘Frost’ backed by NAZXUL’s demo the other was EMPEROR’s ‘In The Nightside Eclipse’ Backed with DAMAGED’s ‘Do Not Spit’. I have always expressed myself through music, though we, as THE AMENTA, have tried our hand at experimental film. To me, music is limitless in how far it can be pushed. I think it is the perfect medium for extreme expression as anything is possible. Anything can become music. Anything can be recorded, manipulated or arranged.

-A lot of people start to write music, lyrics when they face a lot of uncertainty and personal problems in their life. Is this something that works the same way for you?
Not at all. I don’t have a lot of personal problems and if I did I certainly wouldn’t mope around writing poetry. I would fucking do something about it. I write music and lyrics because music interests me. I write lyrics because I think our music needs lyrics. It’s not something that gives me an outlet for my feelings but I can still make lyrics personal as I believe all lyrics should be. I don’t think that people who are emotionally uncertain are making the best music. They seem to either make mopey post-rock shit or loud punk indistinguishable from other loud punk. Art , at it’s base level, should be created for intellectual reasons. Emotions should be stirred in those who hear it but it shouldn’t be a crutch for people with personal weaknesses.

-What was your youth? Weren't you born as a beloved child of Australian farmer or taxi driver?
I do not believe that my upbringing has any relation to the music of THE AMENTA. We have always avoided bringing unnecessary details of our private lives to light. I don’t think that this is any ones business nor do I think that people are particularly interested in my upbringing.

-Ok, go back to your new album. What someone may notice easily in “n0n” is a huge dose of industrial elements partaking in those songs. They have been mixed with thousands of vicious, inhuman riffs and mechanical blastbeating allowing you to achieve on “n0n” highest possible level of intensity. Was it your aim, or maybe it just came that way naturally?
It was certainly a more natural progression. We didn’t set out to make this album with any particular direction in mind. We just followed the experiments that were the most interesting until we had a song. I, personally, like to play around with electronic instruments and noises so it makes sense that these aspects interested me. I think the density of the material came from our experimental technique also. When we were writing parts it was often based around throwing ideas around. So sometimes parts that don’t logically worked together get played at once and there is something interesting in the way they clash together. So we would leave both in. We are very big fans of what we call “happy accidents” in music. These are times when shit just falls into place for no good reason. “Skin” on ‘n0n’ is based around a sample I accidentally made when I hit record before the guitar was plugged in and so we got the hum and buzz of a finger on the end of a lead. We looped and cut the sample up and it created the rhythm for “Skin”. Interestingly, we wanted, at one time, to create an album with absolutely no blast beats. It seems that we can’t escape our past. There are times when it seems a blast beat is necessary! I think our music will always be dense and intense even if we change dramatically in other ways. It seems to be the musical direction in which we are consistently led.

-It seems that you guys went through some pretty heavy shit to make this record, right? To the best of my knowledge „n0n” was recorded over more than a year! The recording proces was extremely complicated, spanned 3 countries and seven different studios. Come on...
We approach sounds like carpenters approach tools. There is a right tool for the job just like there is the right sound for a song or part. And studios are very important in the overall sound of the recorded instrument. So we recorded in seven studios because we needed those studios for what they could do for us. For example, the drums of ”Skin” were recorded at the Gaelic Theatre because it is essentially a live venue. It has a big empty, open space with wooden floors. We wanted a very open and live drums sound so we needed a big open space. We recorded some noise and bass at Production Avenue studios because we could blast a PA into one fo the rooms and get a very loud, full sound from the room there. So we went all over the place to record and it was pretty full on, but it wasn’t really the hard part of the recording process. The hard part was getting all those parts together in the one session so we could mix the album. We recorded a huge amount of effects tracks and guitar tracks and we often couldn’t play them back simultaneously because we maxed out the CPU, so we didn’t hear the whole album until mixing. It was a fucking logistical nightmare but a necessary one.

-The album features some guest appearances of Jason from AKERCOCKE, Alice from French experimental act called SIR ALICE and Alex from Australian black metal horde RUINS and some others. Are you satisfied with the way you have caught them on tapes? Could you tell some more about their contribution?
We are very satisfied with the performances from the various guests, otherwise we wouldn’t have used them. No amount of cache is worth compromising on art. Jason was always our first choice for his vocals in “Whore”. Jason has a very commanding narrative voice and he was always a reference part even when we were writing the part. We toured with Akercocke around Australia and became friends with Jason so it was easy to ask him to contribute. He sent back some takes and we pieced together the perfect take. It’s an honour and a pleasure to have him on the album. Alex has been a friend of ours for years. I think he is one of the most talented musicians around not to mention being a great guy. He recorded his vocals for “Dirt” on the first day of mixing. We recorded his vocals in another room and we had to run back and forth to approve mixes and vocal takes. His performance is amazing and he brings a lot of grit to his verses. He has an excellent snarl and it complements the dub aspects of the song in a very interesting way. Nergal from BEHEMOTH was another friend we made through touring. He happened to be staying with us in Sydney when we were recording vocals so we asked him to record some vocals for the song “Slave”. His vocals were recorded on Christmas Day and his voice sounds fucking brutal. We contacted Alice via email. We had heard her music and found her intriguing. We knew we wanted female vocals for “Skin” so she sprung to mind. We sent her the song and the lyrics and she emailed her takes back very quickly. I think she adds a very different element to ‘n0n’