The Great Old Ones really surprised me with their first record,
Al-Azif. At first sight, this record looked like the typical “first album”
coming your way with all the clichés you can imagine: “ the boring concept, the
crappy sound, the bad musicality and the feeling that you’re listening to a
bunch of teenagers who had nothing better to do than practice their instruments
every other rainy weekend”. Of course, these records usually come out on new
and elitist labels that thought that THEY would find The Next Big Thing while
important labels manage to feed us crap every week claiming it is the real Next
Big Thing.
But The Great Old Ones crushed these clichés (that are not always
meaningless) in a blink of an eye. This band is formed by very talented and experienced musicians from the French Metal scene. Their
first album is ambitious indeed but they managed to do things perfectly right:
from the fantastic artwork to the great sound and of course the unique
personality they demonstrate all along Al-Azif. The young label doing the best
they can to promote their potentially Next Big Thing is just the icing on the
cake. Interview with bassist Sébastien Lalanne.
The Great Old Ones is a new band on the French Metal scene, could you
introduce us to the band members? Especially if they played in other bands
before!
Well, Benjamin Guerry handles
the guitar, and he used to play in Day Of The Fisherman (HXC
band). Xavier Godart also plays the guitar in our band. Léo Isnard is our
drummer, and he’s actually a drum teacher, (plus half a dozen very different
bands!). Jeff Grimal is our singer, and he is in charge of our artworks as
well. He’s played in several bands like Tormenta and
Absurd (not the hideous fascist one) and Let Jesus Bleed. As you know I’m
Sébastien and I handle the bass, I used to play in My Sovereign
and B-Side Box.
Who was behind the creation of the band, was there a natural leader in the
first place?
Yeah, Benjamin wanted to form
the band back in 2009. He actually started composing on his own and collecting
ideas. When he realized the ideas were pretty strong, he started to imagine this originally personal project as a real
band, with specific themes linked to Lovecraft’s stories. And last year, he’d
composed 5 complete songs when he came out looking for musicians. That’s when
we met and we started out pretty quickly because much of the songs were ready!
And how did you guys meet Les Acteurs de L’Ombre Productions?
We had pre-produced the album
and we were looking for a label, Anthiétic Records, Les Acteurs de l’Ombre, and
2-3 other labels contacted us. We knew that LADLO were doing a great job with
their other bands and honestly we just had a good feeling and said let’s go! I
want to thank Gérald from the label because he immediately gave us his total
support and confidence.
I suppose that things are going great so far since all of the feedback
on the album is tremendous.
Yes! We are overwhelmed. I mean
it’s pretty surprising too since we expected some guys from the “orthodox”
Black Metal scene to give us a hard time but so far, everybody seems to like
our record.
And what does such a positive feedback induce? More sales? Lots of media
solicitations? More touring possibilities?
Well right now, all of this is
still too fresh, I can’t really tell, we’re still actually promoting the
record. As far as I know, the sales are pretty good, and LADLO are really doing
the best they can to give us maximum visibility. As for touring, you probably
know how much times are rough, but hey, we’ve done our best and now you gotta
cross your fingers and hope some good opportunities will come along!
All right, let’s talk about Al-Azif more specifically. You told me a
minute ago that the Lovecraftian theme is completely part of your music.
Yeah, Benjamin literally
conceived the band with these stories, and everything is linked to them, even
the production of our sound and Jeff’s artwork.
And is there a specific concept linking the songs?
Not really. Each song is about a
Lovecraftian character or story. The album name Al-Azif is the name of the
famous Necronomicon (the fictive novel imagined by Lovecraft and that is
referenced in some of his novels). It’s also the name of the insect sounds you
can hear when it’s absolute night in the desert.
And are these specific themes really part of The Great Old Ones? I
mean is there a possibility that one day the band composes songs about different
subjects?
For now, we are 100% focused on
Lovecraft, but I can’t say we’ll NEVER compose about anything else… There are so
many fascinating authors out there with a million possibilities we could
explore.
Music-wise, how would you describe The Great Old Ones? That one
gave me a headache!
(Laughs). I’d say dark and dream
metal. Somewhere in between Year Of No
Light, Wolves In The Throne Room and Ahab maybe.
Ok, you’re mentioning Wolves In The Throne room, just like the promo
sheet I got, but I think you’re much closer to a band like Lantlôs…
Well that’s a very fine
observation as we are definitely fans of Lantlôs. But their intentions are a
bit different from ours as their sound is much brighter and not as dark as
ours.
And they are referenced as a Post-Black Metal band, which is also the
label you guys are given.
It’s a pretty good label I guess,
since we did keep our Black Metal roots, especially when it comes to drums and
guitars. And I think we're also close to the “post Metal” scene because we play with the
same kind of atmospheres. So yeah, call us “Post-Black Metal”, its totally
fine with me!
I also love the fact that your music is extremely visual, like a
succession of abstract paintings, very colored but mostly dark.
Well if we managed to make your
imagination paint these images, then I suppose we accomplished our mission!
Out music is extremely complex and has many sound layers. Each person will
perceive different sounds depending on your sensitivity and of
course you musical background. Some other reviewer felt our music was like
Funeral doom! What the hell, I say why not??
And how did you guys build this complex music? Did you work like
traditional Metal bands, based on good ol' guitar riffs?
No, we really consider the songs
in their entirety, not just like the addition of different riffs. We
specifically try to avoid the classic composing method, like coming up with a
riff and building a song around it. The idea is to build sonic-layers that will
evolve through the songs, and off course the traditional Metal riffs help us do that, among
other elements.
There is an entire Black Metal scene that considers things that way,
like obviously Wolves In The Throne Room and Lantlôs. Do you guys feel related
to that new way of playing Black Metal?
Of course we are. Just like the
bands you mentioned, we have “digested” all the traditional Black Metal
influences , and we play outside the usual limits of that scene by integrating
elements from other musical styles. And yes a new scene might be emerging, I
guess we’re part of it now.
Something really impressed me with Al-Azif: it’s the fact that everything
is so professional, the artwork, the awesome sound, and I mean, there are no
visible flaws here, everything is so coherent!
Thank you for the compliment,
really. The thing is we all had other experiences before joining the Great Old
Ones and on the first day we decided that this album was going to be EXACTLY
the way we wanted it to be, so that we will not have any regrets. It’s so
annoying when you have to put an album out there and immediately start
regretting you didn’t invest more time and money because this or that element
is not exactly the way you wanted… So frustrating we never want to feel
this again.
What are you upcoming plans ?
Right now we’re working on a
possible European tour, and we’ll try to play as many shows as possible in
France by the end of 2012. We’ll be playing on June 30th in Nantes,
July 1st in Paris and on the 29th of September in Lille.
Otherwise, we also are working
on a split CD that should be out in 2013, and guess what, the second LP is
already on track! We’ve already composed a bunch of new songs.
Thank you Sébastien and thanks to
Ronnie and Gérald from LADLO productions ! !
Yath
