Interview: Jamie Saint Merat
Dark Mag zine
www.darkmag.net
1- Aloa gentlemen. I hope you're not too much affected after the match lost by the All blacks... But enjoy, we've lost against the English, so I won't be too proud hehe!
Hey there - personally couldn't give 2 shits about what's happening with our rugby team, it's great that they got their asses kicked yet again, think they need to be eating more humble pie haha
2- Well, the album is out now since months. I think you should know now what are the feedbacks...In your opinion what could be improved in your music?
Feedback so far has been really positive, we've been getting some seriously amazing reviews by a lot of writers who we really respect the work of, so that's great. And a lot of fans have been dropping us lines to let us know that they think the album is a fairly important release, which is awesome. Obviously these kind of things are very hard to judge until we get out of New Zealand and start touring (soon with any luck.), but the magazines we've been picking up and webzines seem to all think very positively of the album.
In terms of improvement, our new stuff is going to be a little bit more streamlined, more emphasis on atmosphere and mood, and we are of course always aiming to better our performances on our instruments. The album hit the mark for us and what we were wanting to achieve with a debut - we purposely wanted the production to be raw and punishing, and creating an overall vibe of right on the edge of chaos, and it certainly does that. So from here, we will continue that ethos, but ever so slightly refined. Most importantly, we're striving for our song writing to develop to produce more cohesive pieces of music.
3- What was the problem to release the last album - it was supposed to be out in October, and finally was out in February. - 5 months of delay! It seems NEUROTIC had more problems with its other releases. Satisfied by your collaboration?
Apparently the delay was an external problem - delays at the pressing plant, which continued with their next few releases. I believe that a change in pressing plants has happened now, and all deadlines are getting met with no problems at all. For us, Neurotic is a great label to be a part of, we're on a roster with bands that are out there producing some of the best music the genre has to offer, so we can't really ask for more. The album has great distribution and we've been promoted really well, and now with Willowtip handling Stateside distribution and manufacturing, we have all bases covered.
4- Explain me why you decided to transform the band's name into ULCERATE instead of BLOODWREATH? Your line-up was unstable throughout the years...how do you consider the musicians involved - part of the team or just executioners / mercenaries? Who is the main composer in the band?
Bloodwreath was our moniker before we released any material whatsoever, so upon releasing the first demo, we felt that a name change was in order, almost like a clean slate. None of us were ever satisfied with that name anyway.
We've certainly had a fuck-load of line-up changes, and for the most part (with a couple of exceptions) this was purely due to the fact that a lot of 'musicians' involved with the scene over here just do not have what it takes to commit to a band full-time or have the abilities and drive to further themselves with their playing. Frustrating. We've recently in the last month parted ways with our vocalist Ben Read on good terms, as his priorities lie elsewhere. But it really matters not to us, all Ulcerate material is written by myself and guitarist Michael Hoggard, we started the band, and will continue to write and conceptualise everything, from music right through to production and visual aesthetics (art, web work etc).
5- To pursue with the members, you are all involved in many bands, thrash/death (others styles?) ; can you present them?...what is the priority of ULCERATE? Can you all find a frontier between all this bands, and not put some influences of one band in another one?
For all members Ulcerate is the number 1 priority, we all participate in other projects to satisfy our other musical needs. At the moment the projects would be:
Monolith - Horror/ambience/soundscapes from guitarist Mike Rothwell
The House of Capricorn -Michael R drums for these guys, stoner sludge rock
Vassafor - Mike R also drums for this outfit, epic black metal
8 Foot Sativa - I drum for these guys at the moment, and ex-vocalist Ben Read sings for them, thrash / death metal
6- Your is incredibly brutal and technical ! You've find the right utilization to not make a technical album just for musicians listeners...it's nice to think about the common mortals. What is your purpose : to create a climax through the music, to keep in mind scene performances or anything else?
I understand the need to classify us as 'technical' and 'brutal' but these terms are totally redundant I find with this kind of music - death metal by nature is 'brutal', and trust me when I say we're not about Ulcerate being some kind of 'tech' band, we write as we feel and if parts need levels of complexity, then we will add it. We solely just want to write interesting music, and death metal is our chosen medium. The straight forward blasting style has been done to death by so many bands, and for the most part it hasn't improved since the mid-90's, so it's definitely time for bands to start thinking outside the square.
In terms of purpose, I believe your asking do we write albums, or do we write for the 'pit'. In that case, we write to encompass everything, we're confident that we deliver a live performance that easily matches the recordings and then some, but we're 100% against pandering to the needs of a moshpit. If I hear one more fucking breakdown.. Hahaha
7- About the atmosphere, I've felt some dark feelings, with a nocturnal ambiance...especially by looking to the band's photos, the cover, or musically with parts like in the end of "The mask of the satyr"... I can only listen to the music at night, for me this album is unveiled at this moments. How will you describe your music and the feeling you want to spread?
You've pretty much nailed the vibe we're going for! Obviously there is a lot to our style that is furious and frantic as fuck, but underpinning the melody and progressions at all times is an imbued sense of starkness that we want Ulcerate to be synonymous with. This ethos will be expounded further with newer material, we've only hinted at our overall direction with 'Of Fracture and Failure'.
8- The voice is core influenced - why didn't you chose a typical death/grunt voice? Some screams are reminding me more black metal scene - it gives more fury to the whole I think. Your opinion on the whole new core scene (thrashcore / deathcore and so forth)? Many die hard metal heads despise the scene, I don't know really why...
It certainly wasn't a conscious decision on our part to have a more 'core' as you put it sounding vocal, but we valued Ben's voice for the pure anger and of course his lyrical themes which gelled exceedingly well with our own concepts. After losing our last vocalist, we wanted to maintain the anger and aggressive nature he conveyed, and Ben did this perfectly, albeit in a slightly higher register, which I guess warrants a comparison to a more hardcore sound. To us though, screaming is screaming, it conveys an emotion and it works well in getting the mood across.
I'd personally put myself in the 'despise the scene' group - I'm actually pretty disgusted by the way all of a sudden pig vocals, shitty 'breakdowns', flat-caps and fringes have become the next biggest thing, taking the bare essentials from a style (the odd blast beat and trem or sweep picked riff) and packaged it all in a super easy listening format. Crazy shit. But, like all trends that have passed through hardcore in the last 10 or so years, it will die out soon enough. Every band I've heard of this style has nothing to offer musically, they may have a nice logo, 40 shirt designs and a fat, fake recording, but when it comes to notes on a stave, I'm hearing absolutely nothing.
9- All the visuals associated to the band (website and booklet of the last album) are polished up. How important is for you all the imagery? Don't you think only music can satisfied the listeners? And about the awesome cover, can you enlighten about its signification? Who did it, and were you involved in its conception?
I handle every aspect of Ulcerate's design work, so for us, this is as personal as it could get. We are striving to be a band that offers the whole package, and you know you're getting that because it is solely coming from our own hard graft. The imagery and packaging is crucial with this art form, to hold a booklet in your hands and read the words from a page that has been crafted from hours of work is 100% necessary. I never want us to be a 'download-only' band.
The cover is a metaphorical depiction based around the lyrics that Ben wrote for the album, the chronological destruction of the earth at the hands of man, and the inevitable passing of our own species from our failure to foresee the consequences of our actions.
10- Present us your metal scene : I just know DAWN OF AZAZEL, but I suppose (I hope) there are interesting bands in your country...let us know! What are the main musical streams in New Zealand?
Check out Asphyxiate, Diocletian, Vassafor, Creeping, Akaname, OdiusEmbowel, Loadmaster, Vixen Execution, all killer extreme bands.
Main musical streams over here are the same as any Western country, US and British dominated pop, R&B and hip hop. And the majority of acts that do well over here do their very best to emulate said styles. Often poorly.
11- I hope you have a good sound engineer for your lives performances! It's not too hard to make a good representation of your songs? Do you have opportunities to play outside your country? Which bands you'd like to play with?
We rehearse a lot to keep the songs comfortable enough to pull off, and we of course all have individual practice regimes to progress our skill-sets. So we certainly like to think that live the material is played as good if not better than on the CDs.
In terms of overseas, we're yet to get touring, but we are in negotiations with Neurotic and tour agencies to get ourselves out there internationally. In terms of bands - Immolation, Hate Eternal, Cryptopsy, Origin, Shining, Deathspell Omega, Gorgorth, Isis, Neurosis, Necrophagist would all be kinda cool...
12- The lyrics are obscure for me, it can be interesting to explain them... Do you have some ideas you want to spread with your songs? Do you think metal (whatever the genre) can be a place of engagement? Is it interesting to have political (from left to right) view shared through metal?
The lyrics form a loose chronological concept spanning the albums length, detailing various facets of humanity and how we are creating our own ending.
Ideas we want to spread with our songs? First and foremost, the music! Lyrics are important to us, but only to serve as an extended emotional output for the music, we're not in the business of propaganda. I personally can't stand politics in music, especially metal. Can't really think of anything worse as an audience than being preached to.
13- Do you love everybody as Jesus said before his crucifixation? Or do you prefer wearing bomb belt to have thousand virgins? Seriously, do you have any spirituals convictions? More and more metalheads confess their christian beliefs through forums...don't you think there's a problem when metal becomes a christian lair?
I certainly have no problem with Christians and their beliefs if that's all that it encompassed, people going about their daily lives reveling in something that gives them strength. But we all know that Christianity is more about conversion points, finger-pointing and the almighty patronizing 'I will pray for you' horseshit. Everyone in this band certainly shares these viewpoints, I know we all do our best to never associate with such filth.
In terms of metal, Christianity has no place in metal. The spirit of metal is violent and oppressive, and if anything is entirely linked to the punk ethic of 'fuck you'. I don't see how fascist, do-gooder Christian doctrine applies here at all. The Christians that are involved in this kind of music latch onto it as a trend, as an unexplored territory to call their own. I think there is an importance for people of this belief to try their best to make sure that no art form or sect of society is godless...
14- Did you begin to compose other stuffs? Which ways you can explore to overcome your present album?
At the moment, we're 2 or 3 songs into new album material, and so far we're expanding the palette of what we've touched on, a lot more variation, yet at the same time, streamlining the songs a little - we're really making sure this time that this album will really stick in your head. Melodically it's a little more dissonant overall, and I think a lot more distinctly Ulcerate. Rhythmically we're following the same kind of ground, drumming-wise there's a lot more patterns and dynamics overall, so I think its going to make for a cool listen.
15- I just know your country via the Tamahori's film "Once were warriors". Does this film represent fairly the situation or is it became worst? What is the actual condition of the natives ? Tell me more about the state of your society...
That movie is totally a portrayal of the worst kind of scenarios here, that's certainly not commonplace. Maori here are 100% integrated with the other ethnicities in NZ, much like any multicultural nation. Our society and governing bodies are for the most part great, very secular and a huge emphasis on keeping the nation 'green' (environmentally sound). So asides from our georgrahical isolation, NZ is a pretty good place to live.
16- It's finished, it's time for you to conclude buddy! Olé ala i lé poulé lé taotoua (it's a Maori proverb hehe)
Cheers for the interview dude, we appreciate the support!
Jamie | Ulcerate
