Neurosis : In the company of wolves...
| The albums and concerts by Neurosis or their alter ego Tribe of Neurot are exceptional, almost mystical experiences: from "Enemy of the sun" to "Times of Grace" and "Souls at zero", great cold and dark waves roll over your ears, destroying all narrow-minded conceptions of music. Neurosis is a tribe, a pack of solitary wolves, who prefer their own company to success-leading compromises. Neurosis is dark, terrifying, their lyrics haunted and their music sounds the knell of mainstream, tamed metal. Neurosis, since 85, has influenced quite a lot of people, but they don't care, because THEY are still around. Has this incredible gang found the secret of eternal youth? For the last date of their European tour, Neurosis proved you could get your ears and your eyes full, with videos and images galore in the background and rolling guitars and thundering drums. We met Steve Von Till, one of the guitarists/vocalists, just before the storm... |
|
-Your last lp is called "Times of grace" : does the term "soundtrack for the Apocalypse" suit you ? - "Soundtrack for the Apocalypse" is a tag, it's the most popular thing people have to say about our music. To me, I've been there for many years and I don't care about the soundtrack for the Apocalypse. I don't believe in Apocalypse as a single event anyway, you know, all we do is confronting maybe some of the more negative aspects of life, negative energies, negative forces, intenses emotions, but more full range : it's not all negative, it's not all dark. To me, it's being fullfiled and satisfied and knowing that you have been confronting difficult things and come up the other hand successful. For me, it's not creating a soundtrack for the Apocalypse, it's about creating an emotional background for a life experience. -Neurosis is like a tribe, a secret entity : is this independance very important for you ? -Yes, once again, you deal with images people create in their minds : we don't live like Communists or a commune, like a bunch of hippies together ! But we all have been around each other and each other's families for a long time and that makes a lot of difference in our band : we know each other deeply. It's really the only way I understand making this music. You can't take Neurosis out of the people : in a sense, that's everything. -Tell me about the Tribe of Neurot... -Some years back, maybe five or six, we realized that we had a lot of artistic ideas, evolving around the same kind of philosophies and concepts that Neurosis dealed with with rock music ; we were already working a lot of music which was much more atmospheric, much more soundscape than our actual music, much more "ambient" for a lack of a better word. Then, having incorporated all those elements into pieces we would use in Neurosis a little bit, we realised that it would make sense in forming another identity, not only to make other types of sounds or music, it would be the same emotion as Neurosis, but to start something we thought we could continue to the rest of our lives, separate from rock'n'roll, but which would embody the same spirit which can incorporate any form of art. Of course, right now, we're living a life of rock'n'roll, so our time in research to create new forms of art is limited, being on tour all the time. But it's a lifetime of inspiration and I think we're gonna dive into something like a CD-Rom project. We've been wanting to go more into video and film for a long time, but we have to maintain our show for the live performance so much, it distracts us from being able to make any release or whatever. We have been doing this for years, mostly sound recordings, and we made four records : "Rebegin", "Silver blood transmission", "Static migration" and the new one, "Grace", which is the companion to "Times of Grace", which is the most interesting one to date, because it forces Tribes of Neurot, which otherwise would be much more free form and spontaneous and improvised, noise, collage, whatever, to have a structure, because we wanted to be able to have the same dynamic flow, dynamic energy, the same emotion but without any rock music or rythm. So that in a sense, being free of rythm, but yet having the same melodies, texture, pace that you could listen to either one, so it would be like approaching the same piece of music, and rather than looking at the notes, look at the emotion. We wanted Neurosis to do this piece and Tribe of Neurot to do his version of the piece, and then it would the logical step that it would happen in the same time frame, so why not play them both at the same time ? -And Neurot Recordings ? -"Grace" actually was our first release on Neurot Recordings. We wanted to have our own label for years, and we never had the ability. We've got a pretty good situation at home, we don't work it out for Europe but in America we've got a good distribution and pretty close people of ours overseeing it for us. It's a logical step for a band like us, we've never had any issue about control with the labels we work with, they all understand before we ever work with them we have to be on control on the art and everything representing us. It's more like building something for the future, building something for everything to come home and eventually everything you need from Neurosis is from Neurosis, or Tribes of Neurot. And maybe in the future we can release some records from some like-minded people we like and we could introduce Neurosis fans to music they maybe would never listen to otherwise, things like that. So far, it's very successful, "Grace" is doing very well, we have our records back in America with Alternative Tentacles, so we have most of our records ourselves in America now, which is a good thing. -You never play Tribes of Neurot stuff on stage. Why ? -We don't really want to, it wouldn't be right, because live is spontaneous. Playing the two CD's at the same time is more about subtlety, picking up the subtle differences, and there's nothing subtle about the live performance, it's physical, it's more ...beast, less brain ! It's more an experiment for the people to make at home. -There are no Neurosis videos : is there a project for it or some kind of short film, not necessarily videos, based on Neurosis music ? -We wanted to, but once again the problem is time and resources. We actually did make a video which had some "Enemy of the sun" and "Through silver in blood" songs, but when we finished it, we looked at it and quality was not enough, so we rejected our own work, in a sense. But we have done two music videos, one for the song "Under the surface", which is new, and it's the very first time we agreed to do a "rock video" : it's us, playing live, after a lot of debating, because we never wanted to appear on a video, because what is the point ? We wanted something more artistic. But we had a weird feeling about artists we like, we like to see people making music, so...ok, maybe we'll give it a try. So we did a video which I think was pretty good, artfully done, and we've tried to capture through some effects mixing the visuals and somewhere the live energy, the intensity, not just a band performing but an unseen energy between the band and the audience, this energy we can feel flowing out of our bodies. We tried to represent that a bit. We would love to do long form, more experimental arty videos for our stuff, it's just it's so much time. Someday, someday... -Elements are very important in your lyrics : fire, water, earth, sky, etc, more than in any lyrics from other bands... -Because they are fundamental, and I don't understand why they wouldn't be fundamental topics for everyone. We're made of those elements, fire, water, they all build our lives. And especially, when you make lyrics for music like Neurosis, you don't wanna make little story telling, you want to paint pictures with the words and create an atmosphere rather than being specific and say blah blah blah : we deal with emotions and that allows the listener to give less importance to what words say, they blend more with the music, and the voice is an instrument rather than a main focus. It creates the tone. -You have worked with Steve Albini for "Times of grace" : how was it to work with him and what did he bring to you ? -We learned a lot about recording, as he is a recording engineer, not a producer, something that he would like to say as well : he's an engineer, in the traditional sense of the word, very scientific ; he wants to capture the sound exactly how it is delivered. He wants to do it however you want to do it, he prefers raw, exactly the way it sounds, he loves the natural sound of music with all its imperfections. He has a high level of recording experience and knowledge of equipment and bands that we hadn't experienced before and in fact it was almost a natural record making : you set up, you play, and you have your record ! It was that easy, really, incredible, we got along really well because we were familiar of our respective musics, we share the same aesthetic, with Big Black, Shellac, pretty heavy dark stuff, so we didn't lose time to explain things we tried to achieve ; we just did it, and we were so proud it sounds so natural, good drums sound, real drums like I've never seen in the world. When I first heard my guitar coming from the speakers, I said : "Wow ! that sticks in your head !" But I don't think it's that simple, he brings certains characteristics just by the nature of this ; he's one of the few people who try to work pure sound. -What is the secret of your longevity ? Faith ? Friendship ? Both ? -(Laugh) Yeah, both ! The music, and that brotherhood which can't be equalled ; sometimes it feels like we are war veterans or something after touring such a long time, we are the only ones to have experience of the same thing and this music is driving us to do this, and by the way sacrificing so much of our lives to be able to do this, it's not easy, but I guess we view our music as much more important and we think we have something very important to do with music that should last a lifetime. I don't know if it means touring and rock'n'roll all the time, it's starting to take its toll on our bodies ! We have to do it. It's a tribe, like any other people we go through ups and downs with each other and everything else, but we have a life's work to do... -What were your influences when you started Neurosis ? -In fact, I wasn't in the band when it started, I joined ten years ago, but I saw the men quite often, I was around. The main thing was to try to do something different and not to be limited to remake somebody else's music, but the music which inspires us changes all the time, all the six of us have six different opinions about music. At the time we started, it was very Black Sabbath, Black Flag, hardcore. Some of the bands were doing very aggressive guitar punk, crossings between punk rock and heavy metal, but doing something very good. The lyrical content was a bit more mystical, introspective, mysterious, dark, but we never tried to emulate any of those bands, and as you can see listening to our albums, to struggle to find our own direction. We still haven't found it and we get closer every time ! -What do you listen to at home ? -I listen to so many kinds of music : real electronic music, Tangerine Dream, Eno, a lot of country music, like Billy Nelson and Johnny Cash, the good stuff of course, some Celtic and Scandinavian traditional music, Flaming Lips a lot : basically, my guide for music is it has to move me, to mean something emotionally for me, I don't like the modern heavy music at all, very few bands are making music I like ; for the others, if they make music that inspires them, it's cool, but I don't pay attention, I don't know them. Maybe, occasionally, something turns me on, like actually "Godspeed black emperor", great music really. -You played at the Ozzfest : how was this experience ? -Yes, it was very positive. I've got to see Black Sabbath twenty something times, and even if you know the music like the back of your hand, seeing them play is very important : now I know where we come from. And also we got to reach other people, I think, 'cause Neurosis doesn't seem to be very popular music. At the Ozzfest, you got twenty five/thirty thousand people looking for something very heavy and intense, and they don't know that something like Neurosis exists because they only know some of the more mainstream artists. We had to play outside during the daytime and couldn't do our projections, which was kind of an alien atmosphere for us. It was great 'cause it was a chance to be seen more by people who had no idea, who are just walking by. Of course, I prefer headlining shows in a city where many people come to see us and we can play a small theater, so the projection can be big, the sound can be big and nice, but it's not so big if the place is empty ! -Isn't it disappointing for such an influential band to play in Europe in such small venues when you deserve a lot more ? -That's hard to say, that's a strange question, because we don't do it expecting anything. At the same time, there's a reality of doing it. I would like it if every night was sold out and make a living of doing this, because that's what I wanna do with my life. People have images of even bands our size making money, it's ridiculous, we don't. Sometimes, it seems pretty insane, but, you know, what else could we do ? -How do you see the future for Neurosis ? Psychosis ? -I see a lot more projects coming, I see an EP coming out next year on our own label in the States and Music For Nation in Europe, and it's some of the best songs we have saved from the "Times of grace" recordings for this EP. We have a couple of Tribes of Neurot in the can, ready to go and a compilation of some rare tracks, and I've done a CD of acoustic songs, sort of folk, kind of lullaby, very melancolic, minimal, just acoustic guitar and voice, intimate. We will be putting that out next year as well, and we keep working on Neurosis stuff, pushing our own boundaries on a lot of different projects, keeping Tribes of Neurot and Neurosis focused as well as other things, more creative, more artistic. It's a lifetime's work ! ! Interview made in Paris on 8th November 1999 by Jean Paul Coillard Neurosis official site |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Tribes of Neurot : |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Back to Table of contents |