Beneath The Massacre – Das Gespräch zu „Fearmonger“
Beneath the Massacre brachten Anfang März ihr neues Album „Fearmonger“ in den Laden & auf sämtlichen Streaming-Plattformen. Wir von Moshpit Passion berichteten HIER über das Album. Nun folgt das Interview mit Frontmann Elliott Desgagnés, welcher uns Rede und Antwort steht.
Auf ein Wort mit Elliott
Since 16 years „you are writing fucked up angry music because you can“. What are your sources for topics in your songs?
I write a lot about the human condition and philosophy while trying not to have a clear political agenda or promote anything in particular.
2004 marked also the beginning of the big music crisis with the high end of low in 2007. Did this somehow infected your music besides to built up a name in the scene?
It is hard to compare eras with years that we weren’t there. But I can say we were definitely in the beginning of the social media thing that just kept getting bigger ever since. I don’t think the band would have made it as far if it wasn’t of My Space Music. When we finished recording our first EP ‘Evidence of Inequity’, we were asked to upload a track on ‘Myspace’, and I thought that thing was a hook up site. The following days, our mailbox was exploding with messages, interview requests and booking requests etc. It was wild because it was all new to us and we tried to make the most of it.
Since the last years during your inactivity streaming is becoming more and more relevant. What are your personal thoughts on that?
I honestly don’t know what to make of it. I know a lot of bands will benefit from having a lot of streams and ‘hype’ from one or two songs they wrote but I can’t help to think that we, as a community and song writers will lose a lot from it. Song writers don’t have to write full albums anymore, they only need singles. The future generation may never know the rush of buying an album without knowing more than a song, to open the album and to listen to it from front to back while holding the booklet in their hands and reading the lyrics. This experience is what differentiated the great bands from the ones that simply had one catchy riffs or song and I think it’ll become harder and harder in the future to tell the difference because no one goes through full albums anymore. We saw what it did to pop music, do we want underground bands to follow the same route?
How would you describe the time between 2012 and 2018? Hiatus? Break up? Pause? Can you tell us a bit about your inactivity and the reasons for it?
It was the end of a cycle and of an era. We toured a lot between 2007 and 2013. We spent almost more time out of our country then home. It tired us and made us not appreciate it as much. At the same time, we honoured our record deal with Prosthetic records and the demand for thechnical death metal bands was low. So we started by not touring as much and focused on other aspects of our lives. Some of us accepted better positions at their work while others returned to school to complete their degrees. Next thing you knew, we were not active at all anymore and unavailable for anything because of life’s obligations. But we always kept writing. Not at the same rhythm we used to but we would always keep advancing songs and knew one day we would have to do something with the tracks.
How was it to go out and doing a tour in 2019? Are there any plans for Europe? Germany?
It was great to be back on tour and especially with such a great package. It felt like we never really stopped and at the same time it felt like it has been a lifetime ago we haven’t tour. We had a lot of fun and hope to do it again the earlier the better but for now, with that Covid-19 pandemic, no one knows when the tours will start back.
On 28. Feb 2020 you did a post on Facebook and talking about „uncertainties surrounding its release“ can you go a little bit into detail about that?
We wrote that record over the course of about 7 years and the project changed a lot since the beginning. For the longest time, I was sure we would release it as a Post-Mortem album and directly to the fans through a social platform or something like that simply because I couldn’t see our schedule allowing us to tour and promote the record. But obviously things changed and we were able to commit to the promotion of the record with live performances and all that fun stuff we missed so much.
Your new record is called „Fearmonger“. It is funny because while I am writing this interview here in Germany the people are going nuts about the Corona-virus. A lot of retail stores sold out disinfectant or even noodles. I guess your title is a reference to something else right?
Well, fearmongering goes hand in hand with misinformation and mass manipulation. While the Covid-19 virus is a real threat, we haven’t heard a whole lot much about it until it explodes to our faces. So many politicians are busy fearmongering about things we shouldn’t be afraid of while real threat are being swiped under the carpet. The track ‘Rise of the Fearmonger’ is about the post-truth era, anti-intellectualism and fearmongering politicians we witness in the western civilisation.
If you compare the new record to your previous albums. What are the major differences?
I would say we had the time to write, listen and rewrite. There are no big differences in our approach and what sound we were going for but there is a big difference in the quality of the delivery. We could only achieve this quality by taking the time to listen carefully to what we wrote and to re-write it until we couldn’t anymore.
Which two tracks do you like most and why?
My two favourite tracks of the record would have to be “Of Gods and Machines” and “Autonomous Mind”. Both tracks are very daring in its writing. The songs take sudden turn that could be hard to pull off but I think we nailed it. I am also very happy with the lyrics and the way I incorporated them in it. Writing lyrics and patterns for BTM sometimes feels like an impossible task so I really enjoy when I make everything feel easy and natural.
You got a new guy on drums. Please introduce us Anthony.
We approached Anthony when we knew we had enough tracks to hit the studio and were looking for the best drummer to possibly fit the songs. I saw a video of him playing some BTM and went to watch more of his drumming videos. He is very impressing! We offered him to drum on the new record and he accepted right away. We gave him a lot of liberty on the tracks because we trusted his drumming and he did not disappoint. Unfortunately, Anthony also plays drums for other artists and he might never be able to join us on a tour. For now, it is Patrice Hamelin (Gorguts, Martyr) that stood up to the challenge of playing these tracks live.
I really like the art work and cover. Who is the designer and what is concept behind the art?
Alexandre Goulet is the artist we worked with for the artwork. We know him for a long time and I had the chance to explain to him a bit of the lyrical content and sent him the lyrics of a few tracks. We mentioned a few things we would like to have and a few things we would rather not have and he did the rest. I don’t know what exactly made him choose this imagery but it fits with the album and I like that it is open to interpretation. Mixed with the great packaging Century Media did, I can say it is the nicest release we have put out yet.
Our mag is called Moshpit Passion. Can you tell us a funny, mad, sad or crazy moshpit story?
Me and Dennis (bass) used to always be in the pit when we were younger. There are so many crazy stories that it is hard to pick one… but I remember that venue called l’X in Montreal where there was a balcony not that high from the ground and we used to jump off the balcony directly into the crowd that were singing along front row. We did this at a couple of shows and were getting used to it until one night we started jumping from the balcony and the band playing actually gave us shit between two songs, asking us to stop and saying we would hurt people (they were probably right!). We were young and stupid, now I can see that jumping on the head of people from two meter high can definitely be dangerous!!!
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Bildnachweis: Century Media.