Interview with death metal band from France - INFERN.
Answered Loup (guitars), Julien (vocals), Sylvain (bass), thank you!
Recenze/review - INFERN - Turn of the Tide (2024):
Ave INFERN! I'm listening to your new release "Turn of the Tide" right now and I'm thinking that this is what the music they will play at the end of the world will sound like. I think you've done a really masterful job. What are your feelings about the new album? Have you gotten any feedback from fans yet? Have you played the new songs live yet? And how do they work?
Loup: Hello. Thanks, we feel great about this first album. We've put so much work into it, for more than 2 years now that we are glad it is coming out. The songs have been played live already, and we had a good response to it.
Julien: Hello. Thanks for the compliment. We feel very excited to share our music and hope it will appeal to as many people as possible. It was a lot of work but we are quite happy with the result.
Sylvain: Yes, we’ve already played those songs live a few times, I must say that the crowd seems to like it !
How do you actually create new songs for INFERN? Are you a traditional band that locks yourself in a rehearsal room and composes there or do you use the internet, so popular nowadays, and email ideas to each other? I'm interested in the creative process itself.
Loup: All songs were composed at home and then rehearsed once the spine of the song is found. Since we are dispatched around Brittany and Paris we unfortunately don’t rehearse that much. Now that we’ve recorded the album we are focusing on gigging as often as possible and with family and jobs we just can’t rehearse every week as we’d like to. As we did when we were 15 years old with other bands. We are gathering riffs and ideas separately and once we will be focusing on doing the new album we will have to rehearse more.
Julien: Yes, we try to approach the creative process in a collective way. As Loup said, everything starts from some riffs and ideas. At first, we exchange our ideas by mail and then we take it slow. With modern techniques, it has never been easier to "prototype" a song so quickly and keep the creativity alive. Then, we record a demo and try it in rehearsal.
Lyrics are a separate chapter in INFERN. What are they about on the new album and where did you get the inspiration for them? On "Turn of the Tide" they fit the music perfectly. What came first, the music or the lyrics?
Julien: Usually, we do the music first. Then only, I start working on melodies and lyrics. I tried to alternate between a hardcore phrasing and something more posed. Some of the lyrics are inspired by the world around us (The trap of capitalism, ecology, despotism…) and some are more like what we could expect from a typical death band (paranoia, fears…). It’s a team effort, getting inspired, and pushing each other.
I have to admit that the cover for "Turn of the Tide" is excellent - it fits the music perfectly! It's literally scary. How did you choose the cover and who is the author? Did he maybe hear new songs beforehand for inspiration? What exactly does it have to represent and how does it relate to the songs?
Sylvain: Thanks, we’re pretty happy with the artwork, it’s Riko, a French illustrator who had worked on it. He did an amazing job ! The main goal was to depict the actual state of the world in an original way.
Loup: The idea is that humanity deserves to be destroyed by the vengeful power of nature, for its lack of respect for it and its parasitic and thoughtless behavior. Our "mascot", the giant sea spider emerging from the abyss, is there to destroy humanity, its pollution, and its lack of respect for mother nature.
The sound of the whole record is great. It's dark, cold and sharp at the same time. What studio did you record the album in? Did you as a band have a say in the final sound, the mastering?
Loup: We worked again with Charles Elliot from Tastemaker Audio Studio in LA. We recorded the Drums here in Brittany, at B-Blast Records, and Ben Lesous did a great job. Then we sent all that to Charles. We recorded Guitars and Bass at home and Charles re-amped it in L.A. with his secret sauce. We recorded voices ourselves in our home studio and sent them to Charles also. We had lots of back and forth emails to discuss sound, tonality, mix etc… It was quite a long process, but with patience we managed to achieve a pretty good sounding record I must say. We are glad he made it sound as it does.
The new album was released on Dolorem Records in France. Why did you choose this label and how satisfied are you with their work?
Sylvain: Alex from Dolorem is a passionate man, he really knows and loves what he’s doing, if you follow the history of his label, you can see what i’m talking about. Great roster, Great promotion, Great music how can’t we be happy to work with him ).
When did you actually start the band? How did the idea of playing death metal come about? Who was your role model? Please reminisce for us! What is it like to play death metal in France?
Loup: Sylvain and I played in a Stoner band 15 years ago. We decided to start a new band in late 2019 and this time go more brutal. From the beginning the goal with this band was to do heavy and raw death metal, with a groovy approach. We wanted to incorporate all our eclectic metal influences and do something reminiscent of the band from the 90’s we like. My cousin Julien, was ok to come with us on this journey. He is the best singer I know and the best fit for this band.
Julien: When they proposed that I join the band, I said “Yes” right away. I’d never played in a death metal band before but the idea of doing something together pleased me well. Before that, I played in several hardcore or thrash bands.
It's very obvious in your band how much you enjoy your music. Do you have a goal that you want to achieve? For some people it's a famous label, others want to play a big festival.
Loup: I think i can speak for all the guys in the band in saying that music is everything to us.Our goal is to go as high as we possibly can. We are passionate guys with a time consuming hobby who are glad to be part of the metal scene. Doing bigger shows, reaching more people, touring as often as our family and professional lives allow us.
Julien, unlike other death metal singers, you're quite easy to understand when you sing. Metal singing in general must be a terrible strain on the vocal cords. Do you maintain them, take care of them? Do you sing before the gig?
Julien: When I listen to a song, I like to understand the lyrics and the meaning behind it. So I did my best to be understood by most. During a show, I try not to scream too loud to conserve my voice. And no, I don’t sing or prepare myself before a gig, although I know that I should (Frenchies are stubborn).
What's it like to play death metal in France? Do people come to your gigs? Do they support you, do they buy CDs? If you organize an event, how many people come?
Loup: We are glad that there is a very passionate metal scene in France and especially in Brittany. So far we had a very good response from the crowd. People seem to like our energy on stage. We are fortunate also that metal fans buy merchandising. We’ve played in front of crowds from 15 to 700 so far. Every gig is different.
Death metal is a hard hobby and an even harder lifestyle. What does it mean to you? What do you like most about it and how do you perceive it? How did you get into it?
Loup: I've been a metalhead for 30 years now. My first contact with metal was through a tape of Ride the Lightning and Sepultura’s Arise… Then I never quit. I’m glad I passed the virus to Julien, who is slightly younger than me, and that we could share that together in this band 30 years later. All five of us are listening to lots of different stuff in the metal genre, Heavy metal, Hardcore, Stoner, Grindcrust, etc...
I deliberately ask this question to all the bands so they can do a bit of promotion for the future. Please tell us what INFERN are planning in the near future? What can we look forward to?
Loup: Now that the album is out we are gonna do as many shows as possible to promote this record and try to make the band more noticeable on the metal scene. We are also writing news songs, gathering new ideas. We surely plan on doing a new record in the future.
Thank you very much for the interview and I wish INFERN a lot of sold-out records and sold-out venues. May you have a good personal life as well. I'm looking forward to the next death metal apocalypse!
Loup: Thanks a lot for that. Good luck and a nice life to you too.
Julien: Thanks, it was a pleasure. And yes, may the force be with us:)).
Sylvain: Thanks man, I hope a lot of good things to you too !
Recenze/review - INFERN - Turn of the Tide (2024):
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