INTERVIEW WITH OBSIDIAN KINGDOM
MELODY LANE had a great interview with OBSIDIAN KINGDOM! The Barcelonan band defies classification to this very day, drawing equally on progressive rock, post-metal, alternative and electronic music. Their album MEAT MACHINE's been released in September via SEASON OF MIST label and it's a real masterpiece!
"...We normally say... that we play “hard-to-classify heavy music with plenty of contrast”..."
MELODY LANE: First of all, also if it can sound a bit expected…Can you tell us where does the name OBSIDIAN KINGDOM come from?
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: As in most aspects of Obsidian Kingdom, our name does not necessarily have a specific meaning, but is rather designed to trigger images in the brain of the listener. It is an evocative concept that brings together violence and beauty, mystery and heaviness, sex and destruction.
MELODY LANE: The line-up of the band is confirmed, is it the same from the beginning of the band…or have you had changes in the last years? Can you tell us something about the roots of OBSIDIAN KINGDOM? And where the band was born?
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: The band started working at full speed sometime around 2010. At first we played some kind of Progressive Black Metal, but we quickly shifted to our "hard-to-classify music" peculiar signature. Our breakthrough happened in 2012 when we released our first album "Mantiis", after which we've come to be known as "the masters of every genre". Due to its success in the underground, the French label Season of Mist offered to sign us and re-released it in 2014. And the rest is history…
MELODY LANE: Can you list us 5 songs, from OBSIDIAN KINGDOM discography (including new material), that can define the sound of the band…5 songs that can help our readers to know OBSIDIAN KINGDOM at the best.
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM:
“Last of the Light” from Mantiis (2012) – This songs portrays our versatility to move between full-on Metal aggression and jazzy atmospheres, and features a notorious trumpet solo.
“Haunts of the Underworld (Drumcorps Remix)” from Torn & Burnt (2013) – This remix, and the whole album that contains it, are a token of our penchant for electronic music.
“Breed” from the Rockzone Bipolar Sessions (2015) – We were invited to cover a song for this compilation and we chose Nirvana. Because we’re 90s kids.
“Away/Absent” from A Year With No Summer (2016) – This album meant a change of direction towards a more alternative style, and this song is the perfect example.
“Meat Star” from Meat Machine (2020) – The first single from our latest record; it’s not representative of all that you’re going to find it but it’s a nice place to start your ride.
MELODY LANE: Tell us something about the creative process of your music. Is there a main composer or we can talk about a team work? The songs come from ideas of a single member and then the band works on these ideas in the studio jamming together, or your songs are written in the studio and all the members compose together?What about messages and subjects of your lyrics?
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: We work a lot in crafting our songs, and we do most of it together. First we discuss the emotions and ideas that we are going to focus on in each piece; and we do a lot of previous work, trying to picture what the song is going to be like. We use whichever means we have at hand, in order to communicate to each other whatever we might have inside of us: words, images, sounds, mimic, etc. At that stage, we just discuss the right means to portray the piece that we have drawn in our heads; and to do so, genre and style are completely secondary. We just don't care about it for as long as the result meets our emotional requirements and suits the ideas and the colours of the song; and our music baggage is wide enough for us to grab resources from a lot of different styles in order to create each cut. From them on, we just play the songs over and over, refining them every time we do so, until each piece itself tells us when it is complete. It is something natural: we suddenly get a sense of rest and creative peace and we know that the song is finished.
MELODY LANE: Apart from the all the problems and troubles related to the pandemic COVID-19 , any chance for us to seeOBSIDIAN KINGDOM playing live here in Italy/Europe in the next months/years? Maybe summer festivals?Any plans?
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: Actually we’ve been very lucky about that because, against all odds, we’ve just announced a tour for May 2021 alongside Enslaved, Intronaut and Crown. And there are still some dates that are undecided, so most probably you’ll be able to see us in Italy soon. And if it doesn’t happen in May, worry not: we love Italy and will play there again.
MELODY LANE: Could you tell us two bands, from the actual international scene, you’d like to tour with?...Two bands that would represent a perfect line-up for OBSIDIAN KINGDOM to play with.And why these bands?
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: It’d be great to tour with Cult of Luna; we deeply admire their art and we know that it goes along very nicely with our own – we’ve actually opened for them in the past and it’s proven to be a crushing combo, full of emotion, darkness and weight.Another band we’d love to tour with is Deftones, they’re one of the greatest acts on earth. Like us, they navigate between melody, soothing atmospheres and ridiculously violent passages without effort. One can dream.
MELODY LANE: We know that ‘to define is to limit’… but how do you define OBSIDIAN KINGDOM sound? Are you an Alternative rock band? Experimental rock band? …Art rock band?...Or…?
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: Both the “experimental” and the “art-rock” tags suit us fine because they are so undefined that they’ve come to mean nothing at all; more or less like the “prog” label. We normally say that we play something between progressive rock and extreme metal, but that wouldn’t cover our alternative side, or the drone atmospheres…So we’ve come up with a short definition: “hard-to-classify heavy music with plenty of contrast”.
MELODY LANE: Which musicians are/have been your main musical inspirations?
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: There have been many; but just to name a few: from Ulver we’ve learned the bravery to step into unknown territories and to just naturally follow our curiosity; from Scott Walker, the sense of dreadful drama and how riddles are the best way to communicate the mystery; from Death Grips, the inherent fun in violence and the “anything goes” attitude; and from Daughters, the cathartic energy of utter negativity and the ability to terrorize.
MELODY LANE: Which are your favourite bands nowadays? Are there any musicians you’d really like to collaborate with?...and why?
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: We are five very different individuals with very different tastes in music, but there are a few bands that more or less all of us like, such as Radiohead, Marilyn Manson, Ulver, Death Grips, Daughters, The Drones, Deftones, Cult of Luna, Kendrick Lamar, Amenra, Depeche Mode… The list would be endless. Every four months we publish a Spotify playlist with the intention to share our preferences and new discoveries with our listeners. We’d love to collaborate with any of those bands, why not?
MELODY LANE: Until today...What was the most important concert for OBSIDIAN KINGDOM’s career?
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: That’s a tough question since it would be too hard to pick just one.
But some of the most memorable have been the “A Year With No Summer” presentation show in Barcelona, which we played at the Apolo theatre; or that time we played the live soundtrack to “The Phantom Carriage” at a museum; or when we headlined the Euroblast festival’s small stage and the lights went out two minutes after we started our show.
MELODY LANE: As a musician, what has been your biggest achievement to date and what do you want to achieve in the near future?
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: We’ve recently hit two of the highlights of our career: for one, we grazed the cover of Metal Hammer Spain, which is something we could only dream about when we were kids; and lastly, our music video for MEAT STAR has received the “Best International Music Video” award at a horror cinema festival in Santiago de Chile. The sky’s the limit!
MELODY LANE: After time, are you totally satisfied with your choices about sound and the writing of your previous albums? If you could… would you change anything?
I wish I would have sung my vocal parts in “A Year With No Summer” more in tune, but I had to do it under some time pressure and I also didn’t have as much technique back then as I have now. And I believe that Jaime is not 100% happy with the sound of his drums in Mantiis…
MELODY LANE: In the end…A message from you to all readers.
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM: WATCH OUT WHAT YOU SEED IN OTHERS