AMEN RA INTERVIEW

Mass IIII came out a while ago. How were the reactions ‘till now?

up untill now.all reactions were positive.it astounds us that it’s the 4th album now, and we’ve always been wellreceiced.by critics.we have been more than lucky.we always write for ourselves.and it’s always  interesting to read or know what people think of it. 

The new album seems to be a little more subtle and refined than the previous one. Some songs really take their time to grow. Is that something that grew naturally, or was that the intention when you started writing?

we never start something with a sole ‘intention’, like stated it grows naturally we give it time.i think that’s the most important ingredient of our music.we don’t want to force the music onto ourselves we just simply give ourselves the time to absorbe the whole and make it ours.

You guys just got signed to INIT records, can you tell us what that will mean for the band?

well it’ll mean we get a decent distribution in the states, since we’re planning to head out there from time to time now, it can be convenient. shipping costs can be really high when people have to buy their cd’s or vinyl overseas. especially euro  releases shipped to the us... we are really thankful to steven for releasing the double cd.

Recently Lennart joined AMEN RA on guitars. I ‘ve known him from his previous projects dating way back and he’s definitely a great guitar player.  How do you think he will influence the songwriting process? And how do you feel about him joing the band?

i am most pleased with him in the band, i used to go to the same school as him and at some point we actually had a band together longlong ago.something always told me that we’d end up playing in a band together ,someday and now we do. him joining us, gives amenra a second breath, the 5 of us are really having the time of our lives again.his coming seemed rejuvenating. as for influence, that’s something we’ll see in the future.he is talented indeed, but in amenra ‘feeling of emotion’ can be as important as talent.

Colin your lyrics, seem very dark and personal. You really succeed to transfer a tremendous amount of pain to the listeners. This process seems very hard and intense because I can imagine that takes a lot of introspection?

it takes pretty much all of my energy, during the writing process i  

dig deep.in away i hurt myself over and over again.

It seems that AMEN RA slowly evolved into some kind of “melancholic religion”, where the albums are the masses and lyrics are your prayers. I personally think melancholy can also be something beautiful and motivating, what’s your opinion?

i follow you.in a way beauty comes from uglyness.you need the two in  life to really comprehend the whole, life itself. “there’s no light without darkness” it’s about redefining your purpose in this life. it’s about telling everyones story. and making it inspirational to others. something to hold on to when you fall.creating something that ‘ ll always be there.

Another part of AMEN RA that keeps coming back are dead animals.  What’s the meaning behind that?

life and death. beginning and end. ‘vluchtigheid’. not nescesseraly the animals, it’s the dead that matters.using something ‘negative’ to form something ‘beautiful’ ...  use the negativity and bow it into something positive.

Your live shows are so intense they can easily be linked with performance art. They always make me think of Herman Nitsch’s work  (dead animals, religion is really important in his work as well). Since the artwork is an important piece of AMEN RA, do you think it would possible to collaborate with performance artists at some point?

we will at some point. there is a very big link with performance art indeed.even though we never worked with it.

Colin you have some very cool tattoos and you seem very  interested in bodymodifications. What does it mean to you, and what does it do to you?

me being into branding scarification suspension whatever..it helps me realise that there are no boundaries in life. the human body can take in a lot, and so does the mind. i live through experience, and only experience can let someone have an opinion about it. aspects of physical pain often set foot in my lyrics and words.i was thinking about what i write or wanted to write at some point in amenra’s existence and i came to the conclusion that if i wanted to talk about smelling my own burnt flesh, i’d at least had to have smelled  it.felt it...if i write about  cutting someones name into my leg, i should ve done it...i give blood as sacrifice to those i love.

In februari you guys are heading to the US(and Canada) again. How  was the previous US tour and what do you expect of this one?

we expect nothing in hope to have anything.experience. time spent together with my peers, my brothers. experience, to look back to when i’m about to die. i expect us to live.together.

 

How is Kingdom; your other project doing? Any new plans?

recording new songs this summer. did some shows in germany and poland. slowly but surely move on.

 Any last words ?

none.

Interview with Marc from OMISSION

Well the interview with Marc from Omission was something that definitely had to happen. I always liked the band because of their amazing live sound, and dedication. But when  the  new songs pierced my ears, the band showed us that they were back, and better than they ever were. Marc is definitely a guy that has got something to say. And I’ve got to be honest, I wish I had all his gear as well.

Hey Marc, how are you? It’s nice to see that OMISSION came out of it’s hiatus. When and how did you guys decide to start again?

Hey Kevin, I’m doing great. I’m really busy lately with my bands, school and work and still I find the time to hang out with my friends or jump on the bike once in a while so I guess I’m doing pretty good  For Omission, we actually started talking about making new music together pretty quickly after the break up. At the time our drummer Robert felt he didn’t want to play anymore and there were some other personal things going on with some bandmembers which made us pull the plug. About 6 to 8 months later we we’re hanging out and talking about it and decided to go and try something new. Luckily for us we pretty soon found a new drummer in Riekus who is a good friend of ours and also plays in Antillectual. We really took it easy and rehearsed a couple of times trying out some new stuff Maarten wrote and the ball started rolling again. Everyone was pretty siked about being together in a band again and we just kept going at it at a slow pace. Since we live all over the country by now we couldn’t do weekly rehearsals and we liked to keep it at a low level for the moment. Du- ring this time we also had a lot of discussions about the future of the band and mostly about what to call it. The final decision to get back as Omission actually came when the first show was being booked when we were asked to play at the Smash the statues release show. From that moment on the word was out on the streets and we are again trying to go at full force with it.

The first thing I noticed when I heared the new song, was that you guys really matured. Matured in the best way possible. The vocals sound more grown up, but also the riffing in the new song is amazing. Was the different sound something you guys had in mind when you started out again, or was it something that just grew along the way?

I guess the new stuff we are doing now is a logical progression from what we have been doing. The last recordings we did just before the break up were already going into this direction, just more rock influences and more catchy song structures. Our guitar player Maarten is the main songwriter musicwise and this is the direction we were going for. Vocal wise we were trying out new things and we really wanted to go for a more melodic and interesting approach in stead of just screaming at full blast all the time. This way of singing just fits better with the new songs we are now playing and it just makes it more interesting too.

Omission was one of the bands that had a nice safety haven at REFLECTIONS records. Are you still signed with them?

We did sign for the first full length with REFLECTIONS with an option to do more in the future depending on how we got along together and how it all would work out. For now there is not a hard deal, so technically we’re not on the label, but we’ll see what happens in the future, if they are inte-rested in working with us again it would be a great opportunity because it’s a good label and they are  great people. 

When exactly is the new OMISSION material coming out?

We are working on a new 7” right now, but I actually don’t know when or by whom it’s going to be released.

Marc, you’re definitely one of the guys that likes a lot of (Vintage) Ampeg gear.  What’s your favourite piece of ampeg equipement and why? 

My absolute favorite ampeg amp is definitely my ’74 V4. That thing just kills!! I bought from a Dutch collector and in the beginning I wasn’t too sure about it and kept turning knobs on it and searching for my sound. When I bought it I was using an SVT4PRO and I knew this amp sounded better. I did a lot of A/B ing between the amps and this one won hands down, more balls and power. But still I kept searching, but now I found out how to set it up and I’ll keep this baby forever. I even have a restriction on using my SVT CL amp with Omission, the guys won’t let me because the V4 kicks it ass! Besides that, the ampeg 8x10 cabs are just awesome, a full powerfull sound which I really like. The V4 actually broke down just before we had to play two weekends in the UK and Germany, which kinda sucked. I guess it’s only the powerswitch which is broken so it’ll be an easy fix to do. So I did bring the SVT out, it’s a cool amp but somehow there’s just that little thing missing what the V4 does have. I can’t quite point it out but the V4 just sounds more ballsy.

You’ve owned all kinds of basses, which ones did you like best and why?

I’ve had quite a few in the years yeah. I started out on a cheapass jazzbass copy, then went through some other copies of musicman, a squier precision etc. etc. When we started out with Omission I got a japanese jazzbass which at the point sounded better than a US one which I actually wanted to buy and I used that for quite a while. But somehow I got bored with it and bought my first expensive bass, one I always wanted to have, a musicman stingray. I sold that jazzbass to Nico from Omission and I heard him play that thing and I wondered why I ever sold it. So I used the stingray for a while but couldn’t get the feel for it, it just wasn’t doing it for me. Then I got a Ibanez ATK as a backup which turned out to become my main bass for quite a while, sold the musicman and got another ATK. After a while of using the ATK’s I got bored with the sound and started looking around again and got a new 2006 fender highway one jazzbass. It just blew my mind, I’ve been using that bass ever since. In the meantime one of the pickups broke and I replaced them with a set of Fender CS 60’s which really made it come to life. After that I also got a Gibson RD Artist bass, a really heavy kickass piece of wood, but ended up never using it because I always picked up the Fender. I recently sold the Gibson and am looking around for a Fender precision as a backup. I guess I’m a fender guy. So right now I just have the jazzbass and that’s really one that’s gonna stick around for a long time. 

You also play guitar in Bivouac and Feast. How are both bands doing these days? I must say I was really suprised by the quality of both bands, I was impressed.

Thank you, that means a lot, especially since I used to be a pretty passive musician in all the bands I played in in the past, I took it upon myself to write most of the music and also record everything by ourselves for these two bands and it seems to be working out pretty good. But uuhm, both bands are still playing. With Bivouac we are going to do some new recordings in the near future for a 6 or 7 song MCD and hopefully we’ll be able to play some more shows than we are doing right now. With Feast we are taking things really slow and easy, we just did our first show a couple of weeks ago and it was really cool. Since we started out with that band the idea was not to play too often since everyone has busy schedules, work or kids and we just like to hang out once a week, make a lot of noise and drink a few beers together. 

What does your guitar rig look like in those bands?

For my guitar rigs the search has been long and hard, and even though I own three vintage guitar amps I actually use the Ampeg V4 with both bands. Below that I use a sound city 4x12 cabinet loaded with 2 old celestion greenback and 2 Fane powerspeakers. I did use multiple amps with both bands for a while, one amp for the clean sounds, one for the overdriven sounds. But now I just use the V4 with a Fulltone Fulldrive II, it’s less stuff too drag along every time. I would like to try a double stack of the V4 and JCM800 for Feast once, just to go even louder than we are going now . As for guitars, I really old japanese ones. For Bivouac I use an ‘78 Ibanez ST200 with a set of VintageVibeGuitars HS-90 pickups, which are P90 pickups in a humbucker format. As a backup I use my ‘78 Gibson The SG, which is also the guitar I usually use when recording things at home or for the band. With Feast I use an ‘80 Epiphone Genesis Deluxe, which is essentially a Les paul with a double cut, it’s heavy as hell and sounds really good, this is the one which sounds the best of my guitars when tuned down to B. As a backup I use a ‘79 Ibanez ST50. Someone has actually built in an active preamp into it, but I always bypass it, I like the passive sound better. Maybe I’ll just take out the preamp in the future but I haven’t had the time to look at it yet. Effects wise I use a true bypass modded Dunlop cry baby and an old Boss DD3 delay, an EHX #1 echo and and EHX Pulsar (tremolo). I would like to try an EHX Big muff with the tone Wicker. I have had a muff in the past, but never really like the tone stack in it, this one has an option to completely bypass the tone stack, I guess that would give me the dirty sound I’d like to have for Feast. Besides that I maybe would like to get a EHX small stone nano in the future. 

Are some guys in OMISSION also doing other projects? 

Yeah, definately. As I mentioned before our drummer Riekus also plays in Antillectual. Pitter and Nico both play in Rush’n attack, where Pitter is the drummer and Nico the bassplayer. Nico also sings in The hunger and finally Maarten also plays guitar in All on black.

What other things do you like to do when you’re not playing music?

I guess I’m a pretty boring guy when I’m not playing with any of my bands. I spend a lot of time reading, mostly for my history study, but also as much literature as possible where I mainly focus on 19th century russian writers like Dostoyevski or Tolstoy and early 20th century writers like Henry miller. Hemingway is the next on the list when I finish War & peace, which will probably take me 20 years or so. Besides that music is my main passion, listening, watching, playing. I try to improve on my skills as a bass/guitar player as much as possible, even though I don’t play as much as I would like to, school and work takes up a lot of time. Since a couple of weeks I have found a new thing I really like, project euler, which is a website with mathematical / logical problems which you can solve by programming code, it’s a fun thing to do and a nice way to improve on my programming skills since I am a parttime web developer. 

What’s your opinion on the whole financial 

crisis. What should happen according to you?

I think it all started out by people living above their means and people for whom enough probably never is enough. The system had to crash someday like it has happened in the past. Since I am a pretty left wing guy I think that the remedies of nationalising the Financial system is a good way to go. I actually never have been a fan of public institutions moving into the private sphere, since some things like education, health care or public transport should be provided for and by the public which essentially means it’s something the government should provide and not privately owned corporations. Besides that I think that there needs to be a change in mentality, just do your thing and try to live according to your means instead of always measuring yourself up to people who have more money. Who cares when your neighbour has a bigger car than you, well at least I don’t. 

Well I guess that was it. Feel free to spill out “the famous last words”.

Go vegetarian, haha, I don’t think I have really famous words to put out into the world. Maybe just to be yourself, enjoy life and make the most of it now.

skateboarding anno 2009

I’m gonna be honest the skateboard industry in 2009 has confused me more than ever. Let’s start by writing an introduction: I started skating over 20 years ago and I’m still not better than most of the young kids that the local skatepark. Sure I can land a switch backside flip and a nosebluntslide or two. But all of that “flip in, flip out, manny stuff” just blows my mind everytime I see it. 

It’s amazing how much skateboarding has progressed in the last 10 years. Trickwise the level is at an all time high. The tech tricks that are being done these days are tricks that I dreamed about, but never thought were possible. When I see some guys do flip-manny-flip-out it almost seems that they can manipulate physics and time. It’s pure art. I’m glad to see that there’s more individualism these days as well. We have the punk skaters, the hip hop guys, the good clean christians, the drunks, the facial tattoo lovers and the dudes that just do their own thing. The Rick Howards, the Chris Haslams, The Tom Penny’s, the Daewon Songs, the Geoff rowley’s...of the renewed skate scene. That group of skaters, are guys I really enjoy watching skate. They reflect the purity of it all and where it’s at. They don’t care about sponsorship they care about the good times, the vibe, the friendship.

Unfortunately there’s a flipside to everything and it’s pretty to spot that some companies and people are trying to turn skateboarding into a jock sport. I mean, who would have thought that pro skaters would get tv shows on MTV? Who would have thought that some megacompanies would try and join in the fun. Well Nike tried it years ago, when they came out with a shoe especially “designed” for skateboarding. 

I have to be honest, I can’t remember that they came out but I have to admit that they looked pretty ok and skate pretty good as well. The Nike SB series these days are pretty ok as well,  the new janoski’s for example are really really cool as well. But I still think it’s pretty sad that the mega companies are trying to join in. It sucks away the passion and it sucks away the integrity of a great sport. On the other hand it’s also amazing that some skateboards don’t need to worry about their future anymore. They’re set for life and I can imagine that a set future by skateboarding for nike SB is better than skating for small companies and working at the distribution warehouse for the rest of your life after you retire. Ah well it’s weird that some skatecompanies are trying to get out of the game by designing clothes that are not designd for skateboarding. 

So when we focus on everything, it’s obvious that the financial aspect works both ways.  I guess that makes everybody happy... or not.

take care

Kevin