 |
| |
|
| |
Interview
by SashaS
8-3-2005
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Eden Maine: tough HM boys this lot... |
|
Toughened deportment
Eden Maine go heavy PC: punching correctly
Reading through Eden Maine’s biography one would think the band’s originated in the good, ol’/all-new USA: the seeds of the band were planted back in 1997 but its core members of singer Adam Symonds and bassist Nick Brown had to wait until 2000 and arrival of drummer Keiron Iles to kick start the band’s career properly.
Thus, ever since then the band’s been playing live - with the likes of Sepultura, Converge, the Lost Prophets and on their own - and only recently have released their debut album, ‘To You The First Star’. It is a collection of songs that is ferocious, noisy, big on ambience and melodies for a grand and unique progressive vision. This St. Albans-based quintet are producing fresh and hot-blooded sounds that helped them amass a dedicated legion of hardcore followers through their homeland as well as the United States of Europe.
Eden Maine are currently on a UK tour, after Europe-wide dates, and that’s where we catch up with vocalist Symonds.
“We just came back from playing 18 dates across Europe and can tell you they were pretty good. We love playing there because the scene is much bigger, and especially in France. We talk to fans out there and although they may not understand English too well, they respond to music, to its emotion, energy, vibe.”
Touring must have kept you sane with frustration-in-check, considering how long it took to do your maiden album?
“Well, Nick and I are school friends and our beginning was pretty big rubbish. Until we got Keiron, it didn’t really gel and only then we started touring; we also had a lot of guitarists, even tried one from America and had a problem finding the right members. We were really single-minded but we had to discover the chemistry of the band.”
Malevolent strikes
Adam, Nick and Kieron are flanked by guitar work of Phil Buch and Simon Davies for a sound that is like a punch from within your cranium. ‘It is a huge sounding record, loud and brash, not bogged in some recreation of long-gone inspirations but forging a certain avant-metal soundarama.
“We are not the kind of a band that will write 30 songs and then choose ten. We’ve been writing for a long time and could have put an album out a long time ago. We have had many more songs to choose from but we knew what songs we wanted to include and apart those on the album, there were only other two or three contenders. Some bands demo tons of songs but that’s not our style.”
You’ve been classified as Hardcore which is a tad narrow because you strive to progress beyond it and expend the joint a bit.
“Definitely and it comes from different influences, from Neurosis to quiet stuff like Sigur Ros... We try to get a lot more atmospheric stuff in there and just make it more epic sounding, a more complex, a more detailed instead of… Still, it is all heavy but also it has a melody and dynamics. We are often compared with Converge but, to me, we sound nothing like them.”
Wrestling McApathy
The band’s debut album - 'To You The First Star' was issued on 07 February 2005 via Undergroove - is 59 Minutes of storming set of songs that is 100% guaranteed to rearrange you mindset; supplanted with explosive stage presence that has earned the band a solid reputation on the underground metal scene.
“We like to think of ourselves of sounding different but that may be a bit of a hurdle as public appears to prefer more streamlined, more defined sounding music… But, if you keep going you have to make a bit more effort to get people to notice. Perhaps they do appreciate you a bit more after all, for being different.”
Albums, downloads, ‘Net-nicking… The times of sound-carriers are a-changing; any thoughts on the future, whether optimistic or nihilistic?
“Things are changing but it doesn’t mean that an artist would have to change its approach to fit… You know, songs go into certain places and there is not much you can do about it; it sounds cheesy but songwriting is like a journey and if people can’t take it, there is nothing you can do about it. I buy CDs and listen to them as albums, like one whole piece of work…”
That could be viewed of materialistic way of music consumption while the iPod-gen appears to have no need to physically possess artefacts.
“I don’t know really but I suppose the actual albums will disappear… Still, there will be collectors of CDs as there still are of vinyl. But, at the same time, downloading is good because it’s one of the ways people can discover bands, the ones that can’t get on air. They can also check your music out if you are going to play in their town… It’s not something that really concerns me but there are up and down sides to it. I only hope the people go out and buy the album in the end.”
EM will be taking a couple of weeks off after completion of the Brit-dates, then return to EU, playing through the Summer and lastly get the Yanks in their sights. So, if you are music lover you’ll catch them somewhere and realise - there is a hope outside waiting for a Guns N’Roses’ album… Erm, as if!
Remaining UK dates
08 March - Studio 24, Edinburgh
10 March - King Tuts, Glasgow
11 March - Junction 7, Nottingham
12 March - The Ferryboat, Norwich
13 March - Retro Bar, Manchester
14 March - The Underworld, London
SashaS
8-3-2005
Eden Maine’s album ‘To You The First Star’ is available now on Undergroove
|
|
|
