Features : Karnivool Interview

Following on from the release of their new album and DVD package (their third album) Music News own Satanic Midget had a few words with Hoss of Karnivool.

Hi guys, thanks for giving me your time.
It’s been a while since ‘Sound Awake’ was released: I know you’ve been doing your fair share of touring, including a co-headline tour with Fair To Midland and sell out tours around Australia.
I hope you don’t mind going over the new album for music-news.com, letting the readers into your experiences and touching on some of your personal highpoints?

MN - Is there a theme to ‘Asymmetry’? Do the songs have particular meanings that the listener may not pick up straight away?

Hoss - The theme is simply Asymmetry really, we tend to make our themes very general and all-encompassing and that album is no exception. It didn’t come up until we were about four songs into the process and the duality of the songs in form, style and structure led us into discussions on things like symmetry and asymmetry. It helped from that point to push us in a solid direction for the rest of the album which was great


MN - The album is fairly complex, with multiple layers throughout. Do you find the writing and recording process easy?

Hoss -The writing and recording process for us is never easy unfortunately. We always try and make it a little more streamline album to album but we are our own worst enemies sometimes. We can’t leave paths untaken and stones unturned and this by its very nature makes the whole process take a long time and be fairly exhausting. It’s just how we do things, we feel like we’re getting slowly better.. by 3200 we should be writing albums and laughing about how easy they are to pull together.. sigh

MN - Nick Didia produced the album. Is this the first album you’ve worked on with him?

Hoss -Yes and Yes. Nick was on our short list of producers then when we found he was moving to Byron to work at 301 studios we felt it was all just making too much sense so we decided to go down that path. It’s been an interesting journey, Nick has a great head for music and sounds and I think he had a lot of fun recording the type of album we created. A few times we would walk into the studio to find him there with his tape delay and a microphone and various effects making odd sounds… we worked well together, we also had the same twisted sense of humour which always helps

MN - Was it daunting working with Nick Didia?

Hoss - Not really, he has a great head of knowledge and some great stories.. but we’re all just people working on a project.. as stated above our sense of humour worked well together and that makes anything easier


MN - How much input did Nick have on the whole creative process?

Hoss - Some. He helped us work things out for ourselves I think. He wasn’t quite the workhorse ‘push push’ man I think we were hoping for but he shone in a lot of other areas, and he really grasped early what it was that we were trying to do and just ran with where we were going to his credit.
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MN How did you come together as a band?

Hoss - We all came together as Perthians over the years, Drew and Kenny were in a high school band together then as these things do people leave and other like-minded people come on board, first Jon, then myself and then finally Steve… we work well together, we’re all such different people but it seems to crescendo when we work together which is great for this band

MN - The sound of Asymmetry seems to marry the technical metal of Tool with some Radiohead melody, and still manages to sound fresh, exciting and new. Is this something that you consciously look for when writing?

Hoss - Fresh is something we are definitely always looking for. We tried hard to step away and search for new sounds on this album, but as your writing and jamming you can always hear that backbone that is the Karnivool sound.. it helps define the direction, you know it’s working when you can hear a song that is so different to anything we’ve done before but at its inner core you can still hear that ‘band’ element that makes you know it came from the collection of the five of us.

MN - Many Australian bands that make a name for themselves appear to be replicating the AC/DC sound, most notably Airbourne and Jet. Was it a group decision to steer away from what some may be expecting from an Australian rock band?

Hoss - No we were never going to sound like that. We always came more from the Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana backgrounds than the rock of AC/DC. Still big fans of course, but that isn’t where our origins lie.

MN - What are your hopes for the album and the obligatory touring cycle that follows?

We hope it opens some minds and shocks some people. Been enjoying the mixed reviews and opinions people have on the music. Glad to hear that it’s making people go back and have a second or third listen.. We’ve always loved music that does that. Touring we do look forward to; hope to tour the pants off this album for as long as we can.

MN How do you feel the UK crowds differ from others around the world? Where are you most looking forward to getting to on this touring cycle?

Hoss - I think the UK crowd are great listeners. They know what they want and their not afraid to really let themselves go at shows and make a night of it which we love. We’re all about moments. Cannot wait to get back there.


Hoss
Karnivool