•
Who came up with name for the band?
Kasper wanted to make this kind of band
long before we were formed. He had already come up with the name in a dialogue
with his wife, because he wanted to take different metal genres and melt them
together and that is how we became Alkymist...
•
Peter and Stefan played together in ILDHU and have known each other
for a long time and Stefan and Kasper played together in Gas Giant. How did you
find the drummer?
Kasper had talked to Philip a couple of
times before and knew he had just left another band, so he just asked. We
didn't really know each other. He kept hanging around even though we didn't
have a true direction yet and we are a bunch of weirdos, so he must have found
it interesting to help form the music.
•
The music you are creating now is much heavier and darker than with
Gas Giant, ILDHU, Sumo Sun, Magnified Eye, etc.. what do you think has inspired
this?
It was clear from the start that it was
going to be slow and heavy. What kickstarted it was that we (Stefan, Kasper and
Peter) went to Sweden for a weekend and made a bunch of sketches. When we came
home, Peter picked out one and did some vocal on it (Myling) and everybody got
an epiphany. From that day on the songs kept coming and evolved by themselves,
during rehearsal...
•
How does the band go about creating the songs? Walk us through the
process.
Two scenarios:
Groovy and heavy riffs are created in our
rehearsal room studio and slowly turned into a complete song. Then Peter will
make some lyrics and put some vocals on it and usual complain about the tone or
other stuff and then we adjust everything.
Or:
Stefan records a lot of different riffs
on his computer with EZ-drummer. Peter selects the parts that he think is
suitable for verses, chorus etc. and put some vocal on it and present it for
the band. Then we have something to start with and it can go in many direction
from there...
Some songs are done in a month and a few
of them takes half a year…
•
Does the band ever listen to music together (not your own but other
bands that one of you might have the new album by and you really like it? What might you have been listening to lately
(even if it is just you?)
Yes... we play a lot of music in the rehearsal
room, when we occasionally meet outside the rehearsal room, when we drive in
car together to a gig and we often send each other YouTube links, if we discuss
some genres or bands. It's not unusual that the music we hear has very little
in common with the music we play... yet we are very inspired and influenced by
it, each in our own way.
•
How often does the band meet?
In the rehearsal room at least once a
week. Periodically 2-3 times a week, with long weekend rehearsals. Usually
before gigs or recordings. Sometimes we go to a concert together and sometimes
we meet to eat, drink and discuss the future.
•
How did the songs you made demos of for the album change when you
entered the studio and worked with the producer, Lasse Ballade?
Actually it was only the sound that
changed. We had some new songs before the album was recorded but we didn't feel
like they were worked through. So we fortunately waited and chose the same
songs from the demo together with two “old” unreleased songs... The demo
versions were only available in a very limited period. That is why we are able
to do another album very soon.
•
Alkymist did very well with the debut album with the vinyl selling
out, nominated for best new band in the Danish music awards, playing Roskilde
Festival. 2019 was a great year, agree?
It was a good year. We have a good booker
working for us, a new manager who we have confidence in, we played some
interesting gigs and we have had only good reviews of our LP and our live
shows. So all in all it was a pretty good year. Things are slowly working out
for us… If all goes according to our plans, we release a new album in spring
2020 which hopefully generates some more attention.
•
Presumably, you have made some demos for the next record. How will the
next record be different from the first? Shorter, longer songs, heavier,
lighter, different instrumentation; etc??
We have 5-6 songs ready for the next
record. It will still be relatively long songs, between 6-10 minutes. But we have a couple of songs
with a little more tempo and one or two songs that are a little more "normally"
constructed. But all of the songs have the Alkymist spirit...
•
Do you plan to work with Lasse again?
We have already scheduled time with Lasse
again. We were happy to work together with him, he is very easy. We like the
sound he creates, he was quick to understand our universe and we have good
communication. We like Lasse a lot... he is a very cool guy. But this time we
will do parts of the recording in our own rehearsal room studio. Some vocals,
dubs, effects and other weird stuff.
•
Are there plans for the music to be released outside of Denmark and
for gigs in Europe and where do you go from here??
As far as we know our Record label
Indisciplinarian, is selling our music outside Denmark and talking to a lot of
people.
Our goal is to play some concerts on big stages. Our music works best on big
stages with a lot of smoke and lights. And of couse big festivals.
We would like to make some more
recordings. We can't make a living of our music, so it is limited what we can
do. We will see where it takes us and what happens...
