Over the last twenty years, Californian act Neurosis have
risen from being a predominately hardcore based act with a small cult
following to become a critically acclaimed and highly experimental band
that have helped shape and influence the current post hardcore scene.
Never one to repeat themselves, Neurosis have continually
progressed and challenged followers with their previous eight full-length
albums (excluding the various EP's, split releases, live albums and
side projects), which in turn has earned the band much respect from
both fans and critics alike.
Teaming up once again with producer Steve Albini, Neurosis
(who comprise of vocalists/guitarists Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till,
bassist Dave Edwardson, keyboardist Noah Landis and drummer Jason Roeder)
return after a three-year hiatus with 'Given To The Rising'.
Prior to the release of the album, I caught up with vocalist/guitarist
Steve Von Till at Neurot Recordings' office (which is actually based
at Till's house in Oakland) to discuss the expansion of Neurot Recordings
worldwide, the group's reluctance to tour and the subtle differences
and similarities between the group's last release (2004's 'The Eye Of
Every Storm') and 'Given To The Rising'.
"We're quite proud of 'Given To The Rising'. You
know, it's always our goal to make sure that we always outdo our previous
efforts, and continue to have our most evolved and vital music still
forthcoming, and I think we achieved that once again with the new album."
Evolution is a key word when it comes to describing Neurosis'
shifts in sound from album to album and 'Given To The Rising' is no
different. But while 'Given To The Rising' represents a return to the
band's heavier sound, Till doesn't see the album as that much of a departure
from the mellower and more atmospheric 'The Eye Of Every Storm'.
"'Given To The Rising' is quite different from 'The
Eye Of Every Storm', but to me, in the sense that its like being in
the belly of the beast and knowing how the songs take shape, it's actually
more related to 'The Eye Of Every Storm' than any other album that we
have ever done. The return to a heavier sound comment is just an easier
way for people to describe the album because of the level of aggression
on the album. I do agree that 'Given To The Rising' is a more aggressive
and brutal sounding album than 'The Eye Of Every Storm', but it takes
the same process of having all of the voices melded together to become
one. It's about peeling away the layers and simplifying what we do in
order to have it sound clearly like one voice. We didn't have that on
the previous aggressive sounding albums. Back in the day, we had a more
is more philosophy. We would pile more devastation and more crushing
elements into the aggressive moments. In recent years, we've learned
that's not really an effective method. We discovered that you actually
create more with less. Simultaneously, over the last couple of album's,
we've been learning to challenge our weaknesses of melody and vocalising
in different ways. We've been putting into practice what we've learned
from years of sonic exploration. We kind of picked up where 'The Eye
Of Every Storm' left off sonically, and use those same techniques we've
acquired in recent years. But instead of the vast, kind of melodic universal,
spacious and very breathing atmosphere that we captured on 'The Eye
Of Every Storm', the same approach created a very stifling, claustrophobic,
sharp and aggressive atmosphere on 'Given To The Rising'. 'Given To
The Rising' is heavy and aggressive, but in no way the same way that
we used to do it. It's not totally dependent on the traditional bar
chords, or anything else you could pick out. Of course, it sounds like
us because when we vibrate and resonate with each other, it has a certain
sound. But this takes way more of a psychedelic angle, but in more of
an aggressive way than what we have done in the past. It's more tripped
out and disfigured! (Laughs) But having said that, I believe 'Given
To The Rising' is a direct descendent of 'The Eye Of Every Storm'. I
don't really see it as out of line or out of synch with our last album.
'Given To The Rising' couldn't have existed without the techniques we
mastered on 'The Eye Of Every Storm'."
Melody has been something that Neurosis has been mastering
with each album, but as Till points out, it's not something the band
considers a weakness as such.
"What I mean is that in order to remain vital and
as strong as we can, we go after what we feel more unsure about in a
way. We're attacking our own weaknesses, or what we perceive as our
weaknesses. The easiest thing for us to do would be to endlessly pile-drive
everything into the Earth until there was nothing left. But we always
try and not take the easy way out. Incorporating melody into Neurosis'
music isn't quite the challenge it used to be. I mean 'The Eye Of Every
Storm' was incredibly melodic, more so than previous albums. Melody
has always been integrated into our music, and it's continually being
developed, much in the same way we develop our use of dissonance, disharmony,
vibration and distortion. It's all about challenging our selves and
continuing to push the envelope. Even the heavy envelope! (Laughs)"
Apart from the music side of things, a huge part of the
mystique surrounding Neurosis lies deep in their lyrics. When asked
about themes addressed in 'Given To The Rising', Till's response wasn't
about to reveal too much of the mystery.
"That's something that's hard to put into words.
We're more like a thematic band rather than a band that makes thematic
albums. If you look at the lyrics on all our other albums, you could
say that they're all kind of chapters to the same story. It's constantly
switching back and forth internally and externally, between the microcosm
and the macrocosm, between the personal and the universal, the emotional
landscapes behind all the mundane and the spiritual, and all the trials
and tribulations of life, both from a personal and a species perspective.
It's about contemplating our place as a species in our existence, the
whole of humanity, the larger cycles of history and our relationship
with ourselves. It's really quite complex, and each album has its own
particular spin off and focus. As you can tell by the mood of the music,
'Given To The Rising' is looking at things from a different perspective
to 'The Eye Of Every Storm'. We prefer to keep things skeletal when
it comes to describing it. You get what you can from the lyrics and
the music. The music paints the tone and puts you in a specific place.
We would never be so vague as to say, 'We'll leave this open to artistic
interpretation'. That's kind of a cop out. But what we will say is that
we'll put you in the emotional landscape, but you have to invest yourself
into it. We're not going to tell you what it is. It is what it is to
you, as it is what it is to us. It's our personal catharsis and we don't
care to let people into our personal business. So we pull it out to
its skeletal remains. What is it in poetry that puts people in the same
place? What is the sonic character that puts people in a similar frame
of mind? If you like Neurosis, then you know that you're going to give
it that time and invest something of yourself into it. I think that's
what makes it so much more powerful to the listener. And if the listener
is not willing to do that, then they're probably not going to be into
this type of music. It doesn't have anything to offer if you don't give
something in return."
Till doesn't like to delve too much into the writing process
behind the band either. Instead, he prefers to put it down to divine
channelling and blind faith.
"If you look at our twenty-one years together, we're
pretty much consistently on a two to three year gap between albums.
There are very few times that we've released something quicker than
that, and that's because it's a natural ebb and flow. We haven't even
hit the official release date for 'Given To The Rising', and we're already
thinking about the next album. We're already running with some ideas,
and it'll take however long it takes. That's kind of the way that we
do things. We kind of put what we have done onto tape, bury it and move
on. We always enter the studio totally prepared, so we know what we're
doing each time. We don't mess around in that aspect. But it's while
we're in the studio that new ideas start flowing. I think the reason
why for that is that the studio environment is both an inspiration and
a creative workspace for us. But each project kind of takes its own
momentum. Sometimes it starts with a few ideas, and sometimes they can
gel slowly into something huge. Sometimes ideas come out of nowhere
and end up completed very quickly, almost like they were channelled.
Other things just don't feel right, and need to be blown to bits and
reapproached from new angles. And then there's the stuff that's in-between
all that. Most songs start with a few seed ideas. When the seeds sprout,
some take shape into beautiful beings, and others don't. Songs can be
created from a variety of different ways. As for an overall direction
of an album, there's just a kind of a natural place where we go, 'It
all appears to centring around this, before it starts to snowball down
a hill.' At that stage, the album just takes itself through the process,
and we can kind of see where it's heading. It's really hard to describe
in words. I also don't want to betray the process too much. Over the
years, one thing we've learned to do is to really just open ourselves
up and let it flow. We really don't feel all that responsible for creating
music. We feel it more exists in the universe like the weather, and
we're just the ones that get to channel it. We just chalk it up to blind
faith at this point."
It comes as no surprise to find that early press surrounding
'Given To The Rising' has been overwhelmingly positive. But then again,
when worst critics happen to be themselves, there was never going to
any doubt that 'Given To The Rising' would live up to the standards
most expect of a Neurosis album.
"With Neurosis being such personal music, there seems
to be an inherent contradiction or catch-twenty-two situation when you
read a positive review for 'Given To The Rising'. This is completely
self-centred music. We make it entirely for ourselves because we feel
driven to do this. We have to do this. The type of things that we're
confronting, expressing and purging in our music is a release. If we
didn't have a positive outlet for this, we have to question what kind
of havoc those energies would reek on our lives if they were left unconscious
and buried inside to turn into some cancerous form of behaviour or psychological
problem. For us, it's a must. The fact that somebody likes Neurosis
at all is completely secondary. In many ways, we just don't give a shit
if anyone likes Neurosis or not. We're truly just thinking of the music
and the art. With that being said, sure, ego strokes feel good. We don't
look for validation from the public, and we certainly don't appease
anyone else. The people that like us never know what's coming, but they
have come to expect one thing from us, and that is that we'll always
remain true to ourselves. It's nice to be recognised for that fact,
because we do think it's important. Obviously we've dedicated our entire
adult lives to this, and we think Neurosis is extremely important. Aside
from allowing this to be a personal catharsis, we wanted to ensure that
we use all these resources and put all this dedication into something
that has cultural significance, whether that's recognised or not. At
least in our eyes, it has to be of cultural significance. It can't be
a waste of plastic, vinyl or paper! (Laughs) It has to be worth its
weight so to speak. I think the emotional weight we put behind Neurosis
is slowly being recognised as other people over the years have slowly
tuned into that. Some people have mentioned that we have become an influential
force within music, and that's a great compliment. It doesn't matter
whether you're a writer, a painter or a musician, to have someone who
thinks that our music is important enough to them to say that we're
influential, or given them an emotional response, is great. That's a
legacy that we're proud of leaving behind."
Although Neurosis' own label Neurot Recordings has been
operating since the late '90's (releasing many of the band's side projects,
as well as a lot of releases from acts they've signed), 'Given To The
Rising' is the label's first truly independent release after sourcing
and securing their own distribution throughout the world.
"In the US, we worked with Relapse Records for 'Through
Silver In Blood' (1996), 'Times Of Grace' (1999), the 'Sovereign' EP
(2000) and 'A Sun That Never Sets' (2001). After that, our contract
expired and we released 'The Eye Of Every Storm' as a one-off thing.
That's because we didn't like being bound up in contracts. But over
that period of time, we started our own label Neurot Recordings. I think
that was in 1999. Some time after starting Neurot Recordings, we started
to gain back the rights to our back catalogue stuff and decided to release
them ourselves. We slowly built up our distribution networks until they
were solid and started releasing some of our side projects. But when
the rights to some of our stuff started reverting back to us as far
as current albums, we wanted to make sure that we took it in small and
very focussed steps. So with 'The Eye Of Every Storm' in the US, which
is our biggest territory, we did that on our own label through Relapse
Records. We like working with those people and we felt like we should
mutually do something together. It was a nice way to kind of ease into
our own thing because we just didn't feel ready to take on the whole
world ourselves all at once at that stage. It's a home roots kind of
business and we wanted to take on one thing at a time. We did awesome
in the US with Relapse Records so we licensed that album away in Europe
with them as well. When it came time to release 'Given To The Rising',
we felt ready to look after our own distribution. The system is clarified
worldwide and it's us taking control of everything. We're completely
independent. Southern Distribution is handling Europe for us and I know
they use sub distributors. We used to have a much more chaotic system
but with Southern Distribution overseeing all of Europe, it's been really
great. We're going through Revolver in the US. this time. We just switched
to them. It just feels really good. I think we're working with some
of the best independent distributors in the world, not to mention some
of the most ethical people. It just feels right."
One thing that's not likely to change is Neurosis touring
plans. Rather than spend countless months on the road in support of
'Given To The Rising', Neurosis plan to play a select number of shows
in order to focus on more important things in their lives.
"We really haven't been a touring band since 1999.
We got off the road after 'Times Of Grace' and realised that we're starting
to get up there in years. Plus we've never earned a living off this
band. It merely supports itself. It's more a labour of love. What money
we do make we invest introducing other people to other interesting music.
The reality is that we're all working stiffs with day jobs. At a certain
point during the 'Times Of Grace' tour, we realised that it's hard to
keep a decent job when you're gone two hundred days of the year. So
we pretty much ran in the other direction. We just focussed on being
home, being good fathers, being good husbands and being more productive
as human beings. We wanted to focus on making new music, rather than
regurgitating the same hour and a half of music two hundred nights a
year on the road. In all honesty, we only really enjoy twenty or thirty
of those two hundred nights. The rest of the nights are all Monday night
in a shitty town! (Laughs) I'd rather be home with my kids. So we only
play when it makes sense with our lives. We won't sacrifice our entire
existence and our families to go out there and get our ya-ya's out on
the road. We're well past the one thousand club now so we're more into
the idea of doing the occasional fly in and one-off situation, and making
it a really special event, both for us and the others involved. They
have to travel to the show in the same way that we have to travel. It's
much more gratifying. We're playing where we want, when we want, with
whom we want and with promoters we want. We book everything directly,
and not dealing with any outside influence, or having to deal with expectations
of the music industry of having to tour the crap out of your album.
We kind of always lived in our own universe and it feels like we're
being more true to the music now by being completely in control of everything.
I think we'll build more and more momentum this way because the energy
is flowing in the right direction, rather than when we were killing
ourselves on the road all the time filling in an endless compromise.
Everything feels right now."
I would like to thank Steve Von Till for his generous
time and Angela Henley at Stomp Records Distribution for making the
interview possible.
For more information on Neurosis, check out - http://www.neurosis.com
© Justin Donnelly - justindonnelly@ozemail.com.au
