Swarms Interview

1.Can you tell us a little bit about the band for those that have never heard of you before?

We’re two friends from Ontario, Canada who wanted to do something personal and related to the music we love.

2.How would you describe your musical sound?

We play some form of progressive black metal and occasionally stray into doomier territory, we’re obviously not the grimmest band, but we enjoy injecting a lot of outside influences onto that established black metal formula.

3. What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?

I write the majority of the lyrics, and it usually comes down to me wrapping my head around my own personal problems or understanding of things.  I try to use imagery and very visual writing that gets across the feeling I want to convey, and I borrow a lot from Greek mythology. 

4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the band’s name?

We intended to record a full length in high school together under the name Swarms Across the Atlas, I left school halfway through the year though and we scrapped the project. Later on we ended up leaving our relocating from our hometown together and decided we would give it another go, this time with less pretense and a consequently a shortened name.

5. Currently the band is a studio project is that going to change in the future?

Not likely, we’ve thought about it a little, but Andrew is an ugly fuck and we don’t want people exposed to him in public for any prolonged length of time.

6.Currently you are unsigned, are you looking for a label or received any interest?

We would love to partner with a label for our releases to see a physical format, we have yet to generate any interest though. But this is an insanely over saturated environment for bands like us, so in the meantime we’re happy to hone what we’re doing by ourselves.

7.Recently you did a cover of The Beattle's Eleanor Rigby. what was the decision behind doing a metal version of this song?

[Jordi] It came from hearing the song one day and just seeing exactly how it could come together as a heavy/sludge song. The more I heard it the more it excited me until one day I just recorded the whole song. 

8.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of black metal?

Our debut was noticed by several Russian and Bulgarian blogs in April a little before its entirety had been released- and it spread around a fair bit online, we were featured on fuckyeahhipsterblackmetal as well and the Red and Anarchist Black Metal blog. It’s been a positive reception for a project with no real ambition or networking. The fact that anyone would give us the time of day is overwhelming in and of itself.

9.What direction do you see your music heading into on future releases?

We’ve been focusing on refining a lot of the ideas All the Worthless Fields of the Earth touched on, we like the sound, but want to make it denser and more well rounded. We’re trying to concentrate on the composition of the songs and make them logical, challenging and be something you want to listen to all at once. The songs on the new EP have a much more direct and aggressive sound than what we’ve touched on before.

10. What are some bands or musical styles that have influenced your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?

False, Neurosis and Deafheaven have been getting a lot of love from the both of us.  All the stuff on Colloquial Sound Recordings has been a big inspiration for me as well. Jordi’s been listening to a lot of old grind lately too.

11.Does Paganism or Occultism play any role in your music?

My lyrics touch on quite a bit of greek mythology, not that I have any belief associated with it, but the stories and themes offer a lot to be delved into and expanded on.

12.Outside of music what are some of your interests?

We both enjoy food a lot, we cook and Jordi has some experience as a meat cutter and is into home brewing. We both enjoy tattoos but asides from that we just work a lot. Blue collar bastards.

13.Any final words or thoughts before we wrap up this interview/

Thanks a lot for anyone taking the time out to read, we hope to have the Feral Dominion EP your way as soon as we can, and a few more releases in the works!

Bandcamp

Blogspot

Facebook