Oceans Of Sadness

With every album closer to the core!

Interview with vocalist Tijs Vanneste of Oceans Of Sadness by Vera in April 2007

Indeed, with every next album there is some remarkable progress in the evolution of Belgian Oceans Of Sadness. They started as an extreme underground band with a fair goal and developed their style through the years to something special. With the new album ‘Mirror Palace’ the band has got some international help for production and mix while the record will be promoted in more countries than only Benelux areas. High time for some more considerations of vocalist Tijs Vanneste who is the front-man of the band since the beginning.

Our previous interview goes back to 2004 when ‘Send In The Clowns’ was released. First thing on my mind when thinking back at that time is: Tijs, how are you, did everything turn out well with your lungs?

- I’m okay now. I had surgery on both lungs so the chance that I’ll face these bastards collapsing again is small. I should however stop smoking, ‘cause that of course also was one of the reasons this happened, but the flesh is weak I suppose… I’m also running and stuff like that since that period, I don’t know if this helps but it can’t be bad can it?

Indeed, that’s always healthy! Can you resume what happened after that release? When recovered, did you manage to play enough gigs?

- We had to cancel quite some gigs but I think we kind of made of that as much as possible. We did a lot of shows in Belgium and some in the Netherlands so as far as that goes I guess we did what we could.

Did you play abroad as well?

- Yes, we did some very cool shows in Spain and Portugal as supporting band for the Dutch Epica. Of course they play totally different music than we do but that doesn’t really matter, we’ve known them for some years already sharing stages and stuff and we get along perfectly. At this time we’re also doing some shows with them so who knows what the future brings…

But now we have the new era of ‘Mirror Palace’. Why did you choose to call the album like that?

- Because of the kind of schizophrenic lyrics maybe. In the lyrics I like to switch from the one opposite to the other and back and again and again. Truth or lies, it all depends on which side you’re on I believe. That’s why this album is called ‘Mirror Palace’, because everything depends on the way you look at it and you can believe whatever you want really.

What were the differences in the writing process this time if there are any?

- I guess the only thing that has changed is that we again got some steps closer to our core. Through the years we developed into the band we are now. If you listen to our first albums you can still here that we’re the same band but at the same time we’re a completely different band, at least from my point of view. ‘For We Are’ was our first attempt, followed by ‘Laughing Tears’, they kind of were in the same vein… while ‘Send In The Clowns’ could be a little too much at some times, we kind of exploded from a music point of view, like we could go as far as we wanted. And we could but after those recordings we kind of thought that it may be a little bit too much at some points. We didn’t leave any or almost no time to breath. On this album we wanted things to be clear, we wanted to confuse but not by doing much at the same time, but more in the influences and structures. I guess we kind of trained a wild beast into an Olympic athlete J, or a dancing monkey, depends the way you look at it ;-)

Are the songs written in a fairly short amount of time or can we speak of the harvest after three years?

- Some are written in 5 or 6 hours, others took some more time. You can’t really plan this if you write songs the way we do. We still come together twice a week to start jamming I guess. Someone has an idea and other members fuck up this idea and it goes on like that. We kind of need the combination of people in this band to write songs.

What about the lyrical theme(s)? Is there a thread running through the lyrics like it was on ‘Send In The Clowns’ or not?

- I didn’t start writing lyrics with a theme in the back of my head. I just started writing spontaneously and fro my intuition. While we work on songs or sometimes hear melodies for the vocals from the early start but these ideas and melodies only become words later on. I also write a lot of music so it’s difficult to do both at the same time. However when I read the lyrics afterward it’s possible to see what the actual songs are about. But as I don’t like to tell people what to do or what to read I don’t want to tell a lot more about them. I just hope that people who do check them will figure out their own stories, different interpretations are possible I think.

The recording process was a new experience and you can be proud of the production! Can you tell a bit more about this recording process? Did you go abroad for recording and how did you get in contact with the mighty Jens Bogren?

- We recorded this album at the Belgian Motormusic Studios in only 8 days like we were some kind of punk band. Not because we only had little time to do it but simply because this was the time we needed, we were very well prepared so nothing could or went wrong. For the mixing we went to Sweden to work with Jens and he was astonished about the little time we’ve spent. All you hear on the album has been played live, we didn’t use triggers or edited tracks. Not because we didn’t want to but because we didn’t think it was necessary really and it would’ve cost a lot of time and money, which we didn’t really have. Although Jens has offered to also do the next album but then he wants to do the whole production so I guess we’ll be stuck in the studio a bit longer next time J. We’ll see, we’re already planning the next album as we have already written half of the material at this stage… but who knows when we’ll be finished, the next album again should be some steps higher on the ladder so we’ll see what happens by then. First let’s try to promote this album as much as possible.

Another big name in the recording process: Thomas Eberger (Opeth, 69 Eyes, The Hives) How was it to work with him?

- Very good. Thomas is a very close friend of Jens so we got a really good offer from them to mix the album. And because of the fact that Jens was so enthusiastic about our music he kind of co-mastered the album along with Thomas. You should know that Jens has an absolute hearing and plus he has golden fingers so we were very relaxed to work with those guys and we’ll be working together again in the future!

Another positive feature that may open doors is that you inked a deal with Scarlet Records. What’s the story behind that? Maybe they can support a tour abroad?

- We hope they will but I guess this all depends on how reactions on the album are and how it is selling… Touring costs a lot of money, especially if you want to support a cool band and as we don’t have that kind of money ourselves we’re restricted to the offers we get. But however we will do everything we can to get abroad, that’s for sure!

The idiosyncratic Oceans of Sadness style is relished with non-metal influences. Where do these influences come from, who has some remarkable background?

- I think the remarkable thing about us is that we all kind of have different backgrounds and interests. We listen to all kinds of music in our free-time but the main factor is that we all want to translate these influences into mean ass metal music. Second to that our goal is not to become the biggest band in the universe, not at all. Our goal is to write a new kind of metal music, something fresh and more or less strange I suppose. We look up to bands like Opeth, Oceansize, Strapping Young Lad, My Dying Bride and lots more bands like these and they all share a common feeling of writing music from their own source instead of following paths of others. I know most react like this when people ask what kind of music they play, but a lot of them talk crap in my opinion… but I’d rather talk about our own stuff than that of others.

The CD presentation in Belgium was a big success! How do you look back at this evening now?

- Like you say we were amazed by the success of that night! The place was totally packed and as we organised this ourselves completely we didn’t really knew what to expect at first. We look back at it as a fucking awesome party with fucking awesome people there. Also before and after the shows the party lasted until the early hours and we like it that way…

Another one is coming up for the Dutch people, please tell anything about that one (if it happened already when you read this: how was it?)

- It is the same context really, but this time the Dynamo is organising the show instead of us. I hope they made lots of promo for that night so we’ll see lots of faces in front of the stage… the show is planned for the end of this week so we’re getting closer. Reactions in the Dutch press were very exciting so let’s hope this will show that night…

Why did you choose to cover ‘Them Bones’?

- Because Alice In Chains is a fucking cool band to cover a song from. Their sound is so typical that it was a challenge not to fuck the song and I really hope we paid them tribute by covering this song! It’s a very simple but damn, such an effective song too!

In two songs of the album strings are used (Them Bones and I Know You Know) but you even did that live with real musicians. Great performance! Can you tell a bit more about these two musicians?

- The violin is played by a very good friend of mine called Andries Boone, a musician that has really devoted his life to his violin and makes a living of it. In the past I worked with him a lot in different studio-projects for other stuff than Oceans. It was one of his dreams to ever perform on a metal album so we were glad to answer his dreams J. He also has his own band called The Ballroomquartet with which he more or less focuses on a different crowd than we do (more Radio 1 related stuff), check them out at www.myspace.com/ballroomquartet! The cello was done by again a fantastic classical musician called Carolien Merchiers, a good friend of Andries who also liked the idea of working with us. The result is amazing so new paths and possibilities have been made for the future, anything is possible form now on ;-).

What about the artwork? Who did it and can you tell a bit more about it?

- It is made by Jan Boeckx, a close friend from our hometown Dessel who had also designed the artwork for our previous works. We gave him our ideas, songs and lyrics and he gave us his interpretation of is. We don’t interfere too much with his ideas because we also trust him as an artist so he keeps on working on it until we were completely satisfied and we are.

You made a fantastic video for ‘Pride & Shame’. Can you tell a bit more about the making of…?

- Thanks to MySpace we got in touch with him and with my tongue in cheek I proposed him to make a extreme video for Oceans, at first I was kind of joking about it but his reaction was dead serious. He’s a well-know Dutch director with lots of experience with music video’s and DVD’s (check www.mirkococco.com) so we didn’t really expect him to be interested in a semi-anarchistic band like us. But he was and what’s more, we kind of connected immediately when we first met, so after Andries and Carolien, Jens and Anders at Fascination, again someone cool offered to join our circle of people to work with so we’re bound to do more together in the future! I was really astonished that people still do such things, purely coming from the love for music. It’s hopeful to find out that money doesn’t control everything… it controls a lot but creativity seems to be stronger than money!

Eh, you shaved your hair?! What are the plans with this look J ?

- Nothing much really. I had my dreads for 10 years now and thought it was time to clean the shed and get rid of some unnecessary things in my life. It drew attention and the older I get, the more I believe that less attention is more attention... and I’m not talking about drawing attention in the music scene, because there all attention IS good attention. I’m talking about daily life. Now it feels like I’m undercover again when I go to the stores or go out with friends. I don’t want to exaggerate but when you have long dreads like I had, you get watched everywhere you go because of it and that sucks really. I like attention for the things I do and create but on a personal ‘ego’ level it’s getting more ridiculous each day that passes, I guess it also has to do with getting older…

Are there tour plans or plans for occasional gigs, even abroad?

- Not at this particular point. We have been doing the Netherlands a lot lately and in the near future and we’re also doing some supports for our friends of Epica so that’s great! Belgium is also working out fine concerning shows. We just got confirmation that we’ll again hit the stage at this year’s Graspop Metal Meeting so that will be mighty cool too! Besides that we’ll have to wait and see how the album is doing the trick and check if we can get support from Scarlet Records to get on the road in Europe. We’re bound to check out all options but now it still is too early to have news, let’s hope for the best!

What are the challenges for 2007?

- We don’t have any particular hope and dreams anymore to be honest. The only thing we focus on right now is to grow in our music and go further each time again and again. When you’re in a band it sometimes can be difficult to keep your attention where it should be, it’s difficult not to get frustrated because you want so much with your band but you get so little chances. I already saw a lot of bands going down because of that idea and we won’t allow that to happen with Oceans Of Sadness. Our days of trying to get big just because of the romantic idea of it are completely over, we all have personal lives and day jobs so our options are limited. The only wish we still have is to do a descent tour through Europe, if we reach that someway somehow we will be the happiest band in the world. But still, the music we make is the most important.

To occlude, let’s convince the readers with your final words…

- Don’t be lead or mislead by things you hear or read, check everything for yourself regardless of your so called image. Try to listen to Oceans Of Sadness as something on it’s own, don’t try hunting after influences by bands or stuff. Stand still for a second and focus on what you hear on this album… this could be an album for ANY metalhead, death, black , goth, heavy, whatever… even hardcore dudes and punks! Rock and roll to pleasure YOUR soul!


Beekstraat 1 - B-2640 Mortsel - Belgium