CONVICTION (EN)
– Hello, thanks for taking your time. How are you holding up? Musically, what are you focused/working on?
Olivier Verron (vocals, guitars) : Hi Tania, hi readers ! Well I guess it’s the same for many people, these times are weird. As a person with risks for Covid, I’m staying and working from home, which, in fact, doesn’t bother me too much. I know some people who would end up with depression in those circumstances but I think I’m doing alright. I’ve been focused on many things this year but nothing really musical per se. I wanted to compose and write things but it seems it’s not working the way it should, inspiration is a tricky beast you know… But I’ve been doing other things, focusing on my normal human everyday life and also succumbing to a passion that’s common to many musicians, which is collecting music gear, particularly guitar effect pedals. I’m trying to build my little youtube channel, I work slowly and don’t have much equipment for filming so it’s kinda artisanal for the moment but it’s fun doing. Guitar players can check it out here : https://www.youtube.com/c/AmdusciasBaal Also of course, working on CONVICTION, answering interviews, discussing some merch designs with our graphic designer Kax https://www.facebook.com/kaxarts I don’t have time to get bored actually, though I’m sure I could do more stuff If I stayed more focused and didn’t waste so much time on the internet. That’s one fight I should start against myself, actually. Getting off that damn screen.
-When and from what needs or desires was
CONVICTION born? It has a very traditional Doom Metal sound. Did you have a
clear vision on how you wanted this band to sound like?
Oh yes indeed. Back
in the nineties already. Back then, I discovered Doom Metal and Doom Death,
first with Cathedral and the “Peaceville Three”, MY DYING BRIDE, PARADISE LOST,
ANATHEMA… That led me to Traditional Doom, by picking up band names in the
booklet of Cathedral’s Forest Of Equilibrium… The discovery of SAINT VITUS
and PENTAGRAM was a big revelation. Then I saw CATHEDRAL live, and it was clear
in my head I’d end up putting up a Doom Metal band together. I tried to find
musicians for it, between 1996 and 1998, but at this time no one wanted to play
Traditional Doom in my surroundings, so I thought I’d wait for us all to grow
older haha! I focused on TEMPLE OF BAAL, but still had this project in my head.
Then, life went on, bad times and sad experiences accumulated and formed a pyre
under which a sparkle started the fire in 2013. One day of November, I woke up
really early, plugged in my guitar, started playing and recording riffs, put
some programmed drums, recorded bass, started having melodic ideas in my head,
wrote down words, recorded the vocals, and there I was at the end of the day,
with CONVICTION’s first demo. Totally composed, written and recorded in one
day. A strong, intense, liberating experience. And it sounded the way I had
intended all those years: Doom Metal, the ancient way, with influences from
bands I worshipped, mainly SAINT VITUS and CATHEDRAL, actually. Some say it
sounds old fashioned, and it certainly does cause it doesn’t sound like
nowadays Stoner Doom bands, or Stoner Rock. It’s pure Doom, and yes, it sounds
sad and desperate but that’s the way Doom should sound to me.
-CONVICTION was formed in 2013 and you released
your first demo on that same year. In that moment the band consisted on you
only. How did it evolve into a full band? Was it easy to find the rest of the
members?
Back then the project was a one-man band, mainly because I was focused on TEMPLE
OF BAAL and didn’t have time for a full time second band. But as time went by,
I found out I didn’t have inspiration for Black Metal anymore. It felt I had
said and done everything I had to say and do for that matter… So slowly but
surely, I started to focus more on CONVICTION. The point is, after all these
years, I had met the good guys and we even had discussed this project, they had
heard the demo and liked it a lot, and they had told me that they would be
there when I would decide to build a line up, so there we were, in just a few
days. The sparkle was the tribute to CATHEDRAL released by Sleeping Church
Records, to which we participated, and originally I just wanted real drums on
it. Teepee instantly told me he was very much into it, and the ideas flowing, I
started imagining the demo with real drums, and then a full band playing those
songs live… I knew exactly who I would call, and Fred and Vincent answered
positively right away.
-In fact your self-titled debut album contains
all the songs in that demo. How was it like to work on them with a full
line-up? Would you say these songs got new life?
I was so proud of those songs, born in just a few hours that they had to be on
the album. Some could say I had been lazy but if you take a look at all the
classic bands in history, that was the case. All the songs from METALLICA’s
demos ended up on Kill’Em All, for example! So yeah they were given new life
somehow, with a real organic sound, real amps and real drums change
everything… I also worked more on the vocals, trying to make them sound even
better: I even re-did all of them, after having recorded them once! We also had
new ideas for arrangements, we worked on choirs, Fred got lots of additional
guitar parts popping out of his mind… The songs were there, but there was a
little bit of band effort added to them and the result is here.
-On both covers there’s the same figure
depicted. Is it a conscious way to build a bridge between the two releases?
Somehow yes. I’m also thinking of a way to have it on other future releases.
This statue is of high importance to me. It could turn out into our own Eddie
or Vic Rattlehead, we’ll see…
-This being said; what’s that statue?
It’s the statue of
a dead man, that’s located in the church of Gisors, the town I live near to.
This statue dates back to 1526 and when I saw it for the first time, it struck
me deadly. It seemed to talk to me, telling me the time was right for this Doom
Metal band. Moreover, in the superior part of the monument, is written this
sentence: “Fay maintenant ce que vouldras avoir fait quand tu te mourras”,
which translates to “Do right now what you will have wished to have done when
you die.” Of course, in the context of this statue the meaning is religious,
like to have asked forgiveness to God I guess, but for me, it had another
meaning, I had to put up this band I had it mind since the nineties and this
statue had been waiting to tell it to me all these years. I often go to visit
it, even today, since this majestic church is just a few minutes from home, and
it’s highly, highly inspiring.
-There were several years from the demo to the
full-length. What have you been doing during this time?
TEMPLE OF BAAL was still a priority so I was pretty much focused on it. But I
also composed for CONVICTION. And I also focused on managing some parts of my
personal life, like getting a higher grade at work etc.
-Considering these years and that a big part of
the songs on the album were from the demo, is any material already written?
Sure. I have around two hours of instrumental pre-demos! I have to sort them
out, only keep the best tracks, write lyrics, and off we go for the second and
third albums!
-How does it feel like to write in CONVICTION
with other people? What would you say this brings to end result?
Most of the basics of the songs are still written by me. But we’re also working
on a song written by Fred for the next album, and it brings a little bit of
variations maybe, also it’s still very Doom, considering Fred’s background with
ATARAXIE. The team effort of being a whole band also makes my own songs sound a
little different, for example now the four of us sing, and we’re working on
having four voices choirs, the vocal aspect is gonna develop for sure. Also the
fact of being two guitar players gives more musical richness of course. And
Fred being the gear maniac he is, he has a lot of amplifiers, preamps, etc. I
also have my own collection of those, and it’s like having more and more colors
and nuances of them for a painter. The more gear we have, the more nuances we
get. That’s why we use this or that pedal, Two Notes Audio Engineering, Orange
Amplifiers, Riki le Plectrier picks, Blue Cat Audio and Musical Entropy plugins
or Pro Orca drumsticks: they give us the sounds we have in our minds. That’s a
really important point for musicians! Also Fred is starting his own guitar
brand, DF Guitars (for Doom Fred Guitars), you can check what he does here: https://www.facebook.com/doomfredguitars We’re definitely music and gear
nerds, but it’s not an “object collector” thing, it’s really all about the
sounds… And those sounds are really inspiring.
-Having played (and still playing) all of you
in other bands, what are you bringing from this background to CONVICTION? In
what way does this experience help?
Not much really. From my side, composing for Conviction is really different
from composing for Temple of Baal, Bran Barr, or Unnamed Season. Also, I guess
for the other guys being in Conviction helps them focus on different things
than their own bands. Singing, for example, is a big challenge. Performing
vocal harmonies is something we have never done in our previous bands, and it’s
a big challenge, very interesting. Also something we all bring from our past
and other bands is experience. We know how to be efficient, how to set up our
instruments and get a killer sound quite instantly without wasting time when we
play live, etc…
-It seems what moves CONVICTION (lyric-wise at
least) are emotions. Maybe the darkest and saddest ones. What do your lyrics
deal with and what were some specific events that inspired some of them?
Yes CONVICTION is deeply human. It’s all about reflecting on yourself,
examining your existence, admit points where you fucked up… I won’t get too
personal about it because I want people to live their own things and reflect
their own experience. We all have done things we regret in life, even if we
don’t admit it. There’s always this point when you reflect on a part of your
past and you’re like “oh, I really behaved like a fucking asshole there, I wish
I could go back, think twice, and take a different road”. We all have our
shames. That’s one big point of inspiration. We also all miss people, some
people we will never see again, either because they’re dead or because they
have just left and we’ve lost contact. And maybe there are things we’d have
liked to tell them, that we’ll never be able to tell them. Maybe we all also
lose time of our life in front of computers, don’t we? Time we could use for
constructive things, with our loved ones. Of course we do, most of us do, and
what will we think on our dying bed? “Oh shit, I should have spent more time
with her, with my kids, etc, instead of arguing with strangers on social
networks on stupid things”, and it will be too late. It also has to do with
getting old. The song Outworn for example deals with this. One day, you look in
the mirror, and the face you see is not what you would have wished to see.
“Really? Do I really look this old? I thought I was 25 inside but I definitely
don’t look 25 outside…” Doesn’t it hurt? Where has time gone? What have you
done with that time? What do you plan to do with the little time you have left?
All of those have been sources of inspiration for that album and they still
ring heavily in my mind, and they’re so universal, they can speak to anyone.
-And aside from music, where do you take inspiration from? Art, books, cinema, nature…
Eeeeeh well I’m quite monomaniac about music hahahaha! But Art can be a big source of inspiration indeed. Religious art of course, as you might have guessed with this statue on our album. Also experiences from my childhood, times in the desert, staring at the deep blue when scubadiving, you know, this feel of immensity, of nothingness… Books can also be inspirational, historic books, or just fiction, the books of Boris Vian depicting the absurdity of life and its sadness like «Foam of the Days»…
-You recorded the album yourselves. What are
the pros and cons of this? Isn’t having time and control a bit like a
double-edged sword?
Oh yes indeed.
Because we had all the time we wanted and so we wasted a lot of it. There are
things we’ve re-recorded so many times, that maybe an external sound engineer
would have left on the record but we were not satisfied with… Also, after the
recording, the mix was another problem. Having some sound ideas in mind and
reworking the sound over and over and over again… We’ve mixed the album
several times, starting again from zero… But also, it was the first time we
did that, and especially Fred who handled all the sound aspect, reamping,
mixing, processing, etc, so of course you do mistakes, but you also learn, this
way. We’ve taken notes now and we’ll do some things in different ways for the
next album, so chances are we will waste less time! But it’s a very rewarding
and interesting experience doing everything yourself, definitely.
-There are only clean vocals here. Did you
practice or trained in any way? What vocalists have influenced you for the
vocal style that you’re using in CONVICTION?
I’m fed up with growling and screaming. These days, I mostly listen to music
with melodic vocals, except my old Black and Death Metal records of course
which I still cherish, but I have a hard time listening to a new band with
those kind of vocals, it’s strange. And it’s even more true for Doom and Stoner
Metal, I just CAN’T listen to a screamer or a growler over this kind of music.
I didn’t really practice or train for this album, but as a student I had taken
part in my university’s choir, the Sorbonne in Paris, and studying music there
I had a few singing lessons in my twenties, and I tried to bring back memories
from this part of my life. Singers that influence me for CONVICTION would
certainly be Wino and Bobby Liebling, mostly. They are not technicians, but the
feeling is so deep and so strong. You know that feeling when Bobby Liebling
screams “RIGHT !” after a long moaning and tortured vocal line talks to me so
much more than highly technical, perfect Heavy Metal singers, for Doom at
least.
-As I said earlier, you have a very pure
traditional Doom Metal sound. In fact I think we all already know Metal tends
to be a quite nostalgic “community”. When Simon Reynolds researched on the cult
of retro on “Retromania: Pop Culture’s
Addiction to Its Own Past” he wondered if: “Is nostalgia stopping our culture’s ability to surge forward, or are
we nostalgic precisely because our culture has stopped moving forward and so we
inevitably look back to more momentous and dynamic times?”. Applied to the
Metal world, what’s your opinion? Do we use to look back because we feel
there’s something missing on most of today’s music?
That’s a pretty interesting statement. The thing is many of us Metal people
have entered our forties, so we’re not really teenagers anymore no matter how
young our minds can still be. There are new bands, but many of those new bands
don’t really speak to us, so we kind of hold on to what we know, of course we
may try to do it our own way, the point is not to rip off BLACK SABBATH
endlessly I guess. But there are different options in music and art in general:
some, like us, who propose our view on forms of art we know, and some who will
make art advance and go forward, proposing new things by experimenting. Both
are to be respected in my opinion, some new things can impress me, I’m not
living in the past as much as our music could make you think, but there are new
things I like, and new things that don’t talk to me. I don’t think something’s
“missing” in today’s music, it’s just that our ear is formatted to what we’ve
listened to since our teenage days, but what is released today appeals to
today’s teenagers, that’s how it goes! The really awful thing for me is the use
of vocoder and autotune in popular music that tends to generalize even in some parts of
Metal scenes. It is an absolute horror to my ears, holy shit, why don’t you
train to sing properly? Why do you have to have a robot voice? But it speaks to
some teenagers, so… Hey, what did our parents, or the generation of
Metalheads before us, think when Death Metal first came out? They hated it! My
parents were like “why do you have to sing this way?” when they heard TEMPLE OF
BAAL for example haha! CONVICTION is a relief for them hahaha! But it’s all so
subjective in the end…
-All this about your album being said, how
would you describe it in just 3 words?
Sad, Heavy, Riffy.
-And finally, what are now your near-future
plans in these uncertain times?
We have a show that
should happen on the 3rd of November in Montbéliard with Dread
Sovereign and The Flight Of Sleipnir, but only time will tell if it will really
happen. Other than that, nothing is really clear. We’d love to play live of
course, I hope we can get booked on Doom Metal shows when this nightmare is
over. And if it doesn’t stop, we’ll have to find a way to record our next album
anyway!
– That’s all from our side, thanks again for your time. If you’d like to add some final words, feel free to do it.
Thank you so much for your support since all these years, all the best to you, Queens Of Steel, and to your readers. See you some time on stage I hope…
Here are our sites and networks, join us there and let’s spread the words of Doom!
Doom is the Law – Doom or be Doomed!
http://www.convictiondoom.com
http://convictiondoom.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/convictiondoom
http://www.instagram.com/convictiondoom
http://www.twitter.com/convictiondoom
https://www.youtube.com/c/ConvictionDoom
Tania Giménez
tania@queensofsteel.com
