Als pioniers in de postmetal heeft The Ocean het zichzelf eigenlijk nooit makkelijk gemaakt. Het collectief onder leiding van Robin Staps wilde bijvoorbeeld eerst een tweeluik uitbrengen, maar dat mocht niet van Metal Blade. De stilistische verscheidenheid tussen het epische ‘Fluxion’ (2004) en het snoeiharde meer core georiënteerde ‘Aeolian’ (2005) sprak verschillende groepen ‘fans’ aan die het ene dan wel het andere album beter trokken. Opvolger en doorbraak ‘Precambrian’ (2007), maakte het de liefhebbers al minstens net zo moeilijk. Het dubbelalbum (deze keer wel) bevatte één korte cd met korte, puntige core-knallers en één uitgebreid werkstuk waar alle mogelijke blazers en orkestarrangementen van stal werden gehaald om een weer een episch, statig, statusdefiniërend stukje slepende postmetal neer te zetten.
Drie jaar later splijt de ‘fanbase’ weer in tweeën met het op het eerste gehoor ‘zachte’ nieuwe album ‘Heliocentric’, wederom het eerste deel van een tweeluik (geen dubbelalbum). Het eigenzinnige bandbrein Robin Staps is maar al te goed op de hoogte van de vele controverses rondom het fluctuerende geluid van zijn band, maar draait het doodleuk om door te zeggen dat mensen die het niet trekken de veelzijdigheid van The Ocean simpelweg niet begrijpen. Over de totstandkoming van het vernieuwde geluid, de vernieuwde bandsamenstelling en zijn persoonlijke link met de abstracte, filosofisch-wetenschappelijke materie van zijn nieuwe album neemt Robin Staps je in een waterval van woorden mee de diepte in.
First off, congratulations with the recent release of ‘Heliocentric’! How have the reactions been until now? The album has been really well received everywhere. ‘Heliocentric’ is album of the month in the German Metal Hammer and got stellar reviews all over the place. A lot of people have said that this is the album that finally got them into us. On the other hand, some die-hard metal fans are complaining about the lack of screamed vocals or the lack of ‘post-rock harmonies’ or the lack of virility in their own balls... or whatever hehehe.
Later this year ‘Heliocentric’ will be followed by a second album ‘Anthropocentric’. How far or long is the process for this second album? Why did you decide to release the two albums separately and not as a double disc album (just like ‘Precambrian’)? We have recorded everything except for the vocals. We will do that in the summer. We decided to release them separately because we did not want to overchallenge people this time around. ‘Precambrian’ was a monster of a record with almost 85 minutes of really intricate music on it. It was a bit too much to ask from people to really understand it, dig into it and get to know the songs. I am grateful if people did. A few weeks ago I met a girl in Ireland who had really absorbed the album, she said it was one of her favourite records of all times and she knew all the lyrics and all the riffs. That is very moving for me to see that, but not a lot of people got that far. And the danger is that a lot gets lost when you assault people with too much information. When I had written the songs that ended up on ‘Heliocentric’, I was immediately sure that this was an album right there, and I didn't want to add or discard anything. It all felt really compact and as if it all belonged together somehow, long before the whole lyrical concept came into play. At the same time, our other guitarist Jona had written some other songs that didn't really fit here but were good as well, so we decided to make it two albums from the beginning.
’Heliocentric’ seems to be a concept album revolving around the theories of Copernicus and Galilei that the earth orbits the sun and the philosophical and religious consequences of this view. Where did the idea for this topic come from? What is your personal connection with it? I've been wanting to make an album that was to be a critique of religion for a long time. I have been exposed to the whole topic of religion since I was sixteen, living for a year with a diehard Baptist creationist host family in the USA. I remember discussions with my host sister (that usually ended up in verbal arguments and fights) where she tried to convince me that the dinosaurs never existed and that earth was 5.000 years old. It was a bizarre world for me, and since then I've been thinking and reading much about it. I got into Nietzsche later during the course of my studies and recently I've been reading a lot of Dawkins, who has somehow sneaked its way into this album in a lot of places.
A cynic might ask the question: ‘is this a philosophical dissertation or music conveying raw emotions?’ Apart from the obvious ‘fuck off if you don’t like it’, how would you react to this cynic? And how have you tried to create a personal/emotional viewpoint on the subject matter? You know, we try to make an offer, with our lyrics and the concepts behind it. Everyone is invited to take up that offer and hopefully those who do take it will find some inspiration in it. But it is not necessary and I don't mind at all if people don't give a shit about religion or heliocentrism or lyrics in general, and just want to bang their heads and enjoy the music. That's fine with me. Personally, if I really like a band, I am curious to check out what they are talking about and what kinda dudes they are. So I start investigating and eventually reading some lyrics. Now this can go both ways: if the lyrics are stupid, it may ruin my appreciation for the band. If they are great, it may open up new doors and make my relationship to that band more deep and meaningful.
How has the subject matter of the lyrics influenced the atmosphere and compositions of ‘Heliocentric’? How do they work together? I had the rough idea of what this album was going to be about before I started writing the lyrics, but it didn't really take shape until most of the songs were written. I guess there are some sort of ‘clerical’ moments in songs like ‘Ptolemy Was Wrong’ or ‘Epiphany’, those songs were written with the lyrics in mind, but generally, the way it usually works for me is that I ‘lyricise’ music, rather than ‘musicalizing’ lyrics. If that makes sense at all?
Judging from your biography you will focus on challenging and maybe even criticizing creationism on ‘Anthropocentric’. How will this affect the atmosphere of that album? Again, the music happens first and the lyrics make their way into the music later. ‘Anthropocentric’ will be a bit more angry than ‘Heliocentric’. The discussion of religious topics and experiences will be more personal and positively eclectic and will lack the historic component of ‘Heliocentric’.
Are you a die-hard atheist? How did you become one and what is your biggest problem with religion? Yes, I am. I do believe that Christianity is probably the last great evil of mankind which eventually will be overcome by man's 'egress from its self-inflicted immaturity', as Kant called it. This process still lingers on, and my point is that in contrary to common thinking, we are still in the historical period of enlightenment until the day that Christianity will be defeated. The fact that Christianity has not yet been overcome by cultures which in every other respect are grounded on trust in the rational mind is fascinating - Islamic cultures, for example, have not been transformed by the process of enlightenment as occidental Christian cultures. Our societies have witnessed the rise and the impact of modern natural science. The sets of values and ideologies brought forth by the process of enlightenment dominate our daily thinking and are the foundations of our societies, yet at the same time we still uphold the superstitions that in no way are conformable with the findings of modern science. Because of the prevailing historical influence and power of the church, our culture is based on the peaceful coexistence of preclusive sets of values. It's time to break this cycle of incoherence, and 'Heliocentric' is our contribution: a reminder of Charles Darwin's legacy. Darwin's findings are contradicting the most fundamental Christian teachings. He basically proved that some of the very first words in Genesis are wrong: Man was not created by God, but is the result of a process of evolution that can be traced back to the most simple forms of life. The genes of man and pig are to 98% identical, and radically phrased, our ancestors were cockroaches. This is hard to understand for many believers who take the bible literal. I admire Darwin's courage, passion and exploratory spirit. He was being ridiculed by his fellow scientist colleagues, and it takes courage to stand up for convictions that were completely at odds with the Zeitgeist, and while some of his theses were wrong, a lot of it still holds true and his 'Origin Of Species' has basically been 'The Shape of Science to Come', so to speak...
Do you see creating art as a means to convince people of your world view? If so, how do you try to achieve this? If not, why not? I don't want to convince anyone, I want to discuss and challenge people. Last Thursday I had an evangelic priest at our show who had heard me talk about Dawkins on the radio. He came out to discuss with me and it was great, although we did not agree on a lot of things, it was still a fruitful and respectful discussion. I don't want to shove my convictions down people's throats. I am open for any kind of discussion, as long as it is worthy of the term ‘discussion’, and not just a proclamation of ideologies.
The new album also sees a couple of big changes musically. You guys have a new singer for instance! How did you get Loic Rossetti and why did you pick him especially? Which specific qualities does he add to The Ocean? After we toured on ‘Precambrian’ for seven or eight months, we all felt it was time for something new. We are not one of these bands that develops a formula for their sound and then sticks to it for the next five albums, just because it works. We wanna keep it interesting for ourselves and for our listeners and fans as well, and this is why we are continuously exploring new territory. After Mike's departure we were specifically looking for a vocalist who was not only following us in our musical development, but who was one step ahead. We still want to play our older material live, so we had to find someone who is a powerful screamer and a good singer at the same time. This proved to be really difficult... More than a hundred people wrote us and sent in tryout videos / audio for a few of our songs. After nine months, Loic came along and when we heard his take on our new material, as well a few older tracks, we knew immediately that the search was finally over. It was decided within five minutes.
With the new singer, we also see a new proportion between aggressive and clean vocals. For the first time there’s more cleans! Where did this change come from? My listening habits have evolved over the course of the past few years. I still listen to Behemoth and Goatwhore, but at the same time I have become increasingly interested in clean vocals and a more song-oriented and stripped-down approach to writing music. ‘Precambrian’ was the epitome of maximalism, if there is any such thing. Huge, epic song monsters, 100s of tracks. I still love that approach but it felt like we had already achieved everything that could be achieved in that realm. I was looking for new challenges, and the last song off ‘Precambrian’, a track called ‘Cryogenian’ that consisted only of piano, cello and viola, already hinted in that ‘new’ direction, so to speak. I wanted to try something different. So far, the vocals only played a minor role in my compositions. I wanted to write an album with more focus on vocal lines from the beginning. On ‘Precambrian’, all the vocal lines were composed after everything else was already written and recorded. For ‘Heliocentric’, the music for almost all the songs was written simultaneously with the vocal lines. Some of the songs were based on a vocal line and piano, and everything else came later. That was a great challenge for me.
Apart from Loïc, you have new members on pretty much all the instruments. Even though the line-up of The Ocean has been changing always, does this process of finding new and suited band members ever get tiring? It does, and that's why it's over now. Over the course of the last two years, The Ocean has transformed from a loose collective into a sturdy band. It is always better to work with a group of dedicated people who feel like they are part of this strange entity called ‘band’, rather than a bunch of session musicians and temporary players. It took me almost ten years to find these people that were talented, dedicated and simply good guys. This is the end result of a long odyssey. The current line-up has been consistent for about two years now. We have toured around the world together (more than 130 shows in 2008 alone), spent months in a nutshell van infested with the smell of farts, feet and rotten food. This has been really intense, we all know each other very well and we are good friends that stick together. This is the strongest lineup this band has ever had, and I dearly hope it will last, well being aware of the fact that priorities change in everyone's lives as we grow older, and any band constellation usually only works for a limited time. We will try to make the most of what we have now, while we have it.
Internet discussions are already reaching heated climaxes over, for instance, the song ‘Ptolemy Was Wrong’, which is your most ballad-like song ever. At least you guys have managed to create some kind of a stir hehehe. Do you even care about these discussions and about the effect that it may have on your popularity or reputation ? There's always gonna be people who complain when a band is doing something different. And it's nothing new to us really: when we released ‘Fogdiver’, people complained that it was instrumental. When we released ‘Fluxion’, people were complaining about the brutal vocals. When ‘Aeolian’ came out, people were lamenting about the lack of big orchestrations. You see, I can understand how some people that only liked our ‘Aeolian’ stuff feel let down now because the new material is not metal enough for them or not sludge enough or not intricate enough or whatever. But then again, those people who only like our heavy side never really understood what we're all about in the first place. We're trying to institutionalize change to some degree. Without delusions of grandeur and without comparing ourselves to any of these bands, I have utmost respect for bands who managed to reinvent themselves at one point in their career, and tried something completely different - bands like Radiohead, Breach or Refused, for example.
Another big change, in which the clean vocals do play a role of course, is that the songs seem to be more catchy, accessible and they seem to stick better in the brain. Was this a conscious decision when you started the writing process for the new album? Where did you want to go musically with this album? It was a great challenge for me to write songs with limited means. For the fewer means you allow yourself to use, the better the individual musical ideas have to be in order for the song to be convincing. When you have twenty string tracks in the back and ten different guitars and a polyrhythmic beat, then maybe the vocal line isn't all too important anymore. But when you just have a vocal line and a few piano chords, those chords and this line better be amazing! The addition of Loic all of a sudden made everything possible. There are no limits anymore. Loic is never satisfied with himself and that makes working with him really smooth, because he's not the typical ‘this is my vocal line, take it or leave it’ kind of singer. He's never giving up and always wants to give his best. His physical condition is amazing, he is able to do 50 takes in a row, at times we were recording for six or seven hours a day and finished the day with screamed vocals...
The album was recorded in La-Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, what was the recording studio like? Did the change in environment influence the recording process in any way?. We have an amazing studio at hand here in Switzerland, a great sounding room, and a great network of connections. We could borrow amazing old Neumann mics for free from a local radio station, these people don't even seem to know what treasures they have sitting around there. We recorded the drum with 30 mics, and in the end we chose the ones that sounded best. We experimented a lot. We put a stone on the sustain pedal of a piano in the big recording room and threw some spare Neumanns in there, just to record the low reverb frequencies, for example. We could record the strings in a local theater, an incredible room with wooden ceiling, floor and walls that is perfect for acoustic instruments. And the best thing is that we have all the time we need and don't need to worry about rushing it and money going down the drain when we're not efficient one day. It's always good for me to be away from home for recording and mixing. Isolation really helps you keep your focus to some degree.
Your previous record ‘Precambrian’ got rave reviews all over the world and is probably your most successful record to date. Why do you think it did so well? Because it is a good album hehehe. I guess many people liked the two-album concept, and the musical diversity on the two discs. The artwork and packaging as well, that record, the way it came out, was a whole package, a unity of sound and vision – an ambitious project, maybe a bit over-ambitious. But a lot of people liked that.
Which doors has the success of ‘Precambrian’ opened for The Ocean? 'Precambrian' brought us forward a lot, it was the first album that really got us attention on a global scale. Musically, the album was really important for me personally, as it indicated already the direction of things to come with this band, although most people may not have realized that at the time being. 'Precambrian' was a monster with enormous song structures, something we have stepped away from a little bit now. It was the record with which I tried everything that I could see on my musical horizon, and the record that made me realize that there are no limits other than the ones you set for yourself. This experience made 'Heliocentric'-songs like 'Ptolemy Was Wrong' and 'Epiphany' possible.You can never be 100% content I guess, there will always be certain aspects where you wish you had done them better or paid more attention to them when you look back at it with some distance, but it's all criticism at a high level, overall I'm still very happy with this record, more than anything I've done before. It was a great challenge to make this album and a time in my life I will always remember.
What does the near future look like for The Ocean? Are you for instance going to wait with promoting ‘Heliocentric’ until ‘Anthropocentric’ is out? No, we are in the midst of promoting ‘Heliocentric’ now. We will support the release by a headlining tour in May, there are two dates in the Netherlands as well: June 6 in Haarlem (Patronaat) and June 6 at The Rambler in Eindhoven. We will play a short mini-tour in Spain and Portugal and some festivals in July. Then we will record vocals for ‘Anthropocentric’ and mix and master the album. Right after we will embark on another European tour which is still in the making, and in November we are going over to the US for a five weeks tour. That's about as far as our planning is ahead right now.
Thanks a lot for your time and hopefully see you soon. If you have anything to add, please go ahead! Cheers for the interview. Check out our live show when we hit the Netherlands.
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