Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 898 - Stefan De Graef (Psychonaut) Talks New Album - "World Maker"

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 898 - Stefan De Graef (Psychonaut) Talks New Album - "World Maker" · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  We love concept albums. We have a lot of inspiration
• 0:03
  from bands like Pink Floyd and Tulle, Porcupine Tree, and yeah,
• 0:07
  all of our favorite albums are albums that tell a story, that
• 0:11
  are immersive in a way. And that's simply what we want
• 0:15
  to do as well, to really create something, something huge, and
• 0:19
  then tell this story through different chapters and different
• 0:22
  songs. So yeah, concept behind this one
• 0:24
  is centered around fatherhood. I became a father in January
• 0:28
  last year. But then unfortunately,
• 0:30
  unfortunately, at the same time or around the same time, I lost
• 0:33
  my dad and Thomas, our bass player, lost his dad as well.
• 0:37
  So it's, yeah, a lot of emotions in there.
• 0:40
  By far the most personal album we've written so far.
• 0:43
  We've never gone. Yeah, this, this emotional, I
• 0:46
  guess. And so literal in some cases in
• 0:49
  the lyrics, as we ever have before.
• 0:57
  What's up everybody? It's Kifi at Ghost Cold Meg and
• 1:00
  I'm here with Stefano Psychonaut.
• 1:02
  Brand new album World Maker coming out soon.
• 1:04
  How are you doing today? I'm doing good man Thanks.
• 1:06
  Happy to be. Here.
• 1:07
  Amazing. Thank you so much.
• 1:09
  I'm so stoked on this record and I really appreciate the PR team
• 1:13
  putting us together. You know, we've been following
• 1:15
  your band for a long time. I think this is the first time
• 1:18
  we've ever really talked. I've seen you live.
• 1:20
  Got to come over to Europe and see you guys and I love Pelagic
• 1:23
  Records and I love Robin and and everything they do.
• 1:27
  So of course most of their records end up getting reviewed
• 1:29
  by us. So this is only your third full
• 1:32
  length record in 10 or 11 years. And I found that super
• 1:36
  interesting. I feel like certain bands don't
• 1:38
  feel the music business pressure to put out a lot of stuff.
• 1:43
  So I feel like you've been very deliberate about the releases, a
• 1:45
  lot of EPS and singles, but very deliberate.
• 1:48
  Is that fair to say? Yeah, definitely.
• 1:50
  We we just need a lot of time to to write a good album and it
• 1:54
  doesn't really mean anything to us to release an album that
• 1:57
  we're not happy with. So yeah, we take our time and
• 2:01
  that's how we do it. Right.
• 2:03
  And well, it's totally worth it. Wool Maker is definitely one of
• 2:05
  my favorite records this year. It's very complex.
• 2:08
  It sounds like you, but it's also feels like, and I think
• 2:11
  every record you have tried to sort of keep growing the band
• 2:16
  and and, you know, explore what the sound you've been working
• 2:20
  with. So I do think there's a very
• 2:22
  good scene of familiar bands in Europe that do a similar thing.
• 2:27
  But you guys are very much individual.
• 2:29
  Your own sound, your own style, your own visual style,
• 2:33
  everything about the band just seems, you know, very, you know,
• 2:36
  well crafted and cared for. Thank you, man.
• 2:39
  That means a lot. Yeah, we try to be ourselves, of
• 2:41
  course, and we're in inspired by many other bands who have come
• 2:46
  before us. But I like that we've reached
• 2:48
  this point where we do have some kind of a different sound, our
• 2:53
  own sound. Yeah.
• 2:54
  I'm not sure if it's the positioning in, in Europe or
• 2:58
  not, but Belgium for such a, you know, a small country relatively
• 3:02
  has such a rich history and art and music and so many killer
• 3:06
  bands. You know, I, I don't know, is
• 3:09
  there a scene? Is there like a music scene for
• 3:12
  this kind of music or it just this just happens to be where
• 3:15
  you're from and come come out of?
• 3:17
  No, it's definitely very much alive.
• 3:21
  I think many people in Belgium and and in Europe and possibly
• 3:25
  the rest of the world may have heard of something called the
• 3:28
  Hate Thousands scene, which is where a lot of hardcore bands
• 3:32
  originated in the West of the country.
• 3:35
  And that leads to bands like Aminra, for instance, who kind
• 3:38
  of came out of that scene. So there is quite a lot of heavy
• 3:41
  music in Belgium and the cool thing is that I don't think we
• 3:46
  have that many metal bands, but I still think we have a lot of
• 3:49
  heavy bands. Take someone like Brutus for
• 3:52
  instance. Not at all a metal bands.
• 3:54
  Definitely a heavy band. I don't know if I would even
• 3:57
  call us. Definitely not a not a typical
• 4:00
  metal band, but there's a heaviness to this new Belgian
• 4:04
  sound. I guess that yeah, it seems to
• 4:07
  be very unique and a lot of appreciation for for post metal
• 4:11
  and post rock music in Belgium for sure.
• 4:13
  Right on. I am a huge fan of both Amanrah
• 4:15
  and Brutus. I'm very excited about this
• 4:17
  Brutus live album that they announced.
• 4:20
  Very ambitious for a DIY band. But yeah, world maker, man, what
• 4:24
  a phenomenal album. And I wanted to talk a little
• 4:27
  bit about music because, you know, I do still listen to whole
• 4:31
  albums. I was a kid and I listened to
• 4:33
  records on vinyl, and then when tapes and CDs came out, I never
• 4:37
  skip around. I always listened through a
• 4:39
  whole. To me, a record is a whole
• 4:41
  listening experience. And it feels like this.
• 4:43
  I don't know if this was necessarily a concept record,
• 4:46
  but it definitely feels like there's a flow to it that's
• 4:50
  meant to be listened to all in a shot, you know, continuously.
• 4:54
  Yeah, that's true. We design all of our albums that
• 4:58
  way. We love concept albums.
• 5:01
  We have a lot of inspiration from bands like Pink Floyd and
• 5:04
  Tool, Porcupine Tree and yeah, all of our favorite albums are
• 5:09
  albums that tell a story, that are immersive in a way.
• 5:12
  And that's, that's simply what we want to do as well, to really
• 5:17
  create something, something huge, and then tell this story
• 5:20
  through different chapters and different songs.
• 5:23
  So yeah, concept behind this one is centered around fatherhood.
• 5:27
  I became a father in January last year, but then
• 5:30
  unfortunately, at the same time, or around the same time, I lost
• 5:34
  my dad. And Thomas, our bass player,
• 5:36
  lost his dad as well. So it's, yeah, a lot of emotions
• 5:40
  in there. By far the most personal album
• 5:43
  we've written so far. We've never gone.
• 5:46
  Yeah, this, this emotional, I guess.
• 5:48
  And so literal in some cases in the lyrics, as we ever have
• 5:52
  before, so. Yeah, I definitely picked up on
• 5:54
  that, you know, the personal lyrics and yeah, definitely not
• 5:58
  as obtuse as the prior releases in terms of storytelling.
• 6:02
  Right. Which is fine.
• 6:03
  You know, like I think, you know, it's, I'm glad you have.
• 6:06
  I'm sorry for your losses. And what a great outlet to make
• 6:09
  music to help get you to the other side of that.
• 6:12
  And, you know, I am, I also don't have my parents anymore.
• 6:16
  And I often say, like, there really is no coming back from
• 6:19
  it. You know, like when you
• 6:21
  especially if you had a good parent or a good set of parents,
• 6:24
  there's no replacing them. There's no thing in your life
• 6:27
  that will take that place. You know, it's just a loss you
• 6:29
  feel forever. Me personally, maybe hopefully
• 6:32
  not everybody else, but that's how I am.
• 6:35
  So yeah, that definitely tracks. And I really love the you know,
• 6:40
  one of the things about the band that I've always loved is the
• 6:42
  guitar work is constantly evolving and and, you know, and
• 6:46
  it's, you know, kind of reminds me a lot of you mentioned tools.
• 6:51
  So I think about Adam Jones, but I also think about Gojira and
• 6:54
  how they use guitars and, you know, not even though they're
• 6:58
  much more of a typical modern metal band, I think the way they
• 7:01
  use guitars is still very inventive.
• 7:03
  And I feel like a lot of that is also in this style too.
• 7:06
  Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for for the kind words.
• 7:11
  Yeah, that's right. All of these things have just
• 7:13
  done their part for, for how I sound now as a guitarist.
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  And I like to have some kind of unique sound, even though I'm,
• 7:22
  I'm pretty much just copying a lot of what my my heroes do.
• 7:26
  Yeah, I I've learned pretty much everything from Jimmy Page and
• 7:29
  David Gilmour, but then also from, like you said, Adam Jones
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  and even some, some thrash metal guitarist like Marty Friedman is
• 7:37
  one of my favorite guitarist Megadeth.
• 7:39
  So yeah, yeah, that's how I think.
• 7:41
  That's how we got this sound, all of these different
• 7:44
  influences. Right on.
• 7:46
  I can tell the the old school influences too.
• 7:49
  I'm a huge Zeppelin and Pink Floyd fan as well.
• 7:52
  And, you know, I think Gilmore had something about him that you
• 7:55
  have, which is it's very easy to get kind of caught up
• 7:59
  rhythmically in songs as a guitar player or as you know,
• 8:04
  but I think being patient is so much harder than being
• 8:08
  aggressive. And I don't mean being quiet.
• 8:10
  I just mean being patient and letting the song come to you and
• 8:13
  letting your part come through and shine through.
• 8:16
  It's so much harder than just 1234 And this because like it's
• 8:21
  so, you know, very, I think probably natural in in, in
• 8:26
  humanity that just kind of like go with the driving, pulsing
• 8:30
  thing. I think our our heartbeats, our
• 8:32
  pulse, our breathing are all kind of rhythmical and it's very
• 8:36
  easy to just 4 four straight up and down.
• 8:38
  And it's much harder to be patient and change time
• 8:41
  signatures and ease into things and gradually make changes in
• 8:46
  motifs as opposed to how hard it is.
• 8:49
  You know, you know, it's, it's so, it's so much.
• 8:51
  It's so much harder. Yeah, I agree.
• 8:54
  I think it's very important to know when to play and when to
• 8:57
  not play. It might just be that the drums
• 9:00
  and bass are doing something that's so interesting that
• 9:02
  there's no need for you to play 5 notes now.
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  Maybe you'll just wait a few bars and play 2 notes and see
• 9:09
  where everything goes. Just appreciate every instrument
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  and serve the song right. Right on and I love.
• 9:16
  I think a lot of people are going to enjoy the production of
• 9:18
  this record. I know you work with your hip
• 9:20
  attractor bandmate Charin on this and I wanted to know what
• 9:25
  you know, if anything you know changed for you in the studio
• 9:28
  was there. That familiarity obviously makes
• 9:30
  you comfortable and helps, but was there anything you sonically
• 9:34
  you approach this time to the recording that might be
• 9:37
  different than the previous full length?
• 9:38
  Yeah, a few different things. Yeah, like you said, we've we've
• 9:43
  worked with Karen for for almost a decade now I guess.
• 9:47
  And there were some talks when we we're planning the recordings
• 9:52
  of maybe trying someone new for once, just to see how it goes.
• 9:56
  Maybe contact a few people and have them mix one song and then
• 10:00
  make a decision based on that. We talked about all of that, but
• 10:03
  in the end I just didn't want to change your winning team, I
• 10:07
  guess. There are so many reasons why we
• 10:09
  work with him, and one of the biggest is that we just know
• 10:13
  each other so well and he knows what I want to sound like and I
• 10:16
  know how he's going to do that. And so that's a big part of our
• 10:20
  sound is simply our engineer. Of course, in terms of actual
• 10:24
  recording, for the first time ever I tracked all of my guitars
• 10:28
  at home simply because I didn't have so much time.
• 10:31
  I had a newborn and it wasn't very convenient to spend three
• 10:36
  weeks on a chair every day sitting next to a so I did that.
• 10:40
  And yeah, that also allowed me to reuse some of the demo
• 10:45
  guitars I had already recorded, which is a lot easier now
• 10:49
  because of digital amps and and all these plugins that I'm also
• 10:52
  using live now, which which sounds amazing.
• 10:55
  So I had the freedom to completely craft my guitar to
• 10:58
  myself this time. And I was happy to hear that KRM
• 11:01
  really liked it, and a lot of the things you're hearing on the
• 11:04
  album are actually demo guitars that I just didn't really feel
• 11:08
  any need for to replace them. Right on, that's awesome.
• 11:12
  I suspected you were probably big on pre production and
• 11:16
  demoing out whole songs and albums.
• 11:20
  It just seems like you're the type of band that would do it,
• 11:23
  which I think is, you know, like sure surely pays off later in
• 11:27
  the in the final product. You know, the, the industry has
• 11:31
  changed so much and I think the technology in a good way has
• 11:35
  enabled people to kind of, you know, actually become better
• 11:38
  craftspeople in terms of making music.
• 11:41
  As opposed to kind of like, well, we used to just show up
• 11:43
  and spend 3 months in the studio at like, you know, $100,000 a
• 11:46
  month just to get written the, the album written.
• 11:50
  And some bands do have that luxury.
• 11:52
  You know, we're not all Metallica, but like some people
• 11:54
  do. And, you know, they do what
• 11:57
  works for them. Although they made their last
• 11:59
  record kind of also split apart because of the, the pandemic and
• 12:02
  they, they recorded. Oh yeah.
• 12:04
  That's right. They sent their album around in
• 12:06
  secret, somehow didn't blast tell everybody.
• 12:09
  Like, I was surprised. Yeah, such a good record.
• 12:13
  And I also wanted to just shout out the drum production because,
• 12:17
  you know, especially with a lot of heavy music, the drums don't
• 12:20
  have a lot of differentiation between tracks in terms of just,
• 12:23
  as, you know, we get the drum sound and that's it.
• 12:26
  And there's not a lot of attention.
• 12:27
  Maybe it's something that comes through in the recording.
• 12:30
  Maybe it's something that is highlighted or augmented in the
• 12:33
  mixing, But I feel like the drum production here is really
• 12:35
  stellar too. Thank you, we have a great
• 12:38
  drummer, of course he knows what he's doing and I also like that
• 12:43
  our engineer is not a big fan of over processed drums and prefers
• 12:48
  to have drums sound real. And if you have a good drummer
• 12:52
  like we do, that's an option. It's just a shame that some
• 12:56
  engineers flatten everything and compress the shit out of
• 12:59
  everything and replace every snare and every kick so it
• 13:02
  sounds exactly the same. I don't really see why we would
• 13:05
  ever do that. Yeah, thanks.
• 13:08
  I really like how the drums and everything sounds as well.
• 13:11
  I'm really happy with the production on this one.
• 13:14
  Yeah, you don't want to take the human element out of the music
• 13:17
  itself. And drumming is so physical,
• 13:19
  even if you're not a fat hard hitter and you're a fast
• 13:22
  technician, right? I feel like still the original
• 13:26
  essence of drumming is the strike, right?
• 13:29
  And the strike in the release and not, you know, I get it.
• 13:32
  And I think we are seeing kind of a return to early 2000s drum
• 13:36
  recording right now, which I don't love.
• 13:37
  But like, sometimes it's neat, you know, black metal, death
• 13:40
  metal, progressive metal, probably appropriate because of
• 13:44
  speed and accuracy being so important.
• 13:47
  But like, I like, I like real, real drums and real drummers and
• 13:50
  real drum sounds. I agree.
• 13:53
  I wanted to talk about this artwork because it's like
• 13:55
  sucking me in. I'm still again, I'm still that
• 13:59
  kid. I collected a lot of vinyl as a
• 14:01
  kid and, and I love album artwork and it's very
• 14:05
  compelling. What this thing is like very
• 14:07
  magnetic to the eyes. This this world maker cover.
• 14:11
  It's it's the colors, it's the circle, it's, it's very
• 14:14
  compelling. What was, you know, did you work
• 14:16
  with the artist on that and did you guys come about?
• 14:18
  That yeah, we did. We worked with the some who has
• 14:23
  done pretty much all of our albums except for our first EP.
• 14:27
  And funny story is we actually tried working with a few
• 14:30
  different people for this album. And while we had some really
• 14:34
  cool ideas and some really cool things coming in, we just didn't
• 14:38
  really feel it and eventually just turned to some and he did
• 14:42
  his magic and this is what he came up with in a very short
• 14:45
  period of time as well. And I like the simplicity.
• 14:48
  It's much, much more simple than our debut album, for instance.
• 14:53
  But I like that from a less is more kind of perspective.
• 14:56
  I do think it speaks to the imagination and it just kind of
• 14:59
  fits because the title is also a lot more simple than our
• 15:03
  previous albums. And yeah, happy with it.
• 15:05
  Myself, there's a really beautiful color gradient going
• 15:10
  through it that I don't think we've seen in a lot of album art
• 15:13
  that's very over saturated. So I like that it's kind of
• 15:16
  muted but not dull. And it's it's similar to the
• 15:20
  album. It's got a range to it right,
• 15:22
  Like which is really nice. Nice, thanks.
• 15:24
  Yeah, of course. So looking forward to the album
• 15:26
  release later this month on Pelagic.
• 15:29
  I imagine you're going to play some of this new material live.
• 15:31
  Is it hard to kind of put a set list around, you know, albums
• 15:35
  are such a fine piece together and it's hard to do, you know,
• 15:39
  interject a whole new album into a set also when you've been out
• 15:42
  for, you know, over a decade. But I hope and imagine you will
• 15:45
  play some of this material live if you can kind of pull it out
• 15:48
  of the whole, the whole from the pieces.
• 15:51
  Yeah, for sure. We've got 5 release shows coming
• 15:55
  up now, starting in Berlin and then Paris, London, Amsterdam
• 16:00
  and Brussels. And that's where we'll be
• 16:02
  playing some of these new songs for the first time.
• 16:05
  We've already tried some of them out at a few shows we played a
• 16:09
  few weeks ago, and we also have some tryout shows coming up
• 16:12
  where we're going to play some of this stuff live for the first
• 16:14
  time. And it's a very tricky thing,
• 16:16
  like you said, to build a set list with new music, because
• 16:20
  there are people on one hand who would probably love it if we
• 16:24
  played the whole record from start to finish.
• 16:26
  And then there's people who come to the show and hope we'll play
• 16:30
  a lot of old songs as well because they may have never seen
• 16:32
  us. And then there's the simple
• 16:34
  question like what's the best possible live show we can bring?
• 16:37
  And the answer is, it's going to be a blend, right?
• 16:40
  We'll have to do something that we can't do on an album or the
• 16:45
  other way around. I think some things you can do
• 16:48
  on an album which are simply not as intense.
• 16:50
  Life and the other way around. So it's going to be, we're
• 16:54
  working on it and I think we'll have a good combination of
• 16:57
  pretty much all of our favorite songs, songs we like most, and
• 17:02
  we're really looking forward to playing them.
• 17:03
  Right on. Well, we're looking forward to
• 17:05
  catching you at one of those shows and seeing the band again,
• 17:08
  and I really appreciate this record.
• 17:11
  It's really picked me up in a in a wild week.
• 17:15
  So it's been a great listen and I and I really appreciate you
• 17:18
  making the time today. I always end these interviews
• 17:20
  with a wild card question. And so I wanted to ask you, what
• 17:23
  was the last good book you read? The last good book.
• 17:27
  It's been a while, but it's the first one I think of.
• 17:29
  It's it's been a year or so, but there's this incredible book
• 17:32
  called The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible,
• 17:37
  which is a very hippie like title, but it's written by
• 17:42
  Charles Eisenstein and he, yeah, I think it was beautiful.
• 17:46
  It's nonfiction. It's it's a kind of new take on,
• 17:50
  on humanity and very +1 trying to think of looking at ourselves
• 17:56
  in a more positive way, which might lead to a more positive
• 17:58
  world and kind of getting rid of the mindset of the fact that
• 18:02
  we're all viruses on the planet ruining everything and kind of
• 18:07
  restoring some faith in ourselves and trying to be a bit
• 18:11
  happier, I guess. So I'd recommend that one that
• 18:13
  would. That's an amazing, beautiful
• 18:15
  book. Nice, much needed, much needed
• 18:17
  words. Stefan.
• 18:18
  Thank you so much for hanging out with us today.
• 18:20
  Congrats on the new album from Psycho Not World Maker coming
• 18:23
  out on Pelagic Records October 24th.
• 18:26
  Thank you so much for hanging out with me today.
• 18:28
  Thank you. Thank you too man, nice talking
• 18:30
  to you.