Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 736 - "Suffer as One": Levy Seynaeve Reveals the Driving Force Behind Living Gate

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 736 - "Suffer as One": Levy Seynaeve Reveals the Driving Force Behind Living Gate · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  I, I don't really want living gate to carry a message or, you
• 0:03
  know, wave any flags or, or anything like that.
• 0:06
  So it it has a very observational feel to it.
• 0:16
  What's up everybody? It's Keepy, Ghostco, mag.com.
• 0:19
  I am super excited to be joined by Levy of Living Gate and of
• 0:23
  course, Visual Dude. How are you doing today?
• 0:25
  I'm good. How are you?
• 0:26
  I'm well, I hope I said that partially correct because I
• 0:29
  practiced a lot and it probably was wrong.
• 0:32
  It was. It was pretty close.
• 0:33
  I've heard a lot. I've heard a lot worse.
• 0:36
  Well, at least I could say I've seen one of those two bands
• 0:40
  personally twice. And so I'm very excited about
• 0:44
  this brand new Living Gate record.
• 0:47
  You know, this is our first time chatting about this band, so of
• 0:50
  course, you know, I know that this is the first full length
• 0:52
  record coming out on Relapse Records and obviously, you know,
• 0:57
  there's a crossover of members from other bands, but how did
• 0:59
  this particular band form? I know it was, you know, we've
• 1:02
  had a couple of smaller releases until now.
• 1:07
  Pretty, I think it's, it's, it's the ID kind of originated with
• 1:11
  me and Leonard, the other guitarists and while women as
• 1:16
  well, basically the three of us just always kind of fantasizing
• 1:21
  about one day we'll, we'll try and do a death metal kind of
• 1:24
  kind of thing. But we all, yeah, we're all,
• 1:28
  like you said, we're all in different bands and and and kind
• 1:31
  of bigger bands as well. Who demands, you know, some,
• 1:34
  some some focus and some attention from time to time.
• 1:39
  But I think in around, yeah, a bit before 2020.
• 1:44
  I don't know, just I had some time and, and, and, and all
• 1:49
  three of us had some time and, and, and we, we started writing
• 1:52
  some, some, you know, death metal tunes, not even really
• 1:57
  having a bass player at the time, but like right around or,
• 2:02
  or a little before that period, me and women went on tour with,
• 2:06
  we had load with job for a month.
• 2:08
  So we got to we got to know Aaron later on, me and Leonard
• 2:13
  went on tour with job in the US with Almond Ross.
• 2:16
  So he got, he got to know him as well.
• 2:20
  And, you know, we'd, we'd always be nerding, nerding out about
• 2:24
  death metal and, and, and, you know, just heavy music in
• 2:28
  general. And I don't know, the, the idea
• 2:31
  kind of kind of grew in, in, in my head at least to, to just ask
• 2:37
  Aaron if he wanted to be, if you wanted to be the bass player in,
• 2:42
  in, in Living Gate. We, we didn't even have a name
• 2:46
  back then. And he was, he was super
• 2:48
  excited. And yeah, the ball just kind of
• 2:52
  kind of started rolling from there.
• 2:54
  Aaron is one of my favorite people in all of music.
• 2:57
  I saw him last about a year ago. Speaking of people, if you ever
• 3:01
  want to meet somebody to nerd out about old school metal with,
• 3:03
  Aaron has an encyclopedic knowledge of all music,
• 3:06
  especially metal and, and, and heavier metal.
• 3:10
  You know, YAB is, you know, wonderful and, and extremely
• 3:13
  heavy. But like, he'll go deep on like
• 3:15
  bands. You, you know, I think I know a
• 3:17
  lot about music and he'll surprise me with stuff he knows
• 3:20
  about. Yeah, he definitely kind of has
• 3:23
  this encyclopedic. Is that a word?
• 3:27
  It is now. Has that kind of mind for sure.
• 3:29
  Yeah. And it's great.
• 3:30
  Every time he's he's over here or, or we get together, we're
• 3:33
  constantly just, you know, in the car driving to rehearsal or
• 3:38
  to the studio or anything. It's always just a good back and
• 3:42
  forth of, of, oh, you know this and you got to check out this.
• 3:46
  So it's, it's, it's always a lot of fun.
• 3:48
  Yeah. Awesome fun is the number one
• 3:50
  thing. I I know we're in an interesting
• 3:53
  era where we can have like a lot of collaborations and groups.
• 3:56
  Used to not be this way, used to be bound by record labels and
• 3:58
  record labels would frown on you.
• 4:00
  Oh, please don't make another band with somebody else and take
• 4:03
  time away from the thing. But Living Gate, Living Gate is
• 4:06
  so much fun and has been, the EP was so much fun and just
• 4:10
  everything about it, the logo, the album artwork and these
• 4:13
  songs are so just heavy and old school.
• 4:16
  It really gave me a big charge. Thank you.
• 4:18
  Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 4:19
  Yeah, we all enjoy the riff salad, you know what I'm saying?
• 4:21
  The more riffs you put into a song, I'm happy.
• 4:24
  And yeah, what a killer. What a killer record.
• 4:27
  I got to listen to this a few times, getting ready to chat
• 4:29
  with you. You know, obviously, look, you
• 4:32
  know, you have this thing is a side project apart from other
• 4:35
  major bands that you're all in. But you know, obviously it's a
• 4:38
  fully, it's a fully fleshed band.
• 4:40
  I think that's probably the point we're trying to get across
• 4:43
  here, is that it is a whole band.
• 4:44
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it, it, it, it feels like
• 4:47
  that more than ever with the with the record coming out.
• 4:50
  Because when would, when the EP first came out in 2020, that was
• 4:55
  about, I think 10 days before, you know, COVID restrictions got
• 5:00
  in fourth over here in Belgium. And I think, yeah, the rest of
• 5:04
  the world is was right about the same time.
• 5:06
  So, yeah, you know, the the EP kind of got lost in that that
• 5:11
  chaos. And it feels really good to kind
• 5:14
  of have a another shot at it with this, with this full length
• 5:19
  album. And it it it, it yeah.
• 5:22
  It feels like we've made this more as a band than than we did
• 5:26
  with the EP. Because when we wrote the EP,
• 5:30
  like me, women Leonard, we recorded our parts, sent them
• 5:33
  over to Aaron. So we weren't even in the same
• 5:35
  room and everything. But this time around, Aaron flew
• 5:39
  over, we were on the same studio for 10 days, like being
• 5:44
  completely focused on the on this record.
• 5:47
  So yeah. And, and now we get to, I think
• 5:50
  Aaron is landing in about 12 hours or something.
• 5:53
  So that's that's, yeah, that's going to be great to see him
• 5:57
  again. And we'll start rehearsing for
• 5:59
  the tour that starts in six days.
• 6:02
  Yeah. Right on.
• 6:03
  I know up until now it's only been a handful of shows of, you
• 6:05
  know, Damnation Festival, which we covered and it was like very
• 6:09
  talked about, you know, to be able to see the band live and
• 6:11
  and those things. So this is very exciting, I
• 6:14
  think for fans and and it's just great to have, you know, I think
• 6:17
  for people who know you're the material and are maybe just
• 6:19
  going to discover the band now or have been waiting for this
• 6:22
  release, I think it's a welcome change from the music they're
• 6:25
  used to having you personally make right and the other
• 6:28
  members. Yeah, maybe it's, it's
• 6:30
  definitely it's, it's a very, I mean, death metal is a very
• 6:34
  niche sub genre of, of heavy music.
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  And, and it's there's not a lot of influences from any of our
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  other bands that creeped in there because it's so specific.
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  And it's so, you know, we're not, you know, we're not drawing
• 6:50
  a lot of the atmospheric vibe from Amanrah or Yob or, you
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  know, it's, it's, it's a whole different kind of beast.
• 6:59
  And, and. Yeah, I know.
• 7:00
  And as you were getting ready to create this work in the last few
• 7:04
  years, do you, you know, as you're as you're making music,
• 7:07
  do you come across things like that would be a good idea for
• 7:09
  living gate you save that or or do you just did the guys, you
• 7:13
  know, kind of collectively write specifically for this release?
• 7:16
  Like, this is the music we're going to make just for this.
• 7:19
  Like I, I think I'm going to speak for myself, but I, I think
• 7:23
  it's the same for Leonard and and Aaron that again, like that
• 7:28
  metal sub genre is so kind of specific and, and, and niche on
• 7:34
  its own. It had such a typical sound that
• 7:36
  I always like everything that I, I wrote for, for the album.
• 7:40
  I always knew it was going to be for living Gate.
• 7:43
  And, and, and I, I never, I was never in a situation where I'm
• 7:47
  like, Oh, is this a, a living gate riff or a vehicle riff?
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  It was always very, very clear that, that it would be one or
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  the other, you know, And mostly when I, when I write music, it's
• 7:59
  always pretty clear. I also start with the intention
• 8:03
  of writing for a specific band or, or for a specific song.
• 8:07
  So it it's always pretty clear, yeah.
• 8:10
  Fantastic. I did you say earlier this
• 8:12
  record was completely recorded in 10 days.
• 8:15
  It sounds like it was made over months and months.
• 8:17
  It sounds so good. I don't know if you did a lot of
• 8:19
  pre production or you were really dialed in with the
• 8:22
  material when you went in to record everybody together, but
• 8:24
  it sounds great. Thank you.
• 8:25
  Thank you. There was, I mean, because Aaron
• 8:29
  is, is in a, in a, in a different time zone and
• 8:32
  everything. We, you know, we, we had to
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  exchange ideas a bit amongst, you know, the, the, the, the
• 8:40
  Belgian side and the US side just doing like with rehearsal
• 8:45
  phone recordings and everything. And, and so Aaron would know
• 8:49
  what we were working on. And then Aaron has some riffs as
• 8:53
  well that he forwarded to us and, and, and we kind of dug in
• 8:58
  as well and, and, and worked on it.
• 9:01
  And so I think the main interesting part about it is the
• 9:09
  fact that Aaron came over to record the album with us.
• 9:12
  And, and, but we didn't, I think we had four days to rehearse
• 9:18
  before we went into the studio. Of course.
• 9:22
  Yeah, we tracked drum drums first.
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  So Aaron still had had some time and he's very focused as well.
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  He would like, he stayed over at my place and every night he was,
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  you know, going over parts and trying out stuff and, and, you
• 9:38
  know, bouncing IDs off me and, and, and so, yeah, it's, it's,
• 9:42
  it's, it's a short amount of time, I think, but it's yeah,
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  we're very, we're very productive and focused if we're
• 9:50
  writing and if, if you have a deadline, we always set up
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  deadlines for ourselves because it's, if you don't, it doesn't
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  happen. And sometimes it gets a bit
• 9:59
  tight, but you know, it's all, it's also good to have a
• 10:04
  deadline to work towards, you know?
• 10:05
  I don't. I love some of these song
• 10:09
  concepts and and titles. I don't try to get too much into
• 10:12
  what I think the lyrics are or mean without a lyric sheet, but
• 10:16
  I did want to ask, you know, what were some of your, you
• 10:18
  know, lyrical inspirations for this as opposed to, you know,
• 10:21
  some of the other material you work on?
• 10:22
  Well, I think with, with Living Gate, I kind of had more of an
• 10:27
  observational approach to, to to the lyrics.
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  I kind of mostly wrote about what I saw happening around me,
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  be it, you know, kind of. Just.
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  Being scared of how fast technology is, is developing
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  and, and what's it, what it's doing to the world and
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  everything, stuff like that. Even, you know, small political
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  nuances, but would never really without taking a sense or
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  anything. I don't want to, I don't really
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  want living gate to carry a message or, or, or, you know,
• 11:05
  wave any flags or, or anything like that.
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  So it, it has a very observational feel to it.
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  Whereas where I write with what I write for vegetables has more
• 11:15
  of a, you know, I, I take more of a look inside and, and
• 11:19
  inwards. And, you know, it's, there's
• 11:21
  more emotional aspects involved in everything.
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  But I left those out of Living gate because it, it's not very
• 11:30
  emotional. It's not a very emotional
• 11:32
  record. So yeah, I would call it if, if,
• 11:36
  if I had to describe it in one word, I would, I would say
• 11:38
  observational. Yeah.
• 11:40
  Well, what a relief and how refreshing that is in this day
• 11:42
  and age when people cannot wait to tell you their feelings and
• 11:45
  emotions on things and lead with their emotions instead of their
• 11:49
  rationale. So thank you, and what a record
• 11:52
  I can really sink my teeth into as opposed to knowing every, you
• 11:55
  know, wasn't that a better world when we didn't know what
• 11:57
  everybody thought about everything?
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  That's, that's kind of the reason as well where I, I didn't
• 12:02
  want to, you know, there's, everybody has an opinion and
• 12:06
  everybody wants his opinion to be heard.
• 12:08
  And there's definitely pros to that.
• 12:10
  But there's also a lot of it's, you know, the Internet is just a
• 12:14
  huge mess of, of people debating without knowledge or, you know,
• 12:21
  and then I, I don't want to, I don't want to pile on top of
• 12:24
  that. I, I don't think I am, I'm in a
• 12:27
  position to speak about certain things and I'm not, I don't have
• 12:31
  the knowledge to speak about certain things.
• 12:33
  I can only, you know, kind of put forth what I see and what I
• 12:37
  noticed around me. But I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm,
• 12:40
  I'm not in a place to, to pass judgment on anything or anyone
• 12:45
  or, or force my opinion on to anybody.
• 12:49
  Hey, fair enough and thank you. Otherwise we'll all feel like
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  the skeletons on the album artwork, which I love by the
• 12:55
  way, I love that artwork. It's so cool.
• 12:57
  I can't wait. I I can't wait to get a vinyl on
• 12:59
  this because it's so awesome looking like the colors, the you
• 13:03
  know, the, the choices there. What a what a fantastic piece of
• 13:06
  artwork this thing is. Yeah, he did a really good job.
• 13:09
  And it really, I mean it's mostly it's like that, but it,
• 13:14
  it's even cooler when you get to actually hold the vinyl and see
• 13:18
  it in print and, and have the physical object there.
• 13:21
  It's it's, I mean the there's so much more you can you can focus
• 13:27
  on the details so much more. And there's a lot of them in
• 13:30
  there that maybe kind of get lost on a little thumbnail in in
• 13:33
  Spotify. So yeah, we're very happy with
• 13:38
  how that turned out. And and having pink in there and
• 13:43
  everything just, you know, very not death metal stuff in there
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  opposed to very typical that metal stuff.
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  I like the clash between those two in the artwork.
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  And on I always love the death spiritual healing album cover,
• 13:59
  not because the of the ironic artwork but also like the
• 14:02
  pastels on purpose. Like I think it was a choice.
• 14:04
  I don't think it was an accident.
• 14:06
  Yeah, I've, I've mentioned that album in a previous interview, I
• 14:09
  think when we were talking about the colors of of the record.
• 14:13
  So yeah, love that album and love, love that artwork.
• 14:16
  And so distinctive and stands out across everything else from
• 14:19
  that era. That was just blood and gore and
• 14:21
  craziness in those early classic old school death metal records
• 14:25
  from all across the world. Every everybody's records back
• 14:27
  then were kind of like monotone and and very gory.
• 14:30
  And then here's this record that's just like, hey, think a
• 14:32
  little bit. This is really good.
• 14:34
  Yeah, I just thought I'd like. About it exactly, just for the
• 14:37
  last few things, obviously you have this run of dates and two
• 14:40
  festivals coming up before the release on Relapse Records
• 14:43
  October 25th, so this will probably run after that comes
• 14:45
  out, but what else do you have in the works?
• 14:47
  Are there any more shows we can expect for 2025?
• 14:50
  Obviously you have other bands and tours and festivals we
• 14:52
  haven't heard announced yet, probably.
• 14:57
  We kind of have to the plan is to to make a plan when Aaron is
• 15:01
  here, because, like you said, we have so many bands that that,
• 15:05
  you know, that demand our attention and that have an
• 15:09
  agenda of their own and, and it's hard to kind of, you know,
• 15:12
  puzzle with them from time to time.
• 15:15
  We're already kind of happy that we got to the point where we got
• 15:19
  everybody in the studio for 10 days and, and now we can tour
• 15:24
  and support the album for for about two weeks.
• 15:27
  So it's, it's, it's nothing written in stone yet, but but
• 15:32
  we, we wouldn't want this to be like the only tour we do on this
• 15:36
  record. So we'll, we'll definitely try
• 15:39
  everything in our in our in our power to maybe do another
• 15:44
  European Tour. We hope to make it to the US one
• 15:47
  day. But that's, that's yeah, that
• 15:49
  has even more ports we got to jump over with with visas and
• 15:54
  everything for, for the for three of us over here in
• 15:58
  Belgium. So yeah, we, we, we still got to
• 16:02
  look into some stuff, but but the will is definitely there.
• 16:06
  Hey, Maryland Death Fest, we're looking in your direction.
• 16:09
  This would be the right, you know, help these guys get over
• 16:11
  and I get over here, give them a purpose and and then we can.
• 16:15
  Yeah. And we can get a tour around the
• 16:17
  the festivals here. That would be amazing.
• 16:19
  That would be great. Yeah.
• 16:20
  I've I've always wanted to play Maryland Death Fest.
• 16:23
  I've never made it over there, even though like every time we
• 16:27
  when we tour the states with week adults like our, our, our,
• 16:32
  our base is kind of in Baltimore.
• 16:34
  We have a friend there who hooks us up with a place to stay and
• 16:39
  and and he stocks our back line and everything is just just the
• 16:45
  greatest. Right on.
• 16:48
  We all need our support system. Just one last question and I'll
• 16:51
  let you be on your way to the rest of your interviews today.
• 16:53
  I can't let this opportunity pass.
• 16:56
  Not that you're necessarily the only voice on this band, but a
• 16:59
  lot of people love Oath Breaker and I'm I'm a huge fan of that
• 17:04
  band that I know. Everybody has kind of gone their
• 17:06
  separate ways, Carol, and everybody is busy with different
• 17:08
  projects. Do you think we will see Oath
• 17:10
  Breaker again? I can't say, I really can't say
• 17:13
  I wish I hadn't asked for you, but who knows?
• 17:17
  It's not in my hands at least. But yeah, I don't know.
• 17:22
  It's, it's really, it's a huge question mark.
• 17:24
  No worries. I felt like I needed.
• 17:26
  I got an opportunity with one of you.
• 17:27
  I had to ask the question. Please forgive me.
• 17:30
  No problem, no problem, I understand I'm.
• 17:32
  I'm such a big fan. Everyone who knows me knows
• 17:35
  this. So hey Levy, thank you so much
• 17:38
  for hanging out with us today. I really appreciate you.
• 17:40
  Congratulations on the Living Gate record and best of luck on
• 17:42
  the tour and the festivals. Thank you so much.
• 17:45
  Thank you very much. See you soon.