Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Chaos From Above With KYNAN GROUNDWATER From DIAMOND CONSTRUCT
Transcript
- 0:16Tell them, I'll tell us you last everyone. I'm Connan, the vocalist
- 0:26of Diamond Construct, and I'm here to speak about Angel Killer zero, our
- 0:30upcoming album, which is out on April the twenty six, not far away
- 0:34and now super excited and yeah, it's great to be here. You get
- 0:38it from mate, Thanks for joining us, brother, Good to speak with
- 0:40you again. Absolutely anytime with you, mate, Ah, you're a you
- 0:44too kind. So before we get to the actual album made, Diamond Construct
- 0:48recently released a single, Hell Inside You, which was late last month,
- 0:52I think, So, how's a response been to that one? Been massive?
- 0:56I think out of all three singles, I think it's been probably the
- 1:00most positive received one right off the bat, and that's probably due to the
- 1:03fact that we knew when we were writing this one, Hell Inside You,
- 1:07that it was the most Diamond Construct sound. It kind of had everything that
- 1:10encapsulates the band dating back to DCX too, So it's been awesome to see
- 1:15the response so far. I guess like the recent appearances at Cultfest and the
- 1:19sideshows with the Japanese bands THEO that would have introduced to you a lot more
- 1:23people too, which would who would have been waiting for the new song to
- 1:26come out. Yep, Like the last two of that we're on was probably
- 1:30the perfect tour for us to be on with bands like a Mere ten five
- 1:34six, who are obviously very prevalent in the genre, and we're in that
- 1:38same genre, so playing to a lot of their fans was a massive,
- 1:44massive boost for us. I think like it was probably the hardest working tour
- 1:48for us in terms of growth. Now we're good singles. You mentioned you've
- 1:53released three singles, So I'm going to sound stupid here because I only know
- 1:56the names of two of them. You've got to switch Plade and Hell inside
- 1:57you? What's the other one? Jinx? Probably it's probably because it was
- 2:02a long time ago now it was it was I don't even know how long
- 2:07ago it was now, it might have been ten months ago or something.
- 2:09It was. It was a big difference. Yeah, But all all three
- 2:13of them are on Angel Killer zero. Yeah. Yeah. So would you
- 2:16say if that's all people have heard of Diamond Construction Music, would you say
- 2:20they're a good sonic representation of the album as a whole. I think it's
- 2:23a pretty big picture, but it's not the full picture. There's so much
- 2:25more to dive in on in the album. You know, when writing such
- 2:30a big piece a body of work like Angel Killer zero and having a sort
- 2:36of diverse sound that we've had over the years, it was hard to kind
- 2:38of fit everything in to just eleven songs. So if anyone thinks that they've
- 2:44heard it all from three, that they've got another thing coming because there's there's
- 2:47so much in that album. There's a song for everyone on that thing.
- 2:52Yeah, well, well it dive into that a bit deeper, mate,
- 2:53So can you tell us more about Angel Killer Zero from a musical point of
- 2:57view and what you're going for with it? Yeah? Sure, it's it's
- 3:00not a concept album, but it's definitely got themes and concepts about it that
- 3:05kind of tell a bit of a story. So obviously from start to finish
- 3:09it runs kind of smoothly together with some of the interludes, and it's got
- 3:14some excerpts from video games and stuff that I love to play, just a
- 3:17big like weed like that. I love the anime sort of stuff. We've
- 3:22got the robotic sort of voice introducing some of the themes and stuff throughout the
- 3:25album, So that was something that sort of came into it early in the
- 3:29piece and we wanted to bring that in musically. It's just a big expansion
- 3:34on DCX two. I feel like we went back and revisited the sound of
- 3:38what kind of made us kind of popular in the first place, with Psychosis
- 3:43and Enigma, and then we blended that with obviously the heavier sounds from the
- 3:46self title, which we know a lot of people like as well. So
- 3:50it was just a big sort of meshing of that, as well as adding
- 3:53in so many more elements that we haven't even explored yet, because there was
- 3:58so much that we didn't explore. On DC X two, there's only four
- 4:00songs. Yeah, and I noticed there's no song on the album called Angel
- 4:04Killer zero, which suggests to me that there's a bit more significance in the
- 4:09title. Yeah. Well, I can't give out all my tricks at once.
- 4:14But there's there's a reason why. How will you find out that reason?
- 4:18But by listening to the album? No, But if you follow Diamond,
- 4:25if you follow, if you follow the story long enough, your fans
- 4:28will find out why. So a reason to figure it out? Nah,
- 4:33I can't. I can't reveal on my tricks mate. Well, the cover
- 4:39of the album too, like it also features Japanese writing above the title,
- 4:43So that's interesting why. Yeah, So, as I've been sort of saying
- 4:48in most of the conceptual sort of stuff in some of the interviews, is
- 4:55all of that sort of anime stuff has been kind of in my life since
- 4:58I was a young young kid. I've always loved anime, and I've loved
- 5:00the Japanese sort of RPG role playing games since I was a kid, So
- 5:05that was always going to be something that I wanted to do eventually in music
- 5:10and kind of cross them over together. And it just felt like this one
- 5:14was the one to kind of tie it in. I woke up from a
- 5:16dream one day and I had the concept of the album art and the album
- 5:20title kind of I woke up and I wrote it in my journal and it
- 5:24just kind of stuck and then bounced it off the guys the idea of it.
- 5:27They loved it, and we went and rolled with it. So I
- 5:30hit up designers really early in the piece to start working on the art because
- 5:32I wanted it to be what I wanted. So I think I hit up
- 5:36designers probably eight ten months, twelve months even before like the songs were even
- 5:42recorded now, but the translation for what's above the title? Does it translate
- 5:47to Angel Killer zero? Was it? I like gim simms and random like
- 5:50that. I wish there was some cool Easter eggs like that in it.
- 5:55It just says Angel Killer zero. Yeah. Some of the themes explored on
- 6:00the album include feelings of learning this heartbreak, childhood trauma, and substance abuse,
- 6:05you know, through any young fellas man. Like, it's a pretty
- 6:08pretty heavy and pretty deep subject matter for people who still got their baby teeth
- 6:13pretty much. Yeah, yeah, mate, it's it feels like we had
- 6:17to grow up kind of very early on in our life, like, and
- 6:19we've had to sort of fight for everything we have and we're really hard working,
- 6:23I'll have to think so, so even though we're young, we've been
- 6:27through a lot and it's just kind of like a big exploration of our stories
- 6:31in our life, particularly like with my brother and I, and it's an
- 6:35amalgamation of the stories of both. That's what we speak about this in the
- 6:40songs on Angel Killer Zero. It's very personal and to be honest, it
- 6:43was really really hard to let that out to the world. It's tough,
- 6:48but I know that a lot of people are going to resonate with it,
- 6:50and I just hope that they can find some peace within it and help them
- 6:55get through get through some hard times because I want them to feel like they're
- 6:59not alone with that, you know, Diamond constructs there for them to come
- 7:01see out the shows and feel like they can sort of have a party with
- 7:05us and kind of let loose in a healthy way. You know. This
- 7:10is also going to be your first release via the label Pale Toward, which
- 7:14joined last year. Like, it's a pretty big US label mate, So
- 7:16what sorts of things is that going to open up for the band? Yeah,
- 7:19it's huge. So obviously it's a market that we've been wanting to hit
- 7:24for forever. Really, the US market. A lot of our favorite bands
- 7:28are from there, and now we're sort of starting to see a lot of
- 7:31growth in that country. Like a bulk of the listeners on Spotify and streaming
- 7:36platforms come from the US and it's just growing day by day. So that's
- 7:41absolutely huge to see. So hopefully it lays down the platform for after we
- 7:46do Europe and we come back and we build our name a little bit and
- 7:48then we can hit the US. By the time that we hit the US,
- 7:51it'll be worth doing and that our fan base will grow there. Speaking
- 7:56of tour and Bra, You've got a massive regional tour coming up supporting A
- 8:00which starts in Newcastle on April twenty sixth, goes through Sydney, Canberra,
- 8:03Penrith, Aubrey, Melbourne and Brisbane and finishes on the Gold Coast on May
- 8:07the eighteenth. But it's a pretty big tool. May just say he's had
- 8:09the bigges run you've done so far. I think we've done one tour where
- 8:15it was like eleven shows, but it's definitely the second biggest, and it's
- 8:18really important to us that we're hitting some of these rural towns or like smaller
- 8:22spots like we always say it's so important to us because we come from a
- 8:26small town ourselves, so hitting places like Camber and stuff where they don't see
- 8:31a lot going on, or Aubrey. I mean it's getting a little bit
- 8:33better now there. It's huge and you make lifelong fans and you get to
- 8:37meet these people and they're super appreciative. So it'll be great to test out
- 8:41the new material and yeah, I just can't wait to get back on the
- 8:43road. So what can fans expect from the band on that. Like you
- 8:48said, there will be a lot of new material there, but run us
- 8:50through a typical Diamond Construct live show like I've seen this before and he's a
- 8:52fucking electric But tell people what to expect, Oh cheers mate, for a
- 8:56start, they can expect the full experience of chaos. Like Honestly, the
- 9:03AMPM shows that we've done before have been just absolutely bonkers, like we've had
- 9:09the whole lighting fixtures been ripped off the roof before, just the fans going
- 9:13nuts. So I want to entice some good, healthy washing and crazy stuff
- 9:18like that. But if you're listening out there or whatever, please don't break
- 9:22anything this time. But it's going to be absolute chaos. We're going to
- 9:24bring the new material. We're tighter than ever I like to feel, We're
- 9:28practiced up and we're ready to go. We're energized. Good. Yeah,
- 9:33And what's next to the Diamond Construct after that? Maybe you've got planes for
- 9:35world domination, I hope. So now we'll come back at the end of
- 9:39the year with a proper full on Angel Killer zero tour with a full production,
- 9:45bigger venues and hopefully maybe an international support or something like that. So
- 9:50that's all being worked on at the moment. Can't confirm that at the moment,
- 9:52but I'd like to think that it's going to happen. And yeah,
- 9:56that's what's on the cards for us at the moment. We really want to
- 9:58just solid a are the fact that we can do some big rooms and own
- 10:03it. You know, we're still we have to test ourselves in that in
- 10:05that realm oh back is in every day of the week. Brother, cool,
- 10:09thanks mate, dog you Goyd tell them all that your Joe. I'll
- 10:30tell us my right, Hod you lost me Joey God, golly d tell
- 10:52yoh god, she said, just quitle that me pretend only saving grace a
- 11:01mom Jason fall in my joys. You just never chop, not say I
- 11:16said truck my im just you think with myself. I'm sorry, but this
- 11:20sup. You know I'm alive. Y'all, let's go. I'm recoped to
- 11:26say I got you back. John, Wow, stop, I think you'd
- 11:37join now. It's not my job, guy says beside you, it's not
- 11:46my job. Excite side you said, Sid said so said? He said?
- 12:03He said so John always on anything show by way job job is all.
- 12:33It's all gone. So I'm John Lasso now Johnson Now, I shall
- 12:39my job and all doom by Josh Line. I may kill Josh my job
- 13:01til dogs that onside besides beside, now, it's not a tighlight douse that
- 13:09outside, besides beside, besides, besides, besides beside, side, besides,
- 13:16besides, besides, besides sides, besides besides you side, besides besides beside you