Wolf
Counsel’s second full-length ‘Ironclad’ represented how this
Zurich-based band amazingly precisely deliver traditional doom metal
in its pure form. Ralf Winzer Garcia gathered a pack of excellent
musicians around him, he had proper tunes to lay foundation of the
album and non-trivial themes for lyrics. Thus ‘Ironcald’ was
almost invulnerable for critics, and it took just one year to return
with new album ‘Age Of Madness / Reign Of Chaos’ which sounds
like the next level of Wolf Counsel’s evolution. I asked Ralf few
questions about the band and new stuff and wasn’t surprised with
deep and thoughtful answers.
Hello Ralf! Honestly
I didn't expect that, we have a talk just one year ago when Czar of
Crickets just released “Ironclad”, and you already have new
album. So how can you explain that it happened so swift?
Hello
Aleks, yes time flies by I guess. Well the reason for releasing
another album just 14 months after “Ironclad” is very simple. I
constantly write little pieces of music, single riffs etc. and lyrics
as well. So in the course of a couple of months we usually have a
lot of new material to work with. Creativity to me is not dependent
on a particular time in general. It’s something that I tried to
blend into our daily life. Naturally we do not release albums for the
sake of it. A new full length only sees the light of day when we’re
content with the song material of course. This time it just took us a
little bit over a year. So we’ll see what comes next.
I guess that
recording albums on such speed means that you have enough inspiration
and you're sure that the material is strong, that it deserves to be
recorded and released. Am I right in this suggestion?
Oh
yes absolutely. As I pointed out above inspiration and a general
creative process can happen at any given time. It’s not that I plan
on writing a song on a drawing board. At least not the whole time. I
typically record (or write down) ideas that come to me in the
weirdest moments. It just happens while watching TV or cooking or
sitting in public transport for example. In addition to that I’m
very self-critical. A lot of times I delete stuff because I think
it’s not good enough or just not right. Usually when I record demo
versions of new songs I can feel if it’s something worth to pursue
or not. I have to experience a certain feeling when a new song
evolves from scratch. If that’s not the case I won’t work on it
any further.
Certainly that’s just
me. Sometimes I show new stuff to Reto our drummer to just get a
second opinion but 9 out of 10 times we agree on what should get on a
new record and what’s not.
All
of us have been playing in bands for like 30 years, touring,
recording, writing etc. So I guess it’s only a consequence of that
experience that we have quite a routine regarding songrwriting.
I believe that you
received enough reviews to make a conclusion if people dig into
Ironclad or don't. So what do people say about the album?
The
reception of “Ironclad” was fantastic by far. We honestly didn’t
expect anything. In this day and age with ten-thousands of new
releases every month it’s quite difficult to stick out from the
masses. Reviews are always personal views and opinions of course but
the number of positive and detailed feedbacks gave us the impression
that we had done something right or at least something that other
people (besides ourselves) wanted to listen to. Some writers said
things like that we reached our potential very early in our career
and that it was clear from this album and its songs that we could
only go even further up etc. That’s just an example. Meanwhile we
have feedbacks for our new and third album “Age Of Madness / Reign
Of Chaos” as well that points nearly in the same direction. The new
album is more diverse by far and so it naturally polarizes which is a
very good thing in our view meaning that we weren’t recording the
same thing twice.
“Ironclad” and
“Age Of Madness / Reign Of Chaos” are pretty good recorded and
produced, so technically Wolf Counsel are on top. But recording the
album isn't a cheap thing, how do you solve this issue? Or do you
know the way how to record the album both qualitatively and swiftly?
It was always important
to us to deliver the best possible material both from a creative
point of view as well as regarding the sound quality. Nowadays there
are a lot of ways to do things yourself and our decades of playing
and recording helps as well of course. We don’t have a big company
in our back that puts money and effort into new albums so we figured
out a very pragmatic approach to achieve the desired output. Some
parts and instruments are recorded in my own studio and some (for
example the drums) are recorded at Little Creek Studio which belongs
to our very good friend V.O. Pulver, a very experienced producer,
mixer and sound wizard. That’s how “Ironclad” and “Age Of
Madness/Reign Of Chaos” was done and we’ll probably proceed like
this for at least the next album as well.
How much time did
you actually spend into the studio? Which way and how intensively do
you usually work there?
As
a rough estimate I’d say something like 5 to 6 days - not including
the time that I spent in my own studio beforehand. These 5 or 6 days
are just the time for the drums and the overall mixing and mastering
process which is very intense. Overall a complete new Wolf Counsel
album takes about 2-3 weeks to be finished if you count the time that
I spend on recording stuff at my own place. Naturally the time in my
own place is limitless whereas the time at Little Creek Studio counts
every day – even every hour. For the final process we usually spent
like 8 to 9 hours in studio each day until the final master version
is done.
Wolf Counsel – Age
Of Madness / Reign Of Chaos
Did you search for
some changes after “Ironclad”? Did you have some innovative ideas
on your mind which you want to achieve with “Age Of Madness / Reign
Of Chaos”?
There
are always new ideas or influences I want to include when a new album
starts to develop. One thing for example was the addition of more
dominating guitar harmonies and epic melodies in minor scales and to
even include at least one mid-tempo song just to expand and diversify
our stylistic range. Another part was my voice or rather the way I
was singing. I began to embrace the fact that I liked my voice better
in a higher register. Now this is something that has to be trained
and worked on so I guess I’ll be reaching an even better level on
the next album regarding traditional higher vocals. Of course I can’t
compete with people like Rob Lowe or Messiah Marcolin or Mats Leven
but I’ll do it somehow in my own personal way.
During
the song (-and lyrics) writing period of “Age Of Madness / Reign Of
Chaos” I sensed a new path for Wolf Counsel that we’ll pursue on
the next two albums or so. It’s not new in a sense of music theory
but a style we’d like to follow for now. “Age Of Madness / Reign
Of Chaos” is only the beginning of Wolf Counsel getting more epic
and prolific.
I'd
say that the material sounds different: there's classic doom track
“Wolven Earth” – it’s slow and low, faster track “Semper
Occultus” brings the rocking doom vibe from 80s and the title song
for example is 10 minutes long monumental, pretty epic, voyage. How
did you work over the album’s structure?
We
wanted to widen our stylistic range in general. The title track for
example is probably the epitome of our current state as a band. It
includes everything the band stands for at the moment. By comparison
this band is relatively young even though we’re all active
musicians for nearly 30 years. We’re still in the process of
defining ourselves which makes our progress really exciting and
interesting. Rather than repeating the formula that can be heard on
“Ironclad” we wanted to experiment and include even more
stylistic ways that can be found in Doom Metal. Doom in our view is
one of the (or maybe even the) most diverse styles that’s out there
in rock music. So we wanted to follow that path of exploring even
though we are quite aware that we didn’t reinvent the wheel. We
just wanted to write great songs. Songs that we wanted to listen to
ourselves. Songs that were really honest, emotional and derived from
our own human inner sanctum.
All
of that just happened. It wasn’t planned at all. What we did in the
end was just to create a track list that made sense in a structural
way.
This time we also
can hear a lady on vocals in the song “O Death”, who is it? And
why did you decide to use female vocals for this song?
Originally
that song was just a very bare and simple acoustic song that I had
written with Daniel Venegas the singer that can be heard on O `Death.
That song was just too catchy and intriguing to let it wither in a
drawer somewhere. Additionally the lyrics of that song were suitable
for the topics of the other songs on the album. So we rearranged that
song and created a proper Doom Metal version besides the reason that
I think that female vocals enhance the overall atmosphere and feeling
of a song or a full album. The intent for using her vocals and this
song was all about diversification as well even if it’s only a
little part on the album.
What
did you want to express this time through your lyrics? You told that
“Age Of Madness / Reign Of Chaos” is a reflection of human life
and it's inevitable finite existence, so can you tell in details what
did inspire to write some of these songs?
Well
most songs have their very own topics like for example in WolvenEarth
there’s the current decaying state of this planet or in the title
track the downfall of humankind whereas Eternal Solitude covers a
situation that probably a lot of us know ourselves – being alone
and desperate and questioning hope for salvation of whatever problems
you’re in at the moment. Remembrance is about all those names on
cold stone or marble walls that remind us of the people that we have
lost all along the way and the hole that it leaves behind in our
lives.
When I finished all the
lyrics and felt that there was a underlying common topic throughout
the songs but I only became really aware of that in the studio when
we were mixing the album.
All
songs cover the topic of our very finite existence. It’s not an
album about death in general but about the very truth that we are
merely mortal beings. That’s something a lot of people just try to
push aside or try to avoid thinking about but in my view it’s
something to accept and to embrace because it is really inevitable.
In embracing this fact a lot of things in our daily lives become
redundant or at least the value of some things change for sure. I
find that a very interesting thing if one is willing to really engage
in thinking about it.
That may sound
philosophical or to some it may even sound like something from the
ivory-tower but it’s one of the few very common things that we as
humans all share alike.
What were Wolf
Counsel highlights in 2017 and what are your plans for the next year?
We
had the pleasure and honor to play nearly 25 shows in Germany,
Austria, Ireland and Switzerland which was really great for us
considering the fact that we’re still very unknown and do all of
the booking ourselves. The shows in Ireland were for sure one of the
highlights of the whole year due to the fact that the reaction and
feedback of the crowd was overwhelming. We never take something like
that for granted. Imagine an relatively unknown band playing in front
of approx. 350 people at the Siege Of Limerick Festival alongside
bands like Orange Goblin and people screaming and applauding very
loud in between our songs is something that you never forget. Almost
all of the shows had something special in one way or another. We were
lucky that we could support bands like Procession, Epitaph, The Order
Of Israfel, Castle SF, Year Of The Goat and Obelyskkh for example
that helped with the number of attending people of course.
So we’re working on a
continuing live presence which is not that easy nowadays. So with a
little luck we may be can announce great news in January or February
regarding a first European tour for us but we’ll see. Anyways we
will play more live shows in 2018 – the only question is when and
where. Apart from that we will record another album at the end of
next year for a release in spring 2019. That’d be the current plan
but I guess there’ll be even more surprises in store than this
year. However we naturally hope that people will pick up the new
album and will enjoy listening to these songs. That’s probably the
best we could hope for as an underground Doom Metal band.
Wolf Counsel –
Pure As The Driven Snow
Words by Aleks Evdokimov and Ralf W. Garcia
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