Interview

CARCASS

Lundi 18 novembre 2013

How are you doing ?

Bill Steer : Pretty good, thank you. How are you ?

Fine. How has the tour been going ?

B.S. : Well... We're only 3 days in. This is gig number 4. It's been fun. It's been quite chaotic because you got three bands. Each one has its own kind of stage show. Obviously Amon Amarth

Amon Amarth

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has a very lavish presentation but Hell

Hell

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have quite a lot of stuff and we have a bit. So logistically it's been a bit of a nightmare. And obviously it's not cool as the support and if we run over, so there's been a few issues with the Amon Amarth

Amon Amarth

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crew, getting pissed off with us. (laughs) But I think it's gonna work, just settling in, you know.
I'm getting used to play for their audiences. Because most of the crowd, on a typical night, seems to be people having no idea who we are. So at the first gig in Germany, there was 3.000 people but I would say maybe 15 reacted at all. The rest was just staring at us looking really confused. It's gonna be kind of fun just to adapt to this because it's not our audiences, it's not the kind of people we play to normally. So I guess we'll learn a few things on the way.

© Christophe Ochal (Melodic Pixels)

It was quite surprising to see your name on this tour. Many people I know didn't want to come because they didn't care for the other bands.

B.S. : Yeah, I think there is that. The two bands attract very different audiences. And going by what I've seen recently, I don't we'll have too many of our fans coming to these gigs, because it's probably quite a high ticket price. Not a lot of money to put out there if the band you want to see is only playing for 40 minutes, which is the situation.
We're going to the U.K. next, after this, and that's interesting because we do have a decent following there, but I don't know if that will be represented at the shows, because they're quite costly.

This is your first proper European tour in a long time. Why did you choose to do it as support band ?

B.S. : If I'm being honest, I was adverted so. I didn't think we should do this, the others did. (laughs) I'm the guy who's really out to the loop. I don't really keep up with contemporary metal. But they were saying to me : "Listen, we need to do this tour because Amon Amarth

Amon Amarth

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are huge in Europe and we can potentially attract some new listeners through touring with them." I'm not sure if that's actually gonna work to be honest. We'll see. But we've agreed to do it so let's just have fun ! (laughs)

So even a band like Carcass

Carcass

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cares about attracting new listeners ?

B.S. : Yeah, I guess so. I mean, you just want to find a way forward.
This album has done really well already, which is not what we expected. It's really outstripped. We didn't anticipate it. And that's great, but I think when we agreed to do this tour, people had very low expectations for the album. So I don't know if there was enough confidence where people were thinking Carcass

Carcass

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could do a headlining tour in Europe. I don't think anyone was confident enough about that.

So if this album is doing well, can we expect the next tour to be a headlining tour ?

B.S. : Erm yeah, maybe. I'd like to, but you know, there are other opinions involved. I don't see us doing things like agents and promoters. We don't have a really really heavy weight agent fighting our corner. That could make a tremendous amount of difference about how you perceive, you value... We do have an agency in Germany. They take care of stuff we do normally take care of, but it's not like being on a huge thing like The Agency in the U.K. or something where they're very dominant and they can really almost force down people's throats.

© Christophe Ochal (Melodic Pixels)

So you released a new album this year, the first after 17 years. Who's idea was it to record a new album after the reunion shows ?

B.S. : Well... The idea was always mentioned, wherever we went. Like we'd meet fans of the band when we were doing the reunion shows and they would be either saying "Please do a new album" or "Please don't do a new album". It was really polarising. But it wasn't even an issue at that stage. It wasn't possible because of the line-up at the time, because half the band was in Arch Enemy

Arch Enemy

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and that would have created a very awkward situation for them because that's their party. Carcass

Carcass

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was just a secondary thing. So if they had an album with Carcass

Carcass

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, it would have been kind of annoying for the rest of Arch Enemy

Arch Enemy

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and it would have messed up their schedule. So as long as that line-up existed, it couldn't happen, even if we did want to do something, which privately Jeff and myself did. Further down the line, like 2010 I think it was, that line-up disintegrated. Mike and Daniel were jut too busy with Arch Enemy

Arch Enemy

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. So that chapter was closed and it gave me and Jeff the chance to actually seriously consider doing a record. So we got together and started writing. Once we realised it was gonna work, we just got busy. We wrote a lot of material reasonably quickly and suddenly we were in the studio. It was good.

How did you recruit the two new members ?

B.S. : With Dan, the drummer, that goes back a long way. Because he was playing with a Belgian band called Aborted

Aborted

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who played on one of our U.S. tours. I've seen him play and I knew he was great, so I just kind of kept him in mind as being THE guy to approach if we ever had a problem with Daniel (Erlandsson) later. And we did, so Dan Wilding was always number one choice in my mind anyway. He's a big factor in the album because the way he plays drums is very inspiring, and by bringing a lot of ideas. Often he'd have his own suggestions about arrangements or tempos and it would just improve what we already had. So that was killer.
With Ben, our guitar player, he came in later. Really we didn't agree that he was in the band until after the album was done. The whole record was done as a three-piece. That was Jeff, Dan and myself. And then, I guess around new year, we sort of made the decision that Ben was gonna be the guy to come into the group. We got busy practicing for these Underworld shows in London in March. So he's been around for a while now.

How's it going with that new line-up ?

B.S. : Great ! It's brilliant because everybody lives in the same country so we can practice, which wasn't really the case before. That was really tricky. I just think the band is a lot tighter now. And that's not a reflection on Michael (Amott) and Daniel (Erlandsson), because they're super musicians and they're very professional, but it's not the same thing if you don't play together regularly as we do now. To me, it just feels a lot healthier. It feels more like a group rather than a bunch of musicians coming from different locations.

What's next for Carcass ?

B.S. : Well this takes us to the second week of December, so it's almost Christmas by then.
In January I think we're doing the 70000 Tons of Metal thing. It's a cruise ship somewhere. I guess it starts off the coast of the States or something.
And then around March, we're doing a proper U.S. tour with The Black Dahlia Murder

The Black Dahlia Murder

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I think.
There's always things being thrown at us since we seem to fill in the gaps quite nicely. This year was originally looking really really dead. We didn't have much and then somehow all the gaps got filled and most of us haven't spent much time home really.

So this band is a full-time thing ?

B.S. : Absolutely. And it will certainly be like that next year. You know, this is what we're doing now. We wanna make the most of it.

You used to play in Firebird, a more blues oriented band. Don't you miss playing that kind of music ?

B.S. : Well I still play with Gentlemans Pistols

Gentlemans Pistols

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so I do get to explore that side a bit.

Do you still have time for it ?

B.S. : Yeah, I mean it is a little bit tricky but then everyone else in that band has other things themselves. But we're gonna do a new record and we've already started working on it. So I guess after I finish this tour, I'll have a couple of days rest and then we'll get back to doing that stuff.
They're impossible to compare. I mean it's such a different vibe. With this (Carcass

Carcass

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), you have to be on your toes for every second you're on stage because there's a lot of change in the music and you don't really have much space to improvise or relax or anything. You have to be regimented and on top of it. With Gentlemans Pistols

Gentlemans Pistols

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, there's more oxygen in the music. It breathes and you can kind of make it a little bit different every night if you want to. But what I like about doing this is that you just need to be in shape, like not just physically but mentally to play it. So it's sort of giving me a kick up the ass anyway. (laughs) Yeah, it's been good for me.

© Christophe Ochal (Melodic Pixels)

Do you notice differences in the metal scene now if you compare to the late eighties, early nineties ?

B.S. : Yeah, completely. To me, there's no resemblance between then and now. It's become a really big industry. I think it's great because metal is huge and that can't be a bad thing. But I guess the main thing I noticed was the whole industry of large metal festivals because that did not exist when we would go originally. I've said this before, but I think the largest show we played in the old days would have been maybe 4.000 people in Poland. And then as soon as we came back to do reunion stuff, we were playing to 30.000 people here, 40.000 there. So it was pretty shocking for me. I had never done anything like it. So the first few gigs, I was just lost. And then eventually, you get used to it and that becomes your new level. It's just like playing in a pub to 50 people. It's the same thing. But at first, I was pretty freaked out.

And do you enjoy playing such big festivals ?

B.S. : I do. It's a lot of fun, but I do prefer playing indoors definitely. I think there's something about the energy if you have a confined space. To me it just feels more focused. And you get the reaction of the audience a lot quicker. You can tell is something is working or not instantly, whereas at a festival... Sometimes I've played a whole set and I've had no idea if it went well, because you're just seeing a sea of heads in the distance really. But festivals help us survive if I'm really honest, because you get paid reasonably well at festivals. When you're doing clubs, not so much. But from a playing perspective, yeah I prefer clubs, completely.

You said earlier you don't listen much to new things. Are there bands you're into at the moment ? Bands you would advise ?

B.S. : Oh goodness ! (laughs) That's a good question. I'm really kind of stuck in listening to hard rock and early heavy metal. That's my favourite era of music. I mean I like other stuff like blues and soul too, but I love the stuff that happened around the early seventies through to the early eighties. I love the New Wave of British Heavy Metal because that's when I was first getting into music. It's a fun memory for me, just buying those 7-inch records... You really felt something exciting was happening in the U.K. I'm not a youngster anymore but I don't feel that way about British music right now.
I also still like some seventies bands. The last few months, I've listened to this group called Detective quite a lot. They were on Swan Song Records, which was Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

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's label. This was like a sort of supergroup of Americans and Brits. They did two albums. It's kind of in that seventies hard rock style with a great drummer and a really good feel.
I still love Stray Dog, Budgie, all that stuff, but then also a lot of Tank

Tank

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Motörhead

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and things like that too.

Do you have anything last to say ?

B.S. : I don't know... I guess we're really happy to be playing in Belgium again because it went pretty well last time.

When was last time ?

B.S. : I think last time was Graspop 2010. It was an insanely hot day, that's the main thing I remember about it. We were a last minute addition because somebody cancelled, maybe it was Mastodon

Mastodon

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or something, but the audience was quite responsive actually. Considering they weren't expecting to see us, we did get something back from them, which was lovely.
And this venue is killer, everyone told me it was gonna be really nice. So we'll see how it goes. As I said, it's not really our audience and if we get anybody on our side, that's good news. We're just trying to have a bit of fun I suppose.

TU AS AIME ? PARTAGE !

AUTEUR : Elodie

Liégeoise immigrée dans la capitale, Elodie a rejoint l'équipe en 2012 et s'est rapidement imposée comme une rédactrice compulsive en alimentant ...

Liégeoise immigrée dans la capitale, Elodie a rejoint l'équipe en 2012 et s'est rapidement imposée comme une rédactrice compulsive en alimentant abondamment la section 'News' tout au long de la journée. Plus intéressée par la musique sombre que par la pop-punk, elle réalise également des interviews d'artistes dans la confidence, au déto...

Liégeoise immigrée dans la capitale, Elodie a rejoint l'équipe en 2012 et s'est rapidement imposée comme une rédactrice compulsive en alimentant abondamment la section 'News' tout au long de la journée. Plus intéressée par la musique sombre que par la pop-punk, elle réalise également des interviews d'artistes dans la confidence, au détour d'un backstage ou d'un coin de bar. ...

Liégeoise immigrée dans la capitale, Elodie a rejoint l'équipe en 2012 et s'est rapidement imposée comme une rédactrice compulsive en alimentant abondamment la section 'News' tout au long de la journée. Plus intéressée par la musique sombre que par la pop-punk, elle réalise également des interviews d'artistes dans la confidence, au détour d'un backstage ou d'un coin de bar. ...

Liégeoise immigrée dans la capitale, Elodie a rejoint l'équipe en 2012 et s'est rapidement imposée comme une rédactrice compulsive en alimentant abondamment la section 'News' tout au long de la journée. Plus intéressée par la musique sombre que par la pop-punk, elle réalise également des interviews d'artistes dans la confidence, au détour d'un backstage ou d'un coin de bar. ...

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