We Talk To Sioum About Life Since The Release Of Album 'I Am Mortal, But Was Fiend' (Interview)
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Written by Patrick Gormley
Hailing from, in their own words, the northern wastes of Illinois, three piece Sioum put out in my opinion one of the finest but alas underrated (this side of the Atlantic anyway) post rock albums of 2010, their excellent debut 'I Am Mortal, But Was Fiend'. However, in the year since its release the band have been beset with issues outside of their control that have hampered plans for the albums follow up. We recently caught up with the band who explained more.
How did Sioum get started?
Sioum: All three members of Sioum originated from a band called Figure of Fiends. After that ended, Kevin and Dorian continued to write music together. About a year later, Arthur decided to join.
And where did the name come from?
S: Some friends of ours wrote an album, and it was very inspirational for us at the time. Sioum ties into and comes from that.
I was really impressed with your debut 'I Am Mortal, But Was Fiend', what were the highs and lows when putting it together?
S: Writing the music was the best part. Those songs were the first 3 that we wrote as a band. Recording and mixing was undoubtedly the low point. We had very little experience and knowledge in that area and it was a long drawn out process - over 8 months. Another high was when we finally finished the album. It was a huge relief to be done and have the finished product in our hands.
The albums artwork is excellent; can you tell us a bit about it?
S: The art was a collaborative effort with our friend Shannon. All of our songs have themes/stories that we conveyed to her before she began the artwork. During our 8 months of recording and mixing, she slowly pieced together all of the art. The idea was to help give stories and images to our music, while still allowing the listener's own interpretation and experience. Shannon's art gave us that perfect ambiguous touch. More of her work can be seen on her facebook art page "Beneath the Birds Art".
Is there any news on a follow up?
S: We currently have about 40 minutes of music that will be going on the next LP. We're also trying to figure out how we will approach recording the album - DIY, partial/full studio, programming vs. live drums...etc.
The album is very much a DIY affair; do you think this is the way forward for smaller bands?
S: It really depends on the goals of the band. DIY can be a very strenuous and long process of trial and error if it's your first time. Especially at first, the learning curve can be overwhelming (which can actually hurt the recording and more importantly the band). It takes patience. If the main drive of the group is to write, record, and perform their music, the most efficient route may be to get their music recorded by professionals in the industry. There are people who are very passionate and dedicate years to learning their trade, and much like a musician writing, recording and mixing is their art. People can always say that money is an issue for smaller bands - but if you're serious, a band is your family, investment, and future. Spending money becomes a trivial task that is necessary for proper development. On the other hand, if mixing and recording is something you aspire to learn, DIY can be a very exciting and gratifying experience. It can help broaden your knowledge in production, which can be applied to other aspects of the band such as live sound. Beyond that, for us, do it yourself just made more sense. We have a tendency to be perfectionists and very meticulous, which would have added pressure to a studio recording situation. We wanted to avoid that. Scoring for video games and film is also an important part of our band and a life-long goal. Working on the album gave us a great opportunity to further the production knowledge we need for that.
Some of the tracks on the album like Upon Awakening and Drifting Away have a cinematic feel, which director would you most like to collaborate with and why?
S: Darren Aronofsky comes to mind. Besides his movies being just plain amazing, his films always leave us inspired and with images we take with us when we write. Whether through the guidance of Aronofsky or Clint Mansell, there is also a "live band" aspect to some of the scores that we enjoy, The Fountain for instance. So working under those motifs would be awesome. The same could be said of Danny Boyle. Some of the music in our old band Figure of Fiends was actually heavily influenced by 28 Days Later and Sunshine.
Have you toured much to support the album?
S: Our plan was originally to take the plunge and set up massive tours shortly after we released the album. Unfortunately, Arthur's problem set in before we could do that.
Yeah I read somewhere that your drummer Arthur had some problems with his arm earlier in the year. How is he now and how has it effected the band?
S: Since our last news announcement, he has gone to another doctor and was re-diagnosed with what is most likely Radial Tunnel Syndrome. He is still undergoing different therapies to try and fix the problem. So, right now that is still in limbo. The biggest effect has been that we are unable to play shows. Although it has also presented us with an opportunity to write more, so we have tried to stay positive and utilize the situation as best as we can. Once things resolve we plan on setting up as many shows as possible and getting our music out there with tours.
So what bands would you most like to tour with and why?
S: Any band we enjoy listening to would be fun to tour with. Bands like Russian Circles and Intronaut make sense. Bands like Meshuggah, Baroness, and Torche don't make as much sense as our sound is different...but we would do it anyway.
But really, we have plans to kidnap Ben Sharp (Cloudkicker) and make him play shows/write music with us. Probably force Isis to get back together too. They can open for us.
What does the future hold for Sioum?
S: Besides working on music for our next album and releasing that, we are also in the middle of writing music for an indie RPG video game.
It's coming along really well and we should have more news on that in the near future.
Sounds cool, thanks Sioum!
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Some of the tracks on the album like Upon Awakening and Drifting Away have a cinematic feel, which director would you most like to collaborate with and why?
