Stereoboard Talk With Shining At Last Month's Damnation Festival (Interview)
Friday, 18 November 2011
Written by Ben Bland
Stereoboard sat down with Jørgen Munkeby and Bernt Moen from Norwegian avant-garde jazz metallers Shining at Damnation Festival to find out what makes this craziest of bands tick.
Well, here we all are at Damnation Festival. How happy are you to be here and a part of this amazing, diverse line-up?
JM: No, I am joking of course. We’re really happy to be here. It’s really cool to be doing something here in the UK because we haven’t really been here all that much. I said yes to this festival because I felt that it was something that was going to be good. We’ve played the odd show in the UK, we’re supporting Devin Townsend and we’ve supported Ihsahn over here but really I’ve decided that we don’t want to do shitty gigs over here because, like in the US, shitty gigs here really are shitty…and there are lots of other places that we could play good gigs. So that’s why I’m really happy to be able to actually play something cool over here and, like you say, it’s a diverse line-up despite it still being a metal festival. I mean, it seems less diverse to us I guess because we play lots of jazz festivals and pop and rock and mainstream festivals as well believe it or not…
You feel that you can sort of fit in anywhere…or rather not fit in anywhere…?
JM: Yeah, exactly! We fit in nowhere, so we stopped thinking about that when deciding where to play because we will always be the outsiders. It usually turns out well no matter who is in the crowd.
'Blackjazz' came out a little over a year ago now. How pleased were you with the reaction that record got?
JM: Well, I was super pleased with the album. We even amazed me with the concept and the time we took to think what we were doing…the music itself was important to me. We had all grown up with metal music and this album sort of felt like coming home to metal with the jazz elements we had played with for years present too. The production was great too…it just all fitted together really well. I was also then really happy with how it was received in the press…it got a better reception in some places than others of course. It is the kind of thing that people seem to like to give to their friends…it has a life of its own. What I’m most pleased with right now is that people ‘get it’. They feel that it is something that speaks to them and that they would like to have more of.
You are a pretty difficult band to describe…for the benefit of readers who are maybe a little unfamiliar with you could you possibly have a go at describing your music?
JM: I would say it sounds like American commercial industrial metal, in the way it is mixed…but of course the music itself is not like that. Of course, that kind of music is not really that commercial…I’m starting to fuck up again now (laughs). The actual music is free jazz mixed with hard metal but in a seamless way rather than a sort of mix and match style…but it sounds kind of clean in a way not dirty…if you see what I mean…
Yeah, it’s not a muddy sound or anything…
JM: No, not at all. One of the reasons I am so proud of this DVD we have done (the superb 'Live Blackjazz') is that when you get the picture with it as well, the whole thing comes together a bit more. There is a real human energy I think you get more with the live record than with the album and there are changes in the way we play the songs live as well of course. We try and be as energetic and as exciting on stage as possible despite the fact that we are playing very complex and detailed music so to have a document of that like we have with 'Live Blackjazz' is really important to me.
Your music is very chaotic in nature…how do you actually go about writing it?
JM: We don’t jam or anything. Some of the parts I write fully out beforehand and then send things to the other guys in the band. Not all of the parts will be fully fleshed out…they will still be quite loose. Then the whole band can jump in and get involved and change things around. When we play live, this also means that there are places when everyone is free to improvise. Sometimes I have riffs and full arrangements ready and then sometimes I just have a simple idea and the rest is up to the band. When we are in the studio everyone is involved. There is no one way of doing things in this band.
To finish off then, your cover of '21st Century Schizoid Man' by King Crimson…well, that is one of my favourite songs of all time without question yet your version has possibly become my favourite version of that song…
JM: Well, thank you…that’s awesome.
Was part of your mind set behind recording that song, and indeed behind playing it live, to get a reaction from your audience…to make them think “what the hell is this band doing?”
JM: Interesting…I am not sure…Bernt?
Bernt Moen (Keyboards): Well…our version of that song came about when we were asked to present a song from a different band for the radio or something I think….and well, when we played it obviously it was different…
JM: What I would say is…we don’t do what we do to provoke. I mean, I am not saying that you think that but obviously it is a question it maybe makes sense to ask us. That is not really a goal for us. I do not think that working to provoke is very interesting. That was kind of a nineties way of doing things, of creating art. Basically we tried to make that song the way we would make it if we had written it ourselves. We changed the bits we did not like very much, like that big in the middle which everyone focuses on. We sort of thought what would someone like Ornette Coleman do there…rather than put in accurate pitches and stuff just put an arrow up or down. Everyone was playing almost the same…and then it sounded pretty cool. When recording it we took away some instrumentation we thought was too ‘prog rock’ or ‘bluesy’…we took away the Fender Rhodes for example…we could not make it sound different!
It is notoriously difficult to make a Fender Rhodes sound at all different from the standard Fender Rhodes sound!
JM: Yeah, exactly…especially in a sort of bluesy riff like that. I mean, I was never really keen on the bluesy element of that song. So we took that way and focused more on the industrial synths and the bass being played a bit differently. It was all a bit harder and slower. It became a song we really liked in the end, and became our song in the way. That was the intention…but it was a hard and long road. I thought it would not be on the album but in the end when we had fucked around with it enough it ended up being something really cool and I no longer really think about it as a King Crimson song that we play…I think about it as our song.
Well, that I think is when you know you have succeeded with a cover. Thanks so much for your time.
JM: No problem man, thanks for taking an interest.
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JM: We don’t jam or anything. Some of the parts I write fully out beforehand and then send things to the other guys in the band. Not all of the parts will be fully fleshed out…they will still be quite loose. Then the whole band can jump in and get involved and change things around. When we play live, this also means that there are places when everyone is free to improvise. Sometimes I have riffs and full arrangements ready and then sometimes I just have a simple idea and the rest is up to the band. When we are in the studio everyone is involved. There is no one way of doing things in this band.
