Zoophyte
Zoophyte have a monster hit on their hands with The Empire which is a precursor to the album coming out later in the year. Cam Lee talks to Across The Ocean about the forth coming album and how it is shaping up.
It must be exciting times for Zoophyte with a new album and kick arse single The Empire doing great things on radio?
It has been a really busy eight months or so and we haven’t really done too much gigging or touring. We’ve been bunkered down doing a lot of writing and recording. It has been a lot more of an organic process in that we have recorded everything at home and taken it all in to the studio to mix. We have had a lot more freedom and it has been more relaxed environment. It has been great finally to be gigging again and getting the music out there.
Is the recording at home a part of a more DIY process or trying to cut some costs?
Yeah, both of those points and we did the whole big production in the studio last time which was a great experience but this time we wanted to do something a little different with this album. Doing it this way we have been able to explore a lot of different sounds and create something different with this album. Having the luxury of doing it at home gives us that freedom to explore different sounds and take time to do that. It has been a good process.
Did the ideas flow and come a lot easier than last time?
We find writing music from a band point of view comes quite easily but obviously we spend a bit more time on the lyrics and getting the message of songs across which can be more of a labour of love. We set ourselves a goal in November to come up with four or five songs by the end of the year fitting it in around everything else. That quickly turned in to ten which we laid drums down on in December. An EP turned to an LP quite quickly so we’ve recorded three quarters of the album and we just need to write and finish off a couple more songs then we should have the album out by the end of the year.
Churning out so many songs do you find yourself more critical of what you’re producing?
It is hard but good to be able to have that luxury of having a couple of tracks that could get dropped off during tracking or be put on the back burner. It is always good to be able to have more than less but it can be hard especially when someone is attached to a song.
Was there consideration of doing a series of EP’s rather than an LP to suit the whole iTunes market and the way people take in music?
We don’t write for a particular market but ultimately creating something that we like and feel comfortable putting our name to. I suppose in the process of writing more songs I think you start to see a trend of where the album will go. There is definitely an industrial sound in there with a military vibe particularly with some of the drum tracks. The more you write the clearer is the direction you’re going to go.
Did something inspire or influence this industrial sound?
I think we were trying to elaborate on the last album and there were certain songs from it that struck accord from us playing them live. We’ve taken that and tried elaborating more on that a little bit more and try and push ourselves to develop some new sounds. Our guitarist who has come on board, well come on board in the last two years, wasn’t involved in the last album we wrote is an amazing piano player so we have been able to explore a lot more electronic and sampled sounds. Being at home we were able to have countless hours of coming up with things we liked rather than being on the clock.
What’s the background to the new single The Empire?
It is a song loosely based around the Russian revolution and the tone of the song is one of bandying together and overcoming adversity. This was the first song we wrote in this batch of songs for the album so that military vibe shone through on a lot of the other songs. It is a hard hitting song about taking on the world.
Was it the obvious choice for first single?
It was between that another two or three that could have been first single at this stage. This song encapsulates the sound of what this album is about and is a little bit different from what we have done in the past in terms of space and there was a lot more percussion. We have a film clip coming out for it and our special effects guy was able to recreate and put us back in the 1920s and the artwork already seen on FaceBook will be a part of the clip which is exciting.
Any plans to tour soon?
The key is to get around the country around August and September and then finish off the album before the end of the year.
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
- Aversions Crown - January 27, 2017
- Sick Of It All - January 19, 2017
- Refused - January 11, 2017
