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Dave Haley
| I just finished listening to The Inherited Repression and, I gotta say, I'm liking this one a lot more than Ob(Servant). It feels like you guys just got so much tighter in your performance. Did the four years between that album and this one prove to be beneficial for you? Please explain. |
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Dave:
Definitely, We spent so much time on this album we feel that we really got this one perfect. We really took our time on making sure we had this one really tight and we spent a lot of time on the pre production so that the songs sounded exactly how we had visioned them to be and ironed out any 'filler' bits.
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| About how much of that time was devoted to writing the material, and do you feel it was all worth it in the long run? |
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Dave:
Its hard to say exactly how much time was spent on the writing process for this album as joe had written bits and pieces during the touring cycle for observant and we were still changing bits and pieces right until the final phases of the recording process. But I guess you would say we spent maybe 18 months writing pretty solidly. It was definitely worth every second of it, even though it got frustrating at times it paid off for sure!!
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| It's clear that Psycroptic treads into the Technical Death Metal style, but here it seemed like you really focused on the overall performance and not being too complex or complicated. Was that one of the goals with this one, or do you guys feel you showed off enough on the album? |
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Dave:
Its never really been about showing off for us, we've always just played what we love to play. With this album we really wanted to focus on having a real big groove element to it and to make it catchy to the listeners. We really wanted the fast and technical elements of the songs to have a bigger impact than what they did on our previous material so we figured the best way to do that was to not use so much of it, so that when it comes in after a groove or more mid paced part it really hits a lot harder.
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| You guys added some ambient elements to the album, such as the instrumental bits on "Carriers of the Plague" towards the end of it that connects it to "Forward to Submission." Was this a move you felt necessary for the impact of the music, or did these come in later? Please explain. |
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Dave:
We experimented on observant with some intro outro type bits and we all really liked the way that it came out so we wanted to explore it a bit more on this album. We didn't actually have these parts written when we originally wrote the songs but we had an idea of which songs we wanted to use the ambience and acoustic style parts for, so once the album was recorded Joe worked his magic and wrote them.
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| Are you pleased with how those sections work out? If so, or if not, would Psycroptic ever consider writing an album that finds all the song intertwined somehow? Please explain. |
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Dave:
We were all really happy with these parts but I don't think that we would ever try to interlink a whole album as I think it would lose some of its impact and I don't think we have the sort of style that really calls for it to be done in excess.
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| One thing I noticed about the album was the audio quality and how crisp it was. Was this higher quality the way the band wanted to go initially? Please explain. |
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Dave:
I think to an extent we have always had a fairly crisp and clean sound, but more so on this album than on our past works. The production on this one is exactly how we wanted it to sound and due to the amount of time we had to spend recording it we really worked on the sound of each instrument before we actually recorded it rather than just saying fuck it that'll do, then having to try fix it up when we mixed.
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| The more I listener to the album, the more I started picking up on a sort of Pantera or Lamb of God atmosphere. This isn't to say the album's music sounds like either, but it felt like there was a mild Southern sound to it. Were you guys listening to either of those acts and maybe had it influence the music, perhaps something related to the audio quality? If not, what bands were you listening to a lot of that may have influenced things? |
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Dave:
I've actually had a few people say the same thing to me but we aren't really influenced by either of those bands. I haven't ever listened to Lamb of god so I can't really tell if we have similarities or not!! As with most metal heads we love Pantera but don't really draw any influence from them, to us they are just more of a classic band that gets put on at a party and everyone sings along when you've had a gut full a booze!! For things I was listening to at the time I would have to say the latest Testament album has been my biggest influence, that album absolutely fucken rules!!!
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| Much of the album seems to be at a mid or faster pace. The only time it really seems to go slower is during portions of "Deprivation." Why did Psycroptic decide to tackle this song differently compared to the rest of the tracks here? |
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Dave:
It wasn't really a conscious thing with writing fast songs and slow songs they all just got flowing and went the way they that naturally felt that they should.
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| Are theree any tracks on here that you consider special, perhaps holding it close to your heart for some reason or just loved writing/playing? If so, which one or ones and why? |
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Dave:
I would have to say Euphorinasia because that was the first song off the album we ever played live and was the first Psycroptic song I ever wrote lyrics for, and I really like the intro and I pretty much love everything about it And the other one would have to be The sleepers have awoken as its just so thrashing and different to any other song that we have written in the past and its got a real good up beat tempo.3
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| Obviously Psycroptic will be touring in support of the album, so what can we expect with the set list? Do you have any already put together you would like to share, or perhaps certain songs off this album you plan to perform live, or at the very least want to play out? |
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Dave:
As always we like to mix our setlists up with songs off all our albums but with a bit more focus obviously on our latest songs. We have already been playing a few songs off the new album for a while now and they are: Euphorinasia, Become the cult and Carriers of the plague. I really hope that over the next 12 months or less that we incorporate all the songs off this album into our live shows as I think they will all be really good crowd pleasers!
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| How do you think the crowd will react to some of the new material when you guys play it, or what was it like if you already have started playing some of it live? |
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Dave:
The crowd reaction so far has been really good with the new stuff, its a lot more grooving and just up beat rather than blasting the whole way so its really good for the mosh pits!!
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| I don't mean to get too personal here and if it is you don't have to answer this, but when you look back at the debut album The Isle of Disenchantment back in 2001 up until The Inherited Repression, what are your thoughts? Not just about the band's growth, but just as an overall entity that you all are taking a part of, such as how Psycroptic over those years has affected your attitudes or mentality, or your own lives, and have you reached the point in your life/career you wanted to be at right now? |
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Dave:
The growth of the band has been huge since the first album to now, it has definitely changed everything about all the members! I feel that we have achieved so much as a band, I mean we come from a very remote part of the world that fuck all people have even heard of and now we are touring the world, so its been a pretty crazy ride!! Obviously we would all like to bigger than what we are now but thats not to say that we aren't really happy with where we are now because we are so happy with where the band has taken us all. Its just been an awesome experience for us because we are all such good friends who have grown up together and now we are living the dream!!!
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| Is there anything else that you would like to mention before I let you go? |
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Dave:
BUY the album don't just be a cheap fuck and download it! Your support is what keeps us bands going so keep supporting extreme metal!!!
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Interview conducted via e-mail thanks to:
Nuclear Blast Records.
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