Man, that 70 minutes flew by - thanks for arranging Nik, great questions and we all really enjoyed doing the interview!

Great questions from Nik! Also glad I got to see both Nik's and Matt's faces for the first time (and I now understand the origins of your usernames ). When listening to Jonathan's metal journey, I was strangely reminded of myself with him starting in indie UK stuff like Arctic Monkeys (I was totally taken by surprise when he said Humbug, which is probably also my favorite album of theirs) before going on a "crash course" of extreme metal. Very cool insights into the band members, who all seem like great guys. Wishing Vulgaris all the success!

Written by musclassia on 24.04.2024 at 14:40

Man, that 70 minutes flew by - thanks for arranging Nik, great questions and we all really enjoyed doing the interview!

It was nice to see that the other three members are cool people, too. I really liked how no one attempted to steal the spotlight, and you all seem to be different personalities but working well together.

Written by F3ynman2000 on 24.04.2024 at 20:07

I now understand the origins of your usernames

When I watched it before sending it to SSUS to upload it on our YT channel, I realized that I had misheard George (the drummer) and he hadn't actually asked me the origin of my MS username

Oh I just remembered something that I wanted to ask you, Nik. You said you don't like interludes? Why not? I love interludes like "Die Rache Krieg Lied der Assyriche" (Nile), "Forlorn In Silence" (Lord Belial), "Channeling the Power..." (Burzum) "Mountains Above The Sun" (Vektor), "Orthanc" (Summoning),... the list goes on for me

Written by F3ynman2000 on 25.04.2024 at 18:22

Oh I just remembered something that I wanted to ask you, Nik. You said you don't like interludes? Why not? I love interludes like "Die Rache Krieg Lied der Assyriche" (Nile), "Forlorn In Silence" (Lord Belial), "Channeling the Power..." (Burzum) "Mountains Above The Sun" (Vektor), "Orthanc" (Summoning),... the list goes on for me

You provide some good examples that prove the opposite, but, more often than not, I find them either unnecessary or I don't see the point of them not being part of songs. So, it's not that I generally hate them, it's more that I rarely see any point in their existence as individual tracks, if that makes sense.

Written by nikarg on 25.04.2024 at 20:52

Written by F3ynman2000 on 25.04.2024 at 18:22

Oh I just remembered something that I wanted to ask you, Nik. You said you don't like interludes? Why not? I love interludes like "Die Rache Krieg Lied der Assyriche" (Nile), "Forlorn In Silence" (Lord Belial), "Channeling the Power..." (Burzum) "Mountains Above The Sun" (Vektor), "Orthanc" (Summoning),... the list goes on for me

You provide some good examples that prove the opposite, but, more often than not, I find them either unnecessary or I don't see the point of them not being part of songs. So, it's not that I generally hate them, it's more that I rarely see any point in their existence as individual tracks, if that makes sense.

Fair enough. I don't personally mind having them as individual tracks, but I could definitely see the dilemma there. Vulgaris also mentioned they were debating whether to include it in the track or not. I guess a separate interlude track works best if the music is so different that it doesn't really match any of the other songs. In those songs I listed, the vibe definitely fits to the album, but the individual interlude tracks focus more on one aspect that isn't as prominent as in the rest of the album (like acoustic guitar for "Forlorn in Silence", and the full-on parade/marching sounds of "Die Rache Krieg Lied der Assyriche").

Written by nikarg on 25.04.2024 at 20:52

I don't see the point of them not being part of songs.

I see it more like that they make sense within the context of the album, but you wouldn't necessarily want them when you'd listen to the individual songs by themselves. You want to have the option to listen to the song itself without having to listen to the interlude to or from another song, even if that interlude helps the album's flow.

Written by RaduP on 27.04.2024 at 23:42

I see it more like that they make sense within the context of the album, but you wouldn't necessarily want them when you'd listen to the individual songs by themselves. You want to have the option to listen to the song itself without having to listen to the interlude to or from another song, even if that interlude helps the album's flow.

I get that. It definitely applies to the interludes used on Seat Of The Fire.

I remember reading an interview with Jack Starr about what David DeFeis did to Virgin Steele after Starr's departure and he said something like, "I don't get it. He's got all these two-minute interludes and junk. Just write songs, bro." I can find that a liiiiiiittle tiresome with Virgin Steele, who are probably one of the best practitioners of the grand division between songs and transitions, although they are also certainly more over-the-top than most; I think I tend to agree with Radu's explanation (and Matt's) that something that works in the context of an album doesn't necessarily work in the context of an individual song. And it's also often true that that "interlude" portion consists of an entirely different musical theme than a full song that it sits adjacent to, so it's not always a logical build from one to the other in the sense of a singular composition, even if they fit together well as two separate compositions moving into each other.

As far as the interview itself, it is kind of funny realizing that most folks around here are not used to seeing and hearing Matt and Nik; I've done it enough times now that that didn't faze me, except for all the times when they appeared on screen and I forgot I wasn't on a video call and started trying to make eye contact.

Matt, I continue to be jealous of your ability to plough through so much new music on a daily basis. I can basically cram in two, maybe three new releases in the evenings if I'm lucky, and often not that much. I'd love to have a work situation that opened up more space to listen. I do tend to go digital - I collected CDs exclusively for years and it was basically COVID that switched me to digital, since I started buying up as much as I could on Bandcamp for the sake of the bands and I got used to forsaking the physical editions. I'd pretty much run out of storage space anyway, so now I tend to buy digital-only through Bandcamp just out of pure practicality, though the particularly important ones I like to get physically if I can. I'm going to have to look into that Vulgaris merch.

It is pretty funny how big a role album artwork plays in selling an album, even though it ultimately has nothing to do with the music itself. I mean, it can certainly set a tone, further an impression, develop a theme, etc., but it's not part of the musical element that is, in the end, the entire work of the band releasing the album. I have definitely bought albums because the cover looked cool. I think that's very much a dying practice, though, since you can now try before you buy much more easily than before.

The desert island/Andes question is a classic one but it's such a good one. That's one of those standards that you can't hate because it's so good. And this was probably the only time that Pinkerton and Storm Of The Light's Bane have been recommended in the same context. I'm also quite surprised to hear Lucid Planet come back up. Those guys really swept this place well. The inclusion of To Pimp A Butterfly and Beethoven/Bach was quite interesting. That was an eclectic mix of stuff.

This was a cool interview and I'm glad you guys could work it all out. I'm looking forward to hearing the album in full.