Myopia
Wywiad przeprowadził Piotr Pyczek
MYOPIA is another band from Canada we feature on our webpage. Just like Dichotic this guys are unbelievable. They play brutal death metal which you will immediately love, I bet. I hope that this interview will make new fans to this gifted band. So, Europe await MYOPIA assault in the near future!!!
The first thing I want to say that your music is brilliant. You play a clever combination of all the brutal genres - music I like best! But I still can hardly believe that your roots reach as far as hard core? Did it influence MYOPIA's first recordings? "Thanks, To a small extent, yes hardcore influenced Myopia when we first started. I am the only original member remaining, so the hardcore influence doesn't really apply to everyone in the band, except for Stefan our guitar player, he used to play in punk bands too. The first music I really got into was thrash and speed metal when I was a teenager in the late 80s, then I got into hardcore after that, so you could say the hardcore bands I played in where influenced by thrash. We are influenced by a lot of genres, including classical, jazz, metal, punk, we are fans of quality music in general, and our musical interests influence us to experiment a little and try to create brutal death that is original.
What were they like? "A more basic kind of grindcore, more like early Napalm Death, or Capitalist Casualties. Basically hardcore riffs played at grindcore speed, short songs, under 2 minutes long. There was some metal elements to the 2 early demos as well, some double bass drums, and more metal styled riffing on the second demo. "
Now you play something like brutal death grind...What are you favourites in the world of brutal death metal music? I think that you play very well just like all of them! Everyone knows that Canada has its own style in metal. Do agree with me? And what makes it such?"Some of my favorite brutal bands are Deeds of Flesh, Cryptopsy, Regurgitation, Dying Fetus, Terrorizer, Disgorge, Incantation, Suffocation, the list goes on and on. I also like some European death metal bands like Sinister, Liers in Wait, Vader, Deranged. I am not much of a black metal fan myself but I can get into the faster bands like Marduk, Darkthrone, Enslaved. I don't know if Canada really has a certain "style" of metal, because there is all kinds of metal bands from Canada, everything from classic heavy metal to rap metal to brutal death. There are some good black metal bands from Canada as well, such as Blasphemy, they are from our home town. They are one of the originating satanic black metal bands and they are still playing shows locally here in Vancouver. I think maybe that the bands from Canada that have gotten to be more well known on the international scene have always been very heavy and brutal, maybe that is why people think the style of metal from Canada is all a certain way. I also think that since Canada is a cold place, people are inside a lot and get bored and start bands. Maybe there is something in the water here that makes us play furious death metal that is instantly recognizable elsewhere in the world! "
One of the most known bands - Kataklysm are not as good as they were few years ago. I think that it is time for new band like MYOPIA to reign in Canada, don't you think so? "Sure, Kataklysm is still around, and I have full respect for them as people and the music that they have created in the past, but it is always good to have new bands to listen to, isn,t it? Once we do some touring across the country I'm sure we will be a lot more well known than we are right now."
Do you know what they (Kataklysm) are doing now?"They did a North American tour this summer, we opened up for them at an all ages show in Surrey, which is a suburb outside of Vancouver. They just released a new album, I can't remember what it is called right now, but it is pretty good. They are pretty cool people as well. We had a good time partying with them."
You are not new to metal scene.. at least that Canadian one... Any plans to conquer Europe? "It would be great to get a chance to play in Europe! Hopefully we will have built up enough of a name for ourselves by our next album that we could support ourselves on tour supporting it. It would be ideal if we could get an opening slot on a more well known band's tour, but we are working on getting a government grant to tour Europe with, in case that doesn't happen. We might even be out there in the Fall of 2001! "
What does MYOPIA stand for? What is the main lyrical topic of your new material "Concentration of suffering"? I saw the cover art so I can guess that it is not about love nor about ancient mythical warriors ha, ha, ha.... Who do you direct this album to? What is the target audience for it?"Well, that's kind of hard to say. Myopia means 'near sightedness'. We mean that in the figurative sense, not the literal sense. Kind of like, people are near sighted in their lives, they just eat, sleep, and work. Most people don't think about anything but their own reality, and aren't open to different ways of thinking, they are closeminded. Our lyrical topics are generally about anger, frustration, revenge, murder.. that type of stuff. We aren't your typical gore or satanic death metal band lyrically. On the next album we will probably print the lyrics to our songs. We have songs written about fictional characters struggling with existance, some songs are influenced by movies and video games as well.
We direct this album to anyone who will listen to it, but we really play it for fans of brutal death grind and the metal underground. I know some people who don't listen to metal at all, but they like our stuff, which I think is pretty cool. The pictures you used on the cover can be easily found at www.shownomercy.com Do you visit such wesites often?
"Sometimes, but after looking at that stuff for a while, I get kind of numb to it, so it's not as shocking. I actually get bored of it pretty fast. The picture on the back cover of our CD has a meaning to it. That is a Tibetan Sky Burial. In Tibet, they are so high in the mountains there is no soil to bury the dead, and there is no wood to spare to cremate the bodies. So they cut the corpse a few times so there is some raw meat, and put it out on a ledge, and let the vultures eat the body. They strip the corpse clean in under 5 minutes. I though that was pretty cool. Humans are part of the food chain after all."
Yeah.. that's really cool....Do you often use internet? "Ecstasy in Discord" - your 2nd release was mainly distributed via internet. Why? "I work on the internet, I work as a technical support/computer networking technician, so I am on it daily. We distributed Ecstasy in Discord over the internet because we didn't have the money to make actual copies of that demo. We were working on better new songs anyway, so we just put the MP3s up on the web and let people download them."
Metallica didn't like mp3 format ha, ha, ha... How much of internet do you use in promoting your releases? "A lot. I find most of the zines and labels to send our CD to that way, and we also have songs up on MP3.COM. The internet is a great tool to promote your band, you can reach thousands of people with your music without spending much money, which is good because most musicians don't have any!"
The next release - "Concentration..." has been released as a CD. You financed it yourselves ... an injection of extra money?
"No, we just decided that we believed in our songs and our skills enough to put our own money into the CD. We spent a fair bit of money recording it, so it would sound comparable to bands that are on labels. We wanted people to know that we are professional, and willing to sacrifice in order to get somewhere in the metal underground. A lot of bands get together, and make cheap shitty demos and send them to labels in the hopes of getting picked up. If they don't get picked up, they break up. We didn't want to be like that, what's the point of making music if you don't believe in it enough to sacrifice? We will self finance all our own releases until we find a label that will help us take our music to a larger market, without screwing us in the process. Plus, when you record and manufacture your own CDs and shirts and stuff, you make your own money. Like right now, we are getting distributed by Repulse Records mailorder, and we get more per cd than we would if we were signed to a label. The only drawback I find is finding the money to finance the band, and promotion."
Is it easy to release something like this? I mean all the expenses and lack of time... Has there been any response from any label yet?"It wasn't the easiest thing to do, since we did a lot of the production ourselves, so it took some time. We learned from our mistakes, and know what to do on our next recording. It cost us a fair bit of money, but it was worth it. All in all it was an enjoyable experience, especially once it was done and listening to it. We learned a lot from this recording."
You know that Europeans love such music? Especially Polish, Czechs and Slovaks... Just try to be at one of summer fests there...You'll be praised there.... Do you often play concerts?"We try to play as often as we can, but in a town the size of Vancouver, we can only play about 2 or 3 times a month without overplaying around here. The scene is kind of small, there are about 10 bands, and when you go to a brutal show, half the people in the crowd are in the bands themselves. A lot of the shows suck here because there are limited venues to play, American bands have problems getting over the border, etc. We still try to have fun playing locally though, everyone in the scene is right into the brutal metal, so it's cool. I really want to play in Europe, badly. I have spoken to people in other metal bands who tell me that they will play to 100 people in a city in Canada, but when they play in Europe they play to 1000 people, even more at the festivals.
I know canada is quite big so travelling from town to town is rather time (and money) consuming...How does it look like in your case? "We are planning on doing some cross country touring in 2001, we just need to take care of a few things first. It is about a 12 hour drive between major cities in the western half of the country, so you need stuff to sell in order to survive on tour. We are located on the west coast, so we are a long way from most of the bigger cities in Canada. We are working on getting shirts ready to sell so we can finance a tour. Our goal is to make it to Toronto or Montreal, the metal scenes there are a lot bigger than here so we could pick up a lot of fans playing live out there, plus it is closer to the east coast of the US. The US east coast's metal scene is where a lot of the major American death metal bands are, so there is a better scene there as well."
Is there any person is the death metal world you would like to send a copy of your album to and hear from him: "Yes! this is the best piece of music I've heard"? Is there anyone like that? "Doug Cerrito, from Suffocation/Hate Eternal. If he liked our CD, that would would be really cool, because I love that guy's riffs!"
A lot of great album have been released lately. What are your favourites?"I really, really like the new Nile CD, "Black Seeds of Vengeance", that is some of the most brutal, original death metal I have ever heard. The new Cryptopsy and Dying Fetus are good too."
Ok.. that's all thanks for your time. You can growl here whatever you wish. "Thanks for the interview Piotr! Stay Brutal!!!ROOOAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! "
gurth@angelfire.com
