Killing Sadness, minds and dreams since 2011 by Nathan Perrier (drums) and Adam Richardson (bass/vocals)
HMA: Can you tell us about your musical background(s)?
NP: Doom, Rock, Hardcore, Grindcore, Crust, Punk, Death Metal, Psych, Drone etc. We have all been around for a long time and have made many records with different people and bands, some of which is reflected in 11PARANOIAS’ sound, but most of which is not. The experiences in our combined pasts brought us together as the 11PARANOIAS which exists now.
AR: As Nathan says, all three of us have been playing many types of music since we were kids. It wasn’t until 2011 when Mike and I started 11PARANOIAS, and since Nathan joined us, that the stars aligned to form a new constellation. We have never looked back; quite the opposite, in fact.
HMA: How did your new record come together?
NP: We changed things around a bit on this record and for the first time in 11PARANOIAS history we got together for a couple of days prior to recording and wrote music. It was a truly liberating experience. In the past, we have opened ourselves up to our surroundings and decanted an LP from the endless jam and it has always worked for us. This time, with our minds on the strength and character that those songs took on after repeated live performance, we decided to go into the project with a handful of pieces already written. These set pieces provided a powerful and dynamic springboard for us to dive into the void and snatch some astral jams and moods which makes this, for us, a unique, driven and propulsive record.
AR: We certainly approached Asterismal with a different mindset and method of attack. We worked with Wayne from Bear Bites Horse Studios, which took a lot of the production and recording duties I usually bear away from me so I could concentrate on the inward and outer space of the music. What emerged was pummelling riffs and proper mind-melting jams. It was a greatly enjoyable and cathartic record to birth and we are all very happy with the results and change of flavour.
HMA: Could you describe your artwork and how it fits your music?
NP: Adam always has a firm idea on what he wants a record to look like. He has achieved astounding results throughout his back catalogue, gaining permissions and collaborations from many luminaries of contemporary art. This time around the opportunity presented itself to collaborate with Toby Ziegler, a friend of Adam’s from way back. The results are – as always – intriguing and unusual. The feel was dictated by Toby’s style and Adam’s interest in the Occult and Esoterica.
AR: Artwork is everything to me. The mood or theme for artwork usually comes to me in a flash – either consciously or not. This instinctive phase is crucial and once made cannot be undone. Chaos magick. When that seed is planted, it rapidly takes over the whole of my brain in no time. Once we had agreed to work together, the look and feel were already taken care of. I went to Toby’s studio and we thrashed out all the artwork in about 3 or 4 hours. I have been a fan of Toby’s work since he began and was initially blown away by his incredible sacred geometry reflective-based canvases and his sculptures!
Toby’s paintings featured on Asterismal are beautiful re-renderings of oil on aluminium sheets of Georges de La Tour’s famous vanitas paintings of ‘The Flea Catcher’ and ‘Magdalen with the Smoking Flame’. He then effaced them with industrial grinding tools to reveal the raw brushed texture of the metal – re-instigating and decaying doom – stripped of vitality and forced to contemplate your own demise forever. A modern Memento Mori, in a way. The nearly-neon red flowering pentagram grid is eternal and is superimposed onto the old-world doom beneath.
I really wanted to utilise the MPV (Multidimensional Paranoid Vision) Keys – that we issued with the vinyl and CD versions of Reliquary For a Dreamed of World. On Reliquary For a Dreamed of World, the keys (RGB films) were used to isolate or unlock one of the layers of the artwork, depending on which key you use. The effect is breath-taking; even when you are used to it, it appears to be magic. On Asterismal, I asked Toby if we could utilise the keys differently to accentuate or obfuscate his intermingling layers of doom. We are all thrilled at the outré and eye-popping results.
HMA: Do you have any obsessions?
NP: Independence. Making music.
AR: Making and recording music. Making and hunting art. Reading and writing weird horror prose/lyrics.
HMA: Would you call metal, music for a secular world?
NP: There should only be a secular world.
AR: I concur with Nathan. I have always been confused about metal in some ways. I can’t stand maybe around 90% of all metal. The bands I do like I absolutely love. Only recently have I come to accept that most people think I play metal and not the ‘it’s just very loud slow rock – maybe a bit psychedelic and down-tuned’, that I always considered I have played.
HMA: What makes metal so attractive and how did you specifically fall in love with it?
NP: It is an outsider culture. It is volatile, immersive, explorative and antagonistic. It is not for everyone, certainly when done properly. I personally fell in love with the bombast, the attitude and the power and volume of the whole thing. It was and is a sensation which can’t be replicated anywhere else. It is a hurricane, a waterfall and thundering rapids or a pin-drop on a lake.
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Interview by Alex Milazzo – Copyright 2019 © Heavy Music Artwork. All rights reserved.
