Today's
guests – DUNE – released one of my fave records of 2013 with
Progenitor. A spacey cosmic hybrid of Sludge, Doom, Stoner Metal and
Space Rock packed full of delicious riffs.
It's
a brilliant and varied sound which showcases the bands love of
Science Fiction. It's one hell of a trippy ride. I called their début
album:
“Dune
have the potential to one of the next big things in the UK
Sludge/Stoner Metal scene as I cannot see any other band doing this
sort of music. Maybe Gringo are the nearest thing but Dune have
something special about them.
It's
a shame Progenitor is only one for 30 mins as I wanted to hear more.
It's a breathtaking debut release that Dune should rightly be proud
of. Lets hope their debut full length isn't to far behind as I
predict very big things for Dune in the next couple of years.”
With
the album being released on 12” 140g transparent red vinyl in April
(Which I have already pre-ordered) – I had to catch up with these
intergalactic space riffsters.
Q1
– Hi guys. Thanks for doing this. How are things with you all
today.
Really
good ta, cheers for having us!
Q2
– So let's get down to business. Can you tell our readers a brief
history on how the band started and where it is today.
The
band started after a ‘blind date’ between Simon and Victor. At
the time we were both new to Edinburgh so it took us a while to get a
solid line up. We jammed with some (great) people until we met Dudley
and that was the initial line up. After not being able to find a
bassist, Simon moved across from guitar so we would have the full
band and be able to gig. Jan from Atragon was originally the vocalist
but after a few gigs, things didn’t work out.
So
we went on the instrumental path while looking for the right feet.
And Dan came along to play guitar and do vocals. He instantly fitted
and we ended up playing with Eyehategod 2 weeks later for his first
gig (no pressure ha). For the last 6 months we’ve just been gigging
in and around Scotland, whilst working on a heap of new material.
Q3
– How would you describe your sound. Psychedelic Doom/Stoner/Sludge
Metal is what I would call it. Would you call it something else.
You’re
definitely in the right ball park with those genres. We all listen to
a wide variety of music, but its certainly the heavier genres
influencing what were doing, big riffs, slower heavier sections mixed
with a bit of technical playing… riff-tastic space metal !
Q4
– Lets talk about Progenitor. It's a fantastic record. It's been
out for a few months now. It's received loads of praise. Were you
surprised with the reviews you received for it.
Thanks
very much! The initial feedback has been great and we can’t wait to
get the vinyl version out there. Recording it was really fun for all
of us, and we hope that shows in the music.
Q5
– Was it a hard or easy album to write and record for. As it has
many different ideas that you may miss on your first listen. And
would you change anything about it.
The
recording went fairly smoothly (despite it being Dudley and Simon's
first time in a studio). Having a great, friendly engineer in Iain
(Bachhus Baracus) certainly helps, as does playing the songs fairly
relentlessly at practice and live before going into the studio. We
definitely had a strong idea of what we wanted to do on each track.
Saying that, I think there are always bits that you will listen to
down the line, and think ‘oh we could have done that instead’ but
you have to draw the line somewhere on a song.
Q6
– What is the album about? Is there a concept behind it or do you
want people to discover this for themselves.
The
album follows the birth and life of a universe. It is a journey
through the transition from nothingness to the big bang and the
universe constant expansion to its end and ultimately a new
beginning. The story is told from the viewpoint of a space traveller
. Starting his journey relatively early in the universe life cycle,
he travels throughout the galaxy in both space and time. He ends up
in a strangely similar star system, where once there may have been
life. But the sun is dying. His journey follows a very cyclical
theme. I (Dan) was reading ‘time ships’ by Stephen Baxter at the
time, and parts of that heavily influenced a lot of the narrative.
Q7
– Which bands and artists influenced you as musicians. Any
particular band or album that stand out.
We
could list an endless list of bands that inspired us, but some have
been quite big for us at the time we wrote the music. But at the time
bands like Mastodon, High on Fire, Neurosis, Baroness, Converge,
Sleep and Eyehategod were pretty important to us. But with Dan in the
band and the next releases to come we want the music to evolve. So
we’ve got loads of new stuff with a different edge. While getting a
little bit more demanding and technical the next release will be
something new for us.
Q8
– Dune is a band firmly rooted in Science Fiction and so is the
album. Was it an easy decision to mix your music with your love of
Science fiction?
We
wanted our music to go through stories and we really like working on
some kind of concepts. So Sci-Fi came really naturally. And the music
going through different movements makes things easy to build a story
line on.
Q9
– What styles of Science Fiction do you enjoy. Books or Movies?
Both!
As a band we all are more or less digging Sci Fi, so we read books,
comics, watch movies, play video games and the geekiest one of us
(Dan) plays 40k. For the next release we are taking inspirations from
Dark Sci Fi themes out of StarCraft, Alien, The Forever War books
series by Joe Haldeman, and other Alastair Reynolds books.
Q10
– Now lets talk about about the brilliant album cover. Great design
by Ross D. McKendrick. How did you guys hook up with him. He is a
fantastic artist and designer. How much input did you have with the
design of the album cover.
Ross
did some cool artwork for a few shows in Edinburgh so at the time we
asked him to do a shirt for us. And if I remember well after our show
with Eyehategod he came back to us with some cool draft, which we
thought would look awesome for the EP. So after that we gave him a
rough idea of what we wanted and the rough outline of the lyrics and
left him create something cool out of it.
Q11
– I want to talk about your killer vocals. 3 or 4 Vocalists in one
band. Excessive but brilliantly insane and it works for your album.
Is it hard to record vocals with DUNE. Or do you all agree
before-hand who gets to sings which vocals.
Its
all agreed beforehand. On the ep, Dan & Victor do the main
vocals, and Simon did some back vocals. We tried to keep things
interesting with a mix of screaming, growling and singing. Although
we’ve decided to only have Victor and Dan doing vocals live for
now.
Q12
– Now Progenitor is being released on a lovely limited edition
vinyl. Congrats on that one. How did that come about. Wasted State
Records is releasing it. How did you hook up with them?
As
the songs were coming together we were really thinking about having
the EP released on vinyl. Obviously it is always quite expensive and
looking for a record deal takes a lot of time. So we decided to
release the EP digitally for free just so people could get a chance
to know what we were doing. After few offers for CDs and tapes from
really cool labels, Toni (Wasted State Records) told us he really
liked Progenitor and gave us a really good deal for a 12’’
coloured vinyl. We couldn’t be happier for a first release.
Q13
– Did you have much input into the design of the Vinyl itself.
-The
artwork done by Ross was originally drawn up to vinyl spec so there
was no issue in that aspect. Dan designed the inner sleeve and the
label to go on the disc itself. Then we though that a transparent red
finish for the vinyl itself would look deadly with the artwork.
Q14
– How big of a help has BandCamp and the Doom/Sludge/Stoner Metal
community been in promoting your music.
We
released the EP for free at first because we really wanted to have
our music available for everyone. So it ended up being shared pretty
much everywhere, with quite a few video on YouTube etc. So yeah
BandCamp is really helpful but it takes its fair share and limits
your action if you don’t have a professional account.
And
obviously the scene is great to promote our music. We definitely had
a lot of support from other bands like Bacchus Baracus and Atragon.
And we’ve been lucky because a lot of our music have been shared
via different platforms. It really feels like there is an online
community for Heavy Music which is great.
Q15
– What is your musical set-up when playing live or recording your
music. Any hints and tips would you like to give to the budding
musicians out there.
Guitar
tone is really something we are focusing on, getting a good heavy
sound that is still clear is key for us, and we’ve found the best
way to do this is to push volume on tube amps (nothing new, but it
works!). Live we’ve been using a mixture of Orange, Egnater, and
Peavey amps, through as many cabs as we can physically fit on (or
off) the stage.
For
the last recording we got to use a great choice of different heads
and cabs Iain had collected for his studio. Some Matamp, Orange
Rockerverb and AD140, bass cabs, and a lot of other guitar cabs with
different speakers. What is fun with Heavy Music is to try a lot of
different amps, cabs, pedals, just changing stuff and experimenting.
It’s an endless tone quest which makes things really interesting
and fun.
Q16
– We are massive Vinyl Heads here at Sludgelord. Are you vinyl fans
yourselves.
Yes,
definitely. The band have a fairly nice collection of vinyl between
them, and all see vinyl as the ‘best’ format for putting out
music, which is why we were really keep to get progenitor released on
12”.
Vinyl
gives you a great physical (and great sounding) piece to go with your
music, the culmination of lyrics, art, and sound is hard to beat.
Q17
– What is your verdict on the whole crowd-funding scene. Where
bands ask fans to fund their next album. Are you a fan of that
platform. Would Dune ever go down that route.
To
be honest, I'm not a fan of the platform. I believe that some bands
use it as a way of not putting the cash upfront themselves and making
it try and seem like they want their 'best' fans support to make them
feel part of it. I know it’s not always possible to do, but we've
all had to make sacrifices along the way to make bands/recordings
work.
Q18
– Do you play gigs on a regular basis in Edinburgh. What is the
scene like up there or do you have to travel further afield to
perform regularly.
We
generally play once every couple of months in Edinburgh. Home town
gigs are nice, but its good to not play too many and give people
something new or different each time we play. The scene is good and
varied one, there is a lot of great band in Edinburgh playing
different stuff. Like Lords of Bastard, Zillah and Hair of the Dog.
Q19
– If you could give any advice to someone wanting to start a band.
What would it be.
The
most important thing for us is simply having fun with friends whilst
playing music.
Q20
– Anyway, Do you have anything else to say to your fans.
Just
want to say thank you to everyone that’s come out to see us,
supported us and helped is in so many ways and watch this space for
more to come!
Well
guys, Thanks to talking to us here at Sludgelord HQ. All the best
with the Vinyl Release.
Check The Band From Links Below
Written by Steve Howe
