AM : First, I’d like to know how was received “Send in the clows” by the fans and the medias, did it sell more than the first two albums ?
Oceans Of Sadness : Send In The Clowns did it as great as possible for that time being. The label that released it Apache Productions did everything they could to give this album as much attention as possible but of course, due to the fact that they were (are) a relatively new label some things could be done better. But generally we were satisfied about their efforts. The music on that album was rather hectic looking back on the album. I still think those songs are very cool but since that album we kept on growing and that shows in the songs on Mirror Palace I think. This time we managed to find a good balance in the songs, we kept what we had to keep and filtered all other bullshit out. We also feel this in the reviews and interviews we're doing right now as people are more enthousiastic about MP than SITC.
AM : Then, at last, you managed to get a deal with a bigger label, from another land, Scarlet Records from Italy. How did you get this deal, and do you already feel a difference in the way they manage the release of the new album ?
Oceans Of Sadness : We got in touch with Scarlet thanks to
Jens Bogren, the producer of this album. Jens appeared to be a big fan of our
band and suddenly he suggested that he would do the negotiating with labels
for us. This was of course very cool of him, as we ourselves rather concentrate
on our music instead of negotiating. So at the end of the ride Scarlet seemed
to be the right label to release this effort.
Until now everything seems to go perfectly smooth as we're getting reactions
from all over the world now. We'll see what the future brings but at the moment
we're very satisfied about everything, let's hope we manage to get some shows
outside of Belgium now.
AM : The first thing that caught my attention on the new album is the production : you have now the sound that you deserve, you worked with Jens Bogren who worked with Opeth, why this choice ?
Oceans Of Sadness : Well, before the recordings we kind of decided that our main goal from now on was to create the coolest music we could and we wouldn't focus on things like getting successfull or getting known or stuff like that. We simply wanted to have fun and make the dreams that we still have come true. One of these dreams was to work with the Jens as we totally liked the sound he created on other albums. And so we mailed him our music and surprisingly (for us) he totally digged our music. And so we decided to fly to Sweden and we didn't regrett it one second :-)
AM : How about the recording, was it a painless experience ? Did Jens have some influence on your songs (arrangements…) ?
Oceans Of Sadness : It went as smooth as a hot babe's ass! As everything was written and recorded the way we wanted it to be when we arrived in Sweden, we could really focus on the mixing of the album and Jens really has golden ears and hands so we had to fill our time with drinking beer and having fun... so we did!
AM : The new album seem to incorporate even more elements, as jazz, prog, stoner, or at least give them more space if they were already present in the previous albums. Is OOS’s Leitmotiv to be as eclectic and various as possible ?
Oceans Of Sadness : I can't imagine any genre of music that
we wouldn't like to integrate in our metalmusic. Everything should be possible
and if something seems impossible it's worth double to look deeper into it.
Our mission is to innovate with each song we make, maybe we're just simple naive
fucks by stating this but I couldn't care less. We don't think in terms of genres,
wether it's metal or some other style. Good music can reach everyone I think.
We also recorded a very cool video for one of the songs on Mirror Palace called
Pride And Shame. It's online as we speak and working with director Mirko Cocco
(www.mirkococco.com)
was very cool, a chance we took with both hands. You can check it out on our
MySpace and one of these days also on our website.
AM : I know OOS is a band that is a must to see live, you have a solid experience, so are you going to promote your album by touring more outside of Benelux ?
Oceans Of Sadness : Let's hope so but we have to be realistic in this. It's not easy to manouver our asses into bookingagencies. We hope to play everywhere where people want us to play but financially speaking we have our limits. We simply have to hope that so many people find out about us and think we rock that people want us to play on their stages. But we're definitely up for it!
AM : What are your lyrics about ?
Oceans Of Sadness : The lyrics are mainly about what can go on inside my or someone elses head. Different voices with different opinions About the fact that although some people think they know stuff they absolutely know shit. About the fact that nobody's right and nobody's wrong and at the same time evrybody's right AND wrong. We simply believe what we want or need to believe to survive.
AM : Excellent choice to have a cover version of “them bones” from Alice In Chains. Is this a band that has played a big role in your musical orientation ?
Oceans Of Sadness : One of the hundreds of bands that influenced us I think. We wanted to do a coversong and were working on a version of a song called 'Go To Hell' by Nina Simone but at one time we thought 'why should we work so hard on this very cool but difficult jazz song just to ejoy ourselves by playing a cover. So we dropped that idea and instead we decided to do Them Bones, a rather simple but very solid and effective rocksong from our youth. It's a very cool band and a very cool song and so we pay tribute to one of our roots.
AM : To end this interview, I’d like to know what are the last cd’s (or mp3’s) you’ve bought ?
Oceans Of Sadness : Pain Of Salvation - Scarsick
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Cocorosie - The Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn