Good afternoon, thank you very much for answering these questions. How's everything going in Portland?
Hey there, thank you for showing interest in us. Portland...is Portland. We are currently enjoying the Summer weather over here. I personally love Portland Summers.
1. When did you decide to start the band? Was it difficult to find the right musicians for this project? Why did you choose the name Old Machines and what does it refer to?
I have been trying to play in a band like this for over 20 years, but this one officially started about four years from now on a day like this one in August of 2021. We chose the name Old Machines because I was living with Jordan Farrow (Oxygen Destroyer) and Devon Miller (Silver Talon) and one day I was sitting in front of the keyboard while the others were playing the Mass Effect trilogy in different rooms when I decided to apply an old idea that had been in my brain for well over a decade. The initial idea was a Mass Effect themed Symphonic Black metal band. We wanted a name to fit with that idea, and the name Old Machines was perfect if you know the lore.
Finding the right musicians was more of a waiting game than anything. I have known these guys for a very long time. It was more about the timing for this to work depended on the stars aligning. Originally, Devon and Jordan were keys membsers with Jordan going to be strictly on vocals. At the end of the day he realized that the only band for him was Oxygen Destroyer. Brian had been waiting for me to start a band like this. Devon and Brian worked on the guitar licks together, before Devon had to leave. Eventually, he came back. When Jordan and I lived together he moved his drummer in, and as Chris continued to hear what Brian and I were working on, he joined us full-time. Gary joined shortly after we had Chris fully recorded at the end of 2021. Gary and I reconnected at the perfect time for him to join the band. It took a long while, but the wait was worth it to be playing with these guys.
2. You'll soon release your first full-length album, "The Cycles of Extinction," a follow-up to your initial demo from last year, "Backwards Through Space." What was the writing and recording process like for "The Cycles of Extinction"? How do you think your sound has evolved for the new album? What brands of instruments did you use during the process?
In reality, we had The Cycles of Extinction mostly finished before we decided to release the demo. We were shopping the full length album to a label, and while we were waiting on the label to release it, we decided to release a demo with a slightly diminished quality for the demo hunters out there. Since the tracks we agreed to put on the demo were the fifth and third songs, respectively, Brian decided to put a two minute blip from the fourth song on the full length “Dark Space and Beyond: The Continuum of the Evolution of the Final Cycle,” it was easy to title the demo “Backwards Through Space.” To answer you question, the sound really did not evolve, but I see how it looks like it did. For keyboards, I play on Korg. I believe Devon sticks with Jackson when he's playing with us, while Brian plays on BC Rich.
3. At first glance, your music can be described as symphonic black metal. However, once the listener delves into the sound of the new album, the number of influences and styles makes one think of other things. There are elements of black metal, death metal, a certain epic quality, and a taste of thrash, along with a successful balance between aggression and melody. How would you describe the sound of the new album for those who haven't heard it yet? Which bands and styles influenced you when composing "The Cycles of Extinction"?
Well, this is where I should state in 2018, Brian and I were working on a Bal Sagoth tribute band, but ultimately was more trouble than it was worth for several reasons. Brian and I worked well together, but we decided to work on an original idea in the future. It took me a while to get the confidence to back up this idea, a Bal Sagoth type band more focused on a variety of our absolute favorite science fiction story. We wanted narrations, but we wanted to go in a more Black/Thrash/Death direction, where Bal Sagoth went more in a almost folk direction at times, which made sense since they are heavily derived from Robert E. Howard books among others. We wanted to mix our love for Bal Sagoth with elements of Emperor, Limbonic Art, Obsidian Gate, Sirius, Morbid Angel, Overkill, and Dark Angel. Before writing these songs, I was playing the Final Fantasy soundtrack on my keyboards, so video game music has also been highly influential to this idea.
4. There's a "hardcore" core within the band's lineup, namely Phaeton and Vanguard, who come from bands with a more brutal sound, more focused on death metal or even grind, so to speak. How do they fit into a project like Old Machines? Is this something you needed to disconnect from your other projects, or are your current interests more focused on projects like Old Machines?
While those two are definitely key members of the band, the song writing process did not necessarily begin with them. Phaeton (Brian) did not want to write the songs. I had a lot of these riffs from long ago and completely reworked them and threw lots of my new material into this bag. Basically, my keys serve as the skeletal structure for the band, then the other guys throw themselves into these songs. Sometimes they play what I play and sometimes they choose to throw their original licks in there, so because of that, this material is different from everything they worked on. So far, this has been working, as people keep telling us that we do not sound like anyone else in the Pacific NorthWest, and I am all for that.
5. Now that the controversy surrounding Comet 3I/ATLAS and Avi Loeb's statements about whether it's an alien spacecraft have erupted, you're going to release an album with a theme related to an alien invasion. How did you develop this concept? Could you elaborate a bit on the album's concept so we can understand it better? Did the music adapt to the lyrics or vice versa?
First, I can tell you that we did not develop or write anything regarding any controversy. To clarify, our music is not really about alien invasions, but about humanity and alien races trying to live in this same galaxy together, but we do not always see eye to eye, so naturally some wars will break out. All of these wars and politics are going on while the real enemy remains mostly hidden after the first three songs. The fourth song titled “Dark Space and Beyond: The continuance of the Evolution of the Final Cycle,” is about our race and others in our timeline fully evolving over milleniums while the Old Machines are hibernating in the darkest regions of space waiting to strike at the most opportune time.
The second half of the album is about the races being fully evolved and warring with another, creating new slave races for war, other types of Artificial Intelligence, and multiple genocides. As stated before, we were hevily influenced by the Mass Effect trilogy and thought the subject matter was prime for Black Metal, but we did not want to be just Black Metal, we wanted to sound uniquely in the vein of Bal Sagoth, which not many bands at all are even thinking about trying that. So basically, I think of certain story lines/plot points and think what I would like them to sound musically, then we re-write the lore in our own words with our own personalities for the lyrics. Some of these ideas were also applied to old riffs from over 20 years ago I had been working on. Again, we are taking this approach because it was natural for me to do so, but also because we really do not seeing anyone else do anything quite like this.
6. You worked with Brian Rush and Stephen Hoffman of Acid Dump Studios for the mixing, mastering, and recording process of the album? Why did you decide to work with them, and what do you think they contributed to the final sound of the album?
Since Brian Rush is our guitarist, he offered immediately to record me. He has worked with Stephen Hoffman before and he was available, so it was a very natural and easy choice for us to make. While I come up with the basic structure and sound on the keys, and handle the story concepts, Brian pretty much did everything else, and without him it would not have sounded like this.
7. The cover is by Alexander Preuss. I don't know if he was inspired by them or not, but they're in the vein of bands like Vorga or Imperialist. What does this cover represent and how does it relate to the album's content?
I can not tell you if he was inspired by those bands or not. We sought Alexander Preuss out because we were looking for something different. When searching for an artisty, we wanted someone who appeared to also be heavily inspired by the Mass Effect trilogy. Sure enough, he defintiely was and thus was easy to work with. We told him we wanted to see the Old Machines dominating a planet and he made an image. Since we did not want to get sued, we all worked together to help make the image more original until we were all certain that we would not get hit by a copyright lawsuit.
I would say that this image really fits with the second and third songs on our full length album, but most people are not seeing the Mass Effect influence, which is good. They seem to be seeing more of a futuristic style War of the Worlds kind of cover, which we are far more comfortable with. Mass Effect was highly derivitaive though and took from everything, and we are taking from just every source we are inspired with, not just Mass Effect, so it has been working so far.
8. You worked with Pale Magus Productions for the album release, currently only in digital format. Why did you choose Pale Magus Productions to release the album? Will there be any physical releases in the future?
Once again, Brian Rush is the magic answer. Since Brian Rush is Pale Magus records, we had no reason not have him handle it. I met Brian Rush in 2014 and we have been fairly close over the years before we worked on this project together. He would hand me physical copies of what he was releasing and I was always impressed with both the quality of bands and sound that he was putting out. This guy has worked on numerous projects, more than I can possibly remember. That being said, YES, there are most definitely physical releases available. I have a box of CDs sitting in my living room, right now, ready to be sold in less than a week for the album's overall release on Friday, August 22nd.
9. I honestly think it's risky to tackle the release of an album that can be described as symphonic black. The golden age of the style seems long gone. However, it's also true that recently there's been a bit of a revival in the form of new bands that seem to want to breathe fresh air into the style. What do you think about the health of a style like symphonic black today? What major bands have been an influence on you within symphonic black? Is it easier to go against the grain in a scene as extensive and varied, and not as restricted as the United States?
Ah yes, the golden age of Symphonic Black Metal. More or less we can agree that the golden age is 1995-2001, give or take a couple of years when the quality picked up. Being a keyboardist, it was a bit sad to see the genre pick up so much steam, and then sometime in 2002 (this year can be debated to either 2003, or 2004), it became very hated until around the end of the pandemic. Needless to say, we are big fans of that era. I started this project for a variety of reasons, but I can tell you that if there was more of this style being released, we would not be working on this kind of band. We wanted to do something that was not the norm.
We were not trying to go against the grain or anything like that, we really wanted to put something out that kicked ass and could possibly appeal to a wide number of people within and outside the wonderful world of Heavy Metal. Our first rule was that it had to kick ass, though, and I think the guys helped make that happen. If I could have put this out twenty years ago when Symphonic Black Metal was more common, I would have, but I could not find the right people to make this idea work. It had to be these guys.
10. Do you already have any dates scheduled for the live presentation of your new album? What can your fans expect from a concert?
Definitely, we are playing in the Pacific Northwest from August 21st-24th.
Thursday, 8/21, Bellingham at The Shakedown
Friday, 8/22 Olympia at Cryptatropa Bar
Saturday, 8/23 Bremerton at The Charleston*
Sunday, 8/24 Astoria at Columbian Theater
We are definitely playing what we think are the more popular songs that people will want to hear, such as the title track, the two songs from the demo, and our first single. We try to play a specific set for each little tour we go on. A few months ago we played the first two songs, the first single, and the second single before they were relased, but we will not have Devon with us this time since he will be on the road with Silver Talon. We do not want to play the same set every show. We want to be lively and get the crowd involved. We have had a surprising number of mosh pits going for some of these songs and I could not be much happier about that. We are also still trying to secure some dates in Southern Oregon and California, perhaps all the way down to the Bay area for mid September.
11. How did you get started in music: first concerts you attended, first albums you bought? What event in your life made you want to be a musician?
Oh man, where to even begin? The first real concert I attended would have been Metallica in 1998. Another one was Rockfest in 1999. I went mainly to see Megadeth but I think Rob Zombie headlined. There were a bunch of radio bands on that, and this was when radio stations were trying really hard to sell Nu-Metal. I was already listening to Blind Guardian at the time, so those bands did not really influence, but I do have to give Primus a shout out for being awesome.
I remember the next year, the radio station we used to have here did Rockfest 2000 and it was combined with the “Tatoo the Earth Fest, so you had these great bands like Slayer and Sepultura playing with an insane amount of Nu-Metal Rap/Rock bands and they had Stone Temple Pilots as the headliner. Honestly, Slayer for me was the highlight of the day. I was already lilistening to Emperor in the year 2000, so most of the bands on that bill were really not for me. This fest was important as it showed me what I did not really like, and yes, I tried to get into all the bands. Down the road, I felt like I wasted my time listening to these bands and trying to give them a shot. At the end of the day, I did not waste my time, but realized that being open minded is fine up to a certain point.
When 2001 began, I was recently turned 21 and had already seen Nevermore play on their “Dead Heart in a Dead World” tour in December of 2000 with In Flames. Then I saw Morbid Angel open for Pantera, and I was already a big fan of Morbid Angel by then, so that was really cool to see so long ago. Other notable shows were Origin and Cryptopsy playing with a couple of hardcore bands. Shortly after that was seeing Lamb of God open for The Haunted, Cannibal Corpse, then Dimmu Borgir, and that was a great show. Shortly after that was Gorguts opening for Marduk and Deicide. Not long after that was seeing Nile open for Cradle of Filth. 2001 was really the year where I was seeing the kind of bands I wanted to see. Seeing Witchery and The Haunted in November of 2001 was really cool, but seeing Exhumed open for Zyklon, Soilent Green, Deicide, and Morbid Angel at one show was mind blowing. I still like most of these bands now and these shows really pushed me to where I needed to go in the wonderful world of Heavy Metal. This year was so good, I could never really stop attending Metal shows. Metal kept me going during those times when life was not ideal, so I cannot just stop going to shows altogether.
What event in my life made me a musician? Great question, but there really is not a solid answer to this as there were really several points in life that guided me to music. First, I have always been surrounded by pianos since I can remember anything. On my mom's side of the family, she took lessons as a kid and her dad had a piano at his house and I believe he used to work on pianos with his dad a long time ago. On my dad's side of the family, my Grandma had an organ and was really proficient at reading sheet music. I believe she also used to play the pipe organ at church a long time ago. His parents had a piano as well, and when my great grandmother passed, we inherited that piano and it still resides in my mom's basement. That was the piano where I came up with a lot of old material that has and/or will go into Old Machines albums. Sometimes I practice Old Machines material on it to hear how differently it sounds like my keyboards.
I attempted to quit music several times and in one way or another, it keeps pulling me back in. Honestly, I cannot live life without playing. I always had a synthesizer or two around the house since I was ten years old, so it was difficult to walk away from.The worst decision I ever made was to stop reading sheet music for the most part as a teenager. That set me back, and I spent the majority of my 30s re learning how to read sheet music. Eventually I became confident enough to play through entire Final Fantasy soundtracks. Those games were really inspiring to me, music wise. I'm hoping to inspire somone reading this not to give up like I did, because I would have been much farther along if I did not quit. Also, it was with the specific help and moral support from Devon, Jordan, and Brian, that got me playing original material after they saw that I was mostly playing off sheet music for about seven years straight. I never stopped dabbling here and there with some of my own material though, I just was not fully confident in it until the year 2021.
12. What album represents the essence of black metal for you? What recent albums have you bought?
Only one album? How about five! First, I have to start with Emperor, as they were really the band that truly introduced me to Black Metal. Sure, I started out with IX Equilibrium, but I loved it so much I bought all of their other stuff, including the VHS cassette for “Emperial Live Ceremony” back in 1999. I loved it so much that I had to buy “Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk,” which has some of my favorite songs of all time on there. Sound quality, I do not think anyone can say truly anything negative about “Nightside in the Eclipse.” I still listen to these albums every now and then and I will not stop loving that band.
To further answer your question, since I was really getting into what Black Metal was all about in 2000/2001, Arcturus' “Aspera Hiems Symfonia” got me really wanting to dig deeper into the dark world of Symphonic Black Metal. Dissection's “Storm of the Light's Bane” was definitely another gateway album I bought and listened to in 2000 when I was new. Mayhem's “De Mysetriis” was not too far behind. Another one that comes to mind was “Hell Eternal” by Setherial, whom I think has perfected that raw sound the best with their earlier albums, and then did really good with “Hell Eternal” and onward for a slightly more modern sound. They sound both raw and polished at the same time to me, and I will always respect their music.
“Through Times of War” by Keep of Kalessin gives me that chill crispy sound I cannot get enough of and sits right next to “Pure Holocaust” by Immortal. Speaking of raspy sounding guitars, “Moon in the Scorpio by Limbonic Art, hits all of the right moods for me. Put all of those together and you have enough inspiration for a lifetime. There's still so many great ones to talk about, though. Oh yeah, Lord Belial “Enter the Moonlight Gate also sits atop a might Black Metal Throne for me. Fuck, that's more than five, isn't it? I could keep going like this, so I'll stop, but all of those are essentials to me and I am sure I'm still forgetting something really crucial. Basically, I really love that 90's Pete Tagtgren produced sound.
Recent albums I have bought? I cannot really buy too many much more since I have no space in my appartment for new albums, but when I do purchase albums, its usually from bands I have been playing with that I want to support such as Xoth, Vaulderie, Veriteras, and Gravewitch. One band I came across recently was Gathering from Bend, Oregon who reminded me of Immortal from the Pure Holocaust days. They are pretty new, but those guys have been around for quite a while as musicians. Their drummer is the guy from Reeker, Desolation, and Season of Suffering to name a few, so they sound pretty damn good to me.
13. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions for Black Metal Spirit. If you'd like to add anything for Old Machines fans, this is the place. I hope you enjoy the questions.
Again, thank you to reaching out for us and giving us these numerous questions. Thank you for showing us interest, it is much appreciated. The Old Machines have existed for more years than puny human brains can comprehend. To name them will only serve to give name to our Extinction. Extinction...is only the beginning....
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Sorrow – Oblivion of Astral Desolation 19,99 €
