Textures est un de mes premiers coup de coeurs de l'anée 2004, le groupe hollandais vient de sortir un premier album de death mélodique moderne sans limites et concessions vraiment original et percutant! Petite interview avec un des guitaristes du groupe.

To start the interview, would you be nice enough to introduce your band with a short history ?
Hi! Textures was born in 2001, the start was made by a collaboration between me (Jochem) and Stef. After a while we were with 6 energetics, eager to make music. We built a studio ourselves and started recording... after 1,5 years all was done and "polars" was conceived! We got a lot of success since then! really cool! Textures is: Eric Kalsbeek vocals - Dennis Aarts bass - Jochem Jacobs guitars vocals - Stef Broks drums - Richard Rietdijk synths - Bart Hennephof guitars

Your brand new cd "Polars" is just released. Can you tell us more about it, the recordings, the songs etc ?
We were lucky because we were able to do everything ourselves, from the songwriting and entire production to the artwork. We didn't have a lot of money, but we bought some gear with the money we had. Once we composed most of the music, we started to plan and arrange things. Everybody did their part and the whole idea slowly came together. We couldn't get anywhere without 200 procent dedication: a professional approach is really time-consuming, you have to accept that when doing such a thing. And thats just the start of it. Cause then you have to fill in that time. I studied composition and music technology and Richard has done audio engineering. Together we set the entire thing up and went all the way! We built our own studio, started recording and mixed and mastered it afterwards. Of course a large amount of pre-production had been done beforehand: you have to know what you want, and how you can achieve that. What was important to us was maintaining the interaction of playing together. Of course we started with recording drums, but with the entire band playing along over headphones. After that Guitars, bass, synths and vocals. As in many metal productions (being in an imaginary soundfield, so not a totally real sound, but no broken reality either) there's the same approach as with a pop production, so a lot of close micing, to make placing everything in it's own space in the mix easier later on. So it's about keeping control all the way to the end. We chose to record using Pro Tools for it's speed and ease of use. We mixed Polars down analogue (mackie 8 bus 32 channel) in Jochem's studio from Logic using a hybrid from of hard- and software. For projects as large as this it seems difficult to maintain a time-schedule. It certainly took us longer than we anticipated beforehand.

We can find a lot of different influences in your first releases, from Meshugah to Devin Townsend, am I wrong ?Who would you classify as your band 's main influences ?
We all listen to a wide variety of music, from classical music to fusion, metal and sing-songwriters. In every style of music there are beautiful things ready to be discovered. Everybody has got their own dynamic package of stuff they listen to and within the band, at some point, we meet eachother and that's where we try to do our thing!

Your fitst cd is fresh, new, and impressive. How important is for you this possibility of creating, something different from the other bands, creating your OWN music, not being just another Soilwork-like or Cannibal Corpse -like ?
Thanx for the compliment! Yes, we really want to create our own thing! But we don't think we are creating a new style or anything. Like I said, we all got our influences and we do with that what we can, we want to go all the way and make but we still want to make metal music!

How was the progression of the different bands members during the years ? What kind of music did you played in the past in other projects/bands?
We started off with only Stef (drums) and me. We had some trouble finding the right musicians at first, so we boroughed some of other bands. Slowly, the current line-up formed (suprisingly we all know eachother and have been friends for a long time). We all played in other heavy bands before.

Is any members of the band involved in other projects/bands?
Yes, some of us are! Bart (guitarist) playes in BRUTUS, grindcore, and Eric (singer) sings in Sengaia (Deathcore). I do filmmusic and production for a living. We are all constantly running around with music in our heads!

Whats is the meaning of your band name ? Why did you choose it ?
It's derived from the thought that we all have our own thoughts and patterns, musically as well as philosophically. It suits the music and the lyrics in a way of "structured chaos".

What means the cover art of your last release ?
We are really inspired by nature and the countless forms it is in. Let alone "life" itself. We wanted to express the dynamics in nature, from absolute serenity to harshness and aggressiveness. The lyrics and the music are also made from that same thought. We like it to be totally integrated: one form.

You have just signed the contract with Listenable Records. How did your new label become interested in you? What are you expecting from them?
Last July, when we were finished with our mixdown, we made some promo's which we sent everywhere. We didn't really know at first, what was going to happen, it was really exciting! We believed in our music of course, but we never expected such a big success! We only got ultra-positive reactions from different corners and people of the music world and Listenable was one of them. They were really enthousiastic and that's what we needed. We didn't want to be molded or anything, we wanted a label that really believed in us. Listenable has got a good promotional engine and a good distribution. I think these are the most important elements of a good recordlabel. Now with "polars" coming out worldwide, we are very excited what's going to happen!

Your line-up has known a change recently. What were the reasons behind this change ? Who is the new band member ?
Yes, we changed our lead singer. It was a hard time for all of us, since we were both fellow-musicians but also friends. Pieter (former singer) was not going in the same direction we were and plus we wanted to integrate more melody-singing with aggressive singing. I always did the clean parts and Pieter the screaming, but now with Eric (new singer) we created much more freedom! We're not going to change our style of music or anything. It all happened pretty quick, but for us it was workable time, because this februari, we had a month without shows.

Apart from music, do you have others hobbys/passions ? The music of Textures seems to be influenced by soundtracks especially the athmospheric parts, am I wrong ?
Yes! We like to express peacefullness against aggressiveness. It's what makes it somewhat more "alive" for us. I make music for movies and such for a living, that's where all those soundscapes come from. In this way we can play with the perception of time: slow-fast. We have enough passions but we don't have any stuff to do except for music hehe ;)

Will you tour throught Europe soon ?
We have been doing a lot of shows since september. There are even more shows planned from march, but most of them are in the Netherlands. There are a few options on touring Europe, but there's no tour to be confirmed yet. For a while now, we have had a very good bookingagency, Loudnoise, they do all that stuff for us. I can only say that WE ARE READY FOR IT! One thing is really cool for us in France: We play at Fury Fest, Le Mans, 26 june 2004 with a lot of other bands. It's gonna be a total mayhem!

Last words are yours ....
ROCK & ROLL! I hope we see a lot of French people at Fury Fest 26 June! THANX A LOT! Jochem
www.texturesband.com