Interview The Sword
Artiest: The Sword
Geïnterviewde: JD Cronise, zanger/gitarist
Interview afgenomen in: Muziekcentrum Trix
Label: Napalm Records
Enkele uren voor het optreden van The Sword te Antwerpen kreeg Festivalblog de kans tot een kort gesprek met JD Cronise, zanger en gitarist van de band.
First of all welcome to Belgium. You’ve been touring in Europe for about a week now. How has it been so far?
Good, very good.
Do you feel there’s a big difference between playing here and in the US?
Not a huge difference. It’s been a while since we’ve last been here so we’ll see how it compares. The UK shows (in the first week of the tour) were very much just like Sword shows anywhere else.
Can you also be a tourist in Europe ?
A little bit. We arrived in Antwerp yesterday and walked around a bit. But a lot of the time we don’t get the chance because the tour schedule is too hectic.
Did you got the chance to taste the Belgian beer culture yet ?
No, we actually seemed to have problems finding bars with Belgians in them. There were only foreigners.
This tour follows the release of your fourth album Apocryphon. While I think the first three albums were very solid I feel this is a giant step forward. Did you use a different approach compared to the earlier albums?
Not too much. I think it was more of a free flowing process though. We weren’t trying to write songs that sound like anything in particular. We didn’t have fixed ideas in our minds of how it all should sound. There are also some parts on the album that evolved from jamming.
I especially like the progress in the vocal department; was it just extra practice or do you have another secret?
Extra practice definitely helps. But it was also the more freeform approach of the album which gave me more freedom in the vocal department.
The band was initially, and is still being, linked to the stoner/doom scene while your sound has evolved beyong the borders of this genre. How do you feel about this label and how would you decribe your own sound?
I call it heavy metal rock ’n roll, just like Judas Priest was called in 1979. To me it’s just heavy music that doesn’t fit into any genre in particular. There are elements of stoner/doom in our music but these genres don’t act as a template for our songs.
A lot of effort goes into the artwork and different formats (even cassettes) of your releases in a time when the “music business in general” seems to have lost it’s faith in physical releases. What are your thoughts on that?
You can call us dinosaurs or throwbacks but we all grew up with tapes, records and cd’s cluttering up our bedroom and car. We’re from that school of nostalgia where we want something in our hands when we listen to music, so we can look at the artwork and read the lyrics. It’s like the difference between seeing a movie in the cinema rather than watching it at home.
Thanks a lot. Have a good show tonight and enjoy the rest of the tour.