Rockezine.com interview with Meridian on Sep 16, 2002

with Drakon on Sep 16, 2002


		At the end of September Season of Mist will release your quite refreshing debut album, The Seventh Sun. Are you guys satisfied with the end result of your first album? I think we’re quite satisfied, in a general way. As always, there are some little things that did not turn out the way we thought they would, in a good or a bad way, but if that would not be the case then it would be science, not music. As it is our first album, it wasn’t so easy to build it, to make it coherent and we had to work quite intensively. So I guess we’re pretty satisfied with the work we’ve done.
		Anything you would have done differently, now that you can look back at the whole process of writing and recording the album? If we look at precise cases there is for example one song called “A Time For War” that does not have the feeling we wanted at all. It sounds really symphonic and we did not intend to make it sound that way. We wanted it to have a much colder and stranger atmosphere with a deep melancholy, but it turned out to be a more “normal” song. But that’s the way it is and I am not sure whether you can really control these kinds of things. On a more general level I would say that the fact that we composed the album over quite a long period of time, approximately a year and a half, could be seen as a good or a bad thing, depending on the way you look at it. On one side it allows you to make songs that have a different touch and to avoid too much likeliness between the songs but on the other side you sometimes wonder if one or another part has really something to do on the album. And as I said before, we did not have any experience with writing a full-length album, since the only thing we had released before was a five-track MCD and that is a very different thing. In the future we want to make the writing period shorter, mainly to be able to put the latest and most innovative ideas on the recording without having to think about integrating it with older stuff.
		Meridian is probably unknown to almost everyone within the black metal scene and even on the Internet it is impossible to find any information about Meridian. Could you tell us a bit about the history of the band? We formed the band in autumn 1999 in Geneva, Switzerland and shortly after that, we recorded our first MCD called Daydream In The Postdementia Millennium, which was released in June 2000 on an underground label from Geneva. In 2001 we were signed to Season of Mist and recorded our first album The Seventh Sun in spring 2002, which will be released at the end of September. By the way, we are launching our website (http://New-Meridian-Order.com) very soon, so all necessary information will be available there.
		Your label Season of Mist promotes The Seventh Sun as post black metal but when I listen to the album I would rather call it symphonic black metal with post black metal influences. How would you describe the album in your own words? I would basically describe it as modern black metal with post black, symphonic and many other influences… Honestly I have to admit I never understood the real meaning of post black metal, and what is symphonic or not is also a bit unclear to me. It is quite hard to describe your own music, so I prefer to leave that to others. We do not pretend to make some revolutionary music, because all the time I read interviews with bands saying they made something totally new and then after listening to the band I am so disappointed. But what I would like to say is, that if some of our songs are innovative it is also certainly due to influences other than metal. I would rather advice to listen to the album because we are making music to express things you can’t say with words.
		To get back to my previous question; when I listen to songs like “Abraham Timecode” and “Sol Septem Meridian” I hear some excellent and innovative post black metal but many of the other songs are more conservative.
		I wonder why didn’t you write more songs like this? Maybe on the next album? These songs are a very interesting experience for us, but in my opinion the difference between a song like “Dream To The Sun” and these songs is not so big. We wanted to have different atmospheres on the album, and maybe some things are less obvious, but we also experimented with new kinds of sounds, especially with the synths and electronics. So I think the other songs can’t be called conservative. But it is true that we wanted to have some catchy songs and I think that is easier with a bit more conventional songs. At the beginning it wasn’t clear to us if these more experimental songs would integrate with the others. We don’t want to make innovative music at all costs, because we often hear very original but very bad music. If you are innovative but sound like crap, there’s no point. Concerning our future work, as it turned out to be a quite good mixture, you can expect to hear more songs like these ones.
		I don’t know many other black metal bands from Switzerland; the only band that comes to mind is the legendary Samael. How is the black metal scene in Switzerland and what bands should we look out for? I am from Geneva, which is at the extreme west of Switzerland and in the French speaking minority part of the country, so it is a bit difficult for me to talk about the situation in general. That being said, if there was something awesome going on in the German speaking part we would know it, but it’s obviously not the case. Now concerning our region the only important names coming to my mind are Samael and Celtic Frost. There are also a few bands like Alastis or Rain playing something relatively close to the style of Samael, but you can’t really talk about a black metal scene, the bands are more or less integrated in a general metal scene.
		What bands have influenced your music the most? I can hear Satyricon and Thorns. What role has Samael played in the development of Meridian, if any? It is an undeniable fact that Satyricon, Thorns, DHG had a strong impact on Meridian but I would say it is more in our approach than in the actual music. I have respect for their work because they care so much about every aspect of their activity. I see too many bands with quite good music but with ridiculous visuals, stupid lyrics and attitudes. Details often make the difference. Concerning Samael, their influence on us is quite limited, though they did compose great songs. In fact many bands in Switzerland have been trying to do the same kind of music, but that’s not the case with Meridian.
		I have a promotional copy of The Seventh Sun and so I don’t have any lyrics; can you briefly tell me what the lyrics are about? There are mainly two kinds of texts. Some of them describe a certain vision of existence, a way a person represents his life and what he wants it to be, with a lot of imagination and in fact I think it’s not so easy to catch the meaning that I myself give to the lyrics. Anyway, the themes I often talk about are for example ambition, will and perseverance. It is about having difficult goals and to reach them with the means that are necessary, and also relying on yourself for important things. I hate people praising a miserable way of life; some of them are so self-satisfied with a stupid existence. If you want something, just do what you have to. I would like to add that I’m not telling anyone what he should do, and these lyrics should be taken as a deep reflection. Some others are more surrealistic, it is the case with songs like “Sol Septem Meridian” or “Dream To The Sun”, which are directly inspired by dreams I have had several times. I am not so sure about their meaning but I use them as a source of pure imagination, the purpose is to create an atmosphere when you read the lyrics along with the music. Each song has its own meaning and as long as you can feel some sort of emotion, it means you get the sense of it. Imagination and self-reflection are a very important part of Meridian, and I am totally fascinated with the number of hours you can spend in your own mind.
		Meridian won the Metallian’s demo contest in 2001 with the song “Draconian Flow”. Is this contest limited to Switzerland only and what does the contest involve? It is the French magazine Metallian that runs this contest. They selected songs amongst the best promotional stuff they had received from unsigned bands and put it on a sampler sold with the magazine. Then the readers voted the band that they judged to be the best. The elected band gets a contract with a label. That’s the way we got signed to Season of Mist. In fact we didn’t know anything about the contest and just sent our promo stuff for our MCD Daydream In The Postdementia Millennium. So it was a rather good surprise. The contest is open to bands from all nations, and I think it happens once a year.
		Jack D Ripper from Morgul has done the excellent vocals for this album. How did he get involved with Meridian? At the time of the recording session our singer was not able to record due to reasons beyond our control, so we thought about Ripper, who is a good friend of Terje Refsnes, producer of the album. He was easily convinced to fly down from Norway to the south of France where the Soundsuite studios are located for a little holiday and a recording session. He really did a great job and showed a large amount of inspiration. It was also very refreshing for us to have someone who hadn’t been involved in the composing process of the album; he had a vision from the outside that was very welcome.
		Your music must be quite complex to play live so I was wondering if you guys are thinking about touring at all? And if so, will Jack D Ripper join the band? We’re seriously thinking about touring in Europe, that shouldn’t be a problem because most of the songs were played live from the beginning of the writing process, so with an extensive use of technology and a huge amount of training we’ll do it. Ripper won’t be on tour with us, and there is nothing planned about a future collaboration. In fact he rather hates the idea of touring…
		Thank you very much for this interview! Some final words perhaps? Thank you for your interest, and we hope to play soon in Holland!
(Frank van de Voorde)