Rockezine.com interview with Ancient on Oct 10, 2001

with GroM on Oct 10, 2001

“The writing chemistry” Last month “Proxima Centauri”, the new Ancient release, pleasantly surprised me. Although it’s hard to compare this one with their majestic debut “Svartalvheim” Ancient certainly showed progress with their more open and technical approach. But they will always keep that special Ancient feel. Drummer GroM is at the other side of Europe answering my questions from behind the same kind of monitor at which I am starring right now.
		First of all I would like to know if you all are living in Italy at the moment. If I’m correct Aphazel and Grom are both living in Italy at the moment but where lives the rest of the band and isn’t that hard when you have to rehearse or perform live? We all live in Italy except Jesus Christ who lives in New York. For him it can sometimes be a problem but he usually manages to come over for rehearsing and writing the albums and then recording. For tours he unfortunately cannot make it most of the time, so we make up with sessions.
		Are you satisfied with “Proxima Centauri” and has it become what Ancient expected, and how are the reactions so far? Definitely! We are all very satisfied with the album...although we kind of did expect it to come out this way. I think ‘Proxima Centauri’ is the natural product of this line-up...I don’t think it could have turned out any other way, and even the next album I feel will be ‘Proxima Centauri’ improved on all levels. It’s just the writing chemistry between the current formation that made this album.
		The line-up now is the best the band’s ever had, it’s also the most technical line-up the band has ever had and I think you can clearly hear that in the new album. The reactions so far have been great! We haven’t had one single interview or review where ‘Proxima Centuari’ didn’t receive extremely positive comments, and for that we are really glad and satisfied.
		It’s a great honor to see people appreciate your work, and on one review of a very big magazine (I won’t make names), we were given the highest possible mark and the review called the album one of the best albums of the year. SO the reactions so far have definitely been really cool.
		Why did Ancient choose to record “Proxima Centauri” in Sweden? Is it the environment, the band’s background or the quality of the studios? Mainly it’s the quality of the studios and the professionally of people over there. Here in central/south Europe people are really friendly and cool but they are way too laid back when it comes to work. In Scandinavia everyone is really professional and you can clearly see that because we took 1 month to record and mix ‘Proxima Cnetauri’, whether as ‘The Halls Of Eternity’ was recorded in Italy in 3 months and the result was no way near as good as this album. People tend to waste time here in Italy especially, so we decided to record somewhere where the working environment was at it’s best.
		Also, we were really fond of Andy LaRocque’s studio, Los Angered, and wanted to record there. We knew we could get a much more personal sounding production, unlike most black metal albums today which tend to sound the same, if we recorded there with Jacob Hansen. Basically, we took a specific black/death metal producer and recorded in a typical heavy/progressive metal studio...the result you can hear for yourselves.
		Tell me something about the new release. What does the title mean for instance, and is there a deeper thought behind the lyrics or is there a certain concept? The title is Latin, and it actually is the name of the closest star to our sun, next to the star ‘alpha centauri’. ‘Proxima Centauri’ means the ‘closest or next centurion’, and the concept of the title, front cover, intro, and title track of course, is based on a film called ‘Event Horizon’. It basically is a concept about the star being in reality a gateway or portal (like a black hole) to another dimension of pure chaos and pure evil, sucking in souls and planets as it travels through space, and is coming towards earth posing a threat to our existence.
		It is also a slightly philosophical theme since I wanted to warn humans on their arrogance in exploring new worlds and on our insignificance when compared to the universe. The rest of the songs on the album have their own concepts and themes that vary...this isn’t a concept album anyhow.
		How would you like to describe Ancient’s music? Now? Well...more technical with much more musicianship, more mature with deeper and more complex arrangements and structures. More aggressive and tight and with much more particular feelings and atmospheres. Generally a more professional attitude. This is comparing it to the past albums...but as a genre, I would say a black metal backbone with a heavy/thrash metal flesh and a prog-metal skin. Quite elaborate.
		Can you tell me something about the Ancient’s influences, I noticed some different influences on “Proxima Centauri” this time? The influences of the band in this album are really different from each other and that’s why the album came out with so much variety between the songs and within the songs as well. I think it’s the different musical styles of the members that brought this variety out. Aphazel is mainly oriented in the old black metal and the old heavy metal stuff, he also takes some influence from bands like ‘devil doll’ or ‘dead can dance’.
		I’m much more prog-metal influenced and I think you can clearly hear that in my playing. Dhilorz is mainly into death metal so he gives the power side of things in the performance.
		What can we expect from Ancient in the near future, a tour, video clip? Our management is organizing a full-blown European tour with a booking agent. It will start in November and go all the way through Europe for 1 month. Thyrane from Finland will support us and Stormlord from Italy and since this is not only the ‘Proxima Centauri Tour’ but also Ancient’s 10th anniversary tour, you can expect a really cool set-list with lots of old classics and a cool stage performance.
		We really want to go out and play live to promote the new album as much as it deserves, and I think people and fans will appreciate both the album and the tour. As for video clips, we are not planning anything at the moment but maybe sooner or later we’ll do something else.
		Anything you would like to add to this interview? Not much...I just hope all the people out there will like and enjoy the new albums much as we do and as much as we enjoyed writing and recording it. And basically...check it out, I’m sure you’ll not be disappointed, it’s the best Ancient album ever made. See you on tour!
		(Teun Jans)