Coilguns is a band from Switzerland featuring members of The Ocean who play one of the most brilliant, energetic and complicated metal you’ll ever hear. Their mentality is completely DIY and they’re a bunch of great guys. They released their first full-length release Commuters (read our review here) on Pelagic Records a few weeks ago and they’re about to embark on another UK tour. Metal Editor Sander had a chat with guitarist Jona Nido about the recording process, The Ocean, Switzerland, social media and horse meat.
(((o))): Who are Coilguns and how would you describe your music?
Initially, Coilguns are 3 dudes playing in a German band called The Ocean. On one drinking night, we decided that starting a Punk/D-Beat band could be fun. After a first EP recorded in January 2011 with the help of loads of rum and weed, we got offered to play our first show: a support slot for The Dillinger Escape Plan. From then on, we realized we were a real band and things started to move forward pretty quickly. When we confirmed that first show, we only had 10 minutes of material to play. In 1 month we wrote 30 minutes of extra material, in 5 hours we recorded it and 3 days later it was mixed, mastered and we had manufactured ourselves 150 copies.
Shortly after that we did our first European tour, then a second one…We’ve had the chance to support high profile bands such as Norma Jean, Baroness, Black Breath and Nasum. When we were touring Australia with The Ocean, We (Coilguns) had the chance to play our own shows a couple of times and the last week we decided to book a studio in Perth to record 2 tracks that have been released in September 2012 in the shape of a split record with German ear-rapists NVRVD.
That’s it. 2 years later, after a lot of booze and laughs, here we are: 3 EP’s destroying people’s teeth, a first full-length (Commuters) released on Pelagic Records a couple of weeks ago, a 3rd European tour in march 2013 and an upcoming UK tour in about a week!
This band started as a real joke. I was staying in NYC for a month back in December 2010 and bought a guitar there. That same day I wrote 3 songs just for fun. That’s what ended up being our first EP. Then stuff just kept happening without us pushing for it. We just accepted that we had turned into a real band with a solid sound and ideas that were making sense…We just went with the flow…
About the sound… For the ones that have never heard Coilguns before, they will have to face 50 minutes of unpleasant, violent and atonal music. All of this with a production that was live oriented and therefore that sounds more like a noisy Beatles album than a massive modern production. Commuters is a dark and intense rollercoaster trip where you spend most of your time holding the vomit from your mouth and fighting against the headache that all the bad frequencies - we intentionally decided to boost - are giving you. Dear listener, if you get to the end of the second song of Commuters, that you feel the need to kill people, smash your head into a wall and then are still alive: YOU WILL LOVE THIS ALBUM. For the other ones it may take a couple of listen to get into it.
(((o))): You are all active in The Ocean Collective. Did you guys start Coilguns to cover different songs that you couldn’t use with The Ocean? Or is there another reason why you started Coilguns?
Ah! People always tend to think we started Coilguns because we felt “stuck” into The Ocean “shell” but it’s not. We did not think about that. Starting Coilguns when we did was the worst idea timing wise as we were really busy with The Ocean. We definitely wanted to do something with less production and more spontaneous than The Ocean though. Still, I’d say that the early Coilguns stuff wouldn’t have fit into The Ocean anyway, but if you listen to the more “proggy” and instrumental parts we recorded since Stadia Rods, I’m sure there’s a connection between both bands.
Then I’d say that my guitar playing in Coilguns is more representative from what I am as a guitar player. It may sounds bit more complicated or technical than The Ocean but it feels more natural for me to play.
(((o))): Coilguns has been building a steady fan base over the last years. Is Coilguns still just a The Ocean side project or has it developed into something much bigger now?
People always presents us as a The Ocean side-project but we never really agreed on that…I mean when we first started communicating about Coilguns we obviously used the “feat. 3 members of The Ocean” and this definitely got us a certain attention from diverse medias and that was quite valuable. Nevertheless, Coilguns has been living up to its name since the beginning. Obviously we were not expecting this band to go “that far” so to speak…but I’m really glad it did. For the 3 of us it is actually the first time that we start a band from scratch and that it gets so much attention and exposure. Coilguns is a real touring band that releases real records and that offer the listeners an honest and 100% “straight from the guts” sound.
This band has been the centre of my attention for 2 years now, working every day for it. I even declined writing or even recording on the new The Ocean record, as I was too busy with Coilguns. I can’t tell you if it’s gonna get bigger. We are definitely not looking to sign on a bigger label or anything. But, we wanna keep developing this whole DIY way of doing things that has made bands cult back in the late 80’s/early 90’s. The music industry has changed a lot and instead of crying about the fact that nobody’s selling records anymore, you just have to look at other options and be a little smart. Thing is now we have the magnificent World Wide Web and all the tools going with it. If you know how to make use of them, it’s a brand new world to make your band exists.
So yes, it has turned into something “much bigger” than expected. Now only time will tell if Coilguns will get bigger in terms of sales or notoriety. But honestly, right now we release records we like, we play to a couple of dozen people everywhere we go… We can live with that. Everything that will add to this from now on will be another cherry on the pie.
(((o))): You’re about to release your debut full-length album Commuters. How was the recording process? Was it an easy process?
Yes and no. It was not because the logistic of it was kind of a big deal. Having up to 10 people to take care of, booking flights for some of them, organising food, backline, schedule, Louis (vocals) not being able to join us as it was planned…We only booked 4 days of studio and the fourth day we moved the whole recording gear and backline to a venue to record both ‘Earthians’ and ‘Blunderbuss Committee’…Deadlines were really short and everybody had to be really committed to this record in order to make it happen. It’s also really hard to know if anything you do is good when you do all these things in a rush.
The recording itself was pretty easy. Julien Fehlmann and Karim Pandolfo from the Studio Mecanique really understood where we wanted to go. We wanted to use our own backline and I wanted to use the exact same setup I have on stage, which comes with a lot of constraints for a professional recording session. But as soon as we agreed on that, all they had to do was placing good microphones in the best way they could to really capture our sound and all we had to do was to play the songs we had been playing for the last month every fucking day. Generally, after 4 takes, Luc (drums) and I were fed up of playing the song. I remember that on the first day we did not keep anything of what we recorded and on the next one we just nailed the 5 or 6 tracks we had to record in 3 hours. At noon we were getting drunk and shot a video clip in the studio’s toilet.
(((o))): Since you guys record everything live in one take, you guys must be extremely well rehearsed before you enter the studio?
We are yes. I mean, playing live is what we do full time, on stage. So I guess that we can say we’ve learned how to be tight after about 600 shows. Luc is an extremely tight and solid drummer and after playing 5 years in The Ocean to a click, the guy knows how to keep a bit steady and groovy. We don’t play to a click with Coilguns though, even in the studio.
It all started with the Stadia Rods EP. We had to write this extra 30 minutes of music to play our first show and after rehearsing so much we just felt we knew these songs well enough to record them live. Since then, we decided not to go another way of recording. We are not nerds practicing our instrument at home and playing scales. But we play so much shows that being tight and playing with certain sensitivity became natural. Must sounds pretentious but you know, that’s what our daily life is all about: playing. I then assume that it is not a miracle if things are that way.
(((o))): I really admire the concept of live recording as these days a lot of bands use cut and paste bits from different takes and digitally manipulate recorded tracks. Obviously your live recording approach will result in the best captured live energy on album, but some studio engineers might be scared a bit by this approach as they lose some control in the process. What is your opinion about this?
I definitely would not blame anyone going down this path. This is just another way of doing things and some do it better than others. The cool thing about live recording is that it is a challenge for us musicians as well as the sound engineer. No copy paste trick, no grid to replace this or this, no overdub to give more intensity to this or that…It’s going to the essence of playing your instrument with dynamic and for the sound engineer it is about capturing the energy and sound of one artistic entity. Nowadays, everybody claim to be a sound engineer with a laptop and a couple of plug-ins. Buy superior drummer, guitar rig and get the fucking Periphery or Meshuggah pre-sets so you can make sure to sound like everyone else! Again, some people have created that because they were way ahead of 99% of the scene and they use it the right way. Everyone else is just a rip-off to me.
Most of the modern metal productions sound cold and synthetic. One of the producers that can mix both the modern side of production and still keep that raw energy of good bands is Kurt Ballou. We’ve been wondering a hundred times if we should work with him but then, despite the complete admiration we have for him – both as an artist and producer – we did not wanted to have another argument for people to affiliate us to this scene we’re part of. Let me explain: I don’t wanna give Ballou a session ready to mix and then just wait for the magic to happen. If we’d work with him, I wanna go to God City and record the fucking album the way we do it but with him. The result would be fucking awesome. Anyway, I obviously would not see the point for a band like Behemoth to record in the same conditions as we do.
So yeah, a good sound engineer will always be a good one and will adapt to the bands desires. You should read some interviews of Steve Albini about that. It really changed my opinion on how a sound engineer should act. Nowadays, they all want to “produce” and tell you what you are supposed to play and how, when this is not their job. At least not when you record an extreme noise/hardcore band. We’re not talking about top 50 pop music, we’re talking about music that 99% of this planet think it’s awful so why the fuck a sound engineer would tell me how to play my fucking songs? Albini’s saying that he got really pissed at sound guys when he entered studios with his first bands and that people were trying to tell him which gear he should use and how he should sound…So he eventually decided to go the exact opposite way as a sound engineer. His goal being to capture what the band is and solve technical issues, period.
(((o))): You have got some help from guest musicians on Commuters. Can you tell me a bit more about them? Are they part of The Ocean Collective as well, or are they friends from different bands?
I guess everybody knows Keijo Niinima who’s the voice of Rotten Sound and more recently Nasum. He also sings in another band called Medeia. We’ve met him on the first The Ocean tour we did in 2008 supporting Rotten Sound. We met him again in 2009 when he was supporting us and Burst with Medeia. That’s when we met Jesper Liveröd (bass player for Burst and Nasum) and he was supposed to come over to Switzerland but he had to cancel last minute. Keijo is a really solid singer and a great musician. When we wrote ‘Minkowski Manhattan Distance’ we instantly thought about having him. It was a bit challenging for him because of the few math and slow parts but he fucking nailed it and more over, we had a great time altogether in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
The other guys are all accomplished musicians that have been in different bands for years. Most of them were actually playing in bands Luc and I would go see live when we were 16 so it was a true honour to have them on our record. Fabien Bedoy is the guy who replaced me in a post-hardcore band called Kehlvin a couple of years ago and he is also the drummer of an awesome grind band called Yog. Matthieu Guignard and Emmanuel Devaud are both also playing in Yog and Matthieu Hinderer is playing in my cousin’s band Nenborn that is more like a progressive rock band. We also had Christoph Noth guesting on 2 songs. Chris has been doing sound for The Ocean for a couple of years now and he is also doing it for Coilguns, Abraham, Zatokrev, Red Fang…He is a great guitar player and we were really happy to have him “on stage” with us.
Of course it is not only about having good players. They’re all good friends and for us, this kind of collaboration is always a good chance to get drunk with them.
(((o))): Tell me about the theme(s) on Commuters. I’ve read the lyrics and I’ve seen the question “Are we earthians?” come across a couple of times. Could you elucidate a bit more?
LOUIS: This record addresses ourselves as commuters; active people constantly travelling from a point A to another one called B. Somehow we, touring musicians, do the same. Point A being here the club we leave in the morning and B the one we discover at the end of the day. It may be a different club, city, country, it's still a club. Just like these commuters, we're part of a tribe of nomads, an informal population of rootless monkeys. And yes, we're proud of our job.
What we usually forget is how static we actually are. We all end up spending most of our time in traffic jams, highways, petrol stations, motels, backstages. This is our C point, the one that's not our destination but the whole way leading to it. C is the no man's land.
Ever had the impression that your train is not really moving, but that it is the landscape itself that is moving instead? Well, touring is static. Our house is our bus and you are our visitors, not the contrary. Distances don't get smaller, they just don't exist for us. We make friends, they come to our show (they even bring a bottle or two) we entertain them, and they get back to their normal life. Nothing changes for us, we're still on the road.
I made a few references to late 60's architecture utopias. First of all because it is trendy and fun, but also because they crystallised the condition of the commuters. Plug-in Cities, No-stop Cities, Continuous Monument. This is how it feels touring the world nowadays, rock 'n roll clubs are a continuum of standard equipment. Wherever we go, we'll be sure to find what we need to survive and communicate. We're the new nomads, and our life isn't that far from what these architects predicted. Our tour van is our private life cell, e-mail English is our Esperanto, the World Wide Web is our monument.
The artwork makes it obvious: circular shapes, standard subway map colours, ocean tides, didn't we realize the earth was round staring at the sea horizon?
I wrote a first text named Minkowski Manhattan Distance and took it as a basis for these songs. I picked a sentence or two per track and paraphrased it into a new proper song. They all share the same theme: distance versus time, urban spaces, human relationships and so on. The usual blah blah. At the same time, these are just songs, you know, raw punk poetry to scream along heavy riffs and frantic drumbeats, there's not so much space for clever thoughts. Don't freak out too much if it seems absurd; it is probably meant this way.
(((o))): Where do you get your inspiration?
SATAN. Seriously, I get the inspiration when I play my guitar. No matter what, where and how. Just put me somewhere with a guitar and an amp and after a short while I’ll be writing some riffs. Of course it’s easier to feel inspired when you can spend a lot of time doing only that and considering all the things I do plus the touring schedule of The Ocean, I can’t always focus on Coilguns only.
(((o))): Are your songs written collectively as a band, or do you come in with a couple of riffs and ideas to which the band then builds on?
I usually come up with a couple of riffs and a draft of a structure, record them, send them to Luc and after a week or so, we meet in the room and start working on it. Then we go with the flow. Luc’s really involved in the song writing at this point. He’s a good guitar player and he gives me his opinion from a drummer point of view and since I don’t know how to count he often straightened my fucked up riff and makes them more efficient. The very first riff of the very first song ever recorded for this band (‘Mastoid’) was Luc’s riff. We just spend a lot of time both seated in the living room with 2 guitars gathering ideas on how to improve the song and get rid of the useless parts.
A good example would be ‘Commuters Part 2’. At first I had written this song which had this kind of At The Drive-In vibe to the main riff (that you can actually hear on ‘Commuters Part 1’) and then everything was kind of Deftones meets Dillinger. Pretty melodic. Pretty short with a proper A, B, A, B, C, B kind of structure…But eventually, Luc decided that it was too gay and that we should focus on these 3 chords that were a simple transition. We started jamming them out, looping different guitar lines and these 3 chords ended up being 11 minutes of an unbearable build up.
So we discuss everything and we also record pre-productions, then listen to them and meet the next day and share our feelings about the song. When we’re happy we just send it over to Louis (who never ever rehearse with us) and he lays down some vocals. Sometimes he would ask us to make one part longer or shorter but usually he’s fine with whatever we do.
(((o))): Who are your musical heroes?
Ben Weinman, Kurt Balou, Jacob Bannon, Thomas Haake, Björk, Daniel Johns, Chino Moreno and so many others…Zeppelin, Sabbath, Pink Floyd…I don’t have a particular idol or favourite musician…I’ve gotta mention Luc and Louis as well.
(((o))): Do you have any heroes, which aren’t musical ones?
My fucking parents, several of my friends and the ones that have always supported me in any way. As I said, I don’t have any idol. The heroes are the ones making me feel alive on a daily basis and these are my close people, period.
(((o))): How many effect pedals do you actually use?
I use 25 different pedals. Some of them being AB boxes, Noise suppressors, Tuner…I’m using 2 polyphonic octavers, 4 different distortions, tremolo, 2 delays, reverb, 1 freeze pedal from EHX, a 4 band EQ, a volume pedal…
(((o))): How important are social media and blogs like ours to you?
Social medias are a powerful tool if you know how to use them. I guess that nowadays we’re going back to what used to be the real DIY scene BUT with Internet as a tool and this is definitely an improvement. If you’re a little bit smart you’ll realize that you can make sure to reach to the people that have some interest in checking you out instead of fishing for new “fans” and such that wouldn’t care.
I got into this whole social network thing as soon as we started the band. I did not know what to use, how to use them and what to say. But eventually, after checking other bands profiles and the different social medias they were using I started my thing and it worked out. We were able to create a small fan base that’s supporting us on a regular basis. Can be with helping out for a last minute show, a place to crash, news to share…I was talking to Robin from Pelagic Records a couple of days ago and that’s incredible how much more records we are selling directly through our bigcartel and bandcamp than through physical distribution. I mean, it’s definitely not a good sign as our sales figure will never be good enough for us to sign on a bigger label…AND SO WHAT? I’m doing this interview, we’ve played about 60 shows, and we are releasing records...So why should we care?
It’s also that through these social medias the relation between the band and the listeners is direct, almost personal (at least to our level) and I think that’s great to be able to know what people think and that they can ask you directly what they want. I hate spending all my time on my computers sending e-mails and handling all these different profiles, but fact is that this allows us to play shows and meet people that share the same passion for music as we do. I could not imagine someone else than band members handling the social media content of our pages as for me that’s what makes it interesting.
About blogs like www.echoesanddust.com and the likes, I’ve been making a lot of thinking about how important it was or not. A friend of mine and I are running a promotion agency (KICKSTARTMYBAND) since about a year. When I started to talk to people like you, I’ve found myself really happy to have to deal with super dedicated people like we are and like the bands we are working for. All of them stay super underground projects. I mean, we’ve worked for Khoma (Cult of Luna’s side project), we are now working for The Old Wind (feat 3 members of Breach) and this obviously opens more doors in bigger medias. But for a band like Coilguns for example, which represents a small minority of a small branch of the metal scene, blogs like yours simply are our voice. We’re the same kind of people, listening to the same kind of stuff, hanging out with the same kind of friends. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s the feeling I have. Of course it’s nice to be featured in a big print magazine, and some of the bigger webzine obviously have people like you working for them, and the exposure is definitely bigger but we mainly wanna get the people we know could have a direct interest to check us out. These people are the 15 friends you or other bloggers have. I also tend to find that smaller blogs have a better quality of writing which I’m really sensitive to.
(((o))): I have only seen Switzerland from a coach bus on my way to Italy. If I make a proper visit, what should I see and do?
FOOD: Have a Fondue moitié-moitié in Fribourg, Try the most addictive Ice-T you’ve ever tasted (the one from La Migros), local horse meat, Gruyère cheese, chocolate (even the super cheap ones are awesomely tasty), drink some real fuckin’ ABSINTH!
You should also experience the underground nightlife of where we live in La Chaux-de-Fonds. It may be a shit hole but there’s a crazy underground culture and a lot of artists although it is a real worker city. Parties possible from Monday to Sunday in places that are not shit clubs with shit people and where you can find cheap drinks. Make a nice tour of the few last cool squats in Neuchâtel, Lausanne, Bienne, Zürich…
Any place by the lake is a treat. For a walk, a nice improvised lunch…It’s a beautiful country, period. I started realizing how beautiful it was when I started touring a lot. Since then, every year I’m trying to take at least one week of holidays to visit my own country. It’s so small but I still haven’t seen half of it although I’ve been to fucking Beijing and Novosibirsk. People are generally nice everywhere and you can just drive around and stop anywhere out of town and be in a beautiful spot. The downside is that it’s fucking expensive.
(((o))): You’re on your European tour at the moment. Are you looking forward to coming back to the UK again in April? (see dates here)
Ahaha, as you may know it took me forever to answer this interview and we’re back from the EU tour since more than a month now. I’m really excited about this upcoming UK tour although it was a pain in the ass to organise. UK is the country where Coilguns has the best feedback and press. We’ve already been there and although we’re really doing it the punk way, we had a lot of fun and shows were good even if turnouts were not amazing.
This time around I was a bit worried though. Like on march 1st 2013, 4 shows out of 8 were missing (and we are starting the tour on march 30th…) So I was freaking out! But we got lucky and a couple of people were willing to help us out and sorted out shows for us. I mean for one of the show, we are simply renting the venue ourselves, which seems to be a common thing in the UK but definitely not over here.
Anyway, just to make a concrete example about what we talked earlier (social medias + the importance of blogs) 2 of the shows are being organised by some e-zines writers. Andi from Subba-Cultcha.com (does the show in Leamington and will also play with his band Eagles Born Vultures) and Phil from Sonicabuse.com (does the show in Leicester and will play with his band Final Coil). These guys have reviewed all our EP’s and have always been supportive and with helping us out on this they just show their dedication to music and this whole scene, which is all about solidarity, passion and beers. I fucking love it and hope we’ll be able to do that for another 40 years. Thanks guys.
(((o))): Lastly, what should we expect from Coilguns this year?
This is exclusive info but we have 2 different collaborations in the pipeline. It will happen this summer. One with a band going by the name of a massive fish and the other one with a band named like a part of car. These will not be splits like we did in the past. We wanna bring this band to some other grounds now and will be experimenting more. I don’t know exactly what that means but can be that both bands would play altogether or that people will be playing different instruments…I don’t know…
We’re also gonna be pretty busy touring with The Ocean but as soon as we have some time-off we will start writing new songs. I can already say that we will be releasing a record sometimes in 2014.
Photo credits: Jonathan Trask, Gobinder Jhitta, Patrick Häberli and Brigou.
