Withdrawal is a unique hardcore band from Canada, using an eclectic mix of influences to create a feral mystique that is all their own. Withdrawal’s brand of Holy Terror is of a controlled ferocity, liberated of most genre trappings while refreshing others. This band, in short, is an uncompromising force of sensory terror. That being said, I recently had a chance to speak with vocalist Adam, over some of the finer points of Withdrawal’s music, how their recent tour with Creatures went, and what they have planned for the future. Enjoy!
What are some of the forces that influence Withdrawal, emotionally and musically?
Musically, we’re selfish musicians in that we’re only really writing to hear music that we’d want to hear. We think it’s important to take inspiration from others, not to be influenced by them. “Influenced” sounds like a dirty word in that sense, there are so many hardcore bands out there that are “influenced” by whatever has been going on in the past 6 months and those bands are generally weak. We just want to do something interesting and different. Some bands that we’ve been inspired by recently have been the Fields of the Nephilim, Kickback, Neurosis, Catharsis, Rorschach… Many others. At the end of the day, we just write what we write and it comes out how it comes out. We’ve been big on dynamics lately, peaks and valleys. I read an interview with Jaz Coleman of Killing Joke where he talked about how hearts beat in musical tempos and how music effects people physically by changing their internal tempos, and I thought that was really interesting.
Emotionally, and lyrically, I’m just influenced by what I see and how I am feeling at any given time when I’m inspired to write lyrics. It’s definitely a form of therapy, and in a weird way I think each song is kind of a souvenir kept from various points in time in my life, depending on what or whom they’re about. I can’t speak for the rest of the guys, but I can say that I’ve only had the chance to write some lyrics recently for our new songs after enduring what was easily the worst year of my life. I fell out of love, family members died, drugs, my mother was in the hospital and I thought for sure she was going to die – and general mid to late 20’s life uncertainty – have made for a varied set of lyrics, so I think our new songs will be very tense and maybe uncomfortable emotionally.
Read the rest of the review after the jump!
Your records and shirts depict an obvious anti-Christian sentiment, what inspires these images and how does their use correlate to your music?
I think that is a common misconception about our band, that we’re just anti-Christian. Though it’s not entirely false, after all I think Christianity is absurd and embarassing to seriously believe in, but I think it makes for some interesting and powerful visuals. I use a lot of religious imagery in my lyrics and on our artwork for that reason. But I’d say we’re interested in Christianity, but equally as interested in Satanism, chaos magicks, the Process Church, etc. People might hear a song like “Rotten Hell” and their knee jerk reaction is that it’s just some Satanic babble, but that song is just a song about taking your own path in life instead of the generic, socially acceptable life choices – for example, touring and living a meager lifestyle so that you can create art. It’s just underneath a veil of religious references. Same with “Pray as Lamb, Lamb as Prey”. “Normal” people are the Lamb. But, I’m rambling.
As is often stated, Withdrawal hails from the “frozen north”, does this climate affect how you write?
We’re from as far North as civilization goes. The coldest city on the planet. Its not uncommon to hit -50 celcius during the winter. For 8 months of the year, it’s just this miserable, uninhabitable, frozen wasteland. In a way, it affects you, because you’re stuck indoors, and no one is really going out anywhere, so you might as well play your guitar or something. You get depressed because you don’t get any sunlight, you get pale, you start going crazy from being indoors all the time and looking at that sick unnatural light. It definitely effects us more performance-wise, because we’re so far removed from the generic touring circuit. We have to drive 10 hours just to reach the places in the US that US bands don’t even want to play. Its not uncommon for us to drive 30 hours somewhere to start a tour somewhere.
You recently did a US tour with Creatures, how did that go?
It went amazingly. The guys in Creatures were the first band to ever take a chance on us and bring us into the States to tour 3 years ago, and we’ve been eternally in their debts since. They’re great friends too. It is a lot of hassle for us to play the States, we have to essentially sneak our way into the States because we didn’t have the proper work visas in the past, so its a major undertaking for us to do it.
Any experiences you would like to share?
The whole trip couldn’t have went better. It’s always surreal for us to tour in the USA, everything is just so fucking weird. Its hard to think of the highlights when it was all so great. I think personally, it was great to see our friends in Crucified when we were in Northern California. Phil played bass in us for a while and both he and Nick contributed to the Faith, Flesh & Blood 7″. We were able to spend a few days with them in the Bay area, did some sightseeing, went for dinner. It’s silly, but moments like those are what I remember from tours. I just blackout during our sets, but the time spent with friends stays. As far as the shows went, Corpus Christi and Amarillo were both awesome and chaotic shows, in the best way possible.
It was announced recently that you have a split with North Carolina’s Young and in the Way coming out this year. What other gifts of art may we accept this year?
We had originally planned on focusing on the LP, but decided to do the split with Young and in the Way as a stop gap release and to get some new material out with our new line up. After that, we’re entirely focusing on finishing the LP. We have a good selection of songs written and I’d say there is a good chance we’re going to attempt to record both at the same time. We have some top secret plans for some releases as well, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Other than that, a ton of touring. Playing the Rumble in Chicago, Heartfest in Quebec and anywhere else that will have us.
Sounds like a busy year! Any final words?
Thank you for the interest and support.
You’re welcome, it was my pleasure. Check out Withdrawal’s “Faith, Flesh and Blood” on www.a389records.com and don’t miss them at The Rumble and Heartfest!
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