CVLT Nation interviews Toby Driver of Kayo Dot.
Pick up Hubardo here.
Hubardo no matter the length, came along fast, little over a year after Gamma Knife – can you tell us why?
A few reasons – firstly, the past couple of releases (Stained Glass and Gamma Knife) were relatively short, so I’ve just been overflowing with inspiration for a couple years now with no real means to get it out of me. With both Stained Glass and Gamma Knife, going into those projects, I knew that the band was already severely limited by budgetary constraints… So, in cases like that, I believe that it’s a better idea to keep the scope of a project small so that you don’t end up writing music that can’t be executed due to the budgetary constraints. With Hubardo, we budgeted from the getgo to do a larger-scale album, so were able to let the ideas flow freely. Secondly, we used more repetition in the writing this time than we ever have before, so we were able to make entire songs out of only two or three ideas, as opposed to the past where each song would have very little repetition and would consist of dozens of different ideas and permutations. Thirdly, I’m fortunate enough to be able to dedicate almost all of my time to music now, whereas in the past I’ve been crippled by my day-jobs… So these days, I can finish writing pieces of music in fewer weeks.
Can we assume the writing process was pretty easy and natural since it came along so fast? Would you call this album one that was easy to make, or not?
It was both easy and difficult. The easier part was in the writing – with Hubardo, the lyrics came first – so they were something that I could use to guide the architecture of the album. That was a first, for me – having a lot of the mood decisions already made for me. Additionally, I also wanted to take an approach that was more similar to the approaches I used in Maudlin Of The Well, and that we use in Vaura – that is, to go with ideas that are super-intuitive and develop those, rather than always flipping the intuitive ideas around to explore their hidden sides. The most difficult part about it was getting myself to accept that it would be ok to go with those ideas, and to actually use repetition, do things in groups of 4, cadence to the tonic, etc. – when you have a reputation as being avant-garde, progressive, experimental or whatever, there will certainly be a subgroup of fans who are only interested in that element of your work, and will harshly judge whether something is “weird enough” or “complex enough.” It’s sometimes a challenge to remember that we’re not specifically trying to make music exclusively for people with those interests.
Hubardo means “lantern” in some weird occult language I believe. Can you explain more on the themes and concepts the album covers?
It means “lantern” or “lamp” in Enochian, which is a magickal language that was codified by the occultist John Dee in the 1500s. As you may know, our lyricist, Jason Byron, was formerly one of the Maudlin Of The Well vocalists, and when we transformed into Kayo Dot, Byron retired from making music to focus on his studies of the occult. He’s been doing exclusively that (and writing poetry) for the past decade, and is quite deep into that whole world. So, the whole concept of the album was his idea, including all the themes and hidden meanings… I wish that you were able to get him to answer this question for you. In any case, if you want to attach some meaning to it, then here’s a quote from him: “it’s an allegory for being unsatisfied with the current state and finding your will or angel or whatever, and following your ideal even to death.” But, Byron presented all of this in the context of all the stuff he’s been studying forever, so the structure of the album is correlated to ideas of personal alchemy. I think that listeners who are into that stuff will see the symbolism pretty clearly, even in things as simple as the track numbers.
Mia Matsumya played on the album but does not appear on the band promotional material. Can you please elaborate more on her status in the band?
Yeah, Mia lives in Los Angeles now, and we all are located in New York. Her capacity to participate is basically nil, but since this was supposed to be the tenth-anniversary album, I thought it was important to get her involved even in a minor way.
What about the rest of the lineup? Have you managed to keep it somewhat stable recently?
Yes and no… Every two years there is a change, and has been that way with Kayo Dot since the beginning.
The black metal elements in Hubardo are even more accentuated than on Gamma Knife and even the doom and death metal ones are as well. Did you set out to make a heavier album this time or did it just end up being that way once finished?
Yeah, I had wanted to do the heavier thing a couple years ago when we did Gamma Knife, but the recording was so low-fi that a lot of listeners couldn’t hear the details in the music. I thought it would be cool to follow that up with some more metal but with a pro recording, positioning Gamma Knife as sort of a primer for Hubardo. Although, the metal in Gamma Knife has more of the chorus-bass thing we heard on our 2010 release Coyote, and in Hubardo it’s more of a regular straightforward bass sound. Gamma Knife‘s songs were written with the bass guitar first and the guitar added later, and Hubardo‘s really got the guitar at the front and the bass backing it up – so maybe next time I’ll flip it back so that we can hear some of that sweet chorus-bass recorded well. Heh.
Some could argue that there elements of Gorguts and Deathspell Omega in this album, what would you reply?
I like both of those bands!
To us it seems like overall, the greatest attention on this work was given to your vocals and that the vocals really set the tone of the album and seem to be its focal point, going in many different directions, from beautiful chamber chants to raspy and evil screeches. Do you agree?
I thank you very much for noticing… Firstly, I have to say that compositionally, no instrument received greater attention than any other. But, in the recording process, we focused the most on the drums, and they’re what took the longest. Drums took four days, with two to three (or more) takes per song, yet. I did all the lead vocals in pretty much one take, and over the course of just one day (and we did the choir stuff on a different day). By the end of the day, my voice was destroyed (which creates a cool and apropos sound, anyway). One thing about vocals in this band is that, you know, when I think about the other bands in our own local scene – our friends, and peers – there is not really any band that seems to care all that much about vocals in their own music. Most of these bands are instrumental, or the vocals are just a functional monotony (in a cool way, but, you know). I think Kayo Dot stands out, in that way. We certainly have more of a “songwriter” influence than the other bands in the New York brutal prog community. Just need to mention one exception though – Charlie Looker’s recent bands seem to have shared this affinity.
You write extremely abstract music and this time it goes on for an hour and a half. It was pulled off brilliantly but weren’t you worried it could have been just too much for the listener to take in?
Thanks. Well, yeah, I did think that it would be overwhelming at times, but that’s exactly what we want to affect. We want the listener to just feel like they’ve been destroyed, just like the poet Hubardo himself. That said, we did specifically design this music to be presented on vinyl, so the way the side splits work actually break up the story in a way that you can listen to part of it, and return later if you want. Like episodes of a TV show or something.
On that same topic, what led to the album being so long and monolithic?
I deliberately wanted to do a double-album, so I knew it had to be at least 80 minutes. When I discussed this with Byron, he originally was thinking of doing 7 poems, but I told him that I wouldn’t be able to break that up across the vinyl format in a good way. So, he decided to do 11 songs (the number having some significance) which freed me up to do a few shorter pieces to allow us to break up the vinyl side splits in a way that suited the music and the audio fidelity better. We couldn’t do fewer because we needed to be able to tell the full story. And so, just the very fact that there were 11 poems to fit to music meant there needed to be lots of strong ideas that each stood on their own and were able to be developed in interesting ways (rather than just mindless riffing), which resulted in a really long album.
This is the album that reminded us the most of Choirs Of The Eye due to its heaviness and darkness. Do you see Hubardo as a return to early sounds of Kayo Dot or still as move forward in unexplored territories?
I don’t really think it’s similar to Choirs Of The Eye in any way other than the fact that it’s heavy. The architecture is totally different. It’s actually more like Maudlin Of The Well, and deliberately so, because of the fact that it was like a retrospective album. I mean, the whole reason Byron does vocals is for the Maudlin fans, and for them alone. I think we are still free to explore whatever territory we wish, but, usually since doing an album requires about an 18-month commitment and lots of money, it’s impractical to try to get every single idea out. We were talking the other day about doing an album that kind of sounds like Joni Mitchell’s proggier stuff with Jaco and Metheny – and you know, that would be super fun for us, but would probably be a bad business decision. It probably depends on whether people care about this record or not. If we get offers to do metal fests and metal shows, then we are happy to let our brutal side blossom. But if no one gives a shit, then what’s stopping us from making a lite FM album next time just for our own pleasure?
Hubardo is once again self-released. Choice or necessity?
Necessity. Running a label sucks. I don’t know why anyone would want to do it.
Hubardo also represents Kayo Dot’s 10th birthday. How does this feel, and what are your thoughts about these 10 years of the band when looking back on all you did?
Hehe, well guys – this can be a really long answer, from the most positive thoughts down to the absolute darkest. The first thing I should say is that we would be nowhere without all the contributions from musicians, producers, labels, press, promoters and fans that have believed in us for the past decade. But, the dark side of that is realizing that maybe we actually are still nowhere. We’ve been able to make records and have some people care about them, which is fucking fantastic, but I can’t help but focus on what we don’t have. I don’t really want to make a list of that shit here, but basically, looking back at the last ten years just makes me want to be more aggressive and imposing in the near future. I have always felt like Kayo Dot never fit in anywhere, and that has not changed in a decade – that’s something that is both wonderfully refreshing and incredibly discouraging.
Future plans for Kayo Dot?
Let’s see what happens with Hubardo!
What else do you have cooking? We know you’re always working on something with other people outside of Kayo Dot…
There’s a Vaura record, called The Missing, coming out pretty soon, and I’ve also got this record, Ichneumonidae, that I recorded last winter and have been sitting on for a while. That should come out soon as well. I think there is a live Kayo Dot/Tartar Lamb II DC coming out soon on a polish label. Touring with Secret Chiefs 3. Touring with Kayo Dot. And then, over the winter, I will be writing again…
Tell us about how your musical influences have changed in recent times, what other bands or artists have impressed you recently and what you have been most drawn too these days.
Sorry guys, I cannot answer this question!
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