The work of Australian outfit HEIRS is sonic contradiction defined. Always taking steps toward the ethereal, the delicate layering of sound produced by this Melbourne-based quintet tears apart the common barriers between genre, art and the darkness within us all.
This month will see HEIRS release their third studio offering, Hunter. The 10-inch not only features two new tracks, but also a cover of Sisters of Mercy’s Never Land.
Ahead of the premier of the new video from the EP, live on CVLT Nation soon, read part one of our interview with guitarist Brent Stegeman and drummer Damian Coward…
Read the rest of the interview after the jump!
CVLT: The 10-inch was recorded at Headgap Studios in Melbourne with producer Neil Thomason mixing, who has worked with you on you last two releases. Although the album was predominantly self-produced, why was Thomason the obvious choice again for this project?
STEGEMAN: “We have developed a great working relationship with Neil. We had never done such large studio projects before, so it took us a while to fine out feet in that setting. Working on our previous record, Fowl (2010), we learned a lot about how to make the studio work for us, so it was great to go back to Headgap again with that extra knowledge and confidence.”
CVLT: I understand the original was meant to be a 7–inch release?
COWARD: “It has grown from a 7-inch to a 10-inch. We were just going to do the two songs on their own, then do the Sisters of Mercy cover as a digital download. The reason for that is we were a bit concerned over how much it was going to cost to release the one cover. But then our label looked into it and the costs were actually ridiculously low. I was under the impression it was going to cost us a helluva lot of cash. Also, 7-inches…I find them slightly throw-away times. Sure, you get them when they have tracks unreleased on LPs or special editions – but I wouldn’t get them if it wasn’t for that.”
CVLT: The band’s version of Never Land, a previous unreleased Sisters of Mercy track which appeared on the expanded reissue of Floodland, features on side B. Considering Heirs have never been the type of outfit to cover others work, how did this decision come about?
STEGEMAN: “I got my hands on the expanded reissue of Sisters of Mercy’s Floodland around the same time as we started thinking about doing a new record. The previously unreleased full-length version of Never Land had only ever appeared as a Fragment on the previous pressings. I guess the full-length version was truncated in order to fit it on the original LP. It’s one of my favourite Sisters of Mercy tracks, so I became a bit obsessed with the full version when I heard it.
“We had never really been in to the idea of doing cover songs, but when we started working on the new material I thought playing this song might open us up to trying some different sounds to see what direction we could take it, because it has that same hypnotic sensation that characterises a lot of the stuff we do with Heirs. It worked really well in the rehearsal studio with the Heirs sound, so we thought we’d record it as an experiment during the same session as what was originally intended to be a double A-Side 7-inch. It sounded so good beside the other two songs that we had to release it this way. We also wanted to remind all of these limp indie bands currently touting themselves as ‘goth’ that nothing can touch the masters.”
CVLT: The new material is so much cleaner than both Fowl and Alchera (2009), yet it retains its dark and foreboding feel without losing its grit. How is Hunter the next step for HEIRS?
COWARD: “These songs; as we were writing and rehearsing them, we realized Heirs has become what it was supposed to have become. As opposed to what we were trying to achieve. The two new songs especially define our sound at the moment. We’re simplifying things and, in doing that, it has taken us to where we were supposed to be all along. This is the most natural sound we’ve achieved so far.
“You look at Burrows off Fowl, which was the closest we came on that album to defining a real sound for us. A fusion of gothic, industrial, doom and black metal – all coming together to become a sound in itself.”
CVLT: So when was the new material written?
STEGEMAN: “Hunter was written after we returned from our last European tour. We were working as a really solid unit by that point and the song was basically a response to the cohesion we had developed playing live – writing a track completely based around what we knew were our strengths as players and as a band. Symptom was written during the Fowl sessions in mid 2010, though not rehearsed until we starting putting this record together as it required the extra instrumentation that we have since gained in Miles [Brown – Theremin/Synth].”
COWARD: “For Hunter, all our songs were written electronically first. So the structure for both of the songs was pretty solid before we even rehearsed them. Basically, we took what we did with Burrows and moved it into this cleaner, darker format. Symptom we had for a year, just jamming on it. The whole second section of that song we made up in the rehearsal studio. Its evolution was heavy, but more melodic too.”
CVLT: Where do you expect the new 10-inch will take the band?
COWARD: “Ever since Heirs started, there has always been a pretty strong idea of what we wanted to do. This is the first time, in any musical outfit I’ve been in, that I can say we’ve released several flawless recordings. It’s all in the character of each release. There’s certain elements in there where you can hear the kick drum is not as hard as the other, or the snare is a little bit out. And, despite the electronic elements on this release, we don’t want to pull this band completely over that side. Heirs needs to have that live feel to it.”
“We’ve done a fair bit with Fowl and we’ll probably do a lot more with the next one, in terms of touring. We’ve released two albums, an EP with another album on the way next year. I think it’s probably a good time to let all the music settle in and look at touring as much as possible. Otherwise, if we just keep releasing, album’s get buried very quickly.
“A really good example are the Jesu releases. Justin Broadrick releases three to four album a year. I was really into it in the start, but without space for each release to breathe, they end up getting lost. Which is really shitty. A lot of the Jesu stuff that got buried was probably the better of his stuff too. For me, as an artist and band member, that would be extremely frustrating to deal with. Just the idea that you’re producing some of your best material and it’s not getting out there. So the next couple of years are about letting the music sink into people’s conciousness. In another two years time, we’ll release another album.”
Part Two of CVLT Nation’s interview with HEIRS comes soon.
Hunter is available on October 31 from Denovali Records.
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