SOURCE – You have a new album release out in the shape of Unseen Color. It’s definitely more progressive than Meta, but ultimately similar in regard to aesthetic. What is the concept behind Unseen Color and is it a continuation of Meta?
Simen Hundere Ruud (Guitar) – Thank you! We also think it’s a much more progressive album than Meta if you look past the surface, but you are the first one outside the band to point that out. We try to approach each album as its own thing, but at the same time learn from what we did before. We want Maraton to be a band that is synonymous with surprise and defying expectations. With Unseen Color we wanted to allow ourselves to use all of our influences, from very different genres to movies, books, people, and everything in between. We focused on making every song good on its own terms, without thinking too much about how everything fit together.
It’s not a concept album, but rather an album about concepts. The songs explore the idea of “the unknown” in various ways, using the framework of (often) abstract philosophical ideas and concepts to talk about very human and personal themes, such as love, abuse, belief and identity. The album title is an embodiment of this idea, referring to the thought experiment of imagining a brand new color in your mind’s eye.
SOURCE – Now that you guys have some distance from writing and recording the latest album, Unseen Color do you hear it differently?
Simen Hundere Ruud (Guitar) – Good question. Working on creative projects like this is often almost a bit like repeating any random word to yourself over and over again. If you do it long enough it starts to lose all its meaning eventually. I think all of us have heard the thing way too many times to have a valid opinion, but for me personally, I don’t think the album sounds as different to Meta as I did when we were making it. Parts of our audience definitely don’t agree with that, though. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, but we probably could have pushed things further in certain areas.
SOURCE – Nowadays in every album the person responsible for the sound production is strongly mentioned especially when he is a known one. How important do you think is the producer to the sound of a band?
Simen Hundere Ruud (Guitar) – It really depends on what the band wants and allows because a producer can have a huge impact on everything from songwriting, to how you play and how you sound – for better or worse. Every band and project is different, so we believe you should pick a producer based on what you’re trying to achieve, or what you need help with. We co-produced Unseen Color with Henning Svoren at Ocean Sound recordings. Since he came on right at the end of pre-production, his role was mostly to help us evolve our sound and capture what we were trying to do aesthetically.
We actually approached a couple of well-known Norwegian (in Norway, at least!) producers very early on for Unseen Color, but they never responded to us. Because of that, I ended up doing most of the pre-production myself, before Henning came on board right before recording started. Once we got in the studio, Magnus and Ruben also got quite involved in every aspect of the production and arrangement of the tracks. Unlike myself, they actually know music theory and had a ton of great suggestions on how we could improve riffs, drum beats, chord progressions, etc. Fredrik is also a master of layering vocal harmonies, so he was in charge of all that stuff. We are currently writing our third album, and I think it could be healthy for us to work with a full-time producer for songwriting and arrangement stuff, in addition to Henning. We’ll see what happens!
SOURCE – You made a video clip Perdurant Lives. Why have you chosen this song among others?
Simen Hundere Ruud (Guitar) – With all the songs being so different from each other, we couldn’t really pick a first single that represented the full album. We ended up picking a song that showed a different side to the band, which was also a way of letting our fans know to expect the unexpected. Since it was our first release in quite a while it also made sense to do a video. We originally had a different concept that was more like a “found footage” thing about a wedding that goes horribly wrong. That ended up being way outside our budget, so we went with what you see today. We shot it at the soda Factory that Fredrik and his family own, which was great. There’s still some of that wedding concept DNA in the final version. We have a ton of ideas for videos that we hope to do in the future!
SOURCE – “Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge said in September 2022 that 100,000 tracks were being added to music platforms every day.” [Resource: https://www.billboard.com/] How does that affect the music industry? And how does it make you feel as an artist?
Simen Hundere Ruud (Guitar) – I think the best idea for most lesser-known artists is to find a balance between being aware of that stuff, and not thinking about it. Everybody is constantly fighting over scraps of attention in both the press and on social media in different ways. I fear many artists feel pressured to adapt their music in order to stand a chance in this new environment, which I think is detrimental to both the artist and the listener. On the other hand, you can’t really ignore this either if you want to grow your audience. For us, we try not to think about these things when we’re making music, but rather find ways to keep these things in mind when we release and promote stuff. We had more or less the same approach to both our albums and released a number of singles months in advance leading up to the actual album. Like many other bands, we realized that audience engagement dropped off quite significantly with each single, while the album release spiked things back up. We’ve toyed with the idea of just dropping our next album out of the blue so that we can focus all the attention and coverage on one big story. I’m sure we’ll figure out a good solution when the time comes.
SOURCE – Maybe Maraton is not a big band that likely takes up most of your time, are any of you doing anything on the side these days?
Simen Hundere Ruud (Guitar) – Everyone is pretty busy with their own stuff, in addition to our normal day jobs. Fredrik is working with Need Music and a new prog project, Magnus has Hex A.D and a bunch of other stuff, and Ruben is playing with Einar Solberg from Leprous.
SOURCE – What has been the biggest obstacle to over come as a band from starting out to where you are now?
Simen Hundere Ruud (Guitar) – Where to begin? There’s a bunch of stuff we could mention, like line-up changes, scheduling conflicts, money, time etc. Those are things most bands struggle with all the time, so I’m gonna go with “finding an audience” or some version of that. While we have come a long way and are very fortunate to have a steady and fairly devoted fan base, we still feel were finding our footing as a band. We’re not consistently heavy enough to be considered a metal band, not technical/complex enough to be a true prog band, and a bit too weird to be a pop band. We have no illusions that we´re particularly unique or original, just that the blend of styles and genres can be a bit too random for some people. Our hope is that Maraton´s identity and our overall sound will become more and more clear with every album, making it easier for people to get what we’re about.
SOURCE – What does the future look like for Maraton, and do you have a message for your followers?
Simen Hundere Ruud (Guitar) – We recently had a short setback due to our drummer Frank leaving the band, which unfortunately impacted our live ambitions for 2023. We’re working hard to get back on track, finding our new drummer, and getting ready to deliver our best live shows yet. We also hope to do a new album as soon as possible. On behalf of everyone in Maraton, I want to thank everyone who has listed to us and supported us throughout the years, especially our trusted fan group Spectral Friends. We hope to see you very soon!
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