SOURCE – Was it an easy decision to figure out what songs to premiere from the record – and how do you feel the videos shoots went?
Florian Maume (Guitars) – Hi! Thanks a lot for welcoming ONLAP in Source Webzine! Happy to talk about this indeed! First single was not hard to decide (“Nevermind”), but other were! Always hard to know if you’re taking the right decisions, it’s so subjective! But in the end, we’re very happy with the singles we’ve chosen. Video shoots were awesome, we had a new team for the 4 videos (Nevermind, Hypnotized, Ghosts, Never Too Late) headed by Aurélien Mariat (Landmarks, Resolve…), so much good times while those shootings!
SOURCE – Waves is the third studio album for ONLAP. How did the songwriting and recording process go for this set of material – where do you see this record sitting in the catalog of discography for the group compared to previous efforts?
Florian Maume (Guitars) – Indeed it was a giant project, as we wanted it to have strong multiples links to the “Waves” concept, inside of all songs, all lyrics. That’s something we never did before. There are hidden meanings and links everywhere, and we wanted to cover multiple sounds and rock/metal styles. This is definitely the most ambitious project of ONLAP so far. We also worked production and mix more than ever. A very challenging album for us for sure!!
SOURCE – What stands out about Waves to you, as an ONLAP album?
Florian Maume (Guitars) – It’s really the album of a certain stage and period for ONLAP. The band is now 18 years old, and so we all experienced more things, and life “Waves”. That’s the album theme. It’s a kind of collection of all the most impactful Waves we experienced, going from Afterglow, crisis, death, anxiety… And all song start from a specific point to end on another, sometimes happy, sometimes not. There are waves inside each song.
SOURCE – How important do you think are singles and EPs in this era in comparison to full length releases?
Florian Maume (Guitars) – Good question! Actually we started in 2017 to release only single. It’s definitely a better strategy in terms of getting streams and making the algorithm works at its best. In terms of communication, full length album is still the best move: people are more hyped when a full album appears, as there is a full story around it and this is a whole not just another new single, nowadays more lost in the middle of million others. I guess the best answer is… both ?
SOURCE – Do you see the impact of the Internet as a double-edged sword, especially spending time promoting it through all these social media platforms?
Florian Maume (Guitars) – Actually this has became our job, 2 of us are co-founder of M&R Digital Agency 9https://www.mr-digital-agency.com/), taking care of ONLAP promotion and other artists on the digital side. So to our point of view, Spotify and other digital innovations that appeared really around 2015 have been the best chance we could ever expect to make our music heard. We’re so grateful. We met our audience and thousands of amazing people thanks to them.
SOURCE – How do you define the term success for Onlap – and has that definition shifted from your initial start as a group to where you are now?
Florian Maume (Guitars) – Yes, hard question ahah. The first 10 years of ONLAP, as teenagers, we naturally dedicated to play shows and be together as friends. Then, since around 2015, we worked hard on the digital side and so it became more about producing more music, better music than before, and promote it, shooting video clips, answering every single message on all socials, and of course a few shows. Every moment we spent the 5 of us since then have been less frequent, but even more a good time between the 5 of us, it’s always a good time and we enjoy them all. That’s the main success of ONLAP actually, the family atmosphere between us.
SOURCE – What are you most proud of accomplishing with ONLAP so far, and what’s something from your bucket list?
Florian Maume (Guitars) – Mmmh!!! Probably some of the shows and times we had together, for sure. We also have this golden record in 2021, which was a very emotional moment as it was on our first “professional” song released in 2011 and that made us who we are, “The Awakening”. We also have accomplished some of the collabs we would have never dreamed of: Thousand Foot Krutch, Halocene, Cole Rolland, and many other artists we just LOVE. In the bucket list, maybe have a full studio experience all together once again with a great producer. Or some other moments together recording or shooting things, maybe a big collaborative project with a lot of our best fans, we wanted to do such a thing in 2020 but… Covid came out…
SOURCE – Now having three albums under your belts, what are the next steps that you would like to take within the career of ONLAP to establish an even stronger footprint in the scene?
Florian Maume (Guitars) – In 2 years, ONLAP will celebrate its 20 years of existence! It will be so good to create something ultra special for 2026, but honestly, don’t have any idea at that date ahah and that’s cool: another big challenge at sight!
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Photo Credit: Alexis Fontaine