SOURCE – Musically, what, in your creative view, separates Misery Rites from new album, Devouring Ruin?
Arjun Gill (Guitar) – Misery Rites was still very much rooted in grindcore whereas on Devouring, we were able to tap into our non-grind and non-metal influences a lot more. For example, I took a lot of influence from post-rock and post-black metal bands when it came to adding leads. I also find that contrast is one of the most important devices to utilize. Without slow sections, the fast sections won’t sound fast and without quieter sections, the loud sections won’t sound loud.
SOURCE – The new album garnered very positive critical reaction – did that help spur the writing process for Devouring Ruin?
Arjun Gill (Guitar) – The critical response to our last few albums has been fantastic, but personally I don’t feel that any reviews affected our songwriting or headspace for this album.
SOURCE – With five guys in the band, how do things play out in terms of songwriting/working arrangements?
Arjun Gill (Guitar) – The band dynamic when it came to writing and practicing shifted significantly from Misery to Devouring Ruin. During Misery Rites, we were driving 3 hours to Edmonton every other weekend to jam with our drummer Josh. Around 2 years ago, we convinced him to move to Calgary and since then jamming and writing has been much more constant and productive. This album was the first time we could all work with minimal deadlines and really spend time on sections getting them to where want them to be.
SOURCE – Let’s talk about you as a producer. What type of criteria do you have nowadays for someone to work with you?
Arjun Gill (Guitar) – We have worked with Dave Otero now for both Misery Rites and Devouring Ruin.
The main reason we went back was because of how easy he is to work with and he is really helpful as a producer as well. He doesn’t get us to change things drastically but the suggestions that he makes always usually small but make a huge difference. We definitely like having a pair of outside ears giving feedback. Dave also understood the sound that we were going for, he records a very diverse lineup of bands from Cattle Decapitation to Khemmis to Archspire and for our record to sound nothing like those bands shows that Dave doesn’t just throw a preset onto every channel, every album, every style sounds different, and that’s amazing.
SOURCE – This question gets proposed to a lot of bands nowadays, but I was wondering how the economy has affected Wake?
Arjun Gill (Guitar) – Obviously the Coronavirus as well as global oil price instability has taken quite a toll on our economy. Being from Canada, our currency has also seen better days which makes it tough to tour the US when prices are almost at par but our dollar lacks a quarter of the value of its’ American counterpart. We live to play music so no matter the conditions we do our best to persevere even if it’s not always profitable.
SOURCE – What’s your opinion on illegal downloading and what do you think would make people buy more music?
Arjun Gill (Guitar) – I have possibly a different take on this than some of my band members due to where I was raised. I spent most of my formative years growing up in Saudi Arabia. Things are changing now, but in the early 2000s, there was absolutely no live music allowed in the country and finding legal sources to buymusic was incredibly difficult, especially when it came to punk and metal. Without illegal downloading, me and many people I grew up with wouldn’t have been able to be exposed to so many bands and genres that we would have otherwise never gotten the chance to hear.
That being said, if you live in a place where you can easily access and purchase music legally, then there’s no excuse, support the bands.
SOURCE – The level of quality and/or uniqueness in Canadian metal, for you, does that at all come from Voivod, Sacrifice and Exciter?
Arjun Gill (Guitar) – Geddy Lee Rules Bro.
SOURCE – Finally, what’s on tap for the rest of 2020 and going into 2021?
Arjun Gill (Guitar) – It’s tough to know what we’re going to be able to do in for the rest of 2020, but no matter how long this crisis lasts, we will be writing new music and we plan to get back on the road as soon as conditions allow.
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