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Phone interview with Patrick Loisel of Augury

March 11th 2010, Los Angeles CA

Andrew: On this tour you are playing with session musicians Christian [Pacaud] on bass, and Tommy [McKinnon] on drums. How has that been working out?
Patrick: It has been great actually. Christian was referred to us by our former drummer Antoine [Baril]. They had played together and when we went in he already knew the songs. He is kickass and very tight live. And playing with Tommy has been great because we've known him for seven years.

Andrew: You toured with Vader last year. This time the headliners are Black Dahlia Murder. How would you compare the two experiences?
Patrick: It is a totally different dynamic. Vader is a veteran band with a cult status, but they are not like mainstream big stars. Black Dahlia are good at the moment. They play complex music. There is nothing childish in their music. Its very mature music, but the kids dig it a lot. So the big difference is the age and the number of the audience, which is like five times what we were used to playing. The age has been around 13 to 16 years old while on other tours we were playing in front of adults. But they are the future generation and usually, you always stick to the bands that you first discover. I still love the band I heard when I was 14 years old, but a band I listened to at 22, I forgot about. So they won't forget about Augury soon. They gave us a warm reaction.

Andrew: There were quite a few line-up changes due to which your latest album 'Fragmentary Evidence' [released in 2009] was in the writing process for as long as four years. Considering all that, were you satisfied with the end result?
Patrick: Yeah, totally. It has been a lot of work. We spent that much time for the whole reason to be satisfied. When we were recording the album there was no record deal. There was not even a big record deal pending. We didn't do it to seduce a big label. First and foremost, we did it for ourselves. It was like if we are pleased then others will be pleased, including the label. Also, the line-up changes prolonged the process because we had to show the songs to different drummers, who liked to perfect the song more and make it a little bit more mature. It would have been good if we had this album recorded a year prior, but we had to fix some details.

Andrew: What's going on with the writing of new material and how does the recent line-up change affect that?
Patrick: Well, it has changed nothing because first and foremost, the drummer who recorded Fragmentary is not the one that appears on the booklet. We have some songs for the new album. We have to tour some more in the summer. During the following winter, we'll take that time to write the rest of the new album. It'll start with me and Matt and we'll have collaborations from others. We're pretty well surrounded. And I already have the lyrics for it.

Andrew: So what will the permanent line-up be after this tour?
Patrick: This is something we will address later. Right now, this is for the time being. I know that the bass player told me that he has a one-month vacancy so this will be his only tour. But we'll keep working with him on short-term projects. As for the drummer I think it will be Tommy because we are getting along so good. He's been around the band for over seven years. He's been a friend. So we will be delighted to have Tommy.

Andrew: What appeals most to you about this progressive/technical death metal genre?
Patrick: I wouldn't say that progressive metal appeals to me. It's about the feeling of songs and some of them happen to be progressive. Others appear to be very dumb and simple. We draw from different influences but we don't tell ourselves to write complex music. Even if we play a good simple riff, we keep it. The fact that this genre is not as appealing to people, doesn't bother us because we are not really progressive from beginning to end. There are also easy listening parts that attract people, parts that we put near even our most progressive parts. We're not just progressive, aggressive and complex. There are moments in the songs that sound in another way. So we please everybody. The only thing we'll never do is glam rock.

Andrew: What do you do for creative inspiration?
Patrick: For the lyrics, I do it mostly myself. It comes from conspiracy theory books, the older books that is, not the books you find on the internet. I like to go into old literature and history. As for the music Matt is more into experimental and acoustic music, stuff that has plenty of quiet parts with lush acoustic guitar harmonies. I am the black metal guy. I have pretty much been satisfied with the same stuff for years. I am a big fan of Orphaned Land and King Diamond. I listen to a lot of bands from the third world, from countries like Singapore, India, Taiwan and stuff like that. I like to hear the flavor of dance like in Indian pop music. I love Daler Mahendi and Anamika. I also breed exotic animals, most of them coming from India and Singapore. That culture is very rich and different. It gives a different flavor as compared to guys like us who have been growing up in the Western environment. They have a different feeling. Not that those pop stars are that good as musicians, but its different and fresh. I like my old classicals as well. I love the Indian metal band Agnee. I love the last two albums by the band Rudra. Loudness from Japan was one of my favorite bands in the 80s too. And all the members of Augury love the bands we tour with like Black Dahlia and God Dethroned. We have toured with some very cool people. But yeah, people who think that metal can live only in the UK, Europe and North America, it's not the case (laughs). We are open-minded about music from that part of the world. I know that there is a guy in Pakistan who is like a local Yngwie Malmsteen and plays 2000 notes a minute. I wish to see him.

Andrew: You don't play songs like "Jupiter to Ignite" and "Oversee the Rebirth" in their entirety. Why is that?
Patrick: Well we managed to record the songs but nowadays it is impractical to play them live. First they are very long and second they are more complex than all the other songs on the album. It will be a lot draining for me to do them.

Andrew: How much more of touring do you have for the album and what is the band doing after that?
Patrick: After this tour I'm going back to teaching. I'm a high school teacher. After the summer we won't have any tours. We will play live next year but before that it'll be mostly the writing of the new album. The first two albums took really long to do and this time we really want to do it better. We know what we want, there'll be no fumbling around and we'll go to the point. So starting September up until June it'll be about working in the day time and writing music at night.