Kataklysm: Interview

In-person interview with Jean-Francois Dagenais of Kataklysm

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

August 14th 2010, San Manuel Amphitheatre, San Bernardino CA

Andrew: You just finished playing here at the Ozzfest kick-off. How was it?
JF: It was fun. I was surprised so many people were there in the afternoon, because I was expecting it to be a little more empty than it was. When I walked on stage, I saw a pretty packed field and it was pretty impressive. It was a fun experience, good crew and everything in general. It's the first day here and I'm glad we're doing this tour. It's great.

Andrew: The metal fans have definitely turned up for this 'extreme metal stage' as I would call it, with bands like yours, Skeletonwitch and Goatwhore on it.
JF: Yeah, definitely. Good bands playing, and we met up with the Exodus guys earlier, and partied a lot. It's cool and definitely extreme.

Andrew: Were you surprised to be included in Ozzfest, being a death metal band and having never played it before?
JF: We got the call pretty late and they told us they are interested in having Katalysm on Ozzfest. That was great because we actually had the time to do it because we had that month off. Then DevilDriver called us and told they are doing Ozzfest as well and asked us to join us on their tour. So it turned out to be an actual whole tour with 30 shows or something.

Andrew: With DevilDriver you are playing these off dates. I think you're getting to play a longer set in those shows. How are those shows going?
JF: Yeah they are going great. We did three already so far. We did San Francisco, San Diego and Tempe. So far so good, and yes we are playing longer, so it's great. It's fun to do a big show like Ozzfest. It's always cool to have that party atomosphere. Everyone's drinking everywhere and it's a great time.

Andrew: On this tour what is your set list like? Did you mix the new album with the old stuff? You are getting only 25 minutes.
JF: We are trying to do as much as we can from the new album, so we did two songs and tried to put classic Kataklysm tracks in there. We did five or six songs. It was hard to actually pick songs for this because we have so many that we want to play in such little time.

Andrew: You are playing these shows in the early afternoon. Does that make any difference to you at all?
JF: Actually, I don't really care, as long as there are people to see us. I always focus on my show and I want to do the best I can when we play. I don't see it as a big competition between the bands before and the ones after. I just want to do the best with the time we have, whenever we have and it was just great to see so many people so early. I could see a bunch of Kataklysm shirts in the audience. I didn't expect that from this kind of festival because I was thinking, may be people would be shocked to see the extreme metal but no, it was really cool.

Andrew: Your latest album "Heaven's Venom" is coming out very soon. How would you sum it up?
JF: To me it's probably my favorite Kataklysm record so far. I'm really happy with it. I'm still listening to it and enjoying it. That's a good sign because usually after a few months of studio work I'm like, I could have done that part better. It's not like that on this record and I'm really proud and happy about it so far.

Andrew: How was the recording process. Since you do the production yourself, did you do anything unique or different this time?
JF: We always try to do our best when we go into the studio and that's what we did again. We tried to push it further and further, being harder on ourselves. Whenever something is wrong, you fix it and you work towards perfection. That's pretty much the key with this album because everyone was focused and really wanted to make a great record this time around. We went into the studio with an aggressive attitude. We worked extra hard and everybody is really satisfied. The end result shows.

Andrew: The album cover looks amazing. Who came up with that idea?
JF: Maurizio [Iacono, vocals] did. He's the one who writes the lyrics and the concepts for the band so he had the idea for the cover. When we saw the first draft, we thought it was cool and we liked it. It's got a more old school approach. We wanted something like that for our album.

Andrew: Your band has members in Ex-Deo as well. How does that impact things?
JF: It's just more touring really (laughs). Most of us in Kataklysm play in Ex-Deo as well , so we are jumping from Kataklysm to Ex-Deo tours. It's a pretty packed year for us touring wise. But it's been fun. We like doing this and we like that lifestyle. It's just great to be able to do this as a living.

Andrew: You did a video for 'Push The Venom'. What was that experience like?
JF: It was fun! We did it in Serbia. The weird thing is, we use a lot of technology for the video, so most of the shots were done in front of a huge green screen and the director was telling us to do this and that, there's going to be angels here, stuff there and we had to kind of go with it. We were in an empty room with a green screen, so it was hard to picture what the final product is going to look like, and when we were done and saw the final thing, we thought it rocked. He really captured the vision of the song and the record, and the vibe of the band. We're really happy about it.

Andrew: This album has just released in Europe and not yet released in the US. So how long have you been working on playing the new songs live?
JF: We started just a couple of shows before the tour. We played the Heavy Mtl so we played it there. We played in Europe this summer too. It's pretty brand new and we're excited to play new stuff live because we've been playing the old songs for over two or three years now. It's great that we have new stuff to play and we feel fresh.

Andrew: Talking of the other bands on this bill, which bands do you like the most?
JF: We've been friends with DevilDriver since the tour we did with them and Dimmu Borgir in 2006-07. So we know those guys for a while and had a barbecue with them last night. We're good friends with Exodus. We just got to know the Skeletonwitch guys and they are pretty cool. We are also great friends with Goatwhore for all those years. We've toured with them many times, so it's a cool ambience backstage.

Andrew: This year you guys missed Wacken because of a scheduling conflict. Were you disappointed?
JF: Yeah, but we'll get to play next year. To me it's not a real loss because you can't play Wacken every year. It's their rule. If you play one year, you can't play the next one. I think it's even better to do it next year because the new album would be out for a year, and also they promised us a better time slot on the show. So everything is positive for next year. Our schedule is already so full this year that I think it's better that way. We don't want to get there burnt, leave the next day and have to fly to the other side of the world. That wouldn't really make much sense.

Andrew: The great thing about Wacken is that every year, the line-up is totally different. No band is repeated.
JF: Yeah that's a rule of the organizers. You can't play twice in a row.

Andrew: You've been on the road a lot this year. Has anything crazy or really funny happened that you could share with us?
JF: There's always crazy stuff happening (laughs). I wish everybody could see it. We're trying to make a DVD and a friend of ours is following us with a camera. He's trying to catch a lot of moments from our tour and we are trying to share it with our fans and general public. But a lot of it has to be cut off because we don't want to piss off people (laughs). But it's a great experience and we'll try to show as much as we can.

Andrew: So are you shooting even on this tour?
JF: Yeah, on this tour and I would say since the last couple of days we started filming everything, and we're going to build a huge montage of it, making it interesting and fun for people to watch.

Andrew: Kataklysm have been around for quite a few years. Is there a moment that you look at as a turning point?
JF: I think the best moment of the band was the release of the 'Shadows & Dust' record and the tour that followed it. We felt like we went to a new level with that album. People, promoters and the whole music industry in general gave us a chance to show what we have, to showcase the band. Everyone kind of took us more seriously and that was the turning point in our career. From then on its been getting better every album.

Check out Kataklysm's official website.

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