Interview Behind the Veil (Greek Magazine)
interviewed band member: Raymon van Vugth (guitars)
1. First of all I’d like you to point out the most important moments and experiences you’ve had with the band, be them good or bad.
To us, the most important thing we did was writing the songs we put on our new EP “Confess”. Although it only contains five songs, it was a lengthy process due to circumstances. Our bass player, Willem, had been gone abroad for about half a year right before we would go into the studio. That meant we had to keep motivated to pull off the new songs while he was gone. Practically, writing with Willem became a long distance kind of thing.
Normally our main motivation for the band comes from live shows, but as we were writing something new started to grow inside THE SIN COMMITTEE: a longing for well oiled teamwork and the desire to write songs that are beyond our former capabilities. So when we started writing process, the band started to go to new levels in terms of more complicated songs and professionalism. To us, that’s what musicianship’s all about… reaching new levels… and we love it.
2. Can you present your album to our readers in a few words? Which are the album’s highlights and which its weak moments or elements, according to you?
What you can expect from “Confess” is five tracks composed of a wide array of metal flavors. We have grunts, melodic vocals, lots of tempo changes, big guitar riffs and solid “TOOL”-style bass playing.
If we have to name some highlights they’re definitely found in the tracks “Regression of Faith” which is an epic song with a sensitive side to it and “Four 2 One” which is in-your-face and has some weird twists in the guitar section.
As for weak moments or elements… let the listeners be the judge of that.
3. “Confess” is your first EP. You already have one more demo work. So please point out the main similarities and differences among your albums.
I’d say the biggest difference is in the song’s structures. Our first demo is way simpler I guess. I think the first one had more a kind of “nu-metal” twist to it, whilst our newest effort is way more traditional metal in our eyes. Also, we have grown as musicians since our first demo, so the technical bar has risen a lot since.
As for similarities, on both works there are a lot of downtuned guitars and the songs are all a bit dark spirited and/or melancholic. We are a band with issues, you see… haha.
4. What kind of procedure do you follow when you compose songs? Is it a team work or do certain people in the band have more say on the end result?
As I always say it, ‘a band is like a ship, and every crewmember has HIS role’. It’s a gross error to think that means one person has more to say than the other, but in the sin committee things do come to existence in a certain order.
Normally I write a concept for a song on guitar and take it into the rehearsal space. After that everybody kind of fills it in, more specifically in the order of drums, bass and the vocals. Our bass player is kind of the one who keeps it all focused. Every one has something to say about the song, some more than others. There’s no arguing in our band about songwriting whatsoever… so our ship sails smooth. On the business side of the band it works exactly the same.
5. Which song or songs do you think are the most ideal to represent the whole album essence?
I’d say the title track “Confess”. This song has the most elements you can find throughout the rest of the EP. It has groove, melodic parts, grunts, a solo… you name it. “Regression of Faith” is a nice follow-up by the way.
6. Can you name some of the bands and albums that made you realize this is the kind of music you like the most?
It’s hard to speak for the whole band, since our tastes in metal do differ from extreme death metal to 80’s thrash. However, we do have the common taste for bands as MASTODON, OPETH and TOOL. Those are some big names and “Leviathan”, “Blackwater Park” and “Aenima” are way up on our list of best albums ever.
7. Which are your sources of inspiration when it comes to the lyrics? Which are the main topics you deal with?
The lyrics are written by our singer Joris. He definitely tries to put some meaning into the lyrics and that is also how the rest of the bands like it. I mean, we are not the type of band whose songs are about how somebody broke up with his girlfriend or something. The lyrics on “Confess” primarily refer to the negative impact of modern authorities, whether it is religion, politics, or otherwise, on our true freedom and the inability or indifference of us humans to withdraw ourselves from such negative impact. You could argue that anybody who blindly follows such authorities is guilty in one way or another. As such, there is much to “Confess”.
8. Who created the cover artwork? What does it symbolize and how is it connected to the album title?
The artwork was actually created by me. I tried to make something that kind of portrays the feeling we’ve got with the music in an abstract sense. It doesn’t necessarily connect to the title of the album, but more to the music in general. So the band got together, try to pinpoint the core subject of our singer’s lyrics so I could elaborate on that in the artwork.
It seemed the lyrics all discussed the subject of people blindly following higher powers without question. Clearly, we feel very cynical about that. So the album cover shows the higher power getting his hands on everything (in an abstract way of course). The front cover purposely does not refer to any specific religion or government in a literal sense, because we also wanted people to enjoy the artwork just for what it looks like. In terms of design I wanted to do something cartoon-like, but in a semi-realistic, authentic way. We want people to remember the cover as something that stands out next to our fellow contemporaries.
9. Have you got any plans for live shows? How are you going to promote your work?
Currently we have our hands full with planning shows. Our gig-roster isn’t quite filled at the moment, but we are negotiating for shows starting October, when everyone is back from their summer holidays. Also we’d like to do a small tour next year abroad.
As for promotion, we do interviews like this (haha) and try to spread our EP on the web as much as possible. We have several internet sites where you can listen to our music, and you can even download it for free on our website (www.thesincommittee.com).
We try to keep our network of friends as much up to date as possible and recently we even had a contest to win a free Digipack of “Confess”.
10. Have you sent your EP to any labels? Are you negotiating with any? What do you want to be offered in order to ink a deal?
We haven’t sent our EP to any labels yet. The main reason is the climate of the music industry is hard at the moment. When you don’t try, you don’t win… we realize that. However, we feel we have to wait for the right moment. So when will that be?
We think we have to get our name settled in at least our own country’s metal scene. That means we have to do more shows and get more publicity. It’s obvious we are working on that, so we hope to get to contacting labels around the start of 2010.
What do we want to be offered if chances are in our favor? Foremost we want the opportunity to get our work distributed. Secondly it wouldn’t hurt if the label could provide us with studio time to get a full length out. I think we’ll have to see if labels think about it the same way… either way a deal would be very exiting.
11. What kind of feedback have you received this far? What was the most flattering and what the most unfair comment you’ve read about your music?
We’ve got some great feedback on “Confess”. The biggest part of all reviews was fairly positive. Most flattering comments I think were about our music being hard to define into a single category. That basically means people think we’re doing something original I guess. And you know, when an album gets a negative review, lack of originality is an argument with weight. Glad to see we don’t get a lot of comments like that.
In negative reviews, the most unfair comments mostly consist of stuff like “the production is bad”, which in my eyes is just nonsense. The production might not be like a best-selling metal band’s one… but at least it’s decent. But what else could you expect from a non-signed band, right? Which brings me to this; I have the feeling in general that a lot of negative reviewers simply slay music because it’s not signed and up there with the big ones. This form of bias doesn’t do justice to any unsigned band out there at all.
12. What kind of feelings and thoughts do you think your music creates to your listeners?
I think our music has a lot to offer to a wide array of metal fans. I think the hardcore death- and black metal fans might raise an eyebrow because it’s not super-brutal. But then again, I think our music is easy to digest in a positive way. It’s like this… the stuff we make is composed of every music style we like, and we listen to a lot of stuff.
It’s easy to relax to and just listen, while there are also some heavier parts to mosh to at a show.
13. How’s the underground metal scene in the Netherlands? Has the worldwide recession hurt the scene and the shows there?
The (underground) metal scene over here is big. So big there are probably hundreds of bands I’ve never heard of. Locally, there are probably ten important underground bands in different styles.
The worldwide recession doesn’t hurt the scene at all. People will always be making music you know? If a band wants to play it’s not too hard to get a show. However, a big problem is that nowadays most stages don’t pay a band (much) for a show. The result is you get to see a lot of crappy bands, because the big bands stay clear of those places.
On the other hand, the more established venues do program good metal bands. Not an underground band by any means, Dutch band TEXTURES is doing great in the Netherlands and they give some great shows. That band has always been an inspiration to us in terms of what we want to achieve.
14. Is there a phrase that you think describes THE SIN COMMITTEE in the best possible way?
Eclectic-progressive-groove-melodic-metal. Although, I hate to give it a label like that. Keep it simple, it’s just progressive metal.
15. By the way why did you name the band like that? What does this moniker signify for you?
There’s a story behind that name. During my time on the Academy of fine arts I traveled by train each day. The train always came past a graffiti which said “Commit the Sin Commit yourself”. Somehow I always saw “commitTHESINCOMMITYourself”. Although spelled wrongly, there it was… THE SIN COMMITTEE.
What it means to us? It’s just a bad ass metal name… haha.
16. Thank you! Is there anything else you’d like to add?
You’re welcome! I would like to thank Behind the Veil for taking time for this interview. Hope the readers get to checking out our music which is available for free on our website.
Cheers,
Raymon-TSC