What would be the homestead of Convictive and what kind of music do they play?
We all come from the Ruhrgebiet -Area and we rehearse in Oberhausen. We play
an atmospheric and dark, yet melodic kind of black metal. Thus most people
consider us a “Post Black Metal” band, which we are actually perfectly fine
with, since that puts us in one box with bands like Agyrpnie and Harakiri for
the sky.
Why do you play it?
It´s the sum of all out favorite styles, it allows us to dip into that special
darkness and the depth and intensity of the Black Metal that we like, yet we are
feel free to incorporate a lot of melodies, experiments with sounds, harmonics
and subjects, classical Black Metal bands wouldn´t consider occult or
misanthrope. It all derives from bands like Darkthrone, yet we pick it up from
where modern bands like “Der Weg einer Freiheit” brought it.
How would you describe your style?
Imagine the darkness of 90ies Black Metal, combined with a modern production,
fast and diverse drums and bass, very melodic guitars and all culminating in
harsh female Black Metal screams which only few men could pull off. It´s like
what you would expect of a “modern”, open-minded Black Metal band, so it´s
black metal with a twist, so to speak.
Considering that you have originally started with a male vocalist and switched to a female now, it may be interesting to know whether this has affected your style of music? Does this open more options in terms of expressing the lyrics?
It certainly does, Jalina, our vocalist is our main lyricist and lets her
preferences flow into the lyrics. There is a sort of poetry, imagery and
metaphorical level to the words that reflect her point of view on the world or
certain subjects but allowing the listener do reinterpret it or find new aspects
in those lyrics. For sure, these are things a male vocalist could bring to the
table, too, but here it all comes from a female perspective. Metal is still
widely dominated by male musicians and especially female Black Metal vocalists
are seldom to be seen and heard.
A lot of bands like to use English lyrics for their music. Aside from German being your mother tongue (I presume), what makes this language preferable over others?
It somehow came naturally for us to use German lyrics since it is our mother
tongue and the lyrical concept and imagery are very important to us. We probably
couldn´t reach the same level of metaphorical depth and intention in a language
we haven´t fully mastered. Furthermore, we want our singer to feel comfortable
to express herself on stage and on record. Using a language we are not one
hundred percent capable of interpreting and mastering to build a complex image
would be like playing Bach or Mozart on a piano with one-finger-technique, it
wouldn´t do justice to the art.
Schiller, Goethe, Darkthrone … these three words appear on your homepage in the very first line in some kind of introduction to your band. Why those three?
Those 3 reflect the imagery, the concept of melting poetry, maybe even
literature with the dark and mostly black painted world of Black Metal. Yet we
wouldn´t consider us as the sum of those pieces, it´s more like a mixture, a
joint venture of ideas and imagery.
What would be the narrative element that black metal or extreme metal can provide? What would be your share of it?
We often like to focus on the darker side of human behavior, but instead of
singing about how greedy and scrupulous individuals can be, we paint a picture.
For instance, we paint a picture of men fighting for a gem, killing for profit,
showing how their mind is affected by their will to power or richness. It may be
far more difficult than just singing “mankind is full of greedy bastards”, yet
the image is more powerful, convincing and intriguing. The Black Metal side
represents the darkness in human beings, the hatred, the greed. It´s about the
rebel in us that does not fit in a social construct, the rebellion against
authorities and powers. One could say this is the elementary point in Black
Metal, rebellion against all kinds of authority. So we might be more of a
classical Black Metal band as we might know ourselves…
And speaking of good ol' Darkthrone, which part of their discography do you prefer? Are you able to enjoy the modern material as well?
Darkthrone are without a doubt legends. Since we as a band in the Black Metal
genre are not exactly what one would consider a classical Black Metal band in
the vain of 90ies Norwegian Black Metal, we feel with Darkthrone when they a
criticized for their recent outputs. Even though not everyone in the band
exactly favors their more punk-esque attitude in recent years, they took their
music and their art way back to the backbone of what Black Metal once was. It is
like they are rebelling against an art form that is or was once best known for
rebellion. We can identify with it! May be all elitism in Black Metal in the
last few years has made us and others in that genre and art form blind for the
fact that Black Metal shouldn´t follow rules, shouldn´t be narrow-minded and it
really should place the art and emotion in the listeners over any aspects of
elitism, anti-religiousness and hatred.
How much of their music has found their way into your own compositions?
They have inspired a lot of bands that inspire us, they left their footsteps in
an art form that we can follow, try to fill out and leave our own. A lot of the
speed, some vocal styles, even a bit of our strong imagery derived from them and
other important acts. But without a doubt, you will find more parallels between
Agrypnie or “Der Weg einer Freiheit” and us then between Darkthrone´s classical
albums and our CD “Blutnacht”
What are the core essences of Convictive's music?
We think the core of what we do artistically is cultivating music as an art form
to transport emotions. Like painters using tones and waveforms instead of paint
and canvas. The essence for us is the art of performing a sort of skillful music
that transports certain aspects of life, emotions and feelings in form of songs
that listeners can relate to, find new aspects in and maybe explore further with
our help.
The digital bandcamp release comes with a bonus track. Why did this track not make it on the regular CD release? How does it differ from the rest?
We felt the strong need to offer digital listeners some sort of additional
experience, so we decided to give them a chance to listen to a live bonus track.
We sold the complete first limited edition of around 100 hand-numbered demos and
wide parts of the second edition within a few months at our concerts, so we knew
the listeners would know, that we are able to reproduce the songs in a live
environment. But we also knew that first time listeners who didn´t become
infected with our music through the live experience would ask themselves, if we
were able to pull this off on stage. So we gave them an unpolished,
non-overdubbed live song.
How can someone get in touch with you and where can someone find your music?
You could mail us on convictive@gmx.de or hit us up at our facebook account and
we´ll be quick to write you back. The before mentioned bandcamp account which is
“convictive.bandcamp.com” as well as our website appearance (www.convictive.de)
are probably the best starting points to get to know us. Yet, if you like to
keep your closet CD-free and want the digital version, you can consider all the
relevant platforms like Amazon, ITunes and Spotify, you just need to look for
“Blutnacht” or Convictive.
What would be the future plans for Convictive?
Shortly, we will be finishing a nearly 30-stop-all-year-long-gig-cycle in
support of the “Blutnacht” CD which features al songs of that CD plus a lot of
new material. In the meanwhile we will go back to studio mode and plan for a
full CD release in early summer 2016. We are really looking forward to bring
that new CD to the summer festivals Schlichtenfest and Aaargh Open Air which are
so much fun.
Closing comments if you like
Thank you very much for giving us the chance to introduce us to your readers. We
hope you enjoy our art form and feel free to get in touch with us, come witness
the live performance that in Convictive and anticipate our new CD in 2016!
Thanks!
http://www.convictive.de
http://www.facebook.com/convictive
https://convictive.bandcamp.com/releases
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