ABYSSE
PHOTO BY: Matthieu Brelet  l  WEBSITE: www.myspace.com/abyssegroupe

HOW DID YOU FIRST GET INTERESTED IN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC?

Let’s start the story by the beginning… The band is a closed friend meeting who grew up together. When we decide to start music (summer 2004), we took instrument and play cover as well as we can. When we mastered a bit guitars drums and bass, we started composition (fall 2005). We thought that a signer cold be good for us so we started THE search…

The Abysse singer is maybe already dead or unborn for the moment, so we created a deep universe, a personal way of creating music without vocals. We found that it’s a cool to play instrumental music, so we started gigs and enter professional studio (August 2007) to record our first EP. Abysse the band without singer was born. 2 years and a half after we still develop the style, and maybe wonder why if we will add some voice sample on our first album. Feedback at show and reviews give us the envy to continue on this way, no waster melodies with strong growls or pop music.

YOUR LAST ALBUM TITLED “LE VIDE EST FORME” WAS RELEASED LAST YEAR. IS THE BAND STILL CONCENTRATING ON PLAYING AS MANY LIVE SHOWS AS POSSIBLE BEFORE CONSIDERING RECORDING ANOTHER ALBUM?

We love play show. It’s a way to put on universe alive, with organics presence, with a strong show live. People who believe that instrumental music is for jerk get a different regard in live show. So we try both to compose and play in venues. But composing process is very, very long… We only compose on rehearse time, with the complete band (sometimes bass player is not there, but bass is useless, uh?!) For this reason, we try to be present on stage as less as we can. Sometimes we have to refuse small venues. We love closed place and meet new people, but we have to finish the album!! On the other hand, we can’t refuse great opening spot (Hacride, Kruger, check it out!) or good festival, or playing in foreign country.

Play on great stage give you good promotion, which is good for the album, cause we won’t release the CD with not promotion… That’s why we create our own promotion structure, that’s why we answer your questions!! haha.

DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE AN IDEA WHAT “MOOD” YOU WOULD LIKE TO CREATE WHEN YOU START WORKING ON A NEW SONG OR DO YOU USUALLY START OUT WITH ONE OR TWO IDEAS AND SEE WHERE IT GOES?

We change our way of creating music. In the past, we get together and played and played…

For our upcoming first long play, we decide to think about a concept, how we want to feel the songs, get a view of the artwork. We’ve got a direction to create a coherent album.

We try to describe and feel with music what we decide to be our “concept”. We will not tell about this “concept” for the moment… We are not keeping it secret; it’s just to keep the composition as personal as we want.

ALL YOUR SONGS HAVE THE ABYSSE “SOUND” BUT EACH OF THEM TAKES MANY DIFFERENT MUSICAL DIRECTIONS. IS THAT YOUR GOAL; TO SEE HOW MANY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS YOU CAN TAKE YOUR MUSIC IN WHILE STILL SOUNDING LIKE THE BAND YOUR FANS KNOW?

Abysse sound comes naturally and we don’t choose if the music will takes many directions (Deviance) or one theme only (One Last Breath). The Abysse touch is the way we use lead as melodies and not solo… The goal is to make audience travel into a deep universe during the listening of the CD or the live show. We change bpm and directions cause instrumental music can be boring, you know?

We do not consider as a Post Core band, only metal band. So we won’t give singular songs as many bands have ever made. The goal is also create a real Metal Instrumental, as Metallica done it with the tracks Orion.

That how reviews compare us. Pretty awesome, uh?

AS AN INSTRUMENTAL BAND DO YOU USE AND OWN A LOT OF INSTRUMENTS OR DO YOU GUYS LIKE TO USE THE SAME INSTRUMENTS FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE BEFORE TRYING OUT AND BUYING NEW ONES?

We are young students, so buy a instrument is kinda difficult… So we focus on one instrument by musician for moment… Tandem guitar is PRS/Mesa Boogie, which gives power for massive destruction riff and pretty fine sound for melodies.

Bass/drum is Fender/EBS/Pearl… Power!!

As musicians, we are always looking for new gear, trying everything to compare. But, need money…

DID IT TAKE A LOT OF TRIAL AND ERROR AND TRYING MANY DIFFERENT COMBINATIONS BEFORE EACH OF YOU FOUND THE “SOUND” THAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR ON YOUR INDIVIDUAL INSTRUMENTS?

The fact that we take about 3 month to compose a 10 minutes song is that we are perfectionist at all. We always need to change something, try something new to do the best, change the guitar riff… We compose with feeling, and when there is no feeling, music can’t be. It’s the only way we find to be the most personal.

DO YOU STILL REMEMBER YOUR FIRST LIVE SHOW AND HOW WOULD YOU SAY THAT BAND’S LIVE SHOW HAS IMPROVED SINCE THEN?

We played our first show exactly 3 years ago in a school. It was for all of us the first show ever, a kind of “depucelage” as we say in France, check out your dictionary!! It was a kind of private rehearse. Second one was at a motorcycle fest, with huge Harley and choppers. It was so rock ‘n roll…

Time as change, and we build up show light with our technician, and give all our confidence to our sound technician to give the audience a great auditive journey! We have also work with comedians to see how to use the stage. The fact that there is no frontman and no vocals, we have to be good to give an organic presence.

We still working on theses point to give the best of us, but since the first show in the school, we are of how it’s evolved. Just take a look to our last live video footage!

HAVE YOU ALWAYS GONE OUT AND DONE YOUR OWN THING AT LIVE SHOWS OR ARE YOU GUYS ALWAYS OPEN TO LISTEN TO ADVICE FROM OTHER BANDS THAT YOU PERFORM WITH?

We shared stage with good bands who give us advice; it’s a chance, so we listen to them. But the advice we listen to carefully is our closed friend or our parent (hey we still be young!!) who have followed us since the beginning, saw us growing and give us strong help when we need it, as drive to play show when we were not able to!

The best way to be better is to try by yourself, maybe with epic fail…

LOOKING AT SOME OF THE VIDEOS OF YOUR LIVE SHOWS, I REALLY LIKED HOW YOU GUYS USE THE STAGE LIGHTING TO CREATE THAT EXTRA BIT OF ATMOSPHERE WHILE PLAYING YOUR SONGS. CAN YOU ALWAYS SEE WHERE TO PLAY ON YOUR INSTRUMENTS WHEN THE LIGHTING IS DARK SOMETIMES?

Very strange pre-occupation!! We rehearse in a dark place, with only one blue light from the floor, so it’s not a problem on stage. But I remember that on a show, lights were switched off due to technical issues and we’ve get some problem to see clearly our instruments.

Thanks for your finding our light show good. As I told upper, light show as to be strong, present for kick moment, and dark for ambient moment…

THE BEST AND WORST FOOD YOU’VE EVER EATEN BEFORE OR AFTER A GIG OR ON THE ROAD?

We prefer eating shit like peanuts and chips before show… Teen spirit! But sometimes it does not work as we want:

The worst: “Hey guys, I do not have food for you.”
The best: “Here you’ve got a croissant with leek, spicy pork roasted with nuts, and chocolate bananas nut jumble with cream…”

ANY OTHER COMMENTS OR ANYTHING ELSE FANS SHOULD LOOK OUT FOR?

Just thanks you with your very inspired interview. Really have a good time to answer it. Then, we are just back from a Belgium tour. It was not the most exotic country we may travel cause we are French, but it give us the envy to travel and spread our ambient stuff.

Hope bands go on our way, enjoy every music moment on tour.

All the best - Abysse

INTERVIEW BY NEIL VAN ZYL