Interview with Colin Cadell, vocalist with the Schoenberg Automaton

A.P: OK, we’ll start with the basics; give us a bit of background on bands you guys have previously played in.
C.C: I played in a lot of jazz ensembles, playing clarinet (laughs) but metal bands; there’s been three; the current one is Schoenberg Automaton, then prior to that was Cross the Lips of Grace, and prior to that was Apex Null, which is sort of a sentient band at the moment; we just write & record but we’re not going to play live very often. Zimi Shabanay (bass) was in Cross the Lips of Grace, Shayne Johnson (guitar) played in Empyrean, Damien Boorman (guitar) from Lytic Cycle, and Nelson Barnes (drums) was in Function Cease.
A.P: What are the influences that you and the other band members have taken into this project? C.C: Shayne (guitar) & Nelson (drums) sort of started the project, with a lot of the influences coming from the modern side of death metal from bands such as The Faceless, Necrophagist, and Cephalic Carnage – the more chaotic stuff. Then on the other side, you have the whole ‘Djent’ influence from bands such as Mesuggah, Periphery, Ion Dissonance...Ion Dissonance is probably the biggest influence on Schoenberg.
A.P: As much as I hate the use of genres; which one does Schoenberg fall into?
C.C: A lot of people are throwing us into the Djent movement, but as a band we say we’re a technical death metal outfit; the only reason we say this is because we’re using a lot of death metal standards such as blast sections into slams, but none of the sections are constant and solid; it’s very rare to have a part that’s the same for more than 15 seconds. We try to change it up a lot more, which is another reason why we get put into the Djent category because we’re a lot more chaotic. We also get referred to as noise core by some...
A.P: So Schoenberg’s playing their first gig tomorrow (Fat Louies, Albert St, Brisbane) – you pooing your pants?
C.C: No, I’m looking forward to it, not so much nervous about performing but just working with new people. It’s that whole thing of playing with people that you haven’t played with before, people you haven’t worked with before; it’s a very different kind of structure. Once you’ve played with the same people for a year, you know exactly what they’re going to do on stage; where they’ll speed up, what parts might get stuffed up.
A.P: Have you seen any of the other guys playing with their previous bands?
C.C: Yeah, I’ve seen everyone’s previous bands; I have a good understanding of what their performances are like; the worst you’ll see is Daimo (Damien Boorman) in footy shorts. He has a habit of wearing stubbies when playing live...
A.P: Nice...a little bit of nut action...
C.C: Yeah, he likes the rugger shorts...
A.P: The music is pretty technical so do you think there’ll be any issues reproducing it live?
C.C: To be honest; no, all the stuff we’ve been jamming has come out 100% perfect; nothing has come out ‘odd’ if that makes sense...it’s all falling together really well – which is why there’s the slight trepidation of how it’s going to go live because in the jam room it’s worked out really well. We’ve had to approach learning the songs a lot more progressively than some bands would because eight seconds of a song may have six rhythm changes...it’s quite chaotic. We work section by section and then try and piece it together as a whole, and when we have the whole piece we can start to see where the weak areas are, and then we enhance those. We just keep moulding it until we’re happy with the final piece. But one of the advantages we have is that all of it’s done digitally prior to the actual gig; Shayne tracks all the guitars to a click, those are sent to Nelson who digitally programs the drums so he can learn them on both his electronic and ‘real’ kit. Before we even hit the jam room, most members have already been playing the songs so that’s an advantage; everyone already has an idea of how the song sounds. I just come in once the vocals need to be applied. It’s a bit different to how I’ve approached it previously, as with my old bands I’d normally had more input with the song writing side of things but it’s really cool – the Schoenberg guys are good enough song writers on their own.
A.P: What was it like recording the demo?
C.C: With Schoenberg, the recording side is so meticulous and we want it to have the attack; we approached the vocal recordings in syllables as opposed to words or complete phrases, which means that every syllable has attack on it, and gives us the advantage that we can perfectly multi-track every syllable. Some of the sections on the demo are multi-tracked eight times so there are four vocal layers with two in each layer. It was definitely a lot more intense and laborious than I was used to; it was lot more full on.
A.P: How many songs are on the demo, and who produced it?
C.C: Three songs; produced by Darren Cruickshank, a bloke from Aberdeen, Scotland. He has a solo project called Bleeding Skies, which is where he honed his production skills. The version of Pineapples which is up on our MySpace page is the mix that Darren did a while back.
A.P: When will the demo be available?
C.C: We’re hoping mid December; I’m finalising the artwork at the moment, so once that’s done...