Interview Benea Reach |
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Can you remain to us the story of Benea Reach ? Years ago I was involved in various bands I felt a need to start things over to concentrate on one project. I had some songs that did not match the projects so i just started it all from scratch. My long time band-mate Ilkka felt pretty much the same way and shortly after we started Benea Reach. Our first line-up lasted for one year when we found out that our priorities did not work out. Me and Ilkka gathered four new members and Benea Reach was up and running again. We did a demo, sent it around, got good response from labels around the globe and signed a deal with Tabu recordings (A division of Tuba recordings). Recorded our debut album named "Monument Bineothan" which is out here in scandinavia, will be released in europe and the U.S the 31st of july.
I grew up in Sweden, the hc-thing happening in the 90´s was important as a starting phase. When I sneaked in my brothers room listening to Meshuggah´s e.p. "None" I kind of felt that I had to steal it (still have´nt returned it...). Since that day I have been traveling pretty much between metal and rock. Breach´s "Venom" was a huge landmark for me and still one of the most worn out albums I own. Later on I discovered some pop elements that made impact, one of them being My bloody valentine, "Loveless" is a timeless record and means alot to me. Among these albums I nowadays also tend to hug my speakers to the tones of Neurosis, Candiria, Brick, Cult of luna, Mastodon, Entombed and Old man gloom... to name a few.
I usually refer our music to metal. I know that it is a bit more than that and I guess one can put more labels here and there but I like to keep it simple..
Well, this album has basically about 8 years of songmaterial in it. It is a musical mixture of hard, heavy, soft and dark all wrapped in 67 minutes. It is our debut album that I am very proud of, I think it shines all the musical sides as well as our instrumental dedication that Benea Reach is all about. I see this as a great starting point and see an interesting development towards the eyars to come.
We had a really hectic but interesting recording session. in 3 weeks (working day and night) we put this all together in Amper sound studios here in Oslo. We spent a actually less time searching the sound than I expected. I produced the whole album with c/o producer Rolf Yngve Uggen, known from Gluecifer. We also had a bunch of guest musicians that spices up the different turns this album takes, the mixing was about two weeks and the mastering was done in Stockholm by Cutting room. In total it all went very smooth.
Pretty much everything in the writing process was done before we entered the studio, but we had bits and peaces we wanted to develop in different directions. We added a lot of synth elements and but we also pulled a lot of dynamic in various ways to the songs, a bit time consuming but totally worth it.
On this album I wrote lyrics to seven of the songs, Ilkka wrote four and Christer wrote one. My inspiration comes from things I have experienced and moved me, basically I just work with them and channel them into their right element. My lyrics are personal I tend to write them in more objective way in order to hide my sources and leave the context open for interpretations.
Well, it all depends on the mood, at this moment I enjoy listening to Drapery and Ground Slayer, I think that they show the wideness that we do in the band...
I had/have this art project with the "tall girls" called "zero nine" I felt that it might be good for the song. The song is kind of down tempo that delivers a nice feeling, I did not want to create a strait story or a redline through the video, just play with the contrast between the tall girls, the blond girl and the band. The venue is an old movie theater here in Oslo, we rehearsed there for two months because our old place had some moisture damages. We got kicked out of the theater after the owners found out that we did not "only rehearse" there... being a low-budget thing I think it turned out nice, my mom made the tall costumes by the way... I produced, cutted and did the post-production, a guy called Holmern (a friend of a collegue) filmed it.
in no specific order: Meshuggah "Destroy erase improve", Entombed "To ride, shoot straight and speak the truth", Breach "venom", My bloody valentine "Loveless", Neurosis "Times of grace"
We all have some small projects here and there.
Yes, we are touring Norway in october and a european tour is under planning.
we usually have trouble getting plane/boat tickets because "someone" misspells our names... before we rehearse we argue about the guitar levels for about 30 minutes, then we go to the nearest kiosk and buy water/coffee and hit back to rehearse... the first 3000 copies of the "Monument Bineothan" cover is printed with a wrong pantone color, we are burning them in a special closed ceremony, new covers with the correct metallic-pantone color are in production... the band without instruments weigh over 500kg, with full backline we are about 750kg
Writing music, playing shows and recording records.
Well, keep on the good
work and we hope we can play in France really soon.
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