French progressive/post metal outfit Hacride went through a period of trials and tribulations, including a couple of line-up changes. However, they came out on top and with a brilliant new album, entitled Back to Where You’ve Never Been, under their belt. Vocalist Luis Roux shares with Ghost Cult the band’s plans for world domination.
The new album is a much more song and groove-orientated effort compared to Lazarus. What brought this change around?
I think it is due to a mix of different factors. First of all integrating Flo on the drums definitely pushed the songs towards a groove oriented dynamic. When you play with this kind of drummer it just feels like it’s bound to happen this way! Secondly Adrien still composes all the music in the band and he wanted this new record to be simple and efficient. Hacride often had complicated structures but this time it feels like the riffs are still pretty tricky but the songs have more classical/traditional structures. Playing music is like telling a story and sometimes it just better to get straight to the point!
How did the writing and recording sessions for the new album go? What were you guys aiming for?
It is a very personal record. Adrien had a son during the writing process and maybe that’s what made some of the songs so poignant. Besides you can totally hear the lullaby kind of feeling on a couple of tracks as if he was playing for his kid. I think this record is fuelled with strong emotions and that’s what makes it so intense. From Mike to Sam’s departure during the recording process, it’s been a rather hectic environment for making music but as the saying goes all great discoveries come out of chaos! More seriously I think no matter how hectic the whole experience was it definitely gave a feeling of urgency to the music.
Hacride landed a deal with Indie Recordings recently, what was that like?
Indie is a very professional label and working with these guys is just great. I think it will give us a more international exposure and a wider access to distribution. Being on a well-known label like Indie is kind of like a quality stamp I guess and so maybe more people will check us out. We’ll see, it’s still a bit early to talk about this since the album is not out yet. It’s really cool to be signed amongst all these great Norwegian bands though! I’m such a big Enslaved and 1349 fan, our music has nothing to do with these bands but it’s still pretty fucking cool! Besides they have signed Cult of Luna recently and I think it’s really cool that they have this new interest in progressive music.
You guys are also a part of Klonosphere. Can you explain what that exactly is and what they do?
In a purely technical sense Klonosphere is like a label or promotional team. They do communication, promotion and release albums on their own via distributors. Then on a more human level I see Klonosphere as a group of people that share interest in musical exploration. Klone and Trepalium share a long history of friendship with Hacride. I have been friends with Trepalium for almost ten years now and I think we share a common philosophy of life. Naturally the fact that we all come from the same area, which is the west region of France has something to do with it, but it’s more than just this. I think Klone, Trepalium and Hacride are the kinds of bands that need to push experimentation further. We all started with extreme metal material but we have designed our own musical paths.
What will 2013 yield for Hacride?
I hope 2013 will be a year of extreme touring in and outside of France! We might also work on an EP but nothing’s certain yet. The truth is that I love making music with Hacride and there was so much creativity during the recording sessions that we want to push the collaboration even further.
Raymond Westland