There aren’t many independent bands that can claim to have toured the the US and Europe before has even come out, but Florida’s prodigal hardcore songs Centuries can. Now with their first full-length outing, Taedium Vitae, available on Southern Lord they are poised to take their bleak and heavy sound to a wider audience. Sean M. Palfrey spoke to Centuries’ cofounder Vincent about the new album and the practicalities of international touring as an independent band.
First of all, for those as of yet unacquainted with Centuries, can you give us some background as to how you came together?
Dan, Eric and I (Vincent) have been long, long time friends. We started going to shows together at a relatively young age. Dan and I had been in a previous band together, and shortly after starting Centuries Eric joined as well. The band has had a long list of changing members and fill-ins, but the three of us have been the core members. When we started the band, we had no clear direction as to what we would sound like or where we would be able to take the band. It was just something we had to do, something we had to be a part of. It put a sense of meaning into our lives and got us through everything else that there is to endure growing up. Every step of the way has been exciting and new, and the band has kept the three of us close.
Your début full-length album Taedium Vitae recently hit the streets. What has the reaction been like to it so far?
It may be a little too early to say, but the feedback so far has been very positive. Friends of ours and others who are familiar with our band have said that it’s a step up from our previous albums, and to me there’s nothing more I could have hoped for than to improve in what we’re doing. We’re very content with how the record turned out and I’m glad the songs can mean something in a way that benefits people.
Previously you had released some EP’s and split records. How did you find the transition to writing a full-length album?
At first, there was a strong feeling of being pressured. Honestly, we were a bit stressed. It’s easy to write a high energy album that maintains a momentum and flow beginning to end when writing no more than three or four songs. We had to learn to work at song writing rather than relying on spontaneity alone. Ultimately, the freedom of having more content allowed us the chance to experiment and find that we could write songs with more diversity between them than we’ve managed to create in the past.
You’ve signed with Southern Lord for the release of Taedium Vitae. How did that deal come about?
We were on a short tour up the east coast when we received an email from Greg asking to hear our previous releases and to keep in touch. It came as a complete shock and we didn’t know what to make of it. After our European tour we sent Greg demos of what we had worked out over the preceding months, and those songs became the beginning of Taedium Vitae. It still feels a bit surreal for us; we couldn’t be happier.
The album and song titles on Taedium Vitae are all in Latin, what is the rationale behind this?
While writing the initial demo tracks, Eric had come across several Latin terms which he found to reflect the content of the lyrics more accurately than any other names he could come up with. Latin terms can be very specific. For example, in English the term “sink” can be ambiguously interpreted, but the Latin term pessum ire means to sink in such a way that the object is destroyed, being used to describe the sinking of ships. As we wrote more songs, we felt the use of Latin had become thematic. Once I decided on using the title of the Oscar Wilde poem as the album name due to the poem’s content, coincidentally in Latin, the theme was solidified.
You’re previous recordings have tended to be released on vinyl rather than CD. What is it about this format that is more appealing for you?
I personally haven’t purchased a CD since 2005. At that time I had simultaneously discovered that music was now incredibly available on the internet, and that contemporary bands had all begun touring with vinyl record format consistently, which in my opinion, was always much more aesthetically appealing. Having a record on my shelf was much more special than a CD uploaded to my computer and then stuffed into a casing book. I think I can speak for the rest of the band when I say that ignoring the CD format wasn’t even a conscious decision; the mentality was always to strive for a vinyl record. That felt like a suitable end result.
The album cover depicts a lone figure on the top of a rocky peak facing away from the viewer, much like the painting ‘Wanderer Above The Sea Of Fog’ by Friedrich Caspar. How do you feel this compliments the themes and lyrical ideas expressed on the album?
Friedrich Caspar is my favorite painter. The only edition of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra that I’ve owned uses the exact painting you’ve mentioned as the book’s cover. For me, that painting has always been a depiction of Zarathustra’s isolation from man, finding enlightenment by climbing higher and higher peaks away from the baseness of civilization. In Zarathustra’s prologue, the narrator is describing the need to return to mankind in order to show the need to “overcome man.” While the rest of the artwork contains a small collection of photographs I’ve taken while travelling, I wanted to deliberately stage the cover photograph in a way that blatantly referenced this painting. The idea of strength through isolation, or discomfort through cohabitation, is very prevalent in Eric’s lyrics.
You recently played The Power Of The Riff. How was that for you as a band?
Power of the Riff was one of the most exhilarating sets we’ve ever played. And the lineup was phenomenal; I felt lucky just to be there and see all of the scheduled bands. Playing Los Angeles for the first time, especially in a venue of that size, was a very new experience for us. It was nice to finally meet Greg in person, which was a bit overdue.
Previously you’ve managed to tour both the US and Europe. How important has touring been for the band and how practical have you found it as an independent band?
On the surface, touring independently is extremely impractical: the financial stress only increases with time and the risk of any sort of debilitating event is always present (we’re on our fourth van and have had equipment break on several if not all of our tours). In our genre and in our subculture, however, touring the way that we do is the only sensible reason to be in a band. Writing songs and making records means nothing if we can’t play it as often as possible in as many different places as possible; grappling with your own songs every night directly improves the song writing. In my opinion, touring is the justifying end-result of being in a band. It’s the last vestige of adventure the modern world has left to offer.
Finally, what are the plans for Centuries for the rest of the year?
We’re coming up on a full U.S. tour with Pray For Teeth that’s scheduled from mid-September towards the latter-half of October. After that, we’re planning an East Coast tour for late fall and have hopes for getting back to Europe sometime early on in the new year. Thank you for putting the time and interest into the interview; it means a lot to me.
Sean M. Palfrey