Jussi: Dark Avant-garde musical exploration seems to be the band description of GOTHIC … why is that?
James: According to a wider definition it should be correctly “Dark Avant-garde Heavy Music” where the term “Dark” represents our present, “Avant-garde” is our future and “Heavy Music” is our past... so far... considering that GOTHIC are a “perpetuum mobile” constantly changing its style of expression, our self-description is inevitably very fragile, unsettled, contradictory and lastingly inhomogeneous, transient...

Jussi: Any named acts that GOTHIC has played with?
James: In homage to our extreme dark attitude, GOTHIC never played live ‘cuz total isolation was always the only “grim parallel dimension” where we could express our inner demons, which still are our only and real source of inspiration. Furthermore, nowadays GOTHIC project’s new multimedia essence made the idea of a GOTHIC live performance utterly useless and obsolete. We need a mental and physical state of wilderness in order to let our frenzy, and therefore our creativity, flow without any sort of compulsion.

Jussi: What makes this album stand out from the rest that the band has put out?
James: Mainly, four basic characteristics: it’s the first release of GOTHIC as a multimedia project comprised with music, poetry, figurative art and programming and not as a simple band, it’s our first non-metal album ever, except for GOTHIC’s adventurous Cold Winds Of Suicide demo (1997), moreover it’s the first work of GOTHIC as a four-piece being, where all the members gave their contribution to its making-process and finally it’s the first official GOTHIC release after ten demos! It’s definitively the first step of a new, darker and braver life in GOTHIC’s tormented, winding path.

Jussi: Do you think that GOTHIC is trying to hard to represent themselves almost in an elusive way that it makes the band harder to be known as a serious outfit trying to establish a sense of musical being?
James: Hhmmm... yeah, it could be... I think our elusive way to present ourselves is a strict consequence of the fact that we realize our uneasy-listening music, our hard-to-grasp poetries and our symbolic pictures restrict our potential audience. GOTHIC won’t be never a “Wave-Gothic-Treffen band”, if you understand what I mean.

Jussi: Asides the obvious musical tastes of influences that go into the GOTHIC mix, how can you describe the band’s sound to a new listener that has never heard of this style before? Using less than 10 words.
James: Extremely weird and extremely gloomy, sometimes very heavy. That’s all.

Jussi: The video for the song Forlorn, what was the concept behind it?
James: Basically, the naturalism. The wood can be the dark veil hiding the frenzy: under merciful Mother Nature’s arms we can find out the esoteric revelation of the unbearable cruelty of the human condition. And when the lights go out and the fog rises, the catharsis can begin...

Jussi: With the video there were parts of the scenery that almost seemed scary in an essence like the movie The Blair Witch Project, where the parts take scenes of the grounds and trees. Just to let you know after viewing the Forlorn video four times there seems to be different images that appear within, are you aware of this?
James: Believe me or not but we have never watched “The Blair Witch Project”... That being stated, yes of course, I’m aware of the images you’re talking about... Particularly there are a couple of subliminal images appearing over and over again in the video. Just the details make the Forlorn video so scary and... grim.

Jussi: Can you tell more of the ideas or concepts that took into play with the recording of Grim?
James: The poetry is the first, necessary step for all those who wish to “decode” the so-called “Gothic spirit”; only when you’ll grasp the meaning of Gothic poetries, you’ll be able to appreciate fully our pictures and then our music.

Jussi: What was the band trying to achieve with a different approach with each album that is released? Is this something that is more a trademark of musical identity of not falling into a category or being labeled a style of music per say?
James: Yes, I agree with you: it could be a sort of trademark. But we don’t plan anything but a very general artistic direction, album after album. Our way to create art is very spontaneous and unpredictable because it’s the genuine fruit of the whispers we receive everyday from our inner demons. Therefore we ourselves really don’t know what kind of music or pictures we’ll play and draw in our next release: all is possible and nothing is too *bizarre*, too *dismal* when you talk about GOTHIC!

Jussi: Why all the use of poetry and imagery with the bands music? To me this seems like a musical art-form painting that is captured with melodic scenes of haunting mind descriptions that it conjures. Do you think that this might make it difficult for others to grasp?
James: GOTHIC aren’t a mere musical band but a multimedia project. I mean that the music is important as much as the poetry or the drawing or the programming in the GOTHIC project. We aim at expressing the different sides of the darkness within the human being and the several faces of pain within his existence by the unholy trinity of sounds (music), words (poetry) and images (figurative arts) joined together by modern technology (programming). Difficult to grasp? I don’t know... but I do know it’s a challenging approach to art and music; it’s something different, radically different from the tons of commercial music produced by the so called music-business world enterprise, both in the Darkwave and in the “metal field”.

Jussi: Any shows planned in the near future?
James: Our next and only show planned to date will be the multimedia performance to be featured in GOTHIC next album, not earlier than three years: I’m babbling about the most avant-garde show ever heard, seen and read in the history of dark and heavy music. The only thing I can tell you is: arm yourself with patience ‘cause it will be worth the wait, that’s my two cents!

Jussi: How long did it take to record Grim?
James: Four hard and long years of a keen work and sacrifices... but we made it and now we all are very proud of our eery and dusky creature, Grim.

Jussi: Grim seems a little complex to comprehend due to it’s variations of trance like music with a twist of darker elements lyrically. How did you find the time to get all the music in order, considering the albums diverse feel throughout it?
James: Frankly not everyone grasped the deep meaning of Grim and especially two things: the innovating and original eclecticism of our “musical concept” to be appreciated without any kind of blinkers and, above all, the hermeneutical charge of my somber poetries, to be decoded and freely interpreted.

Jussi: GOTHIC’s music seems to target those individuals who are deep thinkers and intellectuals; do you think that this might hurt the band in some way since the music should be broader based?
James: I agree with you when you say that GOTHIC target to intellectuals but in my humble opinion everyone can be an intellectual, everyone is able to interpret a weird picture with its mysteriosophic signs, a difficult poetry with its philosophical concepts and enjoy an uneasy-listening song with its unexpected changes of pace and style. It suffices to be open-minded and receptive to novelties and not to be afraid of changes. We really don’t care if our music isn’t for huge crowds or if our videos will be never broadcasted on TV: we do what we feel and this means we’re not poseurs but we’re spontaneous and true to ourselves. Someone wrote we got a kinda punk-attitude... if self-destruction, in the artistic meaning of the word, will be the deserved or undeserved end of the Gothic project I myself won’t try to stop this ineluctable fate...

Jussi: Any current GOTHIC news to report?
James: I, John (Ruin, sound engineer and programmer) and David (Bosch, artwork man) are going to found the new asylum, the new madhouse of those dumb souls who recover the use of speech only in the purity of the utter dark. It won’t be only our own label but the challenging basis of a new artistic movement as well. We’re writing its manifesto and we’ll publish it on our web-site in the next months.

Jussi: Where do you see GOTHIC in the next five years?
James: If I could answer your question it would mean I’m a planner imbued with rationalism... on the contrary I need to let me be surprised by my own creature, GOTHIC, and I guess we all, GOTHIC project members, will be led by our instinct without any plan, just freely. The art needs neither plans nor rational boundaries but only a deep charge of unlimited mental freedom. Sorry if I seem not to have replied to you but, honestly, that’s what I think on this matter.

Jussi: Is there a type of music that GOTHIC might achieve to do in the distance future?
James: Some day I’d like to be able to compose music for souls free from this oppressive cage we call “body”.

Jussi: Thank you James for taking the time for letting me torment you with this interview.

2/2005 © Jessie Gough • Gothic •