Jøtnarr
We formed in Colchester a couple
of years ago. Simon and I were neighbours at the time and knew each other prior
to that from both being involved in other local bands. Si asked me if I wanted
to do a crust/d-beat band with a guy called Oli. I asked if there was any scope
for some black metal in there ’and the response was an immediate and positive
yes. So Simon and Oli had one jam together and then I joined in, and I think we
had two songs after one session and it just all started from there.
Where does your band name come from? I have no idea what a
Jøtnarr is or what is does?
Well it comes from a word for a
type of troll I think, but we added the extra ‘r’ and accented O to make it our
own and because we thought it looked cooler.
“Recorded and tinkered with by Paul Rhodes in a Barn on the
outskirts of Colchester, Essex using a Sure SM58 microphone and an £8 plastic
microphone direct into a Stereo tape recorder.”
Considering that’s how you recorded your 1st demo
it came out ok. How have things progressed since then?
Thanks, yeah we were really
pleased with the demo – we wanted it to sound pretty noisy and horrible, and to
be honest we couldn’t afford to go straight into a studio. Things have
progressed, we recorded our EP with Tom Donovan and that sounds much clearer
and heavier. For the next release we’re recording over two days with Jason Frye
at Son of Sun Studios so those tracks should sound great.
It’s hard to believe that you’re only a 3 piece and that you
don’t have a bassist, because you create quite a racket (in the nicest possible
sense) Does forgoing a bass player make it more difficult to write material
that you can re-create in the live environment?
No not at all. We play really
loud in a small room when we rehearse and that’s pretty much what happens when
we play live so we don’t notice a problem going from one to the other. We’ve
never had a bassist so it’s not like anything is written with a bassist in mind,
and we play in drop A# so I think we’ve always felt there’s enough bottom end.
Plus there’s something appealing about the sound of not having a bassist when
so much of our stuff is about fast shredding chords.
You’ve made some good progress with being featured as
Terrorizer’s band of the day and supported the likes of Eastern Front and
Winterfylleth. How difficult is it to get your band noticed in an over-crowded
scene?
We’re very fortunate that people
like Stafford (ex ENT) at Colchester Arts Centre have booked us as support for
more established bands. EF are local and have been very supportive of us since
our first handful of gigs. I wouldn’t say we’ve been noticed really, we’ve not
blown up or anything – but I think the fact that we’re sort of a mix of black
metal, scream, punk, and big riffs means we stand out somewhat.
You’ve released demo’s on both tape and cd, any plans for
vinyl one day? And how important is it for you to release physical formats over
digital?
Well Vetala have released
everything – the demo was strictly tape, and the EP got a tape and CD run. We’d
love to do a vinyl release when we’ve recorded more, but its more costly than
tape and CD and we’ve only done small runs so far so we’re kind of holding out
for a longer release before we consider some vinyl – it’s definitely something
we want to do though. Personally I still love getting music in a physical
format, and I think that goes for plenty of people that are into the kind of
music we make so we never even considered doing digital-only releases. All our
stuff is available for streaming and download online too because we just want
people to hear it, so for us it’s not a case of choosing one over the other –
just embracing all means of getting our music heard.
What’s next for Jøtnarr? More EP’s or are you ready to
record your debut album yet?
Just a couple more gigs before
the end of the year, and then in January we’re recording a longer release at
Son of Sun Studios. Hopefully we’ll be in a position to record an album later
next year too. Other than that we want to play as much as possible, and
hopefully sort at least one tour so we can get over to Europe.
Cheers for your time, man.
https://sixsixsixmusic.bandcamp.com/album/deep-underground-united-kingdom
https://sixsixsixmusic.bandcamp.com/album/deep-underground-united-kingdom
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