Album of the Year: An Interview with Fleshvessel
Artist: Fleshvessel
Album: Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed
Label: I, Voidhanger Records
Favorite Song: "The Void Chamber"
The Bare Bones: Yearning is the debut full-length album from international prog death metal band Fleshvessel, featuring Alex Torres (guitars, viola, drum programming), Sakda Srikoetkhruen (bass, guitars), Gwyn Hoetzer (flute, woodwings), and Troll Hart (vocals, keyboards, lyrics).
The Beating Heart: Looking back at my own personal AOTY history [this is the complete 2023 list, btw], I think it's safe to say Fleshvessel is as proggy as an AOTY has ever was. And there's a part of that category that makes sense – Fleshvessel write and perform death metal that is progressive in spirit as well as in practice. But part of what makes Yearning such a unique album, and of what makes Fleshvessel such a singular band, is that whatever it is that is progressive about them is used in order to provide a very dark, at times etherial, look into the human abyss. In that way they feel to me as progressive as, say, Liturgy or Extra Life fit that category, in necessarily in participating in that wider tradition (though, that too), but in pushing themselves so hard, so profoundly beautifully, so as to reach a whole other space for music and emotional expression. One tainted by the darkness of human life, but one also uplifted by its uncanny beauty. Each AOTY, to me, is a world unto itself. And yet the fact that Yearning existed in the world we live in this year, the specific world and the specific year, was almost a lifeline in an otherwise shitty landscape. For that, and for a whole lot more, my thanks are given.
Thus, it was my pleasure an in no small measure my honor to speak with Alex, Sakda, and Troll about this magnificent album. And also, kinda sorta, about the magic of pulling different musical threads into one profound rope. Check it out below.
As always, check out my various interview projects and other cool shit. And if you'd like to keep abreast of the latest, most pressing developments follow us wherever I may roam (FALSE!) (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and now also a tape-per-day series on TIK TOK!), and listen to my, I guess, active (?) podcast (YouTube, Spotify, Apple), and to check out our amazing compilation albums. You can support our unholy work here (Patreon), if you feel like it. Early access to our bigger projects, weekly exclusive recommendations and playlists, and that wonderful feeling that you're encouraging a life-consuming habit. Now, on to my conversation with Fleshvessel.
OK, so I'll begin with the first question, which is a set question, because I like it. And that is: Can you remember a time or a moment or a thing or whatever you had with an album or a song or a live performance or an album cover that really changed your perception about what music is. Now, there are many definitions of that kind of feeling. I personally like “being scared” because being scared by something but liking it, that's one form it might take But just being confused by something or surprised. And I know this happens a lot in people's lives, especially if you are a creative person and you create a lot. I try to be blown away every day, so that it's a common thing. So I guess I'm talking about an earlier moment where you just kind of never saw it coming.
Sakda: I guess I could start, because something just popped in. I think I was about 15 or 16, this was in 2009, and this was when I started getting into music. And one of the first bands I got into was Dream Theater, of the heavier stuff. And their album Black Clouds and Silver Linings just came out. A friend gave that to me, and I think the song that really got me – I wouldn’t say it changed my life, but it was definitely a “holy shit” moment – was “The Count of Tuscany.” That whole intro sequence, where they go [mimics keyboards], I didn’t know you could do that shit with music, you know? The whole piece blew me away, start to finish, with that whole progression and then the final part, it just made me go: “Holy shit, who can write something like that?” I mean, I was 15 years old. Before that all I listened to was stuff on the radio or whatever my brother had, so that was an opening experience for sure.
Would it be safe to say it wasn't just an opening experience into the heavier stuff, more into taking music seriously?
Sakda: Yes, definitely.
What was it that blew you away? The complexity of it?
Sakda: Yeah, just the composition, how the song goes. It was: “Oh, this is not just A-B-A-B” or “verse-chorus, verse-chorus, end,” you know? There was a movement, kind of like a story it tells. And I was like: “Oh, you can do that with music” and it’s more than just a catchy tune. That really changed my perspective, and prompted me to search for more music.
Alex: I think for me a big moment that shifted how I view music was listening to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s Of Natural History for the first time. You were mentioning earlier what you like to feel when you listen to music, and when you mentioned “surprise” – I definitely like to feel surprised when I listen to certain kinds of music. And I feel like that album did that for me a lot. The thing about what they do is that they’re not afraid to have fun with the composition, and I liked the textures and tambors they used within the music. I like this kind of balance between having fun with your music but also taking what you’re doing and also the direction of the music seriously. I don’t know, I like to have fun when I listen to music, I like to be surprised, and that’s something I look forward to. When I hear something that’s just so cool that it makes me laugh out loud, because I can’t believe what they just did, I like that feeling.
There's a Brazilian black metal band Kaatayra, I don't if you know them. They're great. It's a one-person thing, and I would recommend them. Heatedly. I don't know if that's the word, but crazily. But there’s a moment on their first album where it's going all kinds of 900 miles an hour black metal, but very creative. And then at some point, he goes into this clean vocal whispered like on top of everything, and I just remember going “What!?” in such a great way. It's interestingly a combination of both your comments, because it’s also: “Who has the audacity to just randomly do that?” And also, I think, what you said Alex about fun. Because it's unexpected and it's human. This attitude of: “I don't care if you get all of it, I just I want to do that now.” But there's something interesting about you just said, which I want to kind of latch on to, for a second. You said having fun, but also that for you as a listener it was obvious that someone was taking this seriously. So it's not gratuitous, it's not like “ha ha” funny, right? It's not like I'm just fucking around, which has its merit, right? It's “I'm having fun, but also this is super serious.” And I guess I'm asking how can you tell? How can you tell if someone is taking something seriously?
Alex: [Laughs] Man, that’s a really good question.
Troll: To me the answer is simple: It’s the level of musicianship. If the level of musicianship is consistently extremely high and creative all the way through, even if the subject matter is ridiculous. Clearly, they’re taking it seriously to create a high and excellent level of art.
So that's like the Mr. Bungle School…
Troll: Yeah, sure.
…of “I'm making a fool of myself, but you can't do this.”
[Laugh]
So the level of proficiency involved in being a jackass. I get that, but does that mean that what you're calling seriousness – I love how abstract this got – involves what I think Troll is talking about, which is control. Is that a good guesstimate of what you meant by that? That it's not just random, that since I have the proficiency to do this crazy shit, that means I am doing it on purpose. Is that the idea?
Troll: Hmm. I’m not sure. But, yeah, intent.
OK, intent.
Sakda: But also a lot of great ideas just come up, in the sense that you just come up with some shit. At least for me that’s how that is. Just trying this new thing that I haven’t done before and something comes out of it. But that’s a tough one – how to tell if a piece of work is “serious”? Or that there’s intent in making it? For me, I just feel it. It’s hard to describe, but you just feel it. I’m not bashing radio stuff, but you can tell if something’s marketed in a certain way, or made for the market, versus something being made because you just want to fucking make it. Maybe it’s timing, maybe it’s the current trends. “This is the rage and that came out, and so now this comes out.” Maybe it’s less about serious artistic intent and more of a commercial thing.
Alex: Yeah, it's sort of this cross section between intent and like vision. Because something can happen accidentally. I'm sure there's a few moments like on the Fleshvessel record where I didn't mean for it to come out that way, but when I was listening back to it, I was like: “That's really cool, I'm gonna leave it like that,” even though it was like an accident, you know?
Before we get to Troll’s answer for the original question, I'm forgetting you, but I think it's interesting because obviously a lot of people answer that question very differently. If you ask people who grew up in hardcore, their version of what “intent” means has nothing to do with technical proficiency whatsoever. It has a lot to do with how you emote your music, that's where the emphasis is, right? That it seems like it's real for you and it seems like the way your vocals or the way you're using your instrument is what makes intent. And actually, in a way, technical proficiency would ruin that moment for them. That is something inauthentic taking over what you might consider to be the beating heart of the genre. Whereas what you're saying, which, really meshes quite nicely with the fact that Fleshvessel could be considered a prog-oriented project. So from that perspective you're saying “no,” for me intent is how you approach your instruments and how seriously you take it. Given Sadka’s qualifications that sometimes magic just happens, and you have less control than your audience thinks you do. Like: “Oh Alex, you mastermind, you brilliant metal genius. You concocted this symphony of sound fully formed from your forehead.” And you're like: “Yeah, thanks.” But deep inside you know: “Well, a lot of it was just me fucking around.” So there's some, I don't know, in between there the truth lies I guess.
Sakda: Not to get too spiritual, or whatever, but you put your work out there, and if you really work on your work, it will resonate. It will radiate. That energy will come out, and those that will seek it, people that like that kind of stuff, will gravitate towards it. And if you find those kinds of people, then that is your intent, that will get your intent, you know what I'm saying? Because like it's like. If you're truthful to yourself, you're truthful to your work, I'm putting the effort into this work. I'm serious about it, that’s gonna radiate. People will feel this mental, spiritual connection. They're be like: “OK, yeah, this person is serious. This is a serious piece. There is work put into it.” That also relates to the whole hardcore thing, right, because they feel it. And then for technical people, there's more of that “Yeah, they’re trying to reach the top, trying to just be as the best they can.” Then people will feel it. There is that energy, you know? But this whole art thing definitely reminds me of just like, you know, definitely like the turn the 20th century, with the old masters – I went to art school, blah blah blah – where people had to draw realistic, Romanticism, the human figure, and then comes Dada, and Picasso, where they go “Fuck realism! I'm just gonna change everything!” And then people would do “Are they serious? Are these guys for real? Are they joking?” This conversation just reminds me of that.
I'm a big believer in the energy theory of things, and if I weren’t I'd go insane and jump out of a third-story window. I mean, look at what I do with my spare time: My kids are asleep and I'm having this random conversation about what is intent and heavy music with a bunch of people I don't know!
[Laugh]
So, it wasn't for what you're talking about, that weird energy, this would be a pointless exercise. This wouldn't even happen.
Which reminds me, very quickly, that a person I really like, Rohan, he writes for Heaviest of Art, and he did a really long interview with Devin Townsend. So, he did that interview, and I also did a really long interview with Devin Townsend like eight years ago, and I loved it. It was like a pivotal moment in my life. I love him. And so Rohan said: “Should I edit this down because this is so much stuff. Who's going to read all that?” And I said: “Fuck it, I don’t care. Not everyone likes listening to 20-minute long songs, right? But does that mean you need to edit down the 20 minute song to three minutes? No.”
Sakda: There will be people.
There will be someone out there into reading 5,000 words of an interview with Devin Townsend.
[Laugh]
That's how I operate. On the one hand, I don't operate well, at least in terms of, say, financial benefit. But this is serious work.
Anyhow, I digress. Troll, do you have an answer to the original question?
Troll: Yeah, this was just a quick comment on the whole previous conversation: I think actually Devin Townsend, particularly Deconstruction, is a great example of the subject matter sort of being totally ridiculous, especially in like certain parts of the album, but the level of the music and the technicality and the immensity of the music just being what it is, that I can take this totally seriously. That being said, some music can be extremely technically proficient, but clear that it doesn't have soul. It's basically just a repetition or a reiteration of something. Just because they're capable of doing it doesn't mean that it came from a place of seriousness or authenticity?
Absolutely.
Troll: But anyway. Let's see. The original question was what basically changed my perception of music at an early age?
Yeah.
Troll: I started actually listening to music by myself when I was maybe 13 or 14. And I was listening to Symphony X and Gamma Ray and Primal Fear, Blind Guardian and all that power metal.
A lot of Germans.
Troll: [Laughs] Yeah, they got me. Powerful shit: Super-big vocal harmonies, epic compositions and everything. I mean, I've always gravitated towards heavy music, stuff that's fucking intense. But, when I was like 15 or 16 I heard this track called “Big Puzzle” by The Flower Kings and it totally took me off guard. This was on Pandora, and I think I had entered Kansas, because I also liked Kansas, and I heard this track and it was a 13-minute track, prog rock, that kind of stuff. And it went everywhere from totally sorrowful to jovial and playful. But it was all extremely heavy, it all really fucking it hit deep and powerfully. It was powerful, majestic music. Having said that, it wasn’t really metal, which was where I was used to getting those emotions from at that age. Nobody's shredding on their instruments, it's all fairly slow. And then I started listening to those bands some more, and I was like: “Yeah, none of this is as good as the track.” I just kept coming back to it – it's one of those things, a slow reveal, the shit you have to listen to five times before you can even get it. At least coming from the perspective that I had, which was heavy metal [mimicking heavy metal mayhem].
[Laugh]
Troll: That band, and the composer Roine Stolt, taught me more about music than I had ever learned.
Sakda: Yeah. Just to add on, real quick, I knew him from Transatlantic, with Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, that group. But then I got into Flower Kings, and I think one of my favorite Flower Kings track was “The Truth Will Set You Free.”That wole epic. That’s still one of my favorite Flower Kings tracks.
Troll, Was it the fact that it was as deep as it was? Sorry for using that word, I hate depth metaphors, but whatever. Was it that it felt as deep as it was without being as heavy or grandiose? What was it about it that really kind of – other than the variety that you described – what was it about it that grabbed you?
Troll: It’s creating an other-worldly atmosphere, creating a mood, and a space, and a realm that is just way beyond … that has nothing to do with the world that we actually physically live in – even though the subject matter of the lyrics might be about human experience or whatever, it has an ethereal quality, that's heavy without being saturated. It was just intensely beautiful. And I think the harmonic progressions as well, the sense of harmonic movement is just so intensely romantic. So, that definitely changed the game for me, especially the guitar playing too. The guitar playing is sort of like jazzy classic rock, even though using those terms doesn't do it justice at all. It's just not metal at all, which again, it's just that's where I was coming from. It's super slow, but extremely dramatic. So yeah, I'd say that was one of the big ones. And then the other major one was hearing Magma live. Yeah, I saw them at Reggies in Chicago. They were playing both Friday and Saturday night that week. And I went to see them Friday night. I was broke, I mean, I'm broke now. I've always been broke. But, I had no money, so I only went to the first show, but then immediately after they got done playing I went and spent all my last money on another ticket for the following night. And then I got acid from my friends and I dropped acid and saw them the second night. And that was just the pinnacle of all things.
[Laugh]
Troll: It was just so fucking…. The tightest live group of all time, and like of course if you know their music you know how it's just sort of unprecedented. Like, who the fuck does anything like that? Again, with the heaviness achieved without any distorted guitars.
You would be surprised by how often consciousness-expanding substances have come up in response to this question. Specifically when watching Neurosis, by the way, people getting high and watching Neurosis seems to be a very powerful experience for some. But I want to kind of latch on to one of the things that I've been kind of….. So, I didn't grow up liking prog. I grew up detesting it, actually. I'm a Megadeth person, so my version of progressive rock is Megadeth.
[Laugh]
That’s as progressive as you need to get. Anything beyond that is just, you know, wasting my time. That was kind of my mindset, and to an extent still is. And I think part of what comes along with not being a prog-head, is a dislike for fantasy. Not just the literary genre, because that's touch and go, but just the idea of something that is so far removed from your experience as a human being. Like, I don't walk down the street and feel Dream Theater. I don't walk down the street and feel trolls and elves – no pun intended there, Troll.
[Laughs[
I walk down the street and I feel what I feel, and I latch on to music that feels immediately attending to that, right? But as time goes on, if you only listen to rough things that speak about rough stuff, then there's this funny thing that happens, that melody and the pretty parts and the otherworldly parts, they become the “heavy.” I don't know if you know what I mean by that, but they become so jarring, in a world of dissonant notes and Dave Mustaine singing, a beautiful melody, a little noodling, if you will, is shocking. It has a shocking effect. Much like, I guess, a 12-year-old would have listening to Pantera the first time. I hate Pantera, just saying. And so, I was wondering what you thought about that, because a lot of the stuff you guys described as being important for you, some of it, at least, is pretty. Or beautiful, at least in parts. And so do you feel like that urge or that direction is something that influences you as musicians? That you're interested in making beautiful music even as, quote unquote metal musicians or whatever Metal Archives says you are? Are you looking to create beautiful things?
Alex: I would definitely say so, yeah. I mean, that's kind of one of the main approaches, at least that I have, personally, I don't know how any of the other guys feel. But when I’m writing material for Fleshvessel, having that contrast between very ugly, and very disgusting, but also very beautiful, and weaving them together into one thing…. That's just how life is, you know, in general, both of those things at the same time. So, I think that is definitely something that I personally try and capture when arranging Fleshvessel music.
Do you feel like that was a process where you needed to accept that? Metal can be a very monochromatic space, so does that require you being OK with saying “I'm going to do something pretty now, and I'm going to leave it on the album because I think it's nice.” Does it require an intentional gesture to leave it in, or to even want to publish something like that, when you know that “beautiful” isn't necessarily what metalheads are always looking for?
Alex: I mean, yeah, it's definitely something that I think about intentionally when writing. Like, if we just did a very disgusting part, I'll try and think of something to contrast that with. I mean, it kind of depends on how the music is progressing too, how the riff is progressing, how the harmony is progressing. I don't want to create too much of a formula, I guess, which is kind of where using a lot of the different instruments and tambours comes in, because even though you might be expecting a melodic part or quiet part, or whatever, how that is represented within the music might not be what you're expecting.
Sakda: A lot of it just comes, for me, when writing for Fleshvessel, you kind of think of it more as movements and stories. Sometimes you have the heavy part, sometimes, just as humans, when we have that heavy shit going, want a breather. So, the next movement just feels like a little break, in a sense. You’re feeling a rollercoaster of emotions, because I think that's the thing with Fleshvessel, we kind of portray life, in a way, and life is a rollercoaster of ups and downs. So, our approach isn’t really the formulaic thing, it's just whatever comes. It’s a lot about how we feel.
Troll: Yeah, I'm pretty much trying to take my experience and channel it into whatever it is the context is. In this band these two pretty much wrote the music, I didn't really write any music. I just wrote a lot of the lyrics and my own parts. But, when I receive whatever it was they were giving me, obviously there are a lot of parts that are, yeah, just fucking gross, and crazy, and obtuse, and dissonant as fuck. And I like listening for opportunities for a part where you can do something very beautiful. Or at least, what sounds beautiful to me. Something that's a contrasting emotion, but musically works together. Or looking for situations where I could just dive fully into whatever it was happening: It's just all fucking blasphemous and gross, all at once. Which is great too. But I just love having a constantly cycling variety of all of that, particularly in like a metal band with the distorted guitars and super blast beats and shit like that.
Sakda: Yeah. To get a little philosophical, I think our concept of what is considered beautiful is different per person in the band. So, I think the parts that come out…. Because, we kind of we end up writing our own parts. It’s not like Alex tells us: “Hey, can you play this or that.” It was never like that.We just come up with our shit, and go: “Hey, what do you think of this?!” and he’ll go: “Oh, cool, that sounds good,” and stuff like that. So, we just have our own vision of what we want.
Alex: It was pretty rare for Sakda to, say, send Amos a keyboard part, or to send me a guitar part. Usually I'll send Sakda…. I mean, Sakda wrote a lot of the guitar parts on “The Void Chamber” and some other tracks too, but for the most part everybody kind of wrote all their own parts for the album ,and it was just sending an idea to them, and then they write something over it and send you back, and, you know, we just kind of work it out that way.
Sakda: Yeah. We receive a certain sound, and it’s like: “OK, this is how I interpret that.” So I guess our concept of, when we talk about beauty or something nasty, it's just mostly our own interpretation.
Do you guys work long distance?
Sakda: Yeah. We just send Google Drive stuff [laughs].
Because it's very interesting to me, especially in the context of Yearning. Being a devotee of I, Voidhanger I heard the EP when it came out, and I liked it. I did not like it as much as I liked this album, by far. And I think one of the things that is different…. Not that I thought about this when I heard the EP, but I do think about the EP now that I've heard the album, and that is that the album is by far, by far prettier. It's not even close. And the pretty parts did exist on the EP, though they were kind of more few and far between, and are much prettier on Yearning. The production is much more sleek and lush and they themselves are much more confident – going on the keys for whatever how long, but it's great. So, A lot of what was pretty on the EP [which was just re-released in remastered form, MM] really flowered into full-blown beauty on the album, to the point where it kind of feels like more than half the album is melodic, clean parts.
Sakda: Yeah, basically Bile was mainly Alex's brainchild, and so Alex wrote and arranged most of the that. And then he basically said to me: “Hey, can you write some bass over this?” And he sent it to Troll and said: “Hey, can you write keys over this?” So it was an already established movement. Everything was already done. We had input, but I think in this album it was: “Hey, I want you guys to help me write as well.” And especially with me, it was “Hey, I want you to send me some stuff.” So, there is more input in that regard. And since me and Troll’s influences are more on the proggy, a bit more melodic side of things. You know, Alex, he listens way more heavier shit than me [laughs]. I got to the heavier stuff because of him. But, I think the more diverse input each of the members had, it resulted in a different sound. Since Troll and I have been more into prog, or blues, or jazz, I think that shaped the sound toward a more melodic direction as well. So there is more of that injected into the album.
It's fantastic, and apropos what Troll said before, it's a very – I don't want to say it, but I'm going to say it – European-sounding album, to an extent. And what I mean by that is, Americans – and this is no offense to you Americans…
Troll: I'm offended to be an American.
[Laugh]
All right, so people who reside within the jurisdiction of the United States of America, without identifying them nationally, in any sense whatsoever, have what sounds to me sometimes like an innate fear of cleanliness in music. A lot of Euro metal is really clean, the production is super clean, the parts are super tight. Often that's what kind of turns me off, when it gets too tight and too clean, and I don't love it. Anyway, I like some of it, but not all of it, but that's kind of what I've noticed, a lot of the stuff that I like when you kind of shift into the European sphere some of the rougher edges get sanded down. And so, in a way, Bile of Man sounds like an American metal band, and Yearning sounds like a European band – it’s that kind of clean. And to get that kind of clean sounding good and nasty and scary makes me think of one album, and it's the benchmark of all heavy music to me, and none will ever surpass it. I'm not saying you have or haven’t, I'm just saying it reminded me of that, which is Emperor’s Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk. Which is, to me, the perfect black metal album. No one will ever make anything better than that ever in, in all life. And what Emperor does perfectly there is finish you off while never getting a stain on their clothes.
[Laughs]
It's like they have nice clothes on, and they've ended you, but they still look like $1,000,000. They could go to the premier, they could go to the theater. They are spotless. And that combination is a very, very rare thing, especially, in my experience, and this, again, a very broad generalization, coming from an American band. So, I guess maybe this kind of gets back full circle to the whole prog thing pretty cleanly. Would you say that kind of stuff plays into your music? I hate that question. I don't like that question.
[Laugh]
Sakda: I think some of us are perfectionists, in a certain way. I want my parts to be clean. If it sounds kind of like intonations of…. I want it to be good. So there is a perfectionist in there as well, I still want it to sound good. I think that for me. Because when you listen to the stuff that you listened to growing up and go “Oh, that’s good,” then you have that bar set for yourself.
So, Alex, are you a perfectionist?
Alex: No, I wouldn't describe myself that way.
I love the fact that you're wearing the gory T-shirt as well. This is all very within the bounds of the genre and the conversation.
Alex: [Laughs]. Yeah, I definitely wouldn't describe myself as a perfectionist. I definitely have expectations for myself, for sure. But, like I said earlier, if something that I didn't mean to happen happened in the music, and I think it's good, I'll just leave it there, even though it wasn't what I intended or it's not the perfect way how I wanted it to be. It's definitely something that I have…. There are pros and cons, I guess, to that approach. It has definitely impacted the overall product. One of the things I guess that I would go back and kind of change if I could is some of the mixing on the album and stuff like that.
I wouldn’t.
Alex: Really? There's just some levels and stuff where I'm like: “Uhh, maybe this part could come out better.” But yeah, I mean, I'm definitely not a perfectionist. There's an expectation that I have for myself and for the music, and however I meet that expectation just depends on how it unfolds.
Troll, are you a perfectionist?
Troll: No. I do have some pretty fucking extremely high standards on a lot of things, but perfection is not really the goal. I'm a jazz musician, even on a death metal record, I came up with my parts to a degree, and then got good enough at playing over this section that I could reliably play something that was at my standard of my own ability to play my instrument, at the time. I didn't specify exactly what I needed to do, or needed to execute it perfectly, I just got enough of a framework for myself to work with to where I could perform something that I consider to be excellent, and then that's how I do it.
So, basically what the three of you are saying is that what you have – not jinxing anything – is kind of a perfect relationship of equilibriums, right? Sakda and Alex are setting up the framework, but within that you have a relationship of contrast between gross and pretty. Let's just call it that, to varying degrees, because you like pretty stuff and you like gross stuff. And troll does very well excelling given those frameworks, and perfecting them to his expectations. It sounds like whatever it is that I'm hearing on Yearning is really the product of those forces at work. I would ask Alex – this is a great Some Kind of Monster moment for you now – what have you benefited from working with Sakda’s and Troll’s different takes on things? Have you learned more about your own stuff from them?
Alex: Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, their perspectives are a big part of the uniqueness and a lot of the crazy elements in the music. Because a lot of the stuff that I'm writing for Fleshvessl is more of the standard death metal kind of fair. But I leave room for them to add that other kind of stuff in. So, I mean, honestly, the band probably wouldn't sound like how it sounds if they weren't involved in it, to be quite honest. So, I've definitely benefited a lot from working with them. They say you always want to kind of surround yourself with people who are better than you, so that you can keep elevating, and that's kind of how I feel about working with them.
This is a good moment for you guys.
[Laugh]
Sakda: My ego has never been more through the roof.
[Laugh]
Sakda: But, to be more humble, we're just on the same plane.
Troll: Which is a high level.
Sakda: Yeah. We set expectations for ourselves and then we just try to reach that, for sure. We're hard on ourselves because we have that thing and we want to reach it. I think that's the thing that brings us together, in a sense, that makes us gel together, because we have that passion, the passion is there and we just want to achieve this. We know that the other two, Alex and Troll, or vice versa, we know that the other two are willing to put in the work as well. I think that's a good way to put it. There is that thing we want to achieve and the other members want to get there too. So I think there's no one dragging at the other, just everyone just in it to win it. Inspirational words [laughs].
That's the headline.
[Laughs]
Troll: I had lived with Alex for like three years or something, and he played viola in my band Silent Temple for a while, until I moved away from Chicago. And he showed me most of his records. And I also guested on one of his Clavicus albums. So, I guess before Fleshvessel started happening he and I had already a history of musical camaraderie and kind of got an understanding of what each other was about. What each other's skills were.
Sakda: Same. Me and Alex were freshman roommates at college, so we got to know each other and jam.
Troll: Yeah, I didn't even meet Sakta until the first interview for this album [laughs].
[Laugh]
Sakda: We chatted a few times, but never really….
Troll: Right.
Alex: Yeah, I think actually all of the members are sort of glued together through me, because I met all of them when we all went to Columbia College at some point, I think. Gwyn [Hoetzer] transferred to Columbia there his junior year, and I met Sakda and Troll my freshman year, but the three of them never met. I just know all of them, but we all attended the same school [laughs].
That’s an unexpected benefit of this conversation – I always hope for one. The unexpected benefit of this conversation is a homage to the power of actually talking to people. Because, the one-man band has been having a moment for the last five years or so, and it's very easy for you, Alex, to just do Fleshvessel or any other band just being you, and it would have been great. It would have been awesome. A lot of one-man bands that I love have been awesome. But what we are describing right now would not have happened. And so, even though you guys don't live next to one another, you managed to be a band, which is, I think, a very impressive feat. So, there's something about you guys coming together and kind of pulling all your resources together and pushing and pulling each in your own direction and allowing that to happen. You call it leaving space. Believe me, Alex, I know you know this, a lot of people don't leave space for anybody, right? So that's not a small thing, to leave space for someone else's input or creativity. So, kudos to you guys. It's a magnificent human achievement, other than being a magnificent musical achievement, which I guess is the only thing you care about.
I don't want to take too much of your time, and I'm loving this conversation anyway, but might have become sick of me.
Troll: I'm having fun.
Sakda: I’m having fun too.
Alright, I'll just bring my cigarettes. Actually, I quit smoking.
[Laugh]
I do want to ask one question that is a set question I usually end with. Usually I do interviews about albums that were released a while ago and people have to be reminded that they were even made. I think my best example of that was interviewing James Kelly of Altar Plagues, maybe six years after they broke up. And it's a question about pride. So, I understand, Alex, you're not happy about some of the mixing. But given that, given your qualifications, which is, by the way, totally outing you as a perfectionist, is there one thing that you're very proud of when it comes to Yearning? It can be a part that you were involved in writing, or performing, or the production, or the art – the art is crazy, Carlos is a genius. What is one thing you're very happy about, about how it came out?
Alex: Man, that's a pretty big question. There are a lot of particular parts that I'm super into. I don't know. I think just the fact that we were able to make it happen. Because we had started recording in 2020, and obviously it didn't come out until three years later. I think the recording was finished towards the beginning of 2021, so it took almost a year to finish the album, because of stuff with the pandemic. I started writing it during the U.S. shutdown, and I didn't have a job, so I didn't have anything else to do. Just the fact that in the midst of all of this crazy shit happening within the world and our personal lives, that we were able to come together and just create and finish this project and get it out there. I'm super proud of that.
Sakda: Definitely. The whole process was…. We started writing during the pandemic, and I was locked down at home too, because everything shut down in Bangkok. They were more strict with the shutdown, so I wasn’t going anywhere, I had time. I think it was after I Voidhanger said they wanted to help produce the next one, and make it a full-length album, because they liked Bile. And so, it was like: “Hey, let's do it. We have time now” [laughs]. But the part I’m most proud of, definitely “The Void Chamber,” for sure. Because I spearheaded that one, and I wrote a good chunk of the riffs, and you know, the solo at the end, I wrote that and played that. So “The Void Chamber” is definitely something…. And some of the lyrics were started by me. So, it felt like that one was one I had the most connection to. But I’m definitely proud of the whole album. There’s an evolution throughout the album, from the first song to the last song, that was basically how it was written. “Winter Came Early” was written first, but also each one had more input, and it was a growth of where we felt more comfortable working with each other, writing together. I think that was the growth of it. Definitely “Eyes Yet to Open,” just because it felt the most comfortable working together, writing with Alex. It was like finding the synergy. That felt the best.
Alex: I definitely think “Eyes” was probably the song that was written the quickest, maybe within a week or something that it was recorded and written. As far as just the structure of the song and everything.
Troll: If I had to pick one thing that I'm particularly proud of it would be my vocal delivery of the lyrics. And then also just the lyrics that I wrote. It was an important subject matter to me, shit that I have been in emotional fucking turmoil about, forever. So just getting to scream bloody murder about it on an extremely musically excellent album. That was an immense catharsis.
What's better than that? This is a very hard left turn, but I’m a big fan of Conan O'Brien, the person and the entertainer.
Sakda: Me too.
He has a podcast.
Sakda: Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend?
Yeah. Wait, it wasn’t even on his podcast, it wasn’t even him. So, I guess this is apropos of nothing. But wherever it was they interviewed Jeff Tweedy from Wilco. And he said that he treated music as that thing you do to deal with your shit. And then he said something like: “But when I'm done, there's something there that wasn't there before.” Which I think is such a wonderful description of what art sometimes is. You go in and you deal with some stuff, and if you haven’t dealt with it at least you've expressed it – God knows that helps some. And then there's suddenly a thing. There's an object in the room that would not have existed if you hadn't done that. So, I think. I think that's a magical thing.
