With their upcoming concept album Absolutely Nothing, Gürschach blend thrash aggression, progressive storytelling, and global influences. We discuss 'Dawn of a New,' its narrative depth, unique soundscapes, and philosophical themes.
1. “Dawn
of a New” marks the start of a concept album journey. Could you walk us through
the overarching story of “Absolutely Nothing” and what themes you aim to
explore?
Actually, I believe
Absolutely Nothing tells two stories. The first story is a plot driven
narrative full of action and adventure, while the second one tells a more
personal story of character growth and development. In the simplest terms, the
overarching story tells about class division and disparity as well as the past
coming back to haunt those who committed crimes in order to obtain incredible
wealth.
However, I believe there’s a more personal story under the surface of the
narrative arc that makes it more worth telling. In a lot of ways, we are
following young fresh-faced men coming from broken or complicated backgrounds
who are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve greatness and success, only
to find that the closer they come to their goals, the more they end up
compromising their morals. By the end, you start to see them pull back on all
the delusions of grandeur and begin to accept themselves for who they really
are and reconnect with ties they previously severed. Personally, I believe it
to be a story of self-acceptance and family; both blood related and cosmic.
2. The idea of beginning in the desert in search of a mysterious black stone
is very evocative. How did that imagery and concept first come to you?
As the first track on the album with any lyrics, Dawn of a New sets the stage
by introducing a rich hedge fund CEO named Stanley Fink who lures in a bunch of
young Astronomers to help him steal a religious artifact from a far away desert
region for his own personal financial gains. That religious artifact happens to
be a chunk of concentrated dark matter that came from a meteor in space, and
the scientific and financial value it has is enormous. Once the Stanley
Division steals it, they replace it with a fake so that no one knows it was
ever stolen, and from there the story continues to follow the Stanley Division
as they make groundbreaking discoveries and experience great amounts of
conflict and turmoil in the process.
3. Your influences range from thrash legends like Metallica and Megadeth to
progressive giants like Tool and Mastodon. How do you balance aggression with
progressive storytelling in your music?
I’m a strong believer in the importance of contrast and dynamics. There are
many bands out there who try to sound heavy and aggressive right from the jump,
and somehow sustain that momentum for an entire 45 to 60 minutes. Personally,
that style bores me, because the fact of the matter is; if music is always
heavy and aggressive all of the time, in reality it will eventually become
heavy and aggressive none of the time.
The way I see it, a song needs to have the quiet and gentle parts for the heavy
and aggressive parts to truly be recognized. In a sort of irony, making a song
less aggressive tends to make it sound more aggressive. The beauty in that
philosophy is that when you allow yourself to venture into the soft and somber
elements of a song, you simultaneously get the opportunity to explore an
incredibly vast world of potential in music writing because of it.
4. The track features unique instruments like the Persian Tar and Ney. What
inspired you to weave Middle Eastern sounds into a metal framework?
We like to write the instrumental parts of our music as a way to set the
tone or the atmosphere of what the song is trying to portray, so for a song
taking place in a desert, we had a lot of fun exploring different kinds of
instruments and musical layers to get that feeling across. Given the variety of
instruments we could’ve chosen, we decided to only use Persian instruments to
keep the song from sounding too overwhelming, convoluted, or anachronistic.
5. You’ve collaborated with King Night from Nox Sinister on this track. What
did he bring to the table, and how did his presence shape the song?
King Night was practically born to play the role of Stanley Fink; he executed
his role perfectly! Obviously, he’s a very talented and capable singer, and for
many people, that’s exactly what anyone would want out of a guest star for
their album. However, even beyond that, King Night also showcased exactly the
right amount of theatrics and acting chops we were looking for to really bring
this character to life, and that’s not something we see too often in many bands
these days. I’m glad we became fast friends with him, because I couldn’t see
anyone else doing a better job.
Also, this is just the first song in which King Night appears. He makes a
regular appearance on the album as well, appearing in 4 additional tracks after
this one.
6. This is your first release since the pandemic-era recordings. Did the
challenges of recording during that time change your creative process
permanently?
Absolutely! Before the pandemic, we tended to heavily rely on others to bring
our projects to life, but during lockdown we had no one to rely on anymore but
ourselves. Because of that, it became necessary to not only purchase a lot of
our own studio recording equipment, but to also learn how the tricks of the
trade really work. While this change definitely contributed significantly to
the second album’s production time, it also helped us improve as creators,
which is an invaluable asset to us now.
7. You’ve worked with Ulrich Wild, known for his work with Deftones,
Slipknot, and Dethklok. How was the experience of having him mix/master your
track, and what impact did it have on the final sound?
We’ve had the opportunity to work with a lot of big names in the music
industry, but Ulrich Wild was the first mixing/mastering engineer we truly
clicked with instantly right out of the gate. One of the most difficult hurdles
we had to overcome was finding the right people to work with; people who
understand your vision so well that they can bring it to life on an instinctual
level. It’s thanks to our friends in Raven Black for making that connection
happen that we were able to find that compatibility with Ulrich Wild. If only
we lived in Los Angeles, we’d work with him on every single step of the album
creation process directly.
8. Gürschach has had the same lineup since 2013, which is rare in today’s
music scene. What’s the secret to your chemistry and longevity as a band?
Gürschach has always been like a family to me. There are bands out there who
treat their group like a business with a constant revolving door of members
that swap out every single release, and while that might work for them, I could
never see myself leading a band with a new stranger every other year. I find
that when you see your other band members less like expendable employees and
more like family members with their own stakes in the group, it’s a lot easier
to come to agreements and understandings than most people seem to think is
possible. It takes a great deal of compromise, but personally I believe it is
always worth it in the end.
9. Your music is very narrative-driven. Do you see yourselves as more of a
storytelling band or a riff-driven band—or is it always both at once?
As much as I love the narrative-driven structure of this album, I don’t think
we’ll ever fully commit to just one writing theme on any future project we do.
Our first album, Dark Matter, was completely riff-driven; moreover, I would
call that our guitar-driven album. However, we believe Absolutely Nothing to be
our first bass-driven album. One of our favorite techniques we used when
writing this album was we kept the guitar riffs stagnant and repeating for long
periods of time, while writing much more creative lines for the bass as a way
to recontextualize those guitar riffs so they hit the ear differently despite
how many times you keep hearing them again and again.
Even so, there are songs on the album that were built from guitar-riffs,
basslines, keyboard melodies, and even one song where the entire drum track was
written before anything else. The narrative arc is something that came about
because of my education in film scoring, so this album showcases a lot of
leitmotifs and music theory to tell the story in creative ways outside of just
the lyrics, and I believe that is something we’ll always have in our music from
this point forward.
10. You’ve been playing Northern California fests like Brutalpalooza and
Redwood Metalfest. How do live audiences respond to your fusion of desert
vibes, thrash energy, and progressive touches?
One of the great things about being as diverse and experimental as we are is
that we’ve been able to tailor our sets to whatever type of gig we’re playing.
Some gigs call for less heavy and more groovy sets, while other gigs will have
us busting out only our most out-of-control songs we’ve written. For the larger
festivals, given the size of the crowd, we’ve always found a way to make sure
there’s a little bit of everything for everybody. Some like it fast, others
like it slow, but at the end of the day, it’s our job to make sure everybody is
having a good time, and we take that responsibility very seriously.
11. The upcoming album is intriguingly titled “Absolutely Nothing.” What
does that title mean in the context of the story and your artistic vision?
Haha, ok, you really wanna know the truth? The meaning behind the album title
is exactly that: Absolutely Nothing. I wish I could say there’s some big epic
meaning behind that name, but the fact of the matter is one of us just said it
out loud years before we even wrote a single song for the album, and just like
that; we were already married to it.
At one point, I think we might’ve agreed that it’s what you would get if you
mixed the album “Absolutely Free” by Frank Zappa with the album “Nothing” by
Meshuggah, but I think literally anybody could come up with their own theory as
to why the album is called “Absolutely Nothing” and it would be just as
accurate.
12. Looking ahead, what do you hope listeners will take away from “Dawn of a
New”—not just musically, but emotionally and philosophically?
Dawn of a New is meant to get the ball rolling, so the goal we really set out
to accomplish with this track is simply to step out of our comfort zone and try
something new, all while still keeping it in the realm of heavy metal. We’ve
seen time and time again bands that dip their toes into something unfamiliar
only to reactively pull back and never try it again. However, we believe there
are vast oceans of untapped potential still left to explore in the world of
heavy music, so we just want to show others where to begin. Hopefully as time
goes by, we’ll see more bands take on more styles of music and still make
bangers in spite of it. We know it’s possible, and we believe anyone can do it.
~ X, Gürschach
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