Strongwater Interview - Fuchsia (Breath-Fresher)

I had an interview with Odd Jan Eidem (O.J.) who is a song writer and the drummer in STRONGWATER from Norway and the song was airplayed on ROCK OR DIE Monthly in April. This article is also published at TopMusic JP.
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BF
Thank you for joining us on my radio show in April. We're so happy to have your band.　People who missed it play your song on a podcast so many times.

O.J.
Awesome that people are listening to us :) Feel free to send them over to our Facebook page and my Twitter profile ;)

BF
What happened to the website? When will it be opened?

O.J.
We are not sure yet. The creation of the homepage is not yet done professionally. We have a friend who is very good with computers, and he has agreed to help us make the homepage, but he needs some time to prepare, and we are planning what to include on the site. Hopefully, it will be up and running soon. But as of right now, no date is yet set.

BF
What are you doing recently?

O.J.
After we had our release-party to celebrate the release of "Black River", one of our guitar players, Eldar, needed to take some time off. While he has been away, the rest of us have been working on new material - the release of　"Black River"　is very recent,　but many of the songs on the CD are already a couple of years old, so we are eager to get started on a new chapter.　We are already rehearsing at least 5 new songs, and are working hard on perfecting them.

BF
You're a drummer in the band, how do you make a song?

                              Odd Jan Eidem

O.J.
I have a lot of music in my mind, but unfortunately, I only have experience with drums. So, as a way to express my ideas to the rest of the band, I mostly use a computer program where I can compose the music and put the riffs together. My approach can be different from time to time. Sometimes I get an idea for lyrics first, and then try to write a song that fits the words. Other times I have written down a few riffs, and I try to feel what kind of emotions the riffs stir up. If I can connect the mood of the riffs to my own feelings and experiences, it will be easier to write lyrics about something that actually has a point, instead of just making up random lyrics.

Whenever I have written enough riffs for a whole songs, or just written a couple of riffs that I want to continue working on with the rest of the band, I will record　the music from the computer program, save it as mp3 files, and then bring it with me to practice, where I show the music to them. It may sound like a weird routine,　but it seems to work for us. That's how I wrote most of songs such as "Skeleton Man", "Black River", "Animal Grin", "The Wai", "Broken Tombstone" and "Old Hat". I would often bring the main riffs of the songs to practice, and then the rest of the band would add their own ideas to make the songs sound even better.

BF
Tell us more about the album. Where did you record it?

O.J.
In the town where all of us live, Sykkylven, we are using a rehearsal place two days a week. For time and budget reasons, we used that place to record our songs too, in late summer of 2009. We hired a couple of friends, who are running a small sound engineering business, to help us with the recordings. We spent a few months　laying down all the tracks.

To get a better end-result, we took the recorded material and brought it to a man called Rune Stavnesli. He is the guitar player of a couple of bands, plus he has produced and recorded albums for more known bands such as Keep of Kalessin, and　one of Phil Anselmo's previous bands, Necrophagia. Rune spent a few months　-　whenever he had time　-　working on the mixing and mastering of the songs in a studio in Alesund (a city close to Sykkylven). This helped the songs get a more professional sound.

The whole process, from beginning the recordings to finally releasing the CD for sale, was a long and sometimes a bit frustrating journey for us. We were doing everything for the first time, and sometimes we did things in ways we could have done a lot easier if we only had the knowledge. Sometimes it seemed as if when one thing was taken care of, a new challenge appeared, and we would have to find out how to deal with it. We were calling people, we we e saving up money to pay for all of the work, and we were doing everything we could to make this product as good as possible, as well as getting the songs copyrighted and approved for release, finding a suitable printing company, and so on. And in the middle of it all, guitar player Tommy Thunberg came to the conclusion that he was leaving the band, so we had to get a new guitar player and rehearse the songs with him so that he could learn them. ( The new guitar player was ironically a man I first asked to join my band in late 2007, but he lived too far away from Sykkylven at that time. But now he is back in Sykkylven, and he was happy to join the band ).

So like I said, it was a long journey, especially because we didn't have any label to support us. We had to do things ourselves, and pay out of our own pockets. But　we learned a lot from it, and we know that next time, things will go a lot more smoothly. And we already know that when we are ready to record our next album, we will hire Rune Stavnesli from the start, to do both the recording and the mixing/mastering.

BF
Do you have any episodes on the recording of the album?

O.J.
There were a few funny or surprising incidents. There were no real accidents, just a slight mistake every now and then. But I could give ya a few examples.
As you know, it's common for a musician to listen to digital metronome clicks while recording, to keep a steady tempo. The sound engineers had saved specific settings for drums on their recording program; whenever a song was complete, they'd just save it as a new file, empty the tracks and start recording a new song under the same settings. The tempo would have to be adjusted based on how fast or slow we wanted each song to be.

During　"The Leader Of My Life"　there is a deliberate tempo change during the guitar solo, and after the solo the song goes back to its original tempo. After that song, we started recording　" Old Hat ",　but something seemed very strange all of a sudden. I kept missing the tempo near the end of the song. We tried to re-record it several time, but each time I kept missing the right tempo. Eventually we discovered that they had forgotten to remove the tempo change from　the previous song, making the digital clicks to suddenly accelerate.

Another incident proves how crazy the weather here in Sykkylven can be. At the start of the day,we all gathered outside to enjoy a BBQ in the hot sun. We even carried some sofas and tables out from the studio to sit comfortably while eating. Just a couple of hours later, we had done some recording, and decided to take a break. When we went back outside to get fresh air,there was a raging rain storm with lightning and thunder all around us. We had to turn off all the recording equipment to avoid damage, and had to quit early for the day.

Other than that, things mostly went smoothly. It might however be interesting to know that when we first started this recording process, we were originally supposed to just record a demo EP consisting of 4 or 5 songs. On the first day of meeting with the sound engineers, they quickly set up a few microphones, and we played through all of our songs live.The intention was to listen to the quick recordings and decide which of the songs we wanted to pick for the EP. The sound engineers　kept loving each song more and more, and it became difficult for us to choose which ones to pick, because we all had different favorites.

We jokingly said:　"Well, we might as well just pick all of them and record a full album." And in the end, that's what we decided to do. The unfortunate thing about that, was that this gave us a bigger time restraint. The sound engineers had agreed to help us for one month during the summer, and now we suddenly had 14 songs to record in one month. I'll admit that some parts of the album are a bit rushed because of that, and although we are very happy with the result, I think that　certain elements would have been even better if we had planned things a bit better on beforehand. But hey, there's always an album number 2, right? ;)

BF
Exactly. What if people out of Norway want to get the copy of number 1, where can you find out?

                                  Black River

BF
STRONGWATER is now on Spotify*, so if people are curious about the music, they can of course listen to it there. If they happen to like the music so much that they want to support us by buying the CD, the only way currently is to contact me at official e-mail address, and request a copy ( payment info will be received ). When our homepage is up and running, we will eventually have a net store where they can order the CD (and maybe t-shirts, etc) directly from the homepage.

* Currently Spotify is available only in Europe.

BF
What plans do you have this year?

O.J.
We have been working hard on promoting our music, sending copies of our CD to all　kinds of people. And the results have been good. We have been reviewed in two Norwegian rock magazines, the website ultimate-guitar.com featured us on his November 2010 edition of "unsigned talent of the month", and other people are showing interest. We are also trying to book more gigs for the future, and Eldar is ready to continue working with us on these new projects.

BF
Where would you like to go on tour in the future as the STRONGWATER?

O.J.
Basically everywhere. It's a safe assumption that we'll most lightly start by　traveling to different parts of Norway first, just to test our material other places where people don't have the bias of knowing us personally. We do love and appreciate our local fans, and we do not want in any way to belittle their loyalty to us, but you can't avoid the fact that some of those people are sort of "automatically" a fan because they know us and they think that it's exciting　that their friends are in a cool metal band. But if we travel elsewhere, and gain a fan base there as well, then we get a different kind of confirmation that we're on the right track.

The USA would be a very cool country to visit. And various parts of Europe, like Germany, Sweden maybe, and so forth. If we make it really big, we could even come　over to Japan and rock your socks off! Wouldn't that be cool?

But yeah, as a band with hopes of working with our music on a professional level,　the ultimate dream would travel around the world and kick some multicultural ass.

BF
By the way, where came from your band name STRONGWATER?

O.J.
In many ways, we leave it up for people to interpret. A lot of people seem to think it has to do with alcohol. And why not, if that's how they want to interpret it,　then that is what it means for them. I once half jokingly told somebody that "strongwater" is another name for the passion and energy that drive a certain type of people. Those who overcome their struggles, those who thrive on high speed and get a rush from fighting their challenges. Adrenaline, so to speak. And it can mean that too.

But if you want a very literal definition, it was a name I came up with after another name was unavailable. I had heard a specific Latin expression, and thought it sounded like a great name for a band. After doing some searching online, I discovered that there already was another band who used that particular name. So I thought: "Well, maybe there's another Latin expression that might fit?" I found a list of Latin expressions, and eventually stopped at "aqua fortis", which is the Latin name for nitric acid, also known as　"strong water". So, basically, I just slapped those two words together, and it became Strongwater.

I still stick to my previous statement,though,that people can interpret the name as they please. That philosophy goes well with our song lyrics as well; they have a specific meaning deep down, but are otherwise open for interpretation.

BF
Could you describe what kind of your band is in a word?

O.J.
Bipolar might be a good word, on many levels. Or multipolar, even. We are a bunch of very weird guys, haha. But what I really mean is that "bipolar" is a good, very literal description for our music, geographically/culturally speaking. We're five guys from Norway, so you know, we come from the nordic vikings. And if you're in a metal band from Norway, you almost can't avoid letting the traditional Norwegian black metal roots seep into your core of musical influence. But some of us in the band are also very inspired by more basic heavy metal such as Black Sabbath, and the socalled southern metal from USA, like Pantera or Down. And that's where the bipolar description enters into it; we are vikings from the north with blood from the south. Oh sorry, you wanted just one word? "Bipolar," then, haha!