Then God said, "Let There Be the Light"; and there was light. God saw the Light that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. Genesis 1:3
Despite their cult status, ESOTERIC are far from being frequent guests in underground magazines. Why is that?
I think we're perceived as having this "cult" status for exactly that reason. We've been doing plenty of interviews, so we're appearing somewhere — I have no idea where, though. The band has been around for 12 years now with very little exposure, and I don't expect that magazines will be particularly interested. We've never actively pursued media exposure, so it's not surprising that we don't get any.
ESOTERIC are often subject to lineup changes. Do these changes affect the creative process much? Do you stay in touch with former band members?
There was one lineup change in 1994 when I joined the band, and since then two other members have moved on to other things. But since 1994, the core lineup of Greg, Gor and myself has remained the same. It hasn't really affected the creative process that much — possibly slowed it a little; we'll never know. It's always felt very natural to move at the pace that we have. We're still in touch with the members of the post-1994 lineup, although their changes in lifestyle and location have limited the contact we have. But the members prior to that never stayed in touch.
Last spring you did a European tour with the renewed lineup. What impressions did you get during the trip? What place did you like the most?
Gigs generally don't pay for themselves, so we keep the tours short and busy so that we can minimize our losses — we don't really get to see any of the places we visit, and roads look like roads no matter where you are. The most memorable gig of the tour for me was Antwerp. We had made a 2,000 km round trip from Prague to Budapest to Antwerp with little or no sleep for a couple of days, and when we arrived at the venue there was no sound engineer and a broken PA, which we then rebuilt ourselves. We gave the loudest, most hate-filled performance that evening, which made the pain worthwhile. The other gigs were all good too, and the response was positive, which was unexpected.
What is the ESOTERIC show like on stage? Do you use any unusual instruments or props? How does the audience react? For me, I can't imagine intense headbanging happening there...
We don't really do a show — we're not natural performers like some bands, and we're certainly not entertainers. Our live show is simply three guitars, a bass, drums, vocals and keyboards, with very little motion and very little interaction with the audience. For us, the sound is the important thing, not the people who make it. The effects that can be heard on the recordings are the same effects we use live, so the live show is as close to the recordings as possible. It would be great to have something more visual prepared for live shows, but we simply don't have the means to do something like that. We're beginning to develop something more visual for future live gigs, but it's very early days and it won't be unleashed for quite a while yet. It's difficult to evaluate gigs in terms of public reaction — audiences vary, so it's hard to judge whether we are well received or not. Our audience is generally very subdued compared to a typical metal gig, so it's hard to tell if they're getting what they want from our performance. It's unnatural for someone to "enjoy" an Esoteric gig, because our music generally focuses directly on the negative emotions. So it's quite common for there to be little or no response, but it's certainly not a negative response. People have been very complimentary about our gigs, so we must be doing something right.
Your latest album is called "Subconscious Dissolution into the Continuum." Although it's crushingly massive, it also carries a lot of melancholy. Was that an intentional element, or something that came about unexpectedly?
I don't think there's anything artificial about it — the same emotions have been present in all the recordings and in everything we do as a band. Melancholy goes hand in hand with anger and violence — it's natural, and that's what the music is all about. Everything on that album is there because it has always been there — nothing was unexpected. The emotion is part of the songs as we play them, and that is what has been captured in the recording. I find it difficult to analyze what we do by any predetermined measures; it's something that is very natural yet very deliberate.
Five years have passed between the last album and its predecessor. What caused such a delay?
We were taking it easy for a while after "Metamorphogenesis" was recorded. We had a trying couple of years before that, where we lost all of our equipment in a fire while on tour, and it took a little while to get back into the flow of creating music with new, unfamiliar equipment. Also, Greg was still getting used to playing guitar and doing vocals at the same time, and we still had no drummer — the last permanent drummer we'd had before Andy joined in 2003 was the drummer from the first album, who left the band in 1994. The bassist decided to leave the band when we started recording the album in 2002, which meant we had to find and rehearse a session bass player as well as a drummer to record the album. The album was finished and ready in 2003, and it had existed for almost a year before it was released by Season of Mist, so the gaps don't seem quite so big for us. We stayed as active as possible throughout the less productive years, but the focus was always on writing something new and interesting.
Just before releasing the new CD, you signed with Season Of Mist. Are you pleased with the way they do their work?
The album was produced independently of Season of Mist, so we've had very little experience of how they work. Historically, we have handled most of the promotion and sales of our albums ourselves, so we licensed this album to a more established label so that we could let them get on with it and allow ourselves more time to get a solid lineup together and move on to some new material. They've organized a few interviews and had the CD reviewed in places that probably wouldn't have been interested before, but other than that, they have had little or no effect on us.
Already with your previous effort, "Metamorphogenesis," you stepped away from the double-CD formula. Could we expect you to return to that in the future?
I see "Metamorphogenesis" and "Subconscious..." as EPs to tide us over while we were getting the band back to a full lineup. It's just a long string of unfortunate events that made it take so long. There is a period of overlap between some of the music on the two CDs — we were working on the music from "Subconscious..." before "Metamorphogenesis" was released, and they feel like they are from the same period. There were even discussions about releasing "Subconscious..." as a double CD with "Meta" as the second disc. I fully expect the next release to be at least a double CD, the reason being that we now have six musicians in the band rather than the previous three, and we're all writing and rehearsing new material.
Apart from the ubiquitous "rhythm-lead" scheme, you use three guitars when writing and performing your music. Is it a lot more difficult to arrange the parts between three guitars?
Not really. There have always been three guitars, and the music is always written with three guitars in mind. There are quite often three distinct guitar parts — maybe a lead, a distorted rhythm and a clean rhythm — or the rhythm guitars are split into two octaves to create a wider, more varied sound. It can sometimes be restrictive, especially when improvising new material, but it's part of what Esoteric is, and I couldn't imagine it being any other way. We often have at least one guitar playing some sort of lead or melody, which is not so fashionable these days, but that's no concern of ours.
How does the writing process flow? Does everyone contribute their passages to the music, or are there a few major composers while others only do the arrangement?
Each of the tracks and all its parts are written by one individual and learned by the rest of the band. Each of us has contributed to each album, but it's mostly been the work of a single individual on each track, so there isn't any one main composer. Each of us has a different style of playing, so there will always be elements of our individual technique in what we play, but generally each part belongs to the author of the track. Obviously, the three new members of the band had nothing to do with the writing process until now and were involved in the arrangement only. But we are all equally involved in the new music, and we plan on writing more as a group for the next recording, although the songs we're working on at the moment were written individually.
Chris Peters is the one who made the artwork for the two most recent ESOTERIC albums. Do you plan to continue this collaboration? Steve, I also know that you did the booklet artwork on "The Pernicious Enigma." Are you skilled in design? Is there a chance we'll see your artwork on future releases? Oh, I've just realized that maybe you're a brother to Chris — at least your last names are the same?
Yes, Chris is my brother, and I worked closely with him on the artwork for the last two releases. If I had more time to spend on artwork, I would have done them myself, but Chris has been involved with the band as long as I have (he introduced me to the band in the first place), and he is able to produce fitting artwork for the music. Simon used to be responsible for the artwork, and he produced the cover for "The Pernicious Enigma" as well as the op-art for the first demo and album, but it is a lengthy process to produce such intricate designs by hand. I don't really remember how my artwork came to be used on "The Pernicious Enigma" — most of the designs were the result of delving into various fractal algorithms, and some were the result of ideas from other members of the band which I realized as best I could. I am artistically trained to some extent, but I wouldn't say I'm particularly skilled. I would like to be able to spend more time developing the artistic side of Esoteric, and maybe in the future I will — only time will tell.
How would you describe the audience that listens to your music?
As I've mentioned before, our audience is a bit of an enigma. They are clearly insane, as the music is something very personal to us and not really intended to be listened to by anyone other than us. But as long as there is an audience, and record labels that are able to get our music to them, then we will continue to make it available.
You are based in Birmingham, the town which gave us ANATHEMA, MY DYING BRIDE and, first of all, BLACK SABBATH. Is there something in the air or landscape that compels people to write such deep, dark music? Describe your hometown...
Anathema and My Dying Bride are not from Birmingham (Liverpool and Bradford, I think), but Birmingham does have a strong history of metal bands. NAPALM DEATH, Black Sabbath, Cathedral, Bolt Thrower, Anaal Nathrakh, Benediction and various other bands all hail from Birmingham and its surrounding areas. There's not much to say about the place other than it's England's second biggest shithole after London. It stinks and the streets are dangerous. It's an angry city — maybe something to do with its culturally segregated nature and the racial tension that comes along with that. I don't like the place, and I have moved to a smaller town just outside Birmingham, but I can still smell the stench. I go to Birmingham occasionally, when there's an unfortunate band playing there, but generally I avoid the place.
Music, in general, is tightly bound with some sort of visuality. Are there any certain images you try to recreate with your music?
Not specifically — the music has always been very visual, to me at least, but I think each of us sees something different in the music, which is what makes it so interesting for each of us. I'm certain that senses can overlap, and in many cases sound can be seen and felt rather than actually heard, so who knows what any particular individual may conjure up in their mind while listening to us.
Concerning inspiration. In the early days, ESOTERIC described their music using the "drug-influenced" epithet. Nowadays, has anything changed since then? What do you think of the works of Carlos Castaneda? Could you compare your out-of-this-world experience with the way described in his books?
I haven't heard of him, so I can't comment on his work. I have no interest in anyone's drug-influenced experiences except my own — it's a personal thing. Drugs don't play any less of a part now than they did in the past. Maybe some are more difficult to get hold of than others, but I think we're just more used to them these days.
Do Greg's lyrics contain any message to fans, or are they just an expression of his thoughts and feelings? Reading them, I've started to think that he must have studied philosophy or something. What do you think — does education help us understand the world around us, or on the contrary, does it hold us back from seeing things clearly?
I don't think there are any hidden messages in the lyrics — the content is very personal to Greg, but the emotion is clear, and that is what the music feeds on. I'm not sure if he has any formal education in philosophy; I think that's just part of his personal journey. There is no doubt that education is the key to development, and each of us is responsible for what we learn. Formal education, at least in this country, can only ever teach you how to learn — it's up to the individual to acquire actual useful knowledge. I don't think that education alone will help us see what really is, since two highly educated people could easily see the same world from two completely different angles and come to two completely different sets of conclusions. Education may help us make sense of what we see, but it will never help us see things as they really are.
Your music is obviously far from commercial success. Do you all have regular jobs you earn money from?
Yes, we all work. None of us have ever earned a penny from the band. Any money that the band does earn goes straight back into the band to pay for gigs, merchandise and recordings. All our equipment and even rehearsal time is paid for out of our own pockets. I've never been paid for being part of Esoteric, and I don't expect to be — the same goes for everyone else in the band. That doesn't mean we wouldn't accept payment, because we all could use the extra cash, but so far we've earned nothing.
Have you ever thought about changing the musical direction? Do the members of ESOTERIC have any side projects?
I don't think we have a specific direction with the music — Esoteric is our outlet for the negative aspects of our psyche, and that will always be true. If we feel the collective need to express anything other than the hate, anger and torment, then I suspect it would be done under a different name, as Esoteric is known for being a very negative band. There are no real side projects to speak of — Gordon (guitar) and Olivier (keyboard) have an electronic side project, but they haven't released anything as far as I know. It's not really to my taste, so I haven't paid that much attention to what they're doing. I have lots of music written that would not fit in with the Esoteric style, so maybe that will get recorded sometime, but so far our musical outlet has been Esoteric.
What associations arise in you after hearing the words "Satan" and "God"?
Satan = The freedom of life and the enjoyment of all it has to offer. God = The restrictions of society and the lack of imagination required to live peaceful and eventless lives.
If you had a chance to invite any renowned artist to make a guest appearance on an ESOTERIC album, who would it be?
I can't think of anyone I respect enough to let near our recordings. We've had people help us who are renowned in their own circles, but never through choice — more as a result of circumstance.
Maybe there is something you ever wanted to say but no one asked you about?
No, but I often want to say nothing about things that I have been asked about.