Bang your heads, metalheadz ! Interview with Insolvency !

France has a very rich metal scene, with iconic bands like Gojira. However, smaller bands sometimes struggle to get more exposure. We had a talk with Pierre, bass player of the band Insolvency, based in Troyes.

Hello guys. Glad to have you at Distrolution. First of all, please could you introduce yourself and Insolvency, as well as your personal backgrounds?

Insolvency has been founded in 2012 with Valentin and one of his friend first, Jules (guitar). Then Mickael (Drums) and I (vocals / bass) joined the band in a second step. In 2014, Bruno (guitar) joined the band and that’s the starting point of all our ambitious dreams and projects with the EP and then this album. It’s kind of the first ambitious band project for all of us!

We all love many music genres and we all love many metal styles, but I’m more into Metalcore. Mickael is a fan of Death and Progressive metal. Bruno and Valentin share a Heavy Metal touch with their guitar playing style. Our common meeting point is Melody, Power and Groove, we take the best of each other’s inspiration!

You define your band as an Modern Heavy Metal one, with Metalcore influences. You obviously sound like a Metalcore band in the vein of As I Lay Dying or Bullet For My Valentine, but this genre is often mocked and even bands like Trivium don’t want to be labelled as this. What are your views on this?

These mentioned bands are successful ones, and we love their instrumentals and whole music skills, so we don’t give that much attention to anything else. We could mention also While She Sleeps for some of our influences or even Children Of Bodom, or also Trivium for some solos played by Valentin and Bruno. We’ve got several influences and we’re proud to deal with it, even if haters are gonna hate !

Your debut album “Antagonism of Soul”, following your first self-titled EP, will be released on January 26th and you worked with producers Jim Pinder and Carl Brown (Machine Head, Bullet For My Valentine, While She Sleeps, …). Could you tell us more about the writing process, the recording sessions and this collaboration?

Valentin and I wrote main riffs and structures, then we set them up together and improved them, as Bruno worked on the pre-production.

We really did not expect to work with such great producers. We just tried to contact them with some demo tracks to see if they liked our songs and whole project and we were very happy when we saw a positive feedback from them (stressfull weeks of waiting for a mail back!!). We’re proud and glad to collaborate with Jim and Carl since they’ve worked with most of our favorite bands! We’ve felt like at home with them and that was a great experience, these guys were so patient and so involved to make us happy with the records!

The recording sessions were splitted on the album process (due obviously to its costs), so we recorded guitars and bass on DI tracks (carefully following Jim’s instructions), and main vocals tracks in our home studio. It took months because we changed and rewrote some song. We really wanted to push our own level to give the best we could on any note played or on any riff writing.

Then once these tracks were done, we went to the studio to record drums and also some additional group vocals, then we had to be patient for the mix master, which took a few months. We’ve been so lucky While She Sleeps (who were Recording You Are We album during the same period with Carl Bown) let their Drum Kit at the Treehouse Studio, so we were able to use it for our tracks! That was an insane experience and we’re very grateful to Jim and Carl!

The overall tone of the album and its lyrics are quite dark and pessimistic. What has guided you through the writing of this album ?

I do write a lot about life feels in general and news. These subjects affects me so I like to deal with their dark side and music is like a therapy for me (and for my band mates too). We like to illustrate the dark but we try to keep it with power and kind of hope between the lines!

You have a few upcoming shows. Do you plan to tour across France or Europe, or do you have any opportunities for this year ?

Yeah, we’re working on our schedule for a few gigs in France, beside that we need a bit more time to set up a tour. We definitely plan to tour in Europe and UK, just a matter of time 😉

Touring is very time-consuming and it can be hard to tour when all band members have regular jobs. How do you arrange your personal schedules with the band’s one ?

Yeah, not easy in this situation, but Val and I are still students, Bruno and Mickael have regular jobs. We still have time to work all nights and all weekends to keep pushing our project and we’ll keep doing. Sometime, we’re sad to decline some gigs proposals due to professional schedules but we keep doing the best to be available for opportunities. We all have the same dream: live for music and we’ll keep pushing for this goal.

We’re almost done. What can we expect from Insolvency in the months to come ? Any hot news ? 😉

We’re planning another music video titled “Antagonism of the soul”, if you liked the first ones “Black Moon” and “Death Wish”, this next one should kick major asses.

Thank you guys. I hope we can see you soon on stage. Any last word for your fans ?

Thanks for following us. Keep checking all our upcoming shit!