Interview - ERYN NON DAE

Martín: Hi there! First of all introduce ERYN NON DAE to our readers.

Mickael André: We're ERYN NON DAE previously called END. We come from Toulouse south of France and just released our first album through Metalblade records, we also released a EP called "the never ending whirl of confusion" in 2005.

M: Last year Metal Blade released your debut album “Hydra Lernaia”. Tell us about the feedback you gave from both the media and fans.

M.A.: I have to admit that 98% from the feedback is very positive, we were aware about the work we did on the album but all these good reactions are always surprising, beyond all these good reviews we've been really touched by some people saying that Hydra Lernaïa had a huge emotional impact on them, I mean hearing that the album is great is very pleasant but some people seems to really dig into it more that just listening to it and that's totally what we've tried to create.

M: Is there a main concept behind the album? What about the lyrics?

M.A.: There's a kind of concept yes, the lyrics are dealing with nine different human feelings that seems to grow stringer despite our will to fight against, this general idea is represented by this mythological episode of the Hydra Lernaïa, there's also a strong presence of the number nine and a few other things that is most interesting to discover by yourselves...

M: Your music is as atmospheric as brutal. How is the process to create that kind of music?

M.A.: We're very slow with writing, it's always about trying to create a kind of equilibrium between moment of violence and something more ambient, while composing there are some moment of pure reflexion and work on each single notes and snare or kick hit and other moments with more feeling and playing more naturally what comes to our mind, I think that it's this kind of duality that makes our music as brutal as atmospheric....



M: “Hydra Lernaia” has a beautiful dark image. Tell us about the artwork.

M.A.: Thanks! The first thing is that we're very very interested in the image of the band, it was very important for us to have something that comes like a whole piece including music, lyrics and artwork. Romain Barbot that did the artwork is a very talented guy, you’ll be happy to learn that the cover picture has been taken in Spain ! That's the first time we say it I think! We just told him that we wanted something quite photographic we're a bit tired of these photoshopish album covers so we tried to bring something more natural, it was really important for us, and he totally pleased us with that artwork, it's very close to the feeling coming from theses songs I think...All of us in the band are still buying Cd's and vinyls and we pay very attention to the artwork, as we do with our merchandise or the video for the song “The Decline And The fall” we hope to go further in that way with the next one...

M: You made a video for “The Decline And The Fall” which contains lots of abstract images. Tell us about it. Are you planning to shot a new video for other song?

M.A.: This video has been made by Manuel Rufié who is our drummer's cousin, we didn't want to make a video only to say “we did a video”, we know that it's an important promotional tool but we wanted it to be quite abstract as you said, so the first idea was to not shoot the band playing in an old factory or things like that, so we just told that to the guy, he shot a bit of our hands and stuff like that and spent maybe 6 or 8 months manipulating paint, ink, old news paper and other stuff to come with that video, the first time we saw it we were totally blown away ! That was very very beyond our expectations, I mean we never could have imagine something like that. It was an intense moment, most of the people have seen it in a small window on a laptop with a shitty sound but when you watch it on a TV in a dark room at maximum volume it was a really intense experience for us. Concerning another video I don't think there will be another one for this record since it's very expensive and most of all because we have to find something as exciting for us as the first one was.

M: What can we expect about ERYN NON DAE´s live on stage?

M.A.: I hope that our gigs manage to grab the audience into our music, reactions from the last gigs are quite good, from what I could see it looks pretty intense on stage so we carry on working on the way to fully render what people feels with the album.



M: What about touring plans?

M.A.: We're playing isolated gigs for the moment, there's no huge touring plan unfortunately.

M: There are a lot of interesting names in the French Metal scene nowadays. What is your opinion about the new French Metal?

M.A.: We hear a lot about this “French metal scene” but to be honest I don't really think that's something new is happening, there is a lot of great bands in France, as in every country I guess, the only different thing now is that Gojira put France on the map for French metal bands and it's a great thing for all of us of course but I don't believe in this “new French metal scene”

M: What is your opinion about music in our days with the internet and mp3 downloads?

M.A.: Wow it's a huge thing!! To speak more generally I'm sure that there's a lot of good thing coming from today's technology and little bands like us have a great chance to spread their music with sites like myspace or other, we can't deny that. But to look further I often think that it slowly modifies the way we listen to music, as the way we look around us, yesterday I was talking with Yann (guitar player) about what we all do with our digital camera each day, we go to spent a week end anywhere, we take about 200 picture, put it to the computer and then facebook and then? we have thousands and thousands of picture of what we lived during that week end but we'll never go back to these pictures because we won't find it in a shoes box at the bottom of a closet, we'll just add a thousand more pictures from the next week end to this computer and again and again, that's the perfect behaviour I don't recognize myself into, I feel quite lost with the path we seems to follow with all these informations, and that's the same thing with bands, MP3 or movie download, friends are sending me MP3 but I just can't listen to it because if there's no cover with this music, I just can't listen to it, it reminds a good way to discover things but I'm just not sure about my ability to apprehend all this. Sounds a bit old school maybe but that's only my personal feeling...

M: Thank you very much for your time. Here you have space to write what you want as farewell.

M.A.: Thanks a lot for your time and questions, and also to the people that are interested in the band, it means a lot for us of course!
Mika

http://www.myspace.com/end1freefr
http://erynnondae.com/