Sons of Coherence's journey, born in lockdown, embraces diverse metal influences. In this interview, they delve into songwriting, creative evolution, live experiences, and future plans. Join their rhythmic odyssey.
1. The journey of Sons of Coherence
began in lockdown. How did this isolation influence your songwriting process
and the creation of energetic, groovy songs?
Some of the
songs we have in our repertoire were actually already written as Sons of
Coherence wasn't formed yet. Our lead guitarist Pierre used to play in another
band called Ascendance. It was there that he wrote for instance the songs
Greedbearer or Psychopath. In Sons of Coherence we altered the names a little
and also the lyrics.
The isolation
definitely had us have a little more time to write and our songs and enhance
our techniques. We had more time due to less possible opportunities. We got
tied together and had the chance to get to know each other. This ,,groovyness,,
is a blessing of our drummer Yanik I'd say. He delivers the string section with
groovy fills and tight playing in general. He could also play straight 16ths or
triplets on the double bass throughout the whole song, but luckely chooses not
to do so. It simply wouldn't fit our setting.
2. Your
demo EP "(in)sanity" in 2022 laid the foundation, and now the single
"PEAK" is making waves. Can you share the creative evolution between
these releases?
Between the
release of our EP and Peak quiet some time has passed. Meanwhile our songwriter
and guitarist aswell as the whole band have worked on their performance and
techniques. I think that without the inspiration of ,,Thy Art is Murder -
Puppet Master,, this song's verses would not have sounded the same. It was the
first time that a chorus consistet of some strummed chords that were a little
more complex then just power chords. Also the vocals are unique compared to
what we did yet. It's like double time Rap and Metal had a child and raised it
well.
3. Your
style blends old school with modern, featuring both melodic and intense parts.
How do you balance these elements within your songs?
For each bandmember has a different type of metal they prefere (like for example our bass player likes black metal, the vocalist hardcore and death core) we also combine different ages of metal in one band. It's always been a challenge in the sonwriting process to sound diverse. Fortunately there is enough inspiration thanks to the time we live in. Also there are no rules when it comes to mixing different types of genres in one song. Therefore there may be a part sounding like Wintersun for instance and the next part like Gojira. (That's a hint to a song coming out soon...)
4. Metaphorically, you've likened
"Lamb of God" to a gentle, groovy mother and "Slaughter to
Prevail" to a stern, sinister father. How do these influences manifest in
your music?
Chris Adler has always been a hero to our drummer Yanik and Mark Morton a huge inspiration to our guitarist Pierre. Slaughter to Prevail's vocalist Alex the Terrible is just an amazing role model to our vocalist Ammar Sanji. And finally Slaughter to Prevail has also a sick instrumental section with a large arsenal of different techniques like sweeps, djent elements, dissonant chord progressions and stank-face-provoking-breakdowns.
5. Your
lyrics consciously avoid religion, politics, and social criticism, focusing on
human nature and everyday challenges. Why this thematic choice?
We actually
mainly focus on mental health issues. We now try to find other topics but still
avoid these you mentioned in the question. Our goal should be (not always
though) to deliver a message filled with hope and encouragement. We're
currently working on a track that for the first time obviously also has a
religious background. This will be the first and last song though. The reason
for this choice is the same as why we wrote about mental health issues - our
guitar player Pierre himself had several suicide attempts aswell as several
psychoses. This brought him the diognosis of schizoprene paranoid psychosis
with manic depression. He converted to Christianity during his first stay in
the mental hospital and therefore he writes songs about schizophrenia, paranoia,
depression and now for the first time (eventually) one about faith. Most of
these songs have one thing in common - a happy end with a twist within the
story. The audience is encouraged to closely listen to the lyrics. That's why
from now on we want to add lyrics to all of our future releases.
6. Having
built a fan base through various club shows in Switzerland, how do live
performances contribute to the Sons of Coherence experience?
Oh boy - these
shows are what Sons of Coherence lives for! We all love to play live espacially
when our fans destroy the pit as they usually do. Well; beeing on different
shows with different kinds of preferences of music in the audience we can
proudly say that no matter where we were (a bar in the midst of the city where,
on a farm in the middle of nowhere or on a punk open air) the crowd always
enjoyed our music. It was such a great honor to have played in front of all
these crazy people that like our crazy shows. Even though these shows have
already contributed much to us when it comes to performance and timing, we can
and must still learn so much more. It's a pleasure doing so with all of our
loyal fans and those who don't know us yet.
Seeing what
the audience likes most about our music, in other words - seeing where they go
crazy the most also influences the sonwriting process. We want to provoke more
moments where the people go wild but we need to pay attention of staying real
while doing so. Not to sell our authenticity for likes has the higher priority
than being liked but doing stuff we can't stand behind.
7. The
summer of 2023 saw you return to the studio, recording three songs. Can you
offer insights into the creative process behind these new tracks?
All of our 17
songs that we currently have were composed by the lead guitarrist Pierre. For
he didn't work during a longer period of time, he had enough time to write some
songs. Being jobless has been a huge advantage for also having the opportunity
to confront his demons. So he managed to include this process into the
songwriting and created one song after another. It wasn't as easy as it may
sound now, but writing these songs meant for him to doubt about his creativity,
overwhelming himself into going to the rehearsal room despite the depression
and to stay there without the temptation of getting drunk due to the despair
that all the effort may be for nothing.
When he had to
be honest about how he writes his riffs and licks aswell as the soloes it was
that answer:
,,There's a
couch in our rehearsal room. Everytime i don't know how to continue or even to
start a song a lay down on that couch and close my eyes. Sometimes there's
immediately a melody or a riff coming to my mind. And if not I start praying or
just listen to some music on that couch. The ideas then start coming by
themselves. I can't force the process and if I try wich i already tried a
couple of time, nothing good seems to ever turn out then.,,
8. Your
played shows include diverse venues. How does the atmosphere vary, and do you
have a favorite live performance memory?
The atmosphere
was completely different depending on whether we played in a bar that was
crowded to the brim or this one time when we played during a Holiday in a venue
that wasn't known for metal so almost nobody showed up. We were almost as many
people on the stage as in front of it hahaha. There were so many great moments,
it's hard to mention the one that stays in our memory the most concise. One was
when our vocalist had not space on the tiny little stage so he stood on the bar
counter and there was this little girl standing right next to him. That was
cute hahaha.
9. As Sons of Coherence continues to
gain momentum, how do you plan to stay connected with your audience and reach
new listeners?
I can surely
tell what we won't do - pay for listeners on spotify lol
Nah for real,
we know that the music is only one piece of the whole cake. Marketing is
another big one and our drummer and also our pruducer Micha Seifert from
Germany surely know how to promote us. We want to show our fans who Sons of
Coherence is behind the music. So we want to start showing them our
personalities by talking to them through Instagram and maybe Facebook
(depending on the requests).
We definitely
want to advertise our upcoming songs and also become active on Bandcamp and
sell our merch more consequently. This way our fans are always informed about
the latest news and can support us from wherever they are thanks to the
shipping option on Bandcamp.
10. Looking
ahead, what's next for Sons of Coherence? Any upcoming projects, dreams, or
directions you're excited to explore?
If possible,
that means if we all have the opportunity to have Holidays we would like to
tour Europe. It can also be a smaller tour like Switzerland, Germany, Austria
and Italy for example. Also we would love to play on Festivals. There are a lot
in Switzerland, but also Germany would be absolutely lovely to play at.
An upcoming
project is the recording of another 5 songs in cooperation with the same
producer who also recorded Peak and Dyke and the song we're going to release on
January. We are confident that these songs are going to be a banger. They're
completely unique compared to our usual style. Especially a song we don't have
an official name for yet but just call it ,,pervers divers,, wich means
,,perversely diverse,, because it has so many changes within it.
Also something
we're looking forward to is our first music video with an actual story behind
it we're about to roll next weekend. We hope that everything goes according to
the plan/script.
Thanks so much
for having us in your interview!
𝙎𝙊𝙉𝙎 𝙊𝙁 𝘾𝙊𝙃𝙀𝙍𝙀𝙉𝘾𝙀 (@sonsofcoherence) • Photos et vidéos Instagram
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