With:	Robin Staps, Paul Seidel
Conducted by:	RaduP (in person)
Published:	18.11.2018
Band profile:	The Ocean

After some e-mails and some wondering if they'll reach their target, I managed to schedule an interview with The Ocean during their performance in Timisoara, while they were on tour with Rosetta. Since I had no idea whether the interview will take place or not until the day of the concert, I did what research I could at work and wrote what questions I could and hurried to the venue so that we would have enough time between the time doors opened and when Rosetta's performance started, since they were the ones I hadn't seen before. The Ocean I had previously seen opening for Katatonia just one year beforehand. After finally meeting Paul near the merch stand, he invited me in the tour bus, where Robin was working and it was more quiet. At first Robin had a bit of work to do and didn't join until a bit after the interview started.




Radu Patroiu: You've been in Romania for the past few days and this is the last one. How was the experience?

Paul Seidel: Romania's always very special because it's kind of like this place you don't get to visit every weekend. I have a bunch of friends here that I only see once every two years or so. The shows are always intense because I have a feeling that Romania is a little bit not used to having many shows, at least that's what my experience is. Whenever we come here it's always very intense. The crowd is craving to experience the live show and see us, especially yesterday in Bucharest, we had a sold out show, I think, and everybody was super keen on seeing us. Very friendly, very open-minded people. It's always great being here.

RP: Glad to have you, come back again. I've seen your band referred to as both "The Ocean" and "The Ocean Collective". Do you think that the "Collective" one is still accurate and relevant given that the lineup has been quite stable for almost a decade.

PS: I think the initial idea of adding the "Collective" was to be open-minded and have some room for change, which is an initial part of the creative process of the band, you have a lot of people that join, people that leave from time to time, but they all build the concept of the band. And it's not just the musicians, it's also the people that have been working for this band for ages, for example our sound guys or people that create the artworks, like Martin Kvamme, whose been working with us for years; to the light designers, it's family so it's kind of like acknowledging those people more than before and giving them the thanks they deserve, so this is why the "Collective" is coming back now.

RP: And you've recently released part one of another twin album. Can you tell us a bit what the album is about? From what I've gathered it's a continuation of Precambrian.

PS: Yeah, exactly, it takes off where Precambrian left off and it sort of fills the gap between Precambrian and the Heliocentric and Anthropocentric albums. Thematically it's basically the time era that we still live in, that started more than 500 million years ago, when more complex lifeforms started to evolve, like...

RP: Like the nautilus?

PS: Nautilus, life forms and plants that lived side by side and that has been going on until now, it's still the same geological era. The whole Phanerozoic era is split into three parts, and the first part is the Paleozoic era, part one of what we just released.

RP: And then it's Mesozoic and Cenozoic.

PS: Two more to come.

RP: So two more albums instead of one?

PS: Maybe one more, maybe two more.

RP: So nothing planned yet.

PS: Well we got the second part finished.

RP: Trying to find all the concepts of your albums I got into some long Wikipedia articles that reminded me a lot of books and atlases of the history of life and planet Earth that I read as a kid and probably still have in my home somewhere. How exactly did you choose to be the metal version of a science atlas?

PS: (*laughs*) It's a question that Robin probably can answer.

Robin Staps: What's that?

RP: (*repeats question*)

RS: (*laughs*) Well, I don't think it was a conscious choice. It's just that whenever I seek lyrical inspiration and themes for album packaging and everything, I always end up with these epic prehistoric landscapes, which are somehow very epic representations of our music. That's how it feels to me and that's how I came across the whole Precambrian theme. I was listening to these songs and when I closed my eyes, I saw images of lava and volcanoes and prehistoric landscapes on Earth basically. I think it's kind of a cliché but I think it works very well when you try to visualize the music that we create, it always takes us in this direction of strong nature, whether it's oceans, storms, lava or volcanoes. And it works because I guess we just make very explosive and dynamic music somehow. I guess that's how that happened and not from an aspiration to write a record that is like a musical schoolbook. That's what people sometimes make of it but I understand. I mean, song titles are difficult to pronounce, not very catchy, which is something that I enjoy very much. I just read a review, was it No Clean Singing? [Edit: it was] Someone was saying that to actually memorize and make sense out of the song titles like "Ordovicium: The Glaciation Of Gondwana", for him it made no sense, he just referred to the track by a line of the lyrics that was stuck in his head. That's what people make of it and that's also cool. "You showed your true colours only in my absence" is the line that he quoted. That sticks. That's a catchy line.

RP: So it started with Precambrian in that case.

RS: Pretty much. I mean, Fluxion and Aeolian had this uhh...

RP: Yeah, this is what I wanted to ask, your first three albums, including Fogdiver, what were they about?

RS: Well Fogdiver was an instrumental record that wasn't following any particular concept, it was just a collection of five tracks that were ready at the time of the release. And it was instrumental so all that we focused on on this record was finding a cover art that was again, inspired by nature, this time Bolivia, but there was no concept to it really. And Fluxion and Aeolian, quite similar, there is a certain common thread that goes through the lyrics of that record but they're more individual tracks. So the concept didn't go much further that the splitted album thing with two titles that have reference to geography or geology, but I wouldn't call these concept albums. They were just collections of tracks. Some of the songs on Aeolian were actually older than some of the songs that were on Fogdiver, like "Queen Of The Food-Chain" on Aeolian, that's one of the oldest The Ocean tracks, and on Fogdiver songs like "Endusers" were written after "Queen Of The Food-Chain", so in the first years it was very chaotic, there were tracks written and we didn't really figure out how to record them for a long time. And then we started touring and the old band was very loose and chaotic. So yeah, it all started making sense with Precambrian.

RP: Most bands whose themes involve nature are usually more into forests and mountains, but you've covered geology, the history of life and oceans. Is there an album about outer space or the exosphere next?

RS: That's maybe a question for Paul to answer, to make a record about that. (*laughs*)

PS: It depends on what kind of substances influence our writing process.

RP: I remember reading through atlases, the atmosphere was split into parts and you could make a song about each one of them. What birds live in each of those.

PS: It would make a sense to make a Troposphere record, we were actually thinking about creating our own geological era, by writing a future album.

RP: The post-anthropocene.

PS: The post-anthropocentric era, yeah.

RS: But then unfortunately that idea was stolen from us by a band that we released on our own label called Abraham, which did exactly that.

RP: Yeah I saw them live a couple of weeks ago.

PS: Oh yeah, they were here.

RP: Yeah, they were here with Set And Setting.

PS: Yeah, exactly.

RS: How was that?

RP: Well they were the better of the two. I liked them a lot. I didn't listen to the album itself because it's too long.

RS: How many people were at that show?

RP: Uhh thirty? Maybe less.

RS: Thirty in Timisoara? Yeah, great band, they made a record called Look, Here Comes The Dark!, which is exactly the sequel to Phanerozoic II. So after we finish the record we're just gonna quit the band and refer to Abraham, because they did it so well. (*laughs*)

RP: You're gonna cover it live.

RS: Yeah (*laughs*)

RP: The odd pair was Anthropocentric and Heliocentric, which features some rather social themes before a return to more natural ones. What made that happen?

RS: Personal interest in different things and wanting to move away from what I had done before.

RP: And is that gonna happen again soon?

RS: I don't know what's gonna happen in the future. I really don't plan that much ahead. In this case the music was written already long before the decision was taken to return to the Precambrian theme and continue that, but this record that we're releasing now and the next one, they are bridging, if you look at it in a chronological way, the gap between the end of the Precambrian and where Heliocentric comes in. Heliocentric marks the arrival of humanity, the first lines in the lyrics of "Firmament" are original texts from the Bible. So that's when the whole human bullshit starts coming in. So with Phanerozoic we're building the bridge between rocks and humans. And after this, like I said, we'd just refer to Abraham.

RP: Just as with your new one, your records seem to come in pairs, mostly with the exception of your previous one, Pelagial. Why is that?

RS: Pelagial was an outstanding record in many ways. It was just very different from anything else, because this record was really written and composed with a concept in mind, like this journey from the surface to the bottom of the ocean, which was something that I wanted to make happen with the music. With all other albums, the concepts came in later, the songs were already there, we just figured out how to arrange them, and putting them into this contextual frame. So in that way Pelagial is quite different and it didn't require a separate part. The other thing is also that I always have quite a lot of creative output, I write a lot of music, so by the time we record it, there's always more than fit on one single record. And also the material in the past has been quite eclectic, with regards to tempos and styles. And I always found it better to sort that somehow. That's what we've done with Fluxion and Aeolian where Aeolian had all the heavy and fast tracks, while Fluxion instead had more orchestral songs on it, so to speak. And with Precambrian as well, it was released in a single record, but it's also split into two discs. Like a mini-CD and a regular length CD, but the mini album had very short, heavy and fast tracks and the second half also had the more orchestral elaborated songs, so to speak. So to me, it doesn't really make sense to mix the eclectic cocktail of material that I used to come up with too much, I like to kind of keep it separate in a way. That's why we always ended up with these double records. Even with the new record it's a bit like that. The one we just released has this steady continuous vibe to it, from the beginning to the end, and all the songs have a similar tempo, similar tuning and it's a very coherent record. The second half is going to stray from that path, it's more diverse, more intricate arrangements within songs, more diversity of tempos again.

RP: It's gonna be more progressive.

RS: I think so, yeah. Whereas the first stuff is really boiled down to the core of musical ideas and essentials. Again, it was a conscious choice to split that up than to mix it all together, I think it has more impact if you ...

RP: If you don't jump from one to another.

RS: Exactly. If you define what you wanna do and then you go for it and pursue that with absolutely no compromise, I think it has more impact than if you just throw everything you have into the same pan.

RP: Due to Pelagial being more focused on concept and it not being a double album, I guess it was prime material to be performed live in full. Such was the case with Precambrian as well, but is there any chance of doing so with your twin albums as well?

RS: Absolutely. We didn't wanna do it now, because the record just came out and it felt somehow not a smart idea to play a record that most people haven't even properly digested yet.

RP: But you could do it with Anthropocentric and Heliocentric.

RS: Uhh yes, but we wanted to play new material now. We played so much, so many shows with Pelagial, and also still playing some Heliocentric songs and some older tracks. Right now we just made a new record but we decided now to play the new album in its entirety yet, because people don't really know it yet. We'll probably do that next year at some point. Play the first part and when the second part comes out, maybe play the whole thing at special events and such. Maybe even split up at festivals in two separate days. It will be possible.

PS: Also because we played Pelagial in its entirety for so many times, we just thought, let's just play a normal set for once. Just a bunch of songs that we like, that everyone likes.

RP: I just really wanted to hear "Anthropocentric" live, because when me and my girlfriend got to see you for the first time, we were excited that we're gonna hear songs from Heliocentric and Anthropocentric, which were our favorite albums. And then you said "Oh, it's gonna be a Pelagial set" and we were really disappointed in a way.

RS: (*laughs*) I don't think we'll ever play Anthropocentric in its entirety. I don't see that happening. Sorry.

RP: Eh, goddammit. So you've had a split with Burst in 2005 and a split with Mono in 2015. If you could have a split with any band in 2025, who would it be?

PS: Depends on the bands that show up at the surface of the planet at that time, but right now?

RS: I think in 2025 I will be listening to electronic music and I won't even be interested in guitar music anymore. (*laughs*) I honestly don't know what I will find interesting.

PS: I would love to do a split with Moderat. Just a band that nobody would expect us to do a split album with. Something completely unusual. Maybe write some songs together, see what comes up.

RP: I like it when bands do that split thing when they cover each other's songs.

PS: Yeah, for example. I like that too.

RP: Post-metal has been going on for 25 years, what do you think still keeps it going? Do you think there is still place for innovation after so many years?

PS: Everytime you hear something and you think you've heard it all before and then one does something different and comes along with something new. I think that's the whole idea of adding the word "post-" to something. Because it just gives room to experiment. At the moment there are a lot of bands using digital things or just synthesized instruments to make the standard band appearance a little bit more interesting. Getting away from only playing like a normal band setup. And in the future, I don't know, there's always exploration going on. People will reinvent music again. They'll write more digital music or more acoustic music again. It's inevitable.

RP: We'll see.

RS: I find this "post-" term a little bit misleading because it always makes me think of the duality of the modern and the post-modern. Looking at our music, it definitely has elements of both, but really not entirely post-modern. It's very constructed. It's worked. It's more construction than deconstruction. It's composed music, arranged and put into place. At the same time there's this eclecticism of different influences and styles and everything which goes more in the direction of something traditionally more post-modern. But I find it difficult to commit to that and say that we would be a post-modern band. It's wrong. It's very classical songwriting actually.

RP: The question was post-metal.

RS: Yeah but that's where it comes from.

RP: I'm not sure it has that much to do with philosophy.

RS: Well "post-" means after so post-metal means after metal. And it's the exact same thing, what comes after the modern is the post-modern. I think it's the same term, in all different aspects it's being applied to. And when I compare it like that, it only makes sense to me to a certain degree. It also presumes that metal is overcome or dead. Post-metal presumes that the era of what was before is somehow finished.

RP: Not necessarily, because post-punk came out just about when punk came out as well.

RS: It's exactly the same thing.

RP: Television's Marque Moon came out in 1977, the same year that Sex Pistols came out with Nevermind The Bollocks. And like that, post-metal took what metal was, that was mostly focused on riffs and melody, on writing 4-5 minute songs with choruses, and it turned it on its head. It said, let's focus on atmosphere more.

PS: "Post-" is everything that came out after something else. Post-pop, post-classical, post-hip-hop.

RP: Post-bop.

PS: Post-music.

RS: Exactly. (*laughs*)

RP: It's just tags that music journalist like to apply to everything.

RS: Yeah, of course.

RS: But if it stuck, we're just gonna have to use it from now on.

PS: Or we could just not use it at all.

RS: Yeah, but we're a music forum and we have to recommend music based on something else, so if somebody likes Neurosis they're likely to like The Ocean as well. And people usually look at post-metal as either a more atmospheric form of sludge or a heavier form of post-rock. Which of these do you feel you're closest to?

PS: (*pause*) I don't know, that's a good question. I think we're more melodic than most sludge metal bands. We're more in a classical harmonic approach to the band. Catchy riffs instead of crushing simplicity.

RP: Yeah, you're a lot more progressive as well.

PS: I don't know, to me personally, our albums are more channeled. Simple but heavy without focusing on chug riffs and playing one note at a time. Basically the band at it's core without any ego.

RP: And I know you guys were influenced a lot by the hardcore scene but a lot of fans don't really dive that deep into the genre. What are some obscure or classic records that you would like us to listen to?

RS: Old school hardcore?

RP: Stuff from the 80s hopefully.

RS: That was before my time actually. It was the hardcore scene in the early 90s. I discovered Youth Of Today and Gorilla Biscuits and all the clasics side by side, especially the New York hardcore scene, Judge, one of my most important bands when I was growing up; a little bit after most of them had already broken up. But their reputation and their influence was still felt everywhere. And I think my first show was Sick Of It All that I saw in 1993. Strife from California was supporting, old straight edge band. They released an incredible record called One Truth, like the Bible for a straight edge back at the time. That kinda changed my life and got me into all of this. Then I just covered all of the older bands in hindsight basically. There was a very vibrant hardcore scene around that time that was not just moving around within the borders of this old school hardcore thing but also being pretty progressive and challenging, bands like Unbroken for example, or the political side of hardcore, bands like Rorschach, and all of this side is covered in the early 90s. And yeah it was definitely a very important influence and interestingly much later, a lot of the post-metal and post-rock bands came out of this initial scene.

RP: Like Neurosis.

RS: They were already there, they've been going around since the early 80s. They kind of always defined their own game.

TS: I even grew up later than you and for me it was always bands like Turmoil and Coalesce, like the most wayward at the post. It was even more chaotic already. Botch.

RP: Stuff like powerviolence maybe?

RS: Yeah I was into a bit of powerviolence stuff as well.

RP: Siege?

RS: Yeah.

RP: Converge?

RS: Converge were already there, they released Petitioning The Empty Sky, I think in '91?

RP: Nah, it was '98.

RS: I think that's the reissue.

RP: I could check right now. What do I get if I'm right?

RS: (*laughs*) Go for it.

RP: Ok.

RS: Maybe not 1991 but before 1998.

RP: (*checks Wikipedia*) Well it's ... '96.

PS: I was 11.

RS: I was 16 and I devoured that record.

RP: I wasn't even that born yet.

RS: (*laughs*) At least you know it, that influenced a lot of stuff.

RP: I know it, I just missed them this year.

RS: That record was a game-changer and then Botch's American Nervoso, which must've been '97.

RP: And Burst which you did a split with.

RS: Yeah, Burst. There was no other band like them. We did a tour with them in 2009 actually.

RP: I think they've broken up, right?

RS: More like disappeared. But they played like a one-off festival gig last year and all of a sudden they came back to life but I think they're all dads and they don't like touring.

PS: It was probably just a very good offer. (*laughs*)

RS: Probably.

RP: Do you think that bands like Swans or Slint had any influence on either the music or the genre itself?

RS: I discovered the Swans also relatively late. Like maybe '97 or '98, when they had been around for 20 years already.

RP: And when they've already broken up.

RS: Yes, exactly, after they've initially broken up, but yeah, Soundtracks For The Blind was a mind-blowing record. It still is. It's so far ahead of its time given that when was that released?

RP: '96

RS: Yeah? I thought it would be older, but my perception seems blurred here. But yeah, that was definitely a record that showed me what's possible to do in terms of a record that's really vile and bleak and still emotionally charged at the same time. It's a very good example of that.

RP: And Slint?

RS: Not so much.

RP: The Ocean is a quite diverse band taking cues from a lot of genres, but if you could start a new project that wasn't metal or hardcore, what genre would it be?

RS: Electronic entirely.

RP: What kind of electronic? That's quite a large umbrella term.

RS: Yes, that's right. I'm into a lot of stuff, but if it came to starting a project I would release very slow downtempo atmospheric stuff. I'm just lacking the time to really get into that. Slow beats.

PS: I think that's something that we would all be into even for The Ocean. Adding some elements of slow electronic music.

RP: Like Katatonia did with "Unfurl".

RS: Yeah, in a way. But mixing guitars with electronics, I mean we do it, but on our side it's clearly on the metal side.

RP: I think it would be quite hard to perform live.

RS: That as well yeah. I think when you mix that up it easily ends up sounding like industrial, which is cool but I don't see that for The Ocean personally. Like Ministry or something.

RP: Maybe Godflesh.

RS: Yeah, great band but I don't have any interest in doing anything like that.

RP: It's something more like Boards Of Canada or Massive Attack?

RS: I love both of them, yeah, but still not exactly what I'm thinking. It's very hard to explain. There's a very vibrant scene in Berlin right now of DJs producing this downtempo stuff sometimes fused with oriental influences, a lot of them are coming from the Turkish community in Berlin which is very strong and I find it incredibly exciting. The blending of oriental sounds with slow atmospheric electronic music, there's just so much good stuff out there. DJs like (*he lists some stuff that I'm never gonna be able to transcribe*).

RP: I'm gonna have so much trouble transcribing that.

RS: (*laughs*) Doesn't matter. No one of your readers will probably be interested in that anyway. [Or are they?]

RP: I'm sure, but maybe I will. I mean Germany has a long history of electronic music ever since krautrock.

RS: Correct.

RP: And ever since Kraftwerk. I got to see Kraftwerk live this year and it was amazing.

RS: Oh yeah? That's still on my bucket list.

RP: Hurry up, they're getting old. And what other arts besides music are you interested in?

RS: Anything that deserves the term "art".

PS: Challenging.

RS: And it's challenging and pushing boundaries.

RP: (*pause*) That's kinda ambiguous.

RS: Yeah, like ask me some precise directions or artists and I'll tell you if I like it or not.

RP: Ok, what kind of movies are you into?

RS: Been watching a lot of Netflix lately. (*laughs*) Which is good but it somehow distracted me from watching actual movies.

RP: So I guess more TV shows.

RS: Yeah, I haven't done it for all of my life, but ever since I decided to have a girlfriend, I've also decided to have a Netflix account. It goes together somehow very well [Well, there's a reason why "Netflix & chill" is an expression] and I started getting into watching TV series and catching up and I've just finished watching Breaking Bad.

RP: That's probably my favorite TV show.

PS: I just started rewatching it and I'm in Season 4 right now.

RP: Well now you're making me want to rewatch it. I'm just finishing Narcos.

RS: And in reference to the band, Andrei Tarkovski's Stalker which was the inspiration to the Pelagial record. And also Garspar Noe's Enter The Void. Pretty much anything he's done is amazing.

RP: Visually stunning.

RS: Really mind-blowing, it relates to the song on the split with Mono, "The Quiet Observer". The lyrics were based on that movie.

RP: David Lynch?

RS: Yes! Of course! Always a good name to call.

RP: Well, what's your favorite Lynch movie?

RS: It would be Lost Highway.

RP: That's probably mine as well.

RS: I love that movie, it's just so multifaceted and deep and hard to grasp even if you watch it ten times, you're always gonna get a different interpretation of the things you've already seen, you already know. It's really mind-blowing. All of his movies are great, but I'm not so much into the earlier stuff.

RP: Like Eraserhead?

RS: Yeah, I didn't really get too much into that, but maybe I should give that another try as well.

RP: You should.

PS: Shall we watch Rosetta?

RS: Yes!

RP: Alright. Three more questions. If I'm not mistaken, "Cambrian II" is the first The Ocean song to have a video that isn't a live one. If you could have any other living director do another video for you, who would it be?

RS: The same as the one who did "Cambrian II" that we chose for a good reason, Craig Murray.

RP: That's a pretty good reason. So you're not gonna choose Lynch?

RS: I don't think he would opt for making a video for us. I don't think he's done any video clips.




RP: How was making the "Cambrian II" video like?

RS: It was a very DYI production, it happened in my apartment, with Loïc laying on the floor covered in plaster and clay and moss and lichens that we threw at him, and Craig jumping around him, filming and shooting that and the rest was really Craig's own production. He built a lot of models for trilobites and prehistoric creatures, animated them and filmed all of that in London, where he lives by himself, so we weren't involved much in that. We discussed the idea for the clip very profoundly before he started making it, but he had complete creative freedom to actually realize that. And that's why I would choose him for any other clip again. He just knows how to do that, that type of collaboration where you rely on someone coming up with something great and you don't need to tell him not to do things. Mix colors that are bad (*laughs*) or like come up with cheesy scenes. I think a lot of what working with design and visuals and other artists is essentially a matter of good taste, which is very rare to find, and technical proficiency has nothing to do with that. Like there are very good people and artists that are very good at what they do, but their taste sucks. They like shit that is bad. It's ugly.

PS: Lot of people like shit. It has to be an artist that fits your personal taste.

RS: And once it does, there's no need for too much talking and communicating about it, just let him deliver, you know. It's what we did with Craig. We were not let down.

RP: Und die letzte Frage. Wie kann man die Deutsche Artikel fur alle Worter lernen? Ich habe seit vier oder fünf Jahren Deutsch gelernt und ich kann nicht ... der, die, das... den, dem... mehr fur die Worter in Akkusativ oder Dativ.

PS: I think a lot of words have the same endings.

RP: Ja, und denn es gibt ein Regel dort.

RS: (*starts speaking fluent German that I can barely understand, but he's saying that it's easier when it's your mother tongue and you don't have to think about grammar rules*)

RP: Und es is schwerer als ein Adult.

RS: Yeah, learning a language as a kid is an entirely different matter from learning it as an adult, you're just repeating what your parents are telling you and you're not thinking about rules and why is this verb followed by this adjective and endings. You do that intuitively by repetition and by being exposed to it on a daily basis. When you learn a language later in your life, you apply rules, you try to understand the language. But language is a grown thing, there are things that are logical and things that don't make any sense. Exceptions to the rules. You have to memorize those.

RP: And there are a lot of exceptions in German.

RS: But pretty much in every language you have these irregularities. Comes from the fact that a language evolves and it has to do with geographic seclusion and mixing of influences from other language zones.

RP: Strange how men didn't decide to just make a language that was easier.

RS: Yeah, they kinda tried that with Esperanto.

RP: Yeah, it didn't really work that well. Men just don't like learning new languages, they'll stick to their broken ones.

RS: And I guess it's not so easy, you know, that's why English is the most widespread language. It's the easiest to learn.

RP: It's because it's in all the movies and all the music. It's everywhere.

RS: Yeah, but it's a very straight-forward pragmatic language, not like German.

PS: But even if you know English, it doesn't mean that you can understand someone from Ireland. But it's the same language.

RP: Und das war die letzte Frage. Danke schön fur die Interview.

RS: Danke dir. It was interesting.

[Thanks a lot SSUS for doing whatever you could to make this happen]