Thundering with newly fuelled power from the shadows and dust of humanity’s crumbling existence, KATAKLYSM return triumphant with their 14th full length studio album: UNCONQUERED. For almost 3 decades, the French-Canadian melodic death metal syndicate has delivered unapologetic waves of powerful sound across the entire globe. As of late, that globe has suffered tremendously, forcing the inspiration of many artists to extinguish, but for KATAKLYSM, the pressure caused a creative spring to burst forth with furious energy.
We caught up with frontman Maurizio Iacono to discuss the new album, how Covid-19 has affected the band and how important it is for the band to evolve over time.
Andrew: So hows things been at your end as far as the pandemic kind of stuff?
Maurizio: We haven’t been too affected as far as health concerns and stuff like that at the moment but I live in Florida now so I was in Chicago for 17 years and then I moved down here in Florida like this year right in the middle of the pandemic because it was something we had planned. So basically it’s like I brought the thing with me I guess because it’s a crazy situation down here! Other than that, the usual like everybody else we’re just kinda waiting to see what’s going to happen and taking it day by day.
Andrew: It’s an interesting time but on the brighter side you obviously got a new album coming out in September, “Unconquered” and I guess it’s a fitting title. Where did the inspiration come from for the album title?
Maurizio: Well you know, this record was recorded last year, it was finished in December of last year. We took the latter part of 2019 to write it from August all the way to December and record it. So basically the title was already done, that was the title we had for it. The reason behind it was because the band is going on it’s 30th anniversary in 2021 so it’s kind of the record for that, so we already had the title and then when this happened in February we were in Atlanta, Georgia filming “The Killshot” video and we were at the airport having some beers and watching the screens saying they’re going to shut down the country. So we were like, ‘What the fuck” and we just literally finished the video, got home, some of the guys live in Canada so they went back home and I went back to Chicago at that time and my guitar player to Texas and we never saw each other again pretty much.
I mean it just shut down the entire world but we managed to get it done on time so that was kind of cool and the label decided they wanted to push the record because everything got shut down as far as manufacturing is concerned for records. So everything got shut down and pushed and they were like, ‘Let’s release this in October’, and I was like, ‘Ok’. Then things got a little better, we moved it up to September and then they’re like, ‘Wait a minute, the record is real strong. We still don’t know what’s going to happen, let’s move it to 2021’, and I was like, ‘That’s not going to happen’. We’re a metal band, this is dark times, it’s a time where I think music is necessary and it’s uplifting to release music. It’s therapeutic and we just wanted to put music out to help people as well and obviously our fans know what Kataklysm is about, it’s an uplifting type of band and I think this is time for us to release music and take a gamble. The business can take a gamble but not our mental states so we decided to just move forward.
Andrew: Yeah I totally agree, this is the perfect time to release music and really get people united because it does seem like a lot of people are fighting among themselves and I think music is one of those things that can connect people hopefully.
Maurizio: I agree.
Andrew: So obviously with all the stuff that’s happening now and everything that has been leading up to the album release, when you were sitting down to write these songs, what was really inspiring you at that time?
Maurizio: Like I said before it’s very therapeutic for me, music is not just an art form that I do because I like it, to me it’s therapeutic, always been since I was a kid. Music always got me thinking and got me out of trouble a lot because I preferred listening to music to get my emotions through that and I think metal is the perfect outlet for that, also when I go the gym or whatever I listen to metal and that gives me the strength. Coming in to this record I just had a lot of anger built up in me over the last couple of years, I never stopped. I started Kataklysm when I was I think 16 or 17 years old and for almost 30 years I never stopped and it’s one of those things where I had all this stuff built up in me and I came into this record with JF [Dagenais], my guitar player and I was like, ‘I want to take control over this record because I have a direction I want to take for it and I want to push this in a certain place because I have this build up and I want to get it out of me’, and he was like, ‘Ok cool’, and then he came up to Chicago and this record was flowing like water. I don’t know where it comes from to be honest but it’s something somewhere real deep inside and we just unleashed it and we came in and it came out aggressive as fuck and it is what it is [laughs]. Kataklysm is an emotional band, from album to album it changes. It depends how we’re feeling, how we are. “Meditations” was different, like it was a different vibe, this is like fire.
Andrew: Yeah I had a chance to have a quick listen through before our chat today and you are absolutely right, it’s really super aggressive. I mean you guys have always been an aggressive band anyway but this one has a real tightness and a certain fire to it and I was wondering where that was coming from. It is interesting because as you mentioned before you have been around for such a long time, it makes me wonder where does the motivation come from to keep going after all these years?
Maurizio: You know, this is our 14th record so obviously it’s like you start saying the number 14 or 15 or 12 or 13 it’s like, ‘Oh my god you’re in the tens, it’s a lot of records!’ To keep being inspired for Kataklysm, it’s easy because the world around us inspires us. As far as a band we have a very realistic take on things and it’s very social street oriented as far as the lyrics are concerned, I write them in a very poetic version, very open, people can adapt to it. But the inspiration just comes from every day life and what we’re experiencing as a band of brothers, it’s basically where it comes from as far as inspiration but then you have the problem of writing because on the writing aspect of it you have to keep things fresh. You don’t want to repeat yourself on every record, people will get bored so you have to kind of keep things going in a direction where people will want to stick with you so you kind of gotta reinvent yourself a little bit and I think that’s what we achieved on this record going also from 6 strings to 7 strings on guitars, changing our sound a little bit and just an overall overhaul pretty much that’s happening with Kataklym on this record.
Read the review of “Unconquered”
Andrew: Do you think it gets any easier or do you think it gets more difficult as the years go on to really stay relevant and fresh in coming up with new ideas that will hopefully inspire and surprise people at the same time?
Maurizio: The competition for us is different, we got the veteran thing going on and it’s like OG’s [laughs]. We got the credibility behind us which helps us a lot to navigate through anything we need to, it’s also like with something happening right now, we’re affected but we’re not deeply affected so it’s one of those things that we are navigating. But as far as getting new kids that are young, let’s say in their teenage years to get to Kataklysm, that’s more challenging for us. We have a fanbase that’s more in their 30’s, 40’s and like some 20’s, it varies a lot. But the teenagers, that generation the gap is getting pretty big because we are in our 40’s so it’s pretty much a little different but the message remains the same, the message of fighting back, the message of what we’re doing, that never changes through generations. So I think on that level Kataklysm is still very fresh and if you listen to an album like “Unconquered”, it could of been any 20 year old band doing it in a way that still sounds like that. I don’t think we sound like an old band, let’s put it that way. We’re very open minded as far as our sound is changing with the times, we’re not stuck into sounding like 1985, that’s just not who we are.
Andrew: Yeah that’s great and I think that keeping up and sort of evolving and improving yourselves is the key to success. I mean it’s obviously something that’s attracted a lot of fans over the years, do you believe it’s that keenness to sort of evolve that’s kept fans along for the ride over the years?
Maurizio: I think so, there’s a loyalty factor. Look, Kataklysm releases an album, tours the world and then releases another album and we’ve been doing that for almost 30 years so it’s like a non-stop thing and then people can become part of the family and they follow you into wherever you’re going because they attach to what you are saying and they become part of your message. I think that’s important for Kataklysm, you won’t believe how many people when we go on the road, come up to us and tell us, ‘You’re music has got me through some of the darkest moments of my life’. I know you hear a lot of that in metal because we have that type of thing in our community but with Kataklysm it’s overwhelming, it’s like all the time and it dates to the early days too. We have a song called “Manipulator Of Souls” on an album called “Epic” and manipulator of souls, so it affects people that were addicted to drugs or got manipulated by their girls and just whatever it is they have that attachment and they understand, the lyrics hit them and that’s been a key factor in Kataklysm’s longevity.
Andrew: Speaking of meeting fans on the road, we saw you in Australia last year with Hypocrisy so how did that tour end up going?
Maurizio: It was cool! First of all, us and Hypocrisy are the oldest signed bands on Nuclear Blast – us, Hypocrisy and Meshuggah. We’re like the 3 old school bands in the sense that the oldest since the label has existed, when they started Nuclear Blast we all signed, the guy that was running it was doing it out of his basement pretty much, that’s how far we’ve been with since. So me and Peter [Tägtgren, Hypocrisy have been friends for a long time, we’ve known each other for a long time and we decided to do a world tour together because Hypocrisy was coming back and Kataklysm was releasing a new record. It was the “Meditations” record and I was like, ‘Dude let’s do this’. We did Europe together, it was insane and then we went to Australia which was awesome, we had a great time over there. You guys always know how to treat bands and so it was a great time. We were supposed to do North America but then I had my boy coming in to the world, my wife was pregnant and the timing messed up everything [laughs] so we couldn’t do it.
Andrew: Oh congratulations!
Maurizio: Yeah thank you! Other than that, yeah it was a good time, we had a great time down there.
Andrew: Awesome well by the looks of it it might be quite some time before we get to see you down here again but you must of had a lot of tour plans cancelled or postponed right?
Maurizio: A lot, I mean right now I’m talking to you but I’d be doing some festival in Germany somewhere, we had so many booked this year. We had a South America tour that got cancelled and a US tour with Deicide that was going to happen and we had a lot of stuff going on and everything got pushed to next year, we’re hoping that when that comes back next year we can all go back to what we’re doing but it is what it is. We’re just sitting here like you and everybody else just getting through it.
