After the release of “Kuarahy” concurred with the blast of the worldwide pandemic and all the consequences it has generated, White Stones which features Opeth bass player Martín Mendez are ready to launch their second record. “Dancing Into Oblivion”, out August 27th via Nuclear Blast sees the band return with a more compact sound, having been hard at work ensuring the utmost attention to every detail for a result that is even better than the first record. We caught up with Martin to discuss the new record, how covid was used as a catalyst for the release and what plans there are for the future.
Andrew: Thanks for your time, really appreciated. We’ve obviously got a lot to talk about, many people obviously know you from Opeth but it’s interesting to see you with this band White Stones. For those who may not be familiar with White Stones, give me a brief rundown of how the band started and what you guys do musically speaking.
Martin: Well this band started…I didn’t have any intentions really when I started writing music for this band. When I have time off from Opeth I always kind of start writing at home but this time I wanted to really finish what I stopped doing, so the idea was the finish the songs that I was writing. But then I got 6 songs and I thought they were sounding good so my idea was to release a vinyl or something so my manager had a listen to it and thought we could do better things with it and then he got me a deal so everything started from there. I got a deal with Nuclear Blast and everything got a bit more serious. The idea was just to write music for myself at the beginning, I love to write music and since I play with Opeth so much – I’ve been in Opeth 25 years – I kind of need as a therapy to do something on the side and everything kind of started there and now it’s a proper band and it feels really good actually to have the opportunity to do this on the side.
Andrew: And obviously musically it’s different to Opeth as well and I think some people might be surprised if they are walking into this, expecting another Opeth type thing but it’s very different and I guess it comes from more personally your own direct influences I guess?
Martin: Yeah for sure. I mean the last thing I will do is a band sounding like Opeth, that will be stupid I think [laughs]. I mean it’s not the idea at all, I’m doing this because I love music and I love death metal so that’s something that’s natural for me to choose this style of music. It’s nothing to do with Opeth and we don’t do this style with Opeth. This is me and I personally think this is very different but a lot of people kind of associate with Opeth immediately when they hear I release a song but yeah, I think it’s something else, it’s different.
Andrew: Yeah it is different and I think for people to make that comparison is a mistake because as you say, it’s a very seperate thing to what you do in Opeth. With this new album “Dancing Into Oblivion” there’s some interesting side bits to this, this was maybe inspired or influenced or sort of coming out of this situation. Can you tell me a little bit more on how all that started?
Martin: Yeah I started writing this album pretty much a week after I released the first album because the first album was released the same week as we had the lockdown, over here at least, and I knew I would be at home for a while at least and I kind of took advantage for the time because as I said, I knew I would be at home and I kind of took all this weird feelings I got from my body from the beginning when everything started and you listen to the news and everything was strange and I got a lot of strange feelings in my body. So I took advantage and put it in the music which helped me as a person to feel better and help to write the music I like, so it was the perfect time for me to do the album actually.
Andrew: Yeah that’s something that a lot of musicians have been going through, is utilizing that time to write new music which is a great thing to see with more creativity and things like that. But obviously this is a unique situation so what were some of the circumstances and the feelings that you had as the world was in lockdown and how did that influence the songs themselves?
Martin: Well I think like everyone else I got at least fear at the beginning because you hear this terrible news about the deadly virus and it’s not the case today but at the beginning it was kind of scary. I have family as well, I got 2 kids and when you don’t know what’s going to happen and when you don’t know when you are going to be able to work again, it’s kind of scary in that sense. But it’s just feelings and the album is not about that at all but the kind of scary feeling I just kind of put in the music which is very good because I love this kind of darkish music.
Andrew: You said you started writing this not long after the first album was released so is this in some sort of respect a bit of a continuation of the first album or do you think this is very seperate and different to that first release?
Martin: Well it’s the same band but I think it’s seperate. The first album was, at least for me it felt more kind of nostalgic I did that album and when it was time to decide the name of the band and write the lyrics and all that, I think I was in a nostalgic period in my life when I was kind of remembering the old days when I was a kid in Uruguay and everything has something to do with that place I was raised in, that first album but this album is nothing to do with that. So it’s different in concept but musically it’s a bit different as well but I think you can still hear the same band with the same kind of riffs.
Andrew: And going back to having that nostalgic feeling at the same time, those influences coming through on this album, was this the sort of stuff you grew up with or was it something that you discovered as time went on?
Martin: Na I’ve been listening to music naturally that I grew up with really, both albums. It’s weird to talk about influences because I say in the press biography that the first song “Chain Of Command” was influenced by John Coltrane which is true because I’ve been listening a lot to John Coltrane last year but there’s nothing obvious in the music of course, it’s not sounding like John Coltrane because it’s something completely different. But the vibe, the feeling behind it is what inspires me, that kind of dark, melancholic thing. Like tango, I love tango and I’ve been listening to tango since I was a kid or even folk music from South America. So I think all that is somewhere in the album, both albums but it’s nothing obvious like, ‘This sounds like that’, because it’s not
Andrew: Yeah true and there’s also some progressive elements in there as well. So as far the music, how did you actually get into music yourself? What was the catalyst for you to play music in the first place?
Martin: Well I think the first thing was my father was a bass player and he had a bass at home, he stopped playing when I was born I think but there was a bass at home so when I took the bass he kind of showed me the first steps. So that was the first thing, since I remember since I was very little I loved music. I remember playing percussion on the table, I always loved music since I can remember. What bands influenced me, I started listening to, as I say, tango and folk music from there because what I listened to was the radio at the time. I didn’t have any vinyl player or CD player or anything like that so just radio was going on all day long and that was what I mostly listened to. But also there was bands like The Doors, Creedence and that kind of rock, that was kind of the first steps for me and then I started listening to metal a bit later on.
Andrew: So I’m sure it’s difficult now as is with Opeth but do you plan to take White Stones on the road and play some shows?
Martin: For sure we will do something. We will do a few shows, I don’t know when or how many but I have a hard time thinking about tours or long tours at least because I’m pretty busy with Opeth so I don’t know. For sure I want to do some shows at some festivals because they are easier to do in some sense, but nothing planned yet because we had one show to do after the first one was released and then the pandemic came so it was cancelled of course and since then I haven’t heard anything about shows or I don’t know when but for sure we will do something.
Andrew: Yeah it’s been a tough time for people, you must obviously miss live shows then?
Martin: Yeah for sure.
Andrew: Yeah it’s the lifeblood for many bands and it’s kind of where it’s all at but hopefully everything will get back to normal at some stage soon. Congratulations on the new album, I’ve had a chance to listen to it and I love it, I’m a big fan of Opeth but to hear something a bit different is also very cool to see as well. You must be pretty proud of this particular album.
Martin: Thank you very much and yeah of course I’m very proud and it feels great to have the opportunity to do it in this period as well. So yeah for sure, very proud of it.
