Interview: about the new Album "The Death of Romance" and touring

Andre asked the guys from zeromancer about their new album "The Death of Romance" and about touring. Enjoy the interview ;)

Hello again, nice that you have some time again for us to ask you about your new album today!
Your new album „Death of Romance“ has now been released. Musically, how is the new album different from the previous ones?

ALEX: The making of “Sinners International” was such a huge inspiration to us. Finally we produced, recorded and mixed the album ourselves and we found the perfect way to work, both technically and creative. With “The Death of Romance” we continued and upgraded the workflow from Sinners and the result is fantastic. Better sounding, exiting, intense and a very personal album. I’m proud! With Dan and Lorry onboard we’ve worked as a band 24/7. All five giving the best we have and inspire each other all the way. We are family now. You can’t beat that!

KIM: I feel this one is Zeromancer to the bone. We have sort of perfected what we did on Sinners and taking it a a lot further. We have dug a little deeper into the dark aspects of the band since last time. I see the Death of Romance as a deeply personal document for the band. It’s a kind of celebration of Zeromancer I think and the unity we feel we are right now. Though it was hard work it has been the easiest puzzle to do in our career. I believe it’s our determination we can thank for that.

Have you tried something that you haven’t done before or maybe you went back to the roots?

ALEX: As I said we found the perfect workflow and there was no reason to change much. As an engineer I put a lot of effort into the drums. The album needed to sound tight and punchy without loosing the feel of a live drummer. I want Noralf to have a good time in the studio and it was up to me to be well prepared before the session.

NORALF: And he was. On a tight schedule and , as I felt, not enough time for rehearsing the new songs, Alex made my time during the recording much easier than I thought. He was well prepared and the drums came out really great, besides sounding better than before.

KIM: I mean throughout Zeromancer’s career it has been really important for us not to draw to many similarities to our old band Seigmen. But we have eased up on that eventually and on this album we really didn’t care at all. There is so much history within Noralf, Alex and me from before and now we have taken this to our great advantage I feel. Plus the fact that we have dared to push ourselves even harder this time getting were we wanted.

Explain what did you mean by the album’s title? Did you mean death of romance between a couple?

Kim: The Death of Romance is such a complex title to me. It just doesn’t tell a one sided story. To me this is our self-titled album. A reflection of the name Zeromancer. Zero and romance aka no love.
There is a history of bands releasing their first album with the same name as their band. But we were too young at that time and didn’t have the necessary experience in life to do so. Now we feel that we have the wrinkles, the age and the sophistication to get away with a grandiose title like this.
Of course on the personal level there has been innumerable examples of broken hearts and romance getting buried deep.
And these experiences stick with you like thorns right through your heart. There is hardly a song written by me which don’t have a part of this inside. Maybe it’s so that The Death of Romance is the melting pot for them all.
You know when you write songs, and especially in a short period of time like this you are somewhat inside of a bubble. Then this kind of incubation time is over and the album is done. However it takes a while until it all dawns on you I think.
That’s why for me an album you made might not be totally clear to you until much later.
The title is very much inspired by a survey done on how long it generally takes for romance to die when a couple get married.
Two years, six months and 25 days:
That is the length of time it takes before romance is dead.
Never mind the seven-year itch. Newlyweds have an even earlier milestone to fear: the two year
slouch.

The press release compares “Death of Romance” to “Razorblade Romance” by HIM. How are those albums similar and dissimilar?

KIM: Seriously those are not my words. I believe it might be the grandiose feel over both albums. The title, romance and the Scandinavian aspect.

How did the recording process go?

ALEX: We always make demos first as a guide. Normally we do drums first and focus on the performance. We never have a busy track while recording drums. Noralf only wants the basics elements while recording. After that we track the basic elements and slowly build the track. We always make musical decisions that serve the song. In the end we do some additional programming and other recording before the mixing starts.

KIM: Yeah I mean the demos is a great guide for what becomes the final versions. Sometimes we keep a lot from the initial recordings since they have the original feel which can be hard to recreate later. This is the story for the track Pygmalion Effect.

Is there again some funny story that you can tell us about the production of the new work? There comes that Pringles box with dead flies into my mind now... *laugh..

ALEX: No dead flies this time, but a lot of fucked up samples. We do send guitars through Moog’s, bit crush pedals etc. We have a friend that makes some awesome pedals. Norwegian made. They fucking rule! Even Trent Reznor (NIN) called him and bought a few.
Another incident is one early morning during the guitar recording a friend of ours, producer John Fryer popped by the studio. He said he wanted to mix a track on the album. We said….”Hell yeah!!” We had this song called “Mint” and we wanted it to be a little different sounding than the rest of the album. I wanted someone else to mix that song and when John said he wanted to mix a track for us, it felt like he was sent from heaven…ehh…I mean hell☺

KIM: A lot of times when I track demos I sit with my acoustic guitars and try all kinds of stuff. Then I usually plug it by a Sansamp and have an insane overdrive that makes it sound really crazy. On several tracks you can hear it very clearly making whole riffs buzz with heavy distortion.

Do you drive each other crazy while rehearsing new songs and exchanging ideas?

ALEX: Not anymore.. well only if someone has a bad day. It’s normal to get a little grumpy now and then, but being apart of Zeromancer is a blessing. We all take more responsibility for our selves than we used to and that makes everything a lot easier.

NORALF: Well, I may have gone a little crazy some times. Mostly because of being frustrated over my own performance, learning new rhythms. Might be because I want to play it perfect the first time. Of course, that’s an impossible task.  But the great thing is that the guys push on and push on until the ideas work for the songs.

In case there are tough decisions must be made, how do you play it out? Do you vote or is one of you “in charge” on such occasions.

ALEX: It all depends what it is. We have different tasks within the band. When I mixed the record I get so involved that I sometimes get too technical and easily lose the main focus of the song. To get feedback from the rest of the guys is probably the most important part of mixing a track. That combination is unbeatable. But I have to admit that it can be pretty hard to handle criticism when you’ve been working fucking hard to make a song sound good. That’s why I’m so thankful that I was a musician before I started producing. I’ve got a better understanding for how to communicate in the studio. If I’m a little sensitive one day, I always tell the guys to go easy on me☺

Who is the beauty on the album’s cover?

ALEX: She is a young girl I noticed here in the city. She definitely had the paleness and the solitude we were looking for.

What was the photo meant to convey to the listener?

KIM: The girl lying in the burned out couch can be interpretated as being dead. The chalice on the ground is filled with poison. The flames there to dramatize it. The clothes she’s wearing tells you she sure dressed up for some special occasion. Also make a note of the two snakes crawling on her head and shoulders.
I really adore the decadence of the shot.

On your promo-photos you’ve got a new look again. More leather and more military-like. How did you come to this look?

ALEX: Actually the only leather in the picture is our boots! : Photographer Bjørn Opshal is a friend of ours. He owe us for life. A live picture he took of me was the reason he started as a photographer. It was also the first picture he sold to a magazine. As a 10th photo shoot anniversary we decided to do something big……and so we did. 4 firemen, one clothes designer, 2 ssenographs, 4 people on styling, 3 guys rigging and so on. Almost 30 persons working on that shoot. It’s actually outdoor.

KIM: To us this is pure perfection. It’s the exact shot I pictured in my mind when we started creating the setting for the album.

And will this new look find it’s correlation in the music and sound of the new album?

ALEX: We love to try out different settings all the time and we enjoy doing so. I wouldn’t call it a new look, but different.

KIM: Nothing is really random with ZMR.
The images, the sound, the performance. It’s one.
We always try to bind it all together and I believe The Death of Romance to be the finest example so far.

Is there going to be a video for any of the album’s songs? If yes, can you disclose some of your ideas in this regard?

ALEX: We are working on it as we speak, but we never know until it’s finished. Got some cool ideas but since we are control freaks and we have to rely on others than ourselves, it’s hard to predict the final result. I’m sure it’s going to be cool.

LORRY: We like to keep the work within the ZMR-family. It’s the same with this video. The track will be Industrypeople. The same guy who did the Doppelgänger – video, is doing the shooting of this video. And the same people as the photoshoot you mentioned earlier do clothes and styling. Makes it easier and better, and part of the whole package.
In a week or so we will see the final result. We are extremely exited to see the end result.

Let’s go into the details of a few songs that I pick out randomly now.
The Intro of „The Death of Romance“ is called „2.6.25“. What do the numbers mean?

ALEX: It’s connected to the survey I mentioned earlier.
2 years. 6 months and 25 days.
The length of time it takes before romance is dead when you get married.

What can you tell us about the title track „The Death Of Romance“?

KIM: It was the first track written for the album. And that’s how I work. I always start with the title. And I knew even before the release of Sinners that it was going to be the name of this album. I pictured the track to be grandiose with a mix of strings, programming and the organic feel of the band.
A lot would think this is a pessimistic message to send out, but I think of it the opposite way. Hence the sentence “It’s the death of you and me, it’s not the end you see”.

What is the „The Pygmalion Effect“ which is at the same time the slowest and deepeest song on the album in my opinion...?

KIM: It’s refering to the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. However our songs is never build up on one simple idea.
I never like to give away the whole truth. A couple of hints to throw into more confusion here is the old arcade game, Sinistar. The voice of Marilyn Monroe. The sound of a guy jumping from an airplane getting his parachute caught in the plane. The song itself is definitely the slowest and most mystified piece on the album.

„Revengefuck“ is driving and fast. What’s the message behind it and what does „V“ stand for??

ALEX: I believe Kim had the lyric idea for Revengefuck pretty early. Actually from his solo project Ljungblut, but he didn’t have a track that suited the lyrics.
The cool thing about the process of this album is V. I told Kim I had this rhythm part I really liked and that triggered Kim to write a whole song. I was amazed that it was all it took for Kim to finish his idea song. He even gave me credit for it, but it was just a fucking drumbeat.

KIM: Yeah It’s basically it, though I only had some phrases lying around not the whole lyric. This one is pretty straight forward. Revengefuck can’t be misinterpretated. It’s an for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Though not necessarily underneath the sheets.

You’ve been around in the gothic scene for many years. How is the contemporary scene different from the one of 2000 when “Clone your Lover” was released?

KIM: We really never follow the scene much. Being an isolated band from up here in the north we don’t observe what’s going on in the centre of the alternative dark style. We have our own agenda and not much will obstruct our ideas for Zeromancer.

You will face a longer period of touring now. What do you like most about it?

ALEX: Meet our fans and do some killers shows. It’s our way to show how much we respect and appreciate our dedicated fans. They made our dreams come true and we’ll never forget that. Hope to see some new faces too. Playing live is the best feeling in the world and I’m fucking exited about the tour.

KIM: Being on tour is an escape from the daily life and everything I feel is stressful. I have chronic migraines and two heavy attacks every single day. These happens to be a lot less frequent when I’m out traveling. I love the feeling of being on the move. Being places you have never been before. Feeling lost and lonely.

LORRY: Agree totally with Alex here. The meetings with fans are the most important. They are the inspiration of every move we do as a band. And getting feedback from them, in person, is something I value so much. But in addition, I have to say that bringing the ZMR – family out on the road is something special. Not only the band, but the crew around us has a special place in my heart.

What about your fans? Do you like to go out and meet them or do you feel more or less shy?

ALEX: Yes we try to meet and do signing sessions. Must admit that after a show I tend to be a little slow. (shower, beer, smoke…etc) I’ll work on that for the forthcoming tour☺ But I always go out and meet the fans.

KIM: Without our fans we are nothing. This is very clear to us.

LORRY: At the first few gigs I played with Zeromancer, in 2006, I felt kinda shy about going out to meet people after the show. I remember finding it strange that somebody should be interested in talking to me. But nowadays, I enjoy every second of these aftershow/meet-ups. Everybody is so nice, and its quite nice to get a break from the backstage of familiar faces…

ALEX: I feel we have a rare closeness to out devotees. And now we are trying to get under their skin with starting up a new fanclub/streetteam by the name Industrypeople. As of now we have one team here in Norway plus one department for Russia and the States coming up shortly.

What country has the most passionate fans in your opinion?

ALEX: There are mostly fantastic everywhere. I know it’s sound strange, but it’s true. The biggest difference is the local promoters.


Thanks for answering our questions and we wish you Good Luck and a safe journey on your tour!