Thursday, December 8, 2011

The Gardnerz Intervuew


1. Can you give us an update on what is going on with the band these days?
Francisco Martín: We are working on a mini album to be released during 2012. We don't have any specific plan for it other than releasing 4 or 5 songs, and that we will recoding, perhaps, during February or March.
We are looking for a studio where to record the drums and the strings and vocals tracks will be done at the same studios where we tracked for our debut, and for the mix and mastering seems like we've found who we'll be working with but nothing's written in stone so far.
2. How would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the new album?
Wilhelm Lindh: It is Doomy Death Metal basically, with some twists and turns. I have taken inspiration from so many places. Most reviewers that have listed the influences they think we've got have been dead wrong. The album has an old school feeling, but without being a rip off of the old Gods.      
3. What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?
Wilhelm Lindh: it is mainly me venting different things. We have some anti-religious songs,"Flaw in the Axiom" and "Maybe it's Time". "Shift in Thought" is about Sweden's sordid past as Sweden has been on the forefront of racial biology long before the Germans. "More or Less" talks about tabloid journalism and my feelings regarding those scum-bags. The lyrics for "Lady in the Grave" were written by our former vocalist and is about what happens when you cut down on care for the insane.          
4. What is the meaning and inspiration behind the bands name?
Wilhelm Lindh: It is my take on some ideas from the pre-socratic philosopher Epicurus, with some elements of Nietzsche. Epicurus talked about his garden, so I thought the gardeners would make a killer name, but besides sounding way to pretentious, it was name already taken and a google search yielded 9 million hits. So I changed it around a bit and added the z as a tribute to my Swedish musical heritage.      
5. Has the band had any opportunities do any live shows and if so what are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and how would you describe your stage performance?
Francisco Martín: So far we haven't played any live shows. We are really longing for it, but first we need to establish our line up before being able to play live.  We expect that when going onstage we'll be able to deliver what we feel about our music, and that way people will be able to feel it as well, as you know, the most sincere the performance the better reaction you get.
6. On the album there was a cover of a Winter song what was the decision behind that cover tune?
Francisco Martín: I'm the one to blame for the covers, and talking specifically on this band, let me tell you that I became a fan of Winter since their debut demo tape as I had the chance to listen to it through a friend of mine who was running a fanzine in the 80's (Violence Fanzine).
I remember getting in contact with the band and later interviewing them for a fanzine (Blasphemer) I was working for, and then buying their debut CD.  I'm really glad to say that I have the very first edition of it, the one that was released by Future Shock Records but then I was looking for years for the LP version that was put out by Nuclear Blast Records but never got the chance to find it, now thankfully Southern Lord Recordings has re-issue the LP edition so I can finally say that I own a piece of Winter vinyl.

About Vulcano, I saw them live in 1987 and they blew my brains off.  Their "Bloody Vengeance" album was one of my favorites for several years but then I stopped listening to them as I didn't like so much what they released after.  Anyway, when thinking about recording a couple of bonus tracks for our "The System Of Nature" album I suggested both tunes to Wilhelm and he agreed as he didn't want to record covers from too "obvious" bands.

I will end up this by saying that I feel very pleased to have the chance to show those two bands through our own versions to a bunch of new fans, fans that perhaps never had a chance to listen to them before and that I'm totally sure that now will get interested on listening to the original versions.
7. On a worldwide level how has your music been received by fans of doom/death metal?
Francisco Martín: So far the feedback has been very good to the point that some times it is a bit overwhelming. We are very thankful of the way everything has turned out as we are conscious that there are thousands of bands out there trying to get their gig out, to get signed and so on so we feel we have been very lucky.  After only a couple of years working we have managed to get signed, to release our debut album as CD and LP, to work with Dan Swanö for the mastering process, to get in contact with lot of fans all over the world, so we can't complain.
8. What is going on with the other projects these days?
Wilhelm Lindh: We are keeping ourselves busy, I play in a Black Metal band called Pandemonium and I also have a acoustic project going. The other guys have different bands as well.

Francisco Martín: I'm also involved with the band Inner Sanctvm and we are just releasing the Itunes version of our second album and the CD release is coming on a couple of months. I'm very proud of what we've achieved with Inner Sanctvm as out of the members of the band we all live in different countries, Heber is in Uruguay, Alvaro in Italy, Anton (also of Lock Up/Pentagram/Criminal) in Spain and myself in Sweden so it wasn't an easy task to come together with this album.
Also I've been involved since a long time with a project called Bells Fright together with Alejandro of Sacramento and David of Avulsed.  We have a few songs ready to be recorded but we are taking almost forever to get ourselves onto that stage.
9. What direction do you see the music heading into on future releases/
Wilhelm Lindh: As for the new songs I have written they are in more or less the same style, maybe a bit slower, some of them anyway, but I have tried to keep it varied as I did on The System of Nature. We keep belting out our hybrid of death and doom, mixing technical riffs with some minimalist stuff.     
10. What are some bands or musical styles that have influenced the music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
Wilhelm Lindh: Some of the biggest influences have been Bolt Thrower, Katatonia, Acheron, Death, Broken Hope, Nile, Slayer. But if you listen closely I think you can hear a lot of Non-Metal influences as well, J.J. Cale  to name one.
Nowadays I mainly listen to music in my car and when I'm cooking, some CD's I have in my car are, Blaze Foley "Live at the Austin Outhouse", Darkthrone "Panzerfaust", Hooded Menace "Never Cross the Dead", Neil Young "Greendale" and John Prine "Sweet Revenge".
Right now I'm rocking out to the Tom Waits "Heartattack and Vine" CD that I bought yesterday.      
11.Outside of music what are some of your interests?
Wilhelm Lindh: I guess that my cats come high up on my list, lately I have been spending a lot of my time reading crime novels. My girlfriend got me hooked on those novels, addictive as hell, I really enjoyed the books by Simon Beckett.

Francisco Martín: Lately I've been trying to set my mind up to create the ultimate Metal News web site in Spanish. With my friend Ignacio Orellana who lives in New York are looking all over several alternatives so we'll soon come with something to say about it further than just the idea or project of it.
12. Any final words or thoughts before we wrap up this interview
Wilhelm Lindh: thanks for the time and for those of you who hasn't heard us hit up www.thegardnerz.com and listen to the album there. Keep on Doomin' in the free world.


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