Merrimack will join us on the 5-6th of April for the grand ritual that is Underground For The Masses. I found that as enough of a reason to get into their conflicted souls, and the sole original member and pillar of the band, Perversifier, was there for my curiosities.
I would like to start with a thank you for having this chat with us. 2024 marks 30 years of Merrimack and your 6th full-length album. Huge numbers, if you’d ask me. How do you feel after being a part of the black metal scene for such a long time?
Thank you for this interview.
I feel a bit dizzy when i think about it. I was 17 years old when i started the band, and now i am 47. I’ve spent two thirds of my existence in Merrimack. I am the only original member left. I have witnessed the huge transformations of the scene, the music industry, the technology and the music itself. Things are so different nowadays on so many levels, i don’t know how i managed to adapt to these revolutions.
Times have changed, at all levels, the whole world has changed, mentalities are different and Black Metal is not anymore what it used to be. There’s not much left today from those times, except our nostalgia.
This is a question i genuinely have to ask: you have released your second album, Of Entropy and Life Denial, on 6.6.2006. That leads me to…how involved is the root of evil in your songwriting?
Well, we are a Black Metal band, aren’t we? Theology and philosophy are major components of our art, as it should be. There are many hints of ideology in our lyrics or visual arts, even though we try not to make it too obvious or <<cliche>>. We explored a lot of the gnosticism through our latest albums for instance.
Of Grace and Gravity is about to be out in March. So far, at the time of the interview, you have released two songs as a single, Dead and Distant Clamors and one i truly adore, Sulphurean Synods. Will you tour extensively in support of it? What was the reason behind choosing these two songs as a first single?
Since i was quite busy and slow, at the time i answer these questions the album is already out. We won’t tour much, as tours are nowadays quite difficult to put in place. It becomes more and more difficult, for several reasons. First, there are more and more festivals and less and less simple gigs in clubs. Then, the prices of energy and the general inflation make all of the touring costs extremely high, and it’s difficult to not lose money in this context. Finally, people lost the habit of preordering their tickets since the Covid, and that scares the promoters a bit, added to the fact that in the end, less and less people show up at gigs.
So we will focus on playing as many festivals as possible.
The choice of singles is never an easy one. We tried to choose songs that are different from eachother and that would give a good hint of how the album sounds like. And of course, we chose songs that we believe are quite strong and catchy.
(No pressure, the album is out and i was more than happy to give it a few listens since its release)
You’ll be back in Romania for the very first edition of Underground For the Masses, a festival that’s made by fans for the fans. What do you remember about your first visit here, 20 years ago?
We have indeed played in Timisoara during our small european tour with Krieg in 2003. It was quite an interesting experience. I remember the border control guys asking us why we were coming to Romania, and when we told them we were going to play (with Negura Bunget), the guy said he was a big fan of this band, and asked us for a CD. I remember walking the streets in Timisoara and being stopped by many walkers who asked us if we were a <<rock band>>, and when we explained to them why we were here, they were so amazed telling us that they only heard about Metallica as a foreign band playing here. There was a lot of enthusiasm.
It was a bit of a strange concert, because we played in a theater where the crowd was sitting and not standing, that being a bit unusual and uncomfortable for the band. But all in all, those are great memories!
Your legacy spans over three decades. That alone makes you one of the most influential bands in the French Black Metal scene. What should up and coming bands do to make it for such a long time and do you see yourself as an influence to younger bands?
I don’t believe young bands playing the same kind of Black Metal as ours will last so long, because this music genre is already almost dead. Newest bands are meant to explore new musical horizons. As for the influence, we see that the youngsters are already not interested in this kind of music. We see that in our Spotify stats, for instance, people below 18 years old are less than 1% of our listeners, and people between 18 and 22 are 6%.
That just proves that Black Metal is listened by quite old people, the ones who have the nostalgia of what it used to be. But it doesn’t really conquer the new generations…
Do you think the coronavirus pandemic created a void in the underground metal show industry? As opposed to what was the popular belief back then, that it will create a huge need in the public for live shows, doesn’t it look like the concert halls are actually emptier than before?
The covid had indeed a huge negative effect on the live music, and it’s all very much the case. People have changed. They have changed their way of consuming music, of entertaining themselves, and it doesn’t look like it will change too soon.
Merrimack will play at Underground For The Masses, the first edition of a festival made by fans for the fans.
In this era of digitalisation, is physical music still worth making? I am a collector so i know what i’d want, but i also know investment means risk and only a possible reward. Do people still buy physical music?
No, people don’t buy physical music anymore, and they don’t even buy digital music either. They pay 10 euros a month for an unlimited amount of music that they don’t own.
It’s definitely not worth it for the artists, and it’s more and more difficult to have a label that even wants to pay for the recording studio, the artwork artist etc… We are lucky at the moment that Season of Mist is still giving us such budget, but it will not last forever. People need to understand that the artists get around 1 euro for 10.000 streams. That’s nothing. Recording an album costs at least 5000 euros, so it’s almost impossible to recoup the expenses and to earn royalties with such a system.
Luckily, few die-hard fans still buy a bit of merchandise, and the vinyls still sell quite well, even though there are only between 500 and 1000 copies.
Would you like to leave a message for our readers and for the fans that will come see you at Underground For The Masses?
We are very impatient to play at your festival and to discover the crowd of Bucharest, that has never had the opportunity to see us live. It will be a great event. See you there!
You can find Merrimack all over these links:
And, of course, you can buy tickets for Underground For The Masses over here.
