Myrath interview (Kevin Codfert)

Interview by Davide Sciaky

Puoi leggere l’intervista in italiano qui.

Hi, how are you doing?

Yeah, fine.

Welcome to TrueMetal. The first thing I want to ask you today is about your role in the band. You have been working for a long time with Myrath, but recently you joined as a full time member. I was wondering if, because of that, you started to be more involved in the songwriting of the band or maybe, because of your role as a producer, you’ve always been involved. Has the change in your role also changed the way you are involved with the band?

Basically it changed nothing. I’ve been working with the band for 15 years now. Producing, composing, playing the piano on the records. So, yeah, I mean, two years ago, Zaher, the lead singer, told me, “Kevin, you are kind of a shy man and you are doing all this job, composing the songs and doing a lot of stuff for the band. And we miss you on stage and we would like you to at least play your piano parts [chuckles]. Because we prefer having you on stage instead of having somebody else”. So, yeah, I mean, nothing changed regarding the process. Only me being on stage, it’s been a little bit different. And I’m very happy because the first tour I did with the band was in Latin America, and I could remember what it was like to be on stage with real musicians. I mean, I worked with my previous band, Adagio – which was a French band, it does not exist anymore – and I was playing a lot of shows with Adagio, but I had quit playing on stage. So basically, yeah, the main difference between now and before is that I’m sharing some emotion on stage with the band, but logistically or about the structure of how we do things nothing changed, really.

You said that you recorded the piano like in the past as well. Was it both you and Elias recording or was it just you doing everything there?

It depends. Regarding the piano – when I say piano, it’s piano sound, piano parts – basically, it was me for all the albums. And Elias was in charge of Arabic arrangements.

And talking about him, a couple of years ago it was announced that he wouldn’t be with the band anymore. And in that announcement, I was reading it just a few minutes ago, I saw that you weren’t mentioned there. So I was wondering, did they ask you to join the band at a later time? Or was it the same thing, like they asked you to replace Elias?

Yeah, it’s basically the same thing. I mean, I had a different view for the future of the band. And I started to conflict with Elias, not conflict in a bad way, but conflict because we didn’t have the same vision. And for me, for the band to continue, I didn’t want it to work anymore with Elias. We had a discussion together and I told very honestly to the band and Elias that I was not comfortable to make a new album with Elias.
So, we did it that way and, maybe one day later, Zaher called me and told me, “We have already discussed having you on stage with us. Please, Kevin, we don’t want to hire a new keyboardist.
Let’s play together.”.

I’ve interviewed Zaher for both the last two albums, Legacy and Shehili, and both times I’ve asked him a question, so I think I’ll have to ask you as well with this new album being released. Both times he told me the band had found the perfect recipe, the perfect sound for the band. This was first with Legacy, and then with Shehili, he told me again, we found a new recipe, which is now the best for who we are now. Do you think the recipe has been updated? Do you think today you evolved and have a new sound, which is the best for who Myrath is today?

Yeah, I think a few years ago, if I was in the position of Zaher, I would have told you exactly the same thing. But as a musician, when you grow up, you realise that it’s nonsense to tell this. Because in Myrath, we try not to intellectualise when we compose. And of course, when there is excitement around a release, you tend to say, this is the best album.
But I will not tell you that it’s the best album. I will tell you that we changed the process of composing, so it’s different. I mean, the main difference, the main, main difference between this album and the others is because of COVID. For the previous albums, the process was: I have an idea, I send the idea through an email to Zaher, 24 hours later he comes back with an idea. And we do this back and forth, a very digital process and very boring process. But for this album, and because of COVID… you know, we were touring Europe, and the last gig of the tour during COVID was in Leipzig, a little city in Germany. Suddenly the border closed. So as a French citizen, I was able to come back as soon as possible in 24 hours. I was in my little city, my little house. But unfortunately for the three Tunisian members, the Tunisian government didn’t bring some flights for the guys. So they were stuck. And I told them, OK, guys, come to my home, we are going to find a solution. And in fact, we couldn’t find a solution for six months. So they were stuck with me in my little house with my wife and my dog. A nightmare, because imagine six guys in a tiny house, yeah, it was really, really difficult.
But I took this opportunity to compose with them. Because, I mean, a lot of regular bands could tell you the normal process of a band is having everybody in a single room to compose. But in fact, for Myrath, it was the first time I could wake up and have a singer in front of me and tell him, “Can you try this?”. Me and my piano, you know, “Can you try this? OK, let’s try different blah, blah, blah”. And in fact, we could try 10 times more things. And of course, we have thrown away 80% of the material because we composed too much. But this to tell you that the process was smooth and it was a regular process of composing. So as this process changed, the music changed also, because when all the band members are in the same room, you don’t need as much in terms of arrangements. Because imagine for the previous albums, for example, when I composed Believer, I was alone in my room. Elias came to help me, but for the most part I was alone and took my guitar. OK, it’s not sounding good because I’m not a guitar player. So I tried to put more and more layers of arrangement with my VST. And at the end, you end with a massive arrangement because you try to replace what you don’t have. And what I did have for this album was a real guitar player, a real bass player and a real singer with me. And when everybody’s working together, you tell yourself, “Yeah, I will not spend 20 hours trying to reconstruct emotion with my computer”. Because everything is already there, you know, and that may be why there is a little bit less arrangement on this album.
Because it was, from my point of view and from the point of view of the band, not necessary.

Right. So I think the album also in general has a bit of less folkish oriental elements than in the past. Have you ever had a discussion within the band about that? Because, I mean, it was a pretty important, distinctive element of the band’s sound. Were you ever like, OK, guys, maybe let’s try to add a bit more or, this is just too good like it is, we don’t need that anymore.

No, no, no. Maybe we will have even more on the next album. Maybe less. I mean, we didn’t even have any discussion because everybody was together in the same room. So if you feel that something is natural and you try and everybody enjoys it, you don’t ask yourself the question. But the second reason why there is little less… in fact, there is not that much less arrangement. There is just a matter of less volume for the arrangement also. And this came from Jacob Hansen, the producer I work with. He told me, “Kevin, OK, you bring me 80 layers of tracks for each song, but you have to know that the human average ear can’t handle millions of notes. And I would like to try something for this album”. And I told him, yeah, why not? Let’s try. He told me, let’s try to do something. And this thing is, with each part we need to find a principal topic. And this principal topic can be the lead singer, of course, and it’s mainly the lead singer. And when it’s guitar, it’s guitar. When it’s violin, it’s violin. But try not to put a lot of information because for regular ears, it will be much easier for people. Of course, the fans of the first albums with a lot of stuff will tell you there is not enough arrangement. We are sad, blah, blah, blah. But believe me, for – not mainstream because I don’t like this term – but for the main metal fans, it will be much easier to understand what you are trying to do. And I told him, yeah, I love experimenting, if it’s working, it’s working. If it’s not working, it’s not working. But I’m not going to die if it’s wrong. I mean, new things will happen because of experimenting and don’t be afraid of trying things. So, yeah, we end up with something also more minimalist because of Jacob.

You told me that in the past you were working remotely and this time you managed to be all in the same room. And now that you’ve tried both things, do you have a preference? Now that you tried, in the future you want to only work one way or is it still in the air?

I will try to do half and half because the cool thing about being alone is that you are alone. And I’m kind of an introverted guy. So the more I have people with me, the more it’s consuming my energy, you know, but it’s because of me. It’s because of the way I’m doing things. But being alone makes you miss a lot of opportunities for ideas. So I will definitely try to do a kind of mix. I mean, I can’t afford to bring all the band at home for six months because it could be really, really expensive.
And maybe the wife wouldn’t be too happy.
She will not be happy at all. So the best thing to do, I think the best scenario would be to bring Zaher with me. Because, for me, the lead singer is the most important thing in the music. And we’ll try things together and finish the work with only the two of us. But I need Zaher. I mean, Zaher has a brilliant way to bring emotion and ideas, vocal ideas to life. Firstly, because of his sensibility. I mean, he’s very sensitive. I’m not. I’m a kind of pragmatic, mathematical guy. I don’t believe in karma, even if the album is named Karma. And so I bring structure to the band, but I’m missing, not emotion, because without emotion you can’t compose. But I’m not as sensitive as Zaher and I’m missing this, you know, and I need him.

You mentioned a few times how you compose the music by working with Zaher. Is there any other member of the band who’s involved in songwriting? Is it just the two of you?

Everybody is involved, but it’s a matter of proportion. I mean, Zaher and I, for a few albums now we have been doing maybe 60, 70% of the songs. 

As you said, Karma is the name of the new album and it’s a bit surprising, maybe, or unexpected, because all of the previous albums were linked to the oriental side of the band, while Karma is an Indian philosophical concept. Can you tell me why Karma? What’s the meaning of this name? Why did you choose this name?

When we started to work on lyrics, we knew precisely the subject we wanted to expose. And you know that, especially for the three Tunisian members since they were born, they have sometimes suffered from discrimination, racism, this kind of stuff. I’m a French guy, so I know that discrimination and racism exist, but you can’t understand it fully until you see it with your own eyes. And working with the band for 15 years now, I know really what racism is. I have proof of this. We suffered from this when we played in Latin America, where each flight was delayed or we couldn’t take it because a lot of questions were asked to the band. Because each time you show your green [Tunisian] passport, you have troubles. So I can feel this kind of stuff. And they wanted to speak about it, to also speak about climate change, about failures, about depression. Zaher has been depressed for two years and it’s not a secret. I mean, he’s freely speaking about this. So after all of this, we needed to find a single word to represent this. And it’s really difficult. And as Zaher is somebody very spiritual, he told me, “Yeah, for me, the right name is Karma”. I mean, he wanted to use this name for the previous album. Now it was, I think, the perfect timing. And I told him, yeah, I mean, it’s the perfect link with all the subjects because… Yeah, we need to do it. I felt it this way. But Karma is linked also with the… The single name is also linked with the single asset, the apple of the cover. We also needed to find something as minimalist as possible to represent the lyrics. And we had this idea of an apple which is beautiful on the outside and rotten on the inside, which is, of course, a generical connection with the lyrics of the songs.

From your previous album as well, you started working with earMUSIC, which is a much larger label than the ones you worked with previously. How has that impacted Myrath? Has it had a big impact for the band?

Regarding the image of the band, it had a huge impact because the first two weeks of the release of Shehili, we were on the cover of maybe six, seven magazines and it had never happened before. I’m not telling you that it automatically increases the sales, but psychologically, when you are on the cover of a magazine, people can say, OK, maybe it could be a band that I could be interested in. Let’s dig a bit. And this kind of move can only be possible because of companies like earMUSIC. So, yeah, they are helping a lot regarding the image.

I only have one final question which is, a couple of days ago it was announced that you’ll be coming back to Italy next summer. I think it’s the first show you’ve announced for this year. You’ll be coming to a festival, which is quite the improvement compared to the previous time you came to Italy, which was six years ago in a small club. So my question is, how has the band’s show evolved in the last six years? And for the people who came to see Myrath in Italy the last time, what can they expect from this show now?

Something totally different. A few years ago, after many shows, we were… we are still struggling a bit, but less now. But a few years ago, we made a decision with the band to bring something new on stage
because we had the feeling that having five members playing music on stage isn’t enough nowadays. So we brainstormed, we talked about magical tricks, we talked about many things and we tried to figure out how it was possible to make something. And everything started with a gig we did in Sweden Rock, the first time we played in Sweden Rock.
And to prepare for this gig, I called the magician who performed at my wedding. I told him, “Could you help us to do something?”. And also I found a fire eater and I told them, “I have no idea what to do with you, but let’s try to do something”. So we worked a lot on the choreography.
And when everything was set, we proposed…. It was funny because just before entering on stage, it was the little tent of Sweden Rock with only two members of the crew. And they told me, “Man, we are going to help you, but you are crazy. I mean, you are paid almost nothing and you spend 20,000 euros on production and you are going to lose your money and it’s stupid. You are unknown. We are going to help you, but poor guy”, they told me. We did this show. So it was the magical appearance of Zaher. No, it was levitation, the appearance we did later, but it was levitation, fire eaters, a dancer with a whole story for one hour. And what happened is, just after this gig, the owner of Sweden Rock told us, the headliner of the festival just cancelled. So you are going to headline today again.
Wow.
And we passed from the little tent to the main stage. And straight away, we were number one in Sweden, in Spotify, in Metal, in like three hours.
So doing a real show gave us the proof that it can do something. Of course, to scale this is very difficult because it costs a lot of money and you can’t do this kind of stuff every time. But the side effect of it is that the fees of the band have been multiplied by four in one year. And it never happened before. I mean, we had our fees and the progression was cool, but almost flat, you know. And we put a magician on stage and, boom, they rose immediately. So, yeah, for Italy, they can… I mean, we still need to do the maths, and depending on the routing and the cost of the flights, of course, not everything is possible each time we play, of course. But I will try to do my maximum with the budget we have. But for sure, the fans will feel and live an experience, a magical experience on stage.