Tesseract interview (James Monteith)

Interview by Davide Sciaky

Puoi leggere l’intervista in italiano qui.

Hi James, welcome to TrueMetal.it.
You’re about to start this new tour tomorrow in France. It’ll be a bit more than a month playing almost every day here in Europe and in the UK. So, my first question is what can the fans expect in terms of show and set list? Will there be any changes compared to your tour last year?

Yes. Well, we have a new set list. We’re bringing some more music from “War of Being” and it’s all been freshened up, new tunes, new light show and yeah, a whole kind of fresh take on the tour we’re currently doing at the moment.

You played here in Italy last year at the end of January, so it’s less than a year ago and you’re already coming back for two more shows in a few days. I’m guessing you had a good feedback here in Milan and I guess you must have a good relationship with your Italian fans, in general.

Definitely. Yes. The Milan show was amazing. We had a great time there and so on this tour we felt it was important to come visit cities that we missed last time. So obviously we’re coming to Bologna and then we’re going all the way down to Rome and we’re very excited to play more of Italy and eat more great Italian food.

Have you had the chance to visit the city a little bit while you were here?

When we were in Milan, we didn’t. Last time we were in Rome, we actually had a day off so we got to explore a lot there and I think this is our first time ever in Bologna. So… whereabout are you based?

I’m in Milan so I’m not sure I’ll be able to get there this time around, but I’m sure it’d be great for you.

Okay. Yeah. We can’t wait. We’re excited.

I was reading the press release for your latest album and I noticed at some point there’s a quote from someone saying, “You do get further into your career and you think, “How long will this go for?”” and I was a bit surprised when I read that because I would have thought that the longer you are into this line of work, the more albums you put out and the more touring you do, the more you’d feel differently, feel like this is a solid thing. I was wondering if this sentiment has changed in any way since the release of “War of Being” considering you’ve been touring a lot and the album had a great reception. Do you still feel like that or has it changed?

Yeah, no. I mean, to be fair, I should probably have read the latest press release because that’s news to me [laughs]. But yeah, I mean, I think this has been our most successful album cycle yet. We’ve gone into bigger rooms. We’ve had whole new audiences come out, like a much younger audience that wouldn’t have probably seen us before, I’m guessing. So, it’s been very solid. But I guess like anything in the music industry, nothing is certain. You’ve got to keep working and you’ve got to prepare for all the potential pitfalls and hurdles that you might face and of which there are many regardless of where you’re at in your career. But overall, though, I’d like to keep it positive. I think we’re in a very good place. We’ve had a very good album cycle and that’s the reason why we’re coming out to sort of do the part two the tour. So yeah, don’t worry. We’re not thinking of hacking it in just yet.

Talking about “War of Being”, I think one of the first things that can be noticed about this album, or at least one of the first things that I noticed, is that while with the previous albums, the artworks followed a certain style, they were quite minimalistic and based on geometric shapes, this time you went in a completely different way, a different approach. Why did you choose to do that instead of following the trend of the previous albums?

I think the long gap between the last record and this one had, apart from lots of musical ideas, I think it really, really helped the concept behind the album develop as well. Amos, our bassist, is sort of the mastermind behind the story and concept and he also directed the artwork. So, I think a lot of time and thought have been put into that much more than previous records and then the artwork needed to basically reflect the story and the concept and therefore ended up being very deep. Also, all the characters, the story were developed and they ended up having a visual representation. So yeah, I think it’s just conceptually the deepest record we’ve done and the artwork reflects that.

And this album, as I mentioned before, it had an incredibly strong reception. I read just great reviews everywhere. I guess a band is always happy and confident about the music they release, but were you expecting this kind of reaction when you released it?

Yeah, you never know what’s gonna happen. I think we were quietly confident that we were happy in ourselves that the record was as good as it could be, and we were very pleased with how the record turned out. And so I think that we were hoping that Tesseract fans would feel the same and it would bring more fans in, but we didn’t know to what level. So, we were very pleased with how well it was received and how much of a sort of step up it was for the band on this album cycle. But yeah, we didn’t expect it and we didn’t predict it. So yeah, it’s good.

Tesseract are often named as pioneers of the Djent genre and I know that this term, like people have a bit of conflicting feelings about it. I read some statement from different musicians that sometimes fall within this umbrella term, like some say it doesn’t really matter that much or some are really proud about it and some just don’t care. I was wondering how do you feel about it?

I think we’re kind of in the “don’t care” camp. I mean, I guess those sorts of movements and micro movements and many sort of cultural things get labels. People like to label them. And in one way it’s quite nice, I think that we came up at a certain time when other bands who are sort of doing a similar thing like your Periphery, Monuments, Chimp Spanner, all these people, and it was quite nice for us to be collectively put together. And the scene was born together. A lot of it was born on online forums and lots of people in all these bands knew each other before it became a thing. And so I think regardless of the name, I think it’s quite nice to have that movement categorized somehow. Whether it’s a genre, I mean, the whole “what is a genre” debate could go on for hours on end, so I can’t be bothered to really put too much thought into it. But yeah, I think it’s nice to be part of that group of artists. But yeah, we’re not really that bothered by it.

A couple of years ago, you released the “Regrowth” EP to raise money for Ukraine. I think generally in recent years, whenever a band says something about social or political issues, some people will pop up and say, “You are too political, you should just stick to the music”, which personally I think is ludicrous because it’s something that has been part of music since forever, since Bob Dylan or whenever. Of course, you also have a different opinion since you released this EP, but does it bother you that people say these sorts of stuff?

Yeah, it’s a good question because Tesseract generally keeps well away from any politics. Us as individuals have our own thoughts and opinions, and we may be outspoken on certain issues on our own personal channels, but generally with Tesseract, we steer away from them. But that was the exception. And I think it’s quite interesting. We sort of just went with the flow and didn’t think about it. But I think with the Ukraine thing, it definitely felt closer to home than many other campaigns you could get behind because, you know, we have friends there, we know people there, we’ve got connections there, it’s part of Europe. And so, for Ukraine being so brutally invaded by Russia, it did feel a little bit more personal. It was the one occasion that we felt that we should show our support and try and rave some money for the victims. And I don’t think, I mean, we did get probably a tiny bit of a backlash, but not much. But then I think we were lucky in that the vast majority of our fans were probably sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause. Although, we did have a fan base in Russia and we’ve been to, we’ve played Russia loads. But then also the Russians that I know are sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause. So, I guess it was quite a safe one. I think if we were to get involved in any other political movements, there would be much more of that “You shouldn’t be getting political” because there’s many more divisive things going on in the world. I mean, we could name many, but we won’t. And yeah, I guess to answer your question, I think when people say, “Band shouldn’t get political”, I think they’re entirely wrong. I think that if you believe in something strongly, and you’ve got a platform to get your ideas across, then absolutely, a band should be political. But on the same thing, I find it annoying when people say, “Why aren’t bands talking about this?” I guess if you’re an artist, you have a right to talk about things or not talk about things as you wish. And yeah, so when people say that people should or shouldn’t say certain things, I think it’s rubbish.

I only have one final question, which is, in recent years, we’ve seen many of the so-called classic bands retiring, and we sure will see more in the coming years with just, just a few days ago the drummer for Iron Maiden retired, Black Sabbath a few years back, and others here and there. So, you know, a question that many people are wondering is who will take their place. Do you foresee Tesseract becoming one of those big headliners of the future?

I guess it’s every band’s dream to get to that sort of level. I don’t see Tesseract as a replacement for any of those types of big headliners, because I feel like, I don’t know, that there are certain type of bands that have a mass appeal, which I wonder if… I mean, I’m not saying Tesseract isn’t a mass appeal band, but generally it’s very Progressive. There’s a lot of depth and a lot of thought, which I feel like sometimes does have a bit of a ceiling, because you have to invest in listening to this kind of music to truly get it. Having said that, our vision for the next sort of phase and Tesseract is going to be, – musically, it’s going to be an evolution of what’s been done previously – but in terms of the show, we’re evolving and developing it and trying to make it as much of a visual spectacle as it is a musical spectacle. So, who knows, maybe Tesseract could grow into being a band that could become a headliner, something like that. But yeah, I would never say that Tesseract could be a direct replacement for a Slayer or, I don’t know, an AC/DC or whatever, because we’re just not that kind of band.

And you mentioned your vision for the future. Is this something you’ve already planned or you’ve already been talking about?

Yeah, there are a million ideas floating around musically and visually and conceptually. There’s nothing set in stone yet, there’s nothing even completely, there’s no real plan yet, but there’s a mountain of ideas. And so, this year, once this touring is done, a big focus is going to be on what the next stage of the band will be, and also writing new music. So, yes, there are big, big ideas that need to be turned into plans. And so hopefully this time next year we’ll probably have a bit more of an idea of which direction we’re headed.