One of the more interesting bands out there is Tid. There are former members of Ghost in Tid. Then there's also another band that's connected, the Magna Carta Cartel.
Recently, we sat down to discuss Ghost, Tid, music, and listening to Swedish music in English at the Glacially Musical Fjord Discussion Room B and this is what we came away with.
Glacially Musical: Thank you for taking the time for me today.
Tid: Thank You for having us.
GM: Listening to Fix Ide, I can hear a lot of similarities with Ghost and a lot of differences. How would you describe each band's music?
Tid: Tid’s music is not bound to rules, classic songwriting or the search to create the feeling of nostalgia - quite the opposite.
We in Tid hear little or no similarities with Ghost, neither in instrumentation nor melodies or sonic landscapes – then again, others might hear similarities. If they do, that would hardly be surprising – we are from the same town, listen to the same music roughly, and are inspired by at least the same things in life.
Tid's music – Dark and mysterious Avantgarde Rock Ghost's music – Dark and mysterious Arena Rock
GM: I have to ask. What was it like performing in the mask for Ghost?
Tid: Wonderful. Warm, sweaty and great in terms of the performance – see, one doesnt have to be oneself for a few hours, and that should be welcome thing for anyone.
GM: The anonymity issue...well, was it really an issue? Were your faces kept under wraps like Kiss?
Tid: Yes, at times we did. Initially, yes, it was an issue, but over time it became unneccesary to hide backstage or to mask your face off stage – more and more people started to know what we actually looked like.
Never the less they didn't really know anything about us as people. A blessing.
GM: The songs on Fix Ide follow a very strange path. Each one seems to be a world unto itself. Was there a point when somebody said, does this need to be a bit more cohesive?
Tid: Yes and no. Yes in the sense that the songs could probably have been even more drawn out or loose in their composition – but we wanted to try and press Tid's music into the shape of Pop songs – that type of arrangement for each song.
And we succeeded. Obviously the closing track ”Demimond” and its tail ”Nadir” was never intended to be a radio-hit.
That one was more modelled after the likes of the Beatles' ”Hey Jude” or Elbow's ”One Day Like This”. A journey through monotony rewarded with a grand opening at the end.
GM: What did you take from Tid to bring to Ghost?
Tid: Nothing at all to be frank. These two bands never shared anything in terms of musical vision.
That given, it's obvious that there will always be some things spilling over into each since some people were in both bands - so in terms of that i guess that ”senses of melody” would be a fair answer.
GM: With the release of the three records in America, what's next for Tid?
Tid: We actually do not know as for now.
Most of us are rehearsing with our sister band MCC [Magna Carta Cartel] which is highly connected to Tid in all forms – same members more or less and same composers, only that MCC probably appeals to the ones of you that doesn't feel like a sissy as soon as you listen to anything without a distorted guitar up front ; )
We will start doing live shows with MCC soon, and as we do we will also start rehearsing and preparing for live shows with Tid.
GM: What's the inspiration for a song like Solens Nya Namn? It's very melodic and very metal at the same time, but it's still subdued.
Tid: Well, that one in particular is quite an odd example – though it also tells a little about just where we might finds inspiration for songs – and where we do not look for it.
Basically it stems from this one riff that was written on Guitar but is played on the piano on the recording. I think we found the inspiration for the opening from some classical pice of music, along with some old soundtrack for a film, which one i can't remember now.
The verses though, they are inspired by the animated Asterix movie where they take of to some island of sex and lust goddesses that lures them in by singing this harmony part – so we asked a good frien of ours, Fia from The Great Discord, to come down and lend us her voice and the we created layer after layer to build up an angelic soft veil of harmony that kind of dresses the whole verse up – along with that we had these odd shaped chord patterns that was inspired by Einsturzende Neubautens sound thought it luckily doesn't sound like them at all – hence a good inspiration source.
The choruses we had had laying around for years and it was only when Fia was in the studio with us that we figured out how they should actually be shaped – like hysterical choirs led by the some insane woman praising the latest god – the suns new name (Solens Nya Namn).
And so forth. Also – there is a lot of Phillip Glass in that song. We must have had hundreds of more sources of inspirations, some of which we ourselves cannot even see or touch, stuff that has just been incorporated in us, subconcsiously.
GM: Will you be able to take this album on the road. It seems like this would be very hard to reproduce live.
Tid: Yes, eventually we will take songs form all the albums with us on tour. Actually – if you break it down to pieces, it's not that hard to reproduce. Obviously some of the synth layers would be on backingtracks, such as the more ambient ones.
But the ”Fix Idé” albums is written for 2 x Guitars, 1 Bass, Drums, Vocals and a synth-station. Obviously we wouldnt travle with a section of Horns and Violins - not yet at least.
GM: Tell me about the band's major influences. I'd love to know more about the ingredients that make up Tid.
Tid: Films, landscapes, books, music of all kinds – very seldom metal or anything orientated that way as it easily leads to a round circuit where you end up sounding like everything else – both in actual sonic terms but mainly the way the actual music is written and the paths it follows.
Metal, Northern Soul, 70's Synth, Pop, Rock, Classical, Italo Disco, Various Soundtracks, Contemporary Classical, Black Metal, Trip Hop – anything really.
GM: What are the five most important albums of all time?
Tid: Disregarding the actual ones, i.e. The ones that have actually have had an impact on everything thus taking the lead or having been door-openers that would ofcourse be evertyhing from old Blues via Elvis through Beatles and on and on.
For Tid, i'd think that the albums that have influenced us in terms of wanting to play or wanting to make music would be something along the lines of (and in no particular order): • The Doors - The Doors • Jakob Hellman – ....och stora havet • Beatles – Abbey Road • Guns n Roses – Appetite For Destruction • Metallica – Master of Puppets
GM: What did I forget to ask?
Tid: You didn't. But we'd like to ask you, as Americans and thus having English as your native tongue – what is it like to listen to music that has lyrics and vocals in another language than English? We realise that we are hardly the fist band you listen to that doesn't use English lyrics, but since most of the worlds music, at least in terms of what forum we are in now, are being sung or presented in English and that is the natural and common state of music for most people, you will always be experiencing it very very different from people who does not have English as their mother tongue.
So many ways of expression have been seen and heard in the overall musical landscape throughout the years – some ways of writing lyrics that was new and exciting to those speaking English as their mother tongue in the 60's could still, if the same method used in for example Sweden and for Swedish lyrics now, be seen as innovative.
Regardless of how well I or we may speak English or not, it is not our mother tongue and thus there will always be a barrier or a veil in listening to music sung in English. It is not our natural go to language – so maybe, just maybe, we experience and have experienced music, when sung in a different language a tad different – probably the instrumentation gets to us in a more pure sense – or maybe the other way around.
Again – this is not about how well one understands English or not – it is a matter of having no filters at all, or on the other hand have, even if ever so small, a filter when hearing lyrics in a different language than you own. And – down this path and logic there will of course be a point where even people who speaks the same mother tongue have their own differences in how they hear and experience music or anything.
But lets stay at the surface for now lads: Now – how do you feel that listening to music where you do not necessarily understand or immediately connect with what is said or sung alters the experience?
No comments:
Post a Comment