PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Thank you to Louis for taking the time to fill in this email interview for Planetmosh.com
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Why did you pick the name Kunz and what does it stand for?
A usual German surname like we both have. Kunz is easy to remember and sounds like a bass and a kick drum hit together. Plus it could be one of your neighbor, which makes it almost familiar.
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How did you both come up with the idea for this duo side project?
We always played together. We started 8 years ago as a jazz trio, and then evolved to a more noisy realm. it is not a side project, because it actually started earlier than the ocean for us. I actually joined The Ocean because Luc invited me to!
It took us quite a while to release something because The Ocean’s agenda has been extremely intense the last 3 years.
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How would you describe the band?
Shortly, this is about self-expression. Kunz is our musical playground. A sonic space where we test things, mainly songs and riffs. Each musician is challenging the other by playing unexpected
licks or riffs, each take is unique because we record everything live and don’t edit it.
Kunz plays songs with and open and half-improvised approach, using mainly rough odd-signature bass riffing, heavy drumming and visceral vocals. While any other duo would try to fill their tracks with thousands of elements and weird sounds, we rather play one and only element per track, jamming around it.
What equipment do you use?
To record these tracks I used a vocal microphone, a combination of mesa/boogie, traynor and orange amps and a viola-shaped bass from the 60’s, Luc used a drum kit.
What kind of response did you get to the EP from your fans?
The hand-made series has sold extremely well and fast. We had a lot of positive reactions from fans. People like to compare the two bands (coilguns vs kunz) but never really seem to favour one to the other.
That’s really a chance for us to be able to publish new material and have such a big amount of dedicated fans listening to it. I think they liked the fact that 3 musicians can have two different bands, next to
another big one they’re involved in. That’s a proof to me that Ocean fans are open-minded and like to be challenged.
Can you give us a quick description each track from the EP?
Flow
One single major riff, loads of feedbacks, every beat played as late as possible, a general epic/massive feel that is meant to reproduce the feel of being taken away by the flow of a huge river. This songs
has something aquatic, and ends in a psychedelic noise wreck.
Apnea
Logically after all this water, one will start to lack air. Apnea is fast, heavy, urgent, brings you back to the surface. That’s the first Kunz song I ever wrote. I took the famous Smoke on the water intro
riff, and added a little twist to it. But all the notes are there in the same order.
Flush
A heavy stoner riff I was playing at ocean soundcheck. This take is
the first and only one we’ve done, one shot, not even oragnised
before playing it. I had some lyrics and yelled them on it, as a curse.
What Makes Me Sleep
Written during a cold winter afternoon while my life didn’t seem to make any sense. I think that’s Luc’s best and most extreme drumming I’ve ever heard. I wanted to have Mike on it (just at the very end) to
let him close the the album. This guy taught me a lot and I owed him that one.
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What/who were the main influences for it?
When I wrote these songs, I was quite a lot under the influence of shellac, lightning bolt and baxter stockman. Obviously, my influence for the lyrics was (and will always be) Nirvana’s bleach album.
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What made you choose Berlin based label Pelagic Records to release the EP?
That’s Robin label. He’s releasing good music, he’s our friend and he asked us to give him more music when we played him some tracks. I wouldn’t have tried to find another label for these songs, seriously.
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What are future plans for Kunz?
We still have more than 40 min of music recorded and mixed. The same session than the other tracks. We’ll see what we’ll do with it. It’s quite different though, more indie-rock oriented I’d say. We’re not
pushing too much, this project has its own rhythm and we don’t to force things.
In the meanwhile we warmly invite our fans to check out our blog, we upload a lot of live videos there, and that’s the most accurate documentation we have right now.
www.k-u-n-z.ch < http://www.k-u-n-z.ch >
Are there any messages that you would like to pass on to the readers?
Do music with your friends, and for your friends. And if they don’t like it, find other friends :)
