Interview: Wormwood on "The Gentle Touch of Humanity", The Fate of the World, and Recording 'Arkivet'
There’s no doubt that we are leaving in bleaker times than usual. And in times like these, art is more important than ever before, as it allows us to come together and express how we feel about the state of things. Metal and punk have always been genres that are never afraid to provide a message with their music, and metal quintet Wormwood are no exception to this statement.
On the heels of releasing a somber music video for their track, “The Gentle Touch of Humanity”, main composer and lead guitarist Tobias Rydsheim sat down with us for a few minutes to discuss the details behind the making of the new video, their upcoming album Arkivet (due out on August 27th, and how they’ve used their music to convey their messages about humanity.
Let's start this interview off by talking about the music video for "The Gentle Touch of Humanity". It's indeed a dark video. In your opinion, is there any hope for the world turning itself back around, or do you find it to be a completely lost cause?
Well, as we know it, we´re on a pretty destructive path.
I´m not a scientist or any expert of some form, so it's hard to give a detailed answer.
But if I'm allowed to guess I would say that future generations will need to lower their living standards and comfort to survive.
I don't know if "beautiful" is the right word to describe the way the video is filmed, but it's shot incredibly well: static, watching it all unfold as you can't really do anything but look on. Who filmed the video for "The Gentle Touch of Humanity", and who created the concept behind it?
As with all of our videos, this is made by SVARTNA FILM. A production team that I'm also a part of.
So no matter from which angle you watch it, it's always a WORMWOOD/SVARTNA FILM production & concept.
Given that this is the final track off of Arkivet, would you say that this song as placed at the end because it's the darkest out of all the preceding songs? What made you structure it as the finale to the record?
I think both the music and lyrics kind of sums it all up, it's a long song with a strong message. A perfect finale for the record.
I find it interesting that the cover for Arkivet is pure white, whereas the music is much darker in tone and style. Was this choice in contrast coincidental, or was there a purpose for the contrast in look vs. sound?
We made it boring and stiff by choice. It resembles something bureaucratic, that contains a lot of uncomfortable content. Just like our record does. And personally I must say that I am sick and tired of the classical metal aesthetics with fire breathing dragons, heavy guns and skulls. So, keep it simple, you know.
Also, speaking of contrasts…My opinion is that you need to work a lot with contrasts in every art form.
The dark parts will be much darker if there also is light in it.
The world has obviously had to change gears a little bit with the pandemic in terms of the way artists are recording. Walk me through a little bit of the process recording Arkivet. How long did it take to write everything, who produced it, how many days for tracking, mixing, etc.?
The drums were recorded at the same studio we used for our previous albums. But all the other instruments and vocals was recorded & produced by me, in my home studio, and in the studio that Jonathan Ojeda (Break the Norm Productions) own, he also did the mixing.
We chose to do most of the things by ourselves because we wanted to have more control over the full production. And to be able to set our own working pace without having to watch the clock or wallet all the time.
The song was written during, hmm, let's say a year. And the album was recorded during a few months. Since we all got daytime jobs we couldn't do all the recordings all at once, but I think it's good to slice it up a bit, so you have the time in between to reflect and so on.
Finally: I feel like we touched on this when talking about the meaning behind "The Gentle Touch of Humanity", but what do you hope people take away from listening to Arkivet as a whole?
We don't want to communicate any kind of political message, or anything else that belongs to a certain belief system or anything like that. Nor yet do we claim any specifics on what´s right or wrong. We just want to bring these “facts” and thoughts to the table, and then it´s up to the listener on how to process the material.
Personally, with all the crap that's going on in the world in mind, I think it's an important topic that is potent to make people think about their own lifestyle. At least I got many eye-openers from digging deep into all these kinds of topics that we´re dealing with on the record.
To make it short and simple: Don´t be stupid and ignorant, make a change while it´s still possible. That message may apply to most things, so use it in whatever context you may like. I guess it's a message for myself as well.
Wormwood’s new album, Arkivet, will be released on August 27th. You can click here to pre-order.
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