Interview with Bohren & Der Club Of Gore

Congrats on your excellent album Black Earth,how has the response and reaction been so far to the disc from press and fans ?

Thanks Gabriel. Well, the reaction on both sides are very good.

Fill me in on your background, how was Bohren & Der Club Of Gore formed ?

3 of us are old friends from school (Thorsten, Robin and I) and started playing together in 1988. We played all kinds of exterm music like Grindcore, Hardcore and Death/ Doom Metal. Around 92´ we were kind of bored just to sound like all the other bands and started a new band under the name BOHREN. It was our aim to play doom ridden jazz music. In the early days I used a guitar, but switched later to a Fender Rhodes Piano, which replaced the guitarelements in our music totaly. In ´97 Christoph joind the band, because we needed a saxofon to complete our musical vision.

Black Earth is a fantastic album. Slow doomy progressive melancholic Jazz would be a good description of it. There is no track under 6 minutes and everything is instrumental. Fill me in on the studiowork and the progression of the record. How was the recording process to Black Earth ?

Ja, thanks again. It took us one year to record the album. Such a long time because we done everything by ourselfs. Produktion, engenering and the whole studioequipment was all in our hands. But along the technical side, there was the paying side that took the most from us. It was very hard to play precise in such a slow and quied way. But the most of the time was spend to get the right sound out of the double bass.

I am amazed over a few different things considering Black Earh, there is no guitars whatsoever just saxophone, piano, organs and a backing section, you have managed to bring out quite a atmospheric performance out of it. In your opinion, how would you describe the sound of Bohren & Der Club Of Gore ?

We often use such funny words us "Horror Jazz" or "Piano Doom". But to be honest, I don´t care. To us it is just important that our music has this kind of doom feeling. It doesn´t matter how to create such an atmosphere (Ok, as long as it sound not like a cheesy goth band with a lot of synthezisers!!!).

The soundpicture that you have, how much have the sound progressed since the early days of Bohren & Der Club Of Gore ?

As I said earlier, it took us a while to get all the right instruments und studio stuff to get a jazzy sound just because we started with metal equipment.

The name of the band Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, when I first saw the promo with the name and the title I thought is this a death metal band ? that was before I heard the music. How pleased are you with the name and is there a concept to it ?

You are right. Our favorite band (now and then) is AUTOPSY. Well and that´s it with the name, just some drunken metalheads comming up with a name that will follow us or the rest of our lives. But somehow we still like the name. But by the way, the "GORE" in our name was a link to the Dutch instrumental band GORE. The band which inspired us to use no vocals.

The name of the disc Black Earth, is it any meaning to the title ?

Sure, but we suggest the listener to use his own inmages.

Going through the titles Midnight Black Earth, Maximum Black, Destroying Angels, Skeletal Remains and The Art Of Coffins. There is a dark, mournful and depressive concept over Black Earth. How pleased are you with the tracklist and the direction of Black Earth ?

Well, Black Earth is a doom record( in most kind of ways). We just deal with themes like "murder", "horror", "funeral" and " the end ot the world". We are very happy with the whole album (music, sound, titels, cover), because we got all the time in the world to come up with such a record. It is 100% the music that we had in mind.

Talking about the influences that you have, it appears to me when I listen to Black Earth that they are wellspread in both rock and jazz circles, am I right or do you have just certain influnces ?

Right, just BLACK SABBATH and SADE.

Black Earth is released by the Hamburg based Wonder Records. How pleased are you with the deal and the distribution of the disc ?

WONDER does a great job here in Germany. There is a lot of work to do in the foreign countrys, but we hope this will change in the near future.

Talking of Bohren & Der Club Of Gore as a liveact, what is the main difference between studio to live for you and which environment do you enjoy most ?

The studio side is more important to us. It´s like creating your own personal record that you would like to hear over and over again. The live stuff is more kind of a bonus thing. We do it for the fans and to keep our record label pleased. Just a couple of concerts a year. 2002 we made 14 concerts which is pretty much for us.

What is the next plans for you,are you going to keep the direction of Black Earth to the next disc or will you do some changes, other projects, livedates etc. fill us in on your next plans.

We just released Black Earth so there are no planes for a new record right now. But there will be no big changes in our music, that is for sure. At the end of march we are going to do 4-5 concerts (one with or brothers in mind SUNN 0))) we hope). That`s it so far. We got no other side projects or stuff like that. We are working, and this will take the most of our time, so there will be no new BOHREN album for the next 2 -3 years I guess.

Any last words ?

Thanks Gabriel for your support. Sorry for the short answers, but my english is a litty bit rusty. Our website will get a english update soon, It is possible order BOHREN stuff at our website. Die hard !!!!

By Gabriel Lilliehook

Review of Black Earth at rec18.html

Order/Info www.smv.de mail jutta@smv.de

Website www.bohrenunderclubofgore.de