Interview with Smile Carved Sour 2009

By Bradley Smith

Hells Dag, it has been a long time since I interviewed you regarding Vesen.  You were one of my very first interviews (the 5^th).  But this time around I want to concentrate on Smile Carved Sour.  Your newest album Puppet Death has finally made it to my ears and I must say it is a seriously tripped out affair.  What sort of creative goals do you have when you record as SCS?

Hola, Brad! SCS for us is musical freedom. Anything goes, and so there’s not really any defined creative goal, it’s more of a “the journey is the goal” kind of thing. There’s a lot of jamming in the writing process, with no real limitations, so the end result kan be quite fortuitous.

Basically all the song titles on Puppet Death feature Puppet references.  What is the concept of Puppet Death?  I mean I know it says a Morbid Puppet Show in 9 Parts but what is the whole motivation behind this theme?  Where did the idea for it originate?

The Puppet Death release is basically the shabby remains of a sound recording of the experimental puppet theatre pieces we did in the 50’s. These were designed to challenge conservative perceptions of life and death, most interestingly those of people less educated. The true art of the show found place in the moments that these people were confronted with these issues, and in their subsequent reactions and interaction with the puppet show and the theatre troupe itself.

On Puppet Death you did a cover of The Residents’ Bach is Dead.  Why did you choose that song and how does it fit into the concept of Puppet Death? 

“Duck Stab” is a fantastic album in many ways, and I saw it fit to include it in our own work, so as hopefully to steal some of its magic. They’re hogging the magic, dammit.

It seems to me that there are a lot of Eccentric Norwegian bands such as Virus, Vulture Industries, Arcturus, Ved Buens Ende, etc.  Where do you see SCS in relation to your peers?  What similarities do you see between your counterparts and what differences exist?  Why does Norway hold bands that are so strange in their musical and artistic ideals?

I don’t see this as a Norwegian phenomenon at all. You could expand that list infinitely just delving into the vast flora of experimental and intuitive music out there. We’ve been compared to Ved Buens Ende and Virus by many people, but to me that’s just a lazy conclusion based on the fact that I love those bands, those two being the only ones that these people have heard of.

Of course we couldn’t have an interview without at least touching on Vesen.  I see from your second album that your music is getting a little more primitive, harsh, and barbaric.  How do you see Vesen developing?  What is the status of Vesen in relation to a record deal and how far along is album #3?

Yeah, I guess you could say it’s getting back down to more primitive stuff now. We’ve always pushed ourselves technically, and also experimented a bit, to give ourselves a little room songwriting-wise, but we’re done pushing our limits now, and we wanna take things back a notch to just focus on writing good songs. Our next album should definitely be more primitive in a sense, I think we have all the songs ready for it now, we just need to arrange them and hammer them into shape. We dream of recording it next year, but you never know.

In our first interview you said that SCS is a liberated Garden of Eden.  Can you delve a little deeper into what you mean?  Do you think that people in general hold you as a musician within rigid musical structures?  I mean do you feel they want your compositions to conform to a preconceived notion of what you are “allowed” to do when writing your songs?

Well, like I mentioned earlier, anything goes in SCS. When we play with Vesen, we have self-imposed rules and frames that we enjoy working within, but although we’re both big thrash metal fans, we have much more music in us than just that, and SCS is that outlet for us. Which I guess means that you won’t find much thrash metal in SCS, since those bits go into Vesen, but pretty much anything else. And it’s simply fantastic to just fucking play and not give a rat’s ass whether whatever comes out “fits the concept”.

I certainly do think that a lot of people, especially in metal, are so dictated by tradition that it has halted the evolution of the genre. There are a lot of do’s and don’ts, and the fact that so much of the music out there sounds the same just tells me that many people are either afraid of exploring new territories, for whatever reason, or have been indoctrinated into thinking the old ways are the only ways.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t make retro music, I do that myself with Vesen, but the protectionists have all but wiped out the pioneers. I love metal, and it would be sad to have to conclude that it died in the 90’s.

I noticed that Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was thanked on your most recent Vesen album.  Are you a pastafarian?  What do you think of this whole religious mockery that this pseudo religion stands for?

That’s something our bass player wanted to put there, so I’m not championing it, but I certainly am in favour of anything that questions and provokes the disease that is organized religion.

You are fairly active on Facebook.  What do you make of all this modern social networking that is helping along the process of making this world smaller and more interconnected?  Do you feel that the world will only grow smaller in this context and what direction and technologies do you see future socializing headed towards? 

I’ve actually just been on the thing for a short while and am still trying to figure it out. I don’t really have any strong opinions about it, but in terms of music, sites like myspace certainly help in spreading and finding the more obscure artists.

Now back to music, with so many different instruments and styles working their way into the SCS material I was wondering what were some of your favourite non-metal instruments.  What non-metal genres do you see as your biggest influence on SCS.

I don’t really have any preferred instrument other than that I know how to play that horn, so we use that, and I think it adds some identity to SCS, but really it could be any instrument as long as we’d find it interesting enough. No immediate plans to branch out, though.

Certainly jazz and noise music has influenced SCS a lot in terms of attitude and how to approach music. Freedom is the key word.

One of the aims of Puppet Death appears to be to challenge the ideas of life and death held by ignorant conservatives.  What specifically do you feel needs to be challenged?  Also it would appear the target of this experimental theatre were European rural country dwellers.  How do you feel their view on these issues was different than that of the city residents?

I think I touched on this in an earlier answer, every person needs to question absolute truths, think them through and come to their own conclusions, even though they may be the same conclusions as in those absolute truths. Just accepting what other people tell you is just not healthy, it could be down-right dangerous, and certainly annoying.

The rural country dwellers were just in general less educated than the city residents, and as such in more dire need of a wake-up call.

What are your Future Plans both personally and in regards to SCS and Vesen?  Any concerts coming up for Vesen?

SCS is quite time-consuming, and we haven’t had the spare time to do anything with it for about 4-5 years now. But our two releases are out there, as statements of intent. They’re not perfect in any way, but the idea and concept is there for all to see. I really have no idea what will happen with SCS in the future, if anything at all, but you never know.

As for Vesen, there are plans for more concerts following our newly released album, but none official as of now.

It has been good to come full circle and once again conduct a timely interview with you Dag.  I’ll leave any final words of Rural Morbidity to you.

Elmer lives.