After 4 years of fun and great times spent together, the members of the band are going… the same way together again! Here’s a story about the art of breaking up without parting ways. But these guys apparently still love each other dearly. That’s why they will keep hugging each other, but under a different moniker. I caught up with the band for a little chat to learn more about some of the reasons behind shutting down the well-known brand and rising again, with a different style, but the same group of dedicated people, sharing the same, passionate approach to art. Let’s hope hitting the droning, psychedelic black metal path won’t be a let down for us, the listeners.
TODOS CAERÁN‘s second full length “Town of Cats“ was premiered last year on IDIOTEQ. Head over here to see the full feature and read my first interview with the band. Our recent chit-chat is available below.
TODOS CAERÁN calls it quits – this sounds like a nightmare for quite a lot of people out there, especially in the current era of your exceptional release “Town Of Cats”. What happened? Why are you parting your ways?
I guess we didn’t exactly communicate the situation very clearly. It’s more of a change of name and direction than a break up. The band will still have all the same members.
After we finished recording Town of Cats, we decided to try writing heavier stuff. But, for whatever reason, it was taking us a really long time to get songs finished and I think we all started to lose interest in the band. Then one day we tried out committing to an even heavier, more metal style and it worked out really well. It’s something we’ve all been looking to do with various side-projects for a while now so in retrospect it seems like a natural direction to take!
We considered keeping the name but we’re really tired of explaining it all the time. Also, this has actually just occurred to me, I rather like the idea of taking a page out of George Costanza’s book and leaving on a high note.
Ha! Good to hear that! So, what’s the name of this new project and what musical direction do you want to take this time? Is it very far from the post hardcore / screamo subgenre you’ve been developing since 2010?
We haven’t settled on a name yet, but we’ve got a few we’re throwing around. In terms of genre, overall we’re definitely inspired by atmospheric black metal like ASH BORER. Of course, we don’t really intend to strictly adhere to that genre and, as was always the case with TODOS, will each bring our own personal interests/influences into our writing. As for screamo/hardcore? After writing it for so long there’ll probably always be little bit of it in there somewhere.
You’ll be doing your farewell show on November 22nd to support Hardcore 4 Humanity. Can you tell us more about that gig, other bands that will show uo to support you guys, and the idea of this charity?
It was sort of an happy accident that this turned out to be our last show. I think it was maybe a week after we’d decided to end Todos that Mattie (of Clean Up Your Act Productions) asked us if we would play it. So it turned out to be pretty convenient! Although, when it comes to our own material, we’re not the most nostalgic of people. Thus there’s definitely a chance that this might be less of a final Todos show and more of a first show for the new band. It will depend on how confident we are about the new songs/how interested we’ll be in playing old TODOS stuff.
Mattie’s shows tend to bring together bands from a variety of scenes, so I’m actually not super familiar with the other bands playing the show. It’ll be cool to see some new stuff! I believe the charity the show is supporting hasn’t been confirmed yet, but in previous years (it’s an annual event) the money made has been donated to organizations providing support to a few different shelters and outreach programs for the homeless, especially those focusing on youth.
Oh no. Please don’t do that and serve a proper goodbye for the lovers of your Todos heritage :) You’ll have plenty of time to present the new project on stage, won’t you? What are some of the plans for the new chapter? How many tracks do you have already written? Can we expect a new record sometime soon?
No promises. We don’t really have any plans for the new band as of yet, we’re still sort of figuring it out. We’re in the process of writing two new songs and are also sort of converting two songs that were originally going to be for TODOS to fit the new band. In terms of records, we’re not really sure. We have definitely talked about finding alternatives to releasing on vinyl though. While we love vinyl, it can be really expensive to not only have pressed in the first place, but just shipping records to people costs a lot. It also takes a really long time to get a record pressed, especially with bigger labels jumping the line at the plant all the time. We’ve had records that by the time we actually have copies to sell, we had stopped playing any of the songs on them because we had already been playing them for so long. We’re looking for something that will be less expensive (for both us and anyone buying it from us) with a faster turn around time. Tapes are sort of the obvious option, but we’ve got a couple other ideas we’re talking about.
Oh, so there’s no fuel to launch a touring machine, huh? How do you recall your Summer tour? How was that California trek? Are you already hungry for more?
We would love to do more touring, but that is easier said than done due to the inescapable reality of living in a neo-liberal, capitalist, patriarchal society at the dawn of the 21st century. Here is a dramatization that helps illustrate our situation (see the video below).
Our tour this summer was great! America is weird but has lots of cool people who we will hopefully get to see again when we eventually take the new band on the road. Some of us are already hungry for more, but others would like to wait for a while before getting back into the touring game. I anticipate lots of tears and group hugs will be involved in deciding our course of action.
Ok guys. Thanks a lot for this quick update. Let’s keep in touch and unveil a bit more about your new project whenever you’re ready. Have dun with your new project!
Feel free to add anything you like here.
Oh no, thank you!!! We really appreciate that you have been so supportive! We’ll let you know when we’ve got something new ready!
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TODOS CAERÁN Tumblr
TODOS CAERÁN Bandcamp
TODOS CAERÁN BigCartel
[email protected]
