Interviews About Albums: Discraded Self - Discarded Self (2021)

1. What can you say about your new self-titled album?

Well first off, thanks for taking the time to interview me, I really enjoy discussing this project and heavy music in general. It's kind of my thing. Anyways I could tell a hundred things about this project, but I think I should just tell you this - this project was never really meant to get any attention, it wasn't intended to get on a record label, and it wasn't really supposed to be an album. It was really just me doing some recording in my studio for myself. It was meant to just be a hobby recording project!

After I recorded and released a few songs, I was starting to get a lot of positive feedback from friends and the internet. So I decided to use my 2020 quarantine time to the fullest and record enough songs to make an album out of it. I was actually only a few weeks away from having everything complete and released on Bandcamp when I became in contact with Sarcophagus Recordings and they wanted to make a run out of it with this album. I was pretty surprised and happy that someone else believed in my project and we went for it. If I were to say anything else about this album, I would say that this is some of the angriest stuff I've ever written, and I learned a lot creating it. I know every mistake and flaw on the album so I know how to do even better in the future.

2. Why did you decide to title your album after your band name? 

I kind of felt in the beginning of this project that I didn't have a favourite song to name it after, and the name Discarded Self kind of sums up what the overall theme of the album was about. Each song has its own story or topic, and each song can stand alone by itself, have meaning or purpose to a different person, so yaeah, it was pretty hard to narrow in on a name that could do it justice, so I just went with self titled. I did have the name “Cultist of the Pentagram” in my head however, but I ended up turning that idea into song #6, and I didn't feel like naming the album after the song would properly describe the album as a whole after it was all done. It's a mix of self loathing, hatred fuel, satanic, depressive, horror worshipping sludge metal. If I can find a word that sums all that up, I'll use that as the name of the next album! Haha!

3. How does the composing process work with Discarded Self? How did the drumming guests add to the writing process? 

Composing this album was a total breeze. There wasn't really anything holding me back, and I got really lucky and scored all of the drummers I wanted on the album. Basically when I went to write a song, I already had almost all of the riffs already made from storing them up in my head and video recording them on my cell phone's camera. I would take my material, go downstairs into my studio, set my bass guitar on my left and two 6 string guitars on my right, and just start recording my ideas and piece stuff together.

Lots of stuff didn't work right away, so I would just freestyle out some new stuff that I thought would flow well with the main riffs. For the most part I would be able to fully compose and record the stringed instruments in a few hours per song. After I had my guitars completed I would send a MP3 track to the drummer for that track, and let them stew on it, and we would only record the drums when they had some solid ideas. Some of the drums we had to change when in the recording process, but that's just how it goes making music. You got to go with the flow.

I got really lucky with what the drummers did on this album, they fed off my guitar techniques and strumming cues really well, and I'm pretty proud of what they accomplished. After the drums were totally complete, I would let loose as much hate fuelled lyrics as the songs had room for. I really went 100% on the lyrics, because personally I’m a believer that lyrics make or break songs, and I really hate writing something with shitty lyrics that had no effort behind them. The way I write lyrics is, I let the song play, and I go along with it writing as the song plays, counting syllables, and solidifying my delivery. I go and practice how it goes until it feels just right then I shriek my guts out into the mic until my voice blows out or the song is complete. That's basically the whole process.

4. If you have to pick one favorite song from the album, which one would you pick, and why?

You caught me on a day that I can actually answer this question! I honestly really am proud of everything I did on this album and it's really hard to pick, but just today I gave the album another listen and I can't deny that the song “Orbitoclast” is probably my favourite song on the album for more than one reason. It's also the first song that I released on this album that got a lot of positive attention and people talking about it, and I even gained a few awesome fans early on. It was because of all of the positive reactions from that song that fully inspired me to put all of my effort into this album, and the energy of the drums and vocals on that song just get your head banging.

5. What is the general message in your new album?

I’m a really angry person. It sounds shitty, and it is. I have a lot of hate and anger built up inside of me from experiences throughout my life. I use music as a way to channel that energy, and I try to get it out. It’s much better if I make music like this then facing some of the alternatives. I'm sure you can imagine what some of those alternatives are. The music itself is a pillar of hate, nothing more, nothing less. The only real message I'm putting out there, is for other people like me, that maybe the music can help others channel their anger by listening instead of reacting, like so many bands helped me when I was going through some of my hardest times.

6. Are there some lyrics that you´d love to share right now, and why? 

Sure! Since we were talking about favourite songs, why don't I share some lyrics that strongly summarize what I was writing some the stories of the album about! This is the opening line of the song Orbitoclast: "Distressed, Discomfort, Disassociated, Disaster, Distorted, Disconnected"

Those lyrics are some of the feelings you experience when going through different stages of depression. I found it amazing that so many strong words that accurately describe depression, all started with this. There’s actually still a pile more, but those are the ones I went with.

7. Which inspirations haven been important for this album? Like musically or friends, family, someone you'd love to thanks specially?

I would like to specially thank the year 2020 for being the most awful, depressing, confusing, oppressive, and downright criminal year I've ever experienced in my life. It gave me all the inspiration needed to lay out my complete onslaught of hatred towards the world and its gang of string pullers. I’ve never felt so personally held down and controlled by laws and rules, and being the naturally rebellious person that I am, it's like emptying a tanker full of gas upon an already lit wildfire. I am actually getting super mad right now even talking about it.

8. Something to add?

Thank you again for this opportunity to talk, and I would like to add that my album drops on April 30th on Sarcophagus Recordings. Listen to it, share it with your friends and people you hate. I'm actually making a limited run of CD copies that will have a full 12 page lyric insert inside. You’re the first person I've actually told about the CDs! Also this isn't going to be a one and done project, I'm currently writing some more stuff, and I'm coming back with total vengeance. Cheers and keep rocking Breathing the Core!