Interviews About Albums: Adverse96 - Clear The Lane (2023)

In this new interview, we sat down with the Belgian Hardcore/Punk Rock band Adverse96 to ask some questions about their album "Clear The Lane". 

1. What can you say about "Clear The Lane"?

 

It's our first full-length album and the first album in our careers as musicians that we fully produced by ourselves, from A to Z. I (Laurent) remodeled my garage into a home studio in 2019 and started taking online mixing courses from Jordan Valeriote (Silverstein, etc...), while Philip started learning the Mastering process, we've been recording several bands, covers and other projects ever since, I think over 25 songs in total and a few short albums, I was taking care of the tracking and mixing process while Philip was mastering the tracks right after, working hand in hand to make it sound the best we can. Besides, I've been a video content creator for over 15 years now so the music video process went buttery smooth, and next to that, you got Sambo our bass player who is a really talented illustrator and took care of the visual and graphic side of the album. The goal, really, was to do everything by ourselves and see what we could come up with, and we're really stoked by the overall results, tho we know it can be better and we can set the bar higher for the next album, but it sounds really good to us and better than all the albums we've recorded before with other bands we played with.

 

2. What is the meaning of the album name?

 

Clear The Lane to us means "give us some space", here we are and we're here to stay, whether you like us or not.

3. Is there a composer on "Clear The Lane"?

Me and Philip, I usually compose the darker, post-hardcorish minor stuff, while Philip writes more positive, major material, sometimes we mix both, but you'll notice these bright and dark sides across the Album. That's on the music side of things, the lyrics are all written by me, except for one song (Rubin Carter) where I stole the Lyrics from Bob Dylan, the story goes like this: I was in my home studio writing the music, and needed lyrics to give it a go and see how it sounded, next thing you know the first lyric sheet I found next to me was Bob Dylan lyrics from "Hurricane", I'm a big fan and always have a stack of lyrics ready to use whenever I need'em, and so I gave it a try and it matched like instantly to the song, so I decided to leave it as is. Besides, I really do believe that the way Bob Dylan sings, the flow, and the many words he uses in sentences are kind of rap, and if you listen to this song from us (and Bob Dylan) you'll notice that too, for sure! Also, we got Efrem Schulz from Death By Stereo who accidentally landed in my home studio and added some features on the second verse, how crazy is that!

4. If you had to pick one song from this new album, which one would you pick?

The rest of the band will probably not agree but to me, it'll be "Destinies", because the lyrics are related to my autistic condition, and I love the overall way they match the music, it's a simple song really, but less is more...

5. Is there a special message in "Clear The Lane"? If there is what it is?

There ain't no general message, songs are basically telling real-life things happening to me, usually negative shit, most artists know that it's the painful stuff that inspires you the most while writing lyrics, it goes from my brother with a schizophrenic condition, and all the shit that happened because of that back in the day when I was a teenager, to black lives matter, animal rights, racism, and far-right groups rising all around Europe, and other stuff I can't think of right now...

6. Are there some lyrics that you'd love to share?

I'd like to share all of them, mainstream music has no real purpose other than entertainment, which I do understand, but alternative music's only purpose if we may call it a "purpose", is sharing a message and trying to make people rethink their way of thinking... If one dude changes his mind about, say a racism issue, when he reads or listens to my lyrics, just one dude, then I honestly think I've accomplished something big because he's gonna change his mind and share it with his fellas and things will snowball from there.

7. Which inspirations have been important for this album? Like musically or friends, family, someone you'd love to thank especially?

I think it's about all the bands, all of us, listen to. Whether it's punk rock, hardcore, hip hop, or grunge, a good song is a good song, it doesn't matter the package... If I had to personally name a few it'll be: Defeater, Touche Amore, Tiny Moving Parts, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine, Pennywise, Get Dead, Dr. Dre, I don't know, there are so many...

8. Something to add maybe?

Listen to our stuff, it's different from the rest...