1.Can you give us an update on what has been going on with the band since the recording and release of the new album?
(Ola, Bass) Our last album, “Burn in Beautiful Fire”, came out in 2011. We have played shows and festivals, and went on some great tours supporting bigger metal-acts like In Flames, Trivium and Demon Hunter. That album actually got nominated for the Norwegian Grammy, but didn't win. Unfortunately.
When the interest started to fade out, we began the process of making new material for our next album , “De:Evolution”, which just came out.
We finished the recording of this record last August, but it took almost a year until it came out. Because of some unfortunate record company -issues, the release took half a year longer than we planned. In the waiting time we did some gigs, made a couple of music videos and released a few singles, and went on a small tour supporting the great “the Devin Townsend Project”.
2.Recently you have released a new album how would you describe the musical sound of the new recording and also how does it differ from the stuff you have released in the past?
“De:Evolution” is a continuing of what we did on our last two albums. The song structure is more or less the same, but we have tried to incorporate more melodies, heaviness and darkness into the songs. We are more to the point on this one. Have trimmed down the dead meat and filling parts.
We try to mix hard, brutal and dark elements with more soft, melodic and mellow parts. In the past, on our earlier records, it was all about aggression and brutality, but we have softened up a bit on our older days, hehe. Don't get me wrong, we are still a hard metal-band, but we are not afraid of dealing with other musical directions than just the extreme.
3.The band has been around for 15 years, what is it that motivates you to keep the band going after all of these years?
We like doing what we do. Just as simple as that. We are close friends and we have a lot of fun together, both in rehearsals and on tour. And of course, our music keep getting better for every album that we make. We see an advance in our songwriting, and slowly more and more people are getting into our music.
4.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the new album?
The thin, red line in our new album “De:Evolution”, is a reflection around human minds and progression in life. The lyrics touches topics related to the modern man and its stagnation of development. Seems like people of today are more interested in personal welfare, success and fame, than the strive of individual perfection and growth. We may have reached a point where we no longer develop, the evolution seems to have reversed and we are getting stupider and stupider as species. Such a misanthropic topic….
5.What is the meaning an inspiration behind the name 'Insense'?
There is no deep meaning behind the name ‘Insense'. It´s just a cool name (we think, at least). A friend of us came up whit that name a long, long time ago. And we liked it and thought it sounded kickass.
6.What are some of the best shows that the band has played over the years and also how would you describe your stage performance?
Playing shows at ice-hockey stadiums and in huge arenas on the In Flames/Trivium/Ghost/Rise to Remain/Insense-tour in 2011, was certainly something special.
Our stage performance is quite intense. Lots of sweat, headbanging, lights, a massive sound and excessive aggression are some keywords that describe our shows. We try to make a powerful appearance, and we want the audience feel like they have been eaten and digested by a dinosaur at the ending of our gigs.
7.Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?
Yeah, we have hopes and plans for tours and shows for the future. An issue for us right now is that we are in need of a decent booking-agency to book shows for us outside Norway. At this point, we have just a couple of shows booked, so we are working on the show-bit at the moment. Hope to get a tour booked for this autumn.
For a band like us, the perfect tour would be as a support act for a bigger band. Let´s face it, no one shows up for a small, Norwegian, unknown band on tour. We are dependent on a more famous band to tour with so we can expose our band to a bigger crowd, and hopefully reach out to some potential new fans.
8.Your manager is also the front man for In Flames, do you feel having a well known metal musician managing your band has done a lot of help when it comes to getting your music out there heard?
It sure draws some attention having a well known rock-star connected to your band. It´s kind of a quality stamp. Anders is a good man to have on board, having him on the team has opened some closed doors for us.
9.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your newer material by fans of extreme metal?
So far, we’ve got quite positive response from the metal-press. The feedback has been overwhelmingly good. Of course, some hate us as well and give us harsh criticism. But we are not used to lots of attention to our band, so we are happy for every review and every exposure that we can get. Good or bad.There will always be those angry metal guys hiding behind their computer keyboards, complaining how bad and shitty they think we are and how awful and inappropriate they find our music, but that is ok for us. Can't please them all, unfortunately. We focus on all the nice words we get, and are pleased to see that lots of people seem to like our new stuff.
10.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
I think we have sort of found our expression now. It took some time to find it, but on our tree past albums we have carved out some kind of a music-style that we are very proud of. Norwegian Correct Metal, we call it:) NCM, we take the best parts from every genres that we like, and make the correct metal, metal how it´s supposed to sound, hehe.
11.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
We have quite different taste in music, the four of us in the band. We have all a similar back catalogue containing bands like Metallica, Pantera, Meshuggah, Obituary, Death etc, but we listen to all sorts of music besides that. Everything from grindcore to sweet ballads. No techno or trance though…
12.What are some of your non musical interests?
Nothing very interesting, I'm afraid. We are quite a boring bunch of men. As we get older and our bodies seem to start working against us, we try to keep in some kind of shape. Some of us plays squash, others go for a run….zzzzz, and one of us is just letting his body expire. We are fans of good food and beer, zzzzzznore, and movies, serieszzzz and TV-games… yawn!…must…not..fall….to…sleep…from… this…über-boring……answer….Other than that, we are quite dull and total uninteresting as human beings… Unlike our band and our music, which is full of life and power. Next question please!
13.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Support bands that you like. Go to concerts, buy merch and music.
… And of course, check out our new record “De:Evolution”! It rocks hard!
(Ola, Bass) Our last album, “Burn in Beautiful Fire”, came out in 2011. We have played shows and festivals, and went on some great tours supporting bigger metal-acts like In Flames, Trivium and Demon Hunter. That album actually got nominated for the Norwegian Grammy, but didn't win. Unfortunately.
When the interest started to fade out, we began the process of making new material for our next album , “De:Evolution”, which just came out.
We finished the recording of this record last August, but it took almost a year until it came out. Because of some unfortunate record company -issues, the release took half a year longer than we planned. In the waiting time we did some gigs, made a couple of music videos and released a few singles, and went on a small tour supporting the great “the Devin Townsend Project”.
2.Recently you have released a new album how would you describe the musical sound of the new recording and also how does it differ from the stuff you have released in the past?
“De:Evolution” is a continuing of what we did on our last two albums. The song structure is more or less the same, but we have tried to incorporate more melodies, heaviness and darkness into the songs. We are more to the point on this one. Have trimmed down the dead meat and filling parts.
We try to mix hard, brutal and dark elements with more soft, melodic and mellow parts. In the past, on our earlier records, it was all about aggression and brutality, but we have softened up a bit on our older days, hehe. Don't get me wrong, we are still a hard metal-band, but we are not afraid of dealing with other musical directions than just the extreme.
3.The band has been around for 15 years, what is it that motivates you to keep the band going after all of these years?
We like doing what we do. Just as simple as that. We are close friends and we have a lot of fun together, both in rehearsals and on tour. And of course, our music keep getting better for every album that we make. We see an advance in our songwriting, and slowly more and more people are getting into our music.
4.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the new album?
The thin, red line in our new album “De:Evolution”, is a reflection around human minds and progression in life. The lyrics touches topics related to the modern man and its stagnation of development. Seems like people of today are more interested in personal welfare, success and fame, than the strive of individual perfection and growth. We may have reached a point where we no longer develop, the evolution seems to have reversed and we are getting stupider and stupider as species. Such a misanthropic topic….
5.What is the meaning an inspiration behind the name 'Insense'?
There is no deep meaning behind the name ‘Insense'. It´s just a cool name (we think, at least). A friend of us came up whit that name a long, long time ago. And we liked it and thought it sounded kickass.
6.What are some of the best shows that the band has played over the years and also how would you describe your stage performance?
Playing shows at ice-hockey stadiums and in huge arenas on the In Flames/Trivium/Ghost/Rise to Remain/Insense-tour in 2011, was certainly something special.
Our stage performance is quite intense. Lots of sweat, headbanging, lights, a massive sound and excessive aggression are some keywords that describe our shows. We try to make a powerful appearance, and we want the audience feel like they have been eaten and digested by a dinosaur at the ending of our gigs.
7.Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?
Yeah, we have hopes and plans for tours and shows for the future. An issue for us right now is that we are in need of a decent booking-agency to book shows for us outside Norway. At this point, we have just a couple of shows booked, so we are working on the show-bit at the moment. Hope to get a tour booked for this autumn.
For a band like us, the perfect tour would be as a support act for a bigger band. Let´s face it, no one shows up for a small, Norwegian, unknown band on tour. We are dependent on a more famous band to tour with so we can expose our band to a bigger crowd, and hopefully reach out to some potential new fans.
8.Your manager is also the front man for In Flames, do you feel having a well known metal musician managing your band has done a lot of help when it comes to getting your music out there heard?
It sure draws some attention having a well known rock-star connected to your band. It´s kind of a quality stamp. Anders is a good man to have on board, having him on the team has opened some closed doors for us.
9.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your newer material by fans of extreme metal?
So far, we’ve got quite positive response from the metal-press. The feedback has been overwhelmingly good. Of course, some hate us as well and give us harsh criticism. But we are not used to lots of attention to our band, so we are happy for every review and every exposure that we can get. Good or bad.There will always be those angry metal guys hiding behind their computer keyboards, complaining how bad and shitty they think we are and how awful and inappropriate they find our music, but that is ok for us. Can't please them all, unfortunately. We focus on all the nice words we get, and are pleased to see that lots of people seem to like our new stuff.
10.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
I think we have sort of found our expression now. It took some time to find it, but on our tree past albums we have carved out some kind of a music-style that we are very proud of. Norwegian Correct Metal, we call it:) NCM, we take the best parts from every genres that we like, and make the correct metal, metal how it´s supposed to sound, hehe.
11.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
We have quite different taste in music, the four of us in the band. We have all a similar back catalogue containing bands like Metallica, Pantera, Meshuggah, Obituary, Death etc, but we listen to all sorts of music besides that. Everything from grindcore to sweet ballads. No techno or trance though…
12.What are some of your non musical interests?
Nothing very interesting, I'm afraid. We are quite a boring bunch of men. As we get older and our bodies seem to start working against us, we try to keep in some kind of shape. Some of us plays squash, others go for a run….zzzzz, and one of us is just letting his body expire. We are fans of good food and beer, zzzzzznore, and movies, serieszzzz and TV-games… yawn!…must…not..fall….to…sleep…from… this…über-boring……answer….Other than that, we are quite dull and total uninteresting as human beings… Unlike our band and our music, which is full of life and power. Next question please!
13.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Support bands that you like. Go to concerts, buy merch and music.
… And of course, check out our new record “De:Evolution”! It rocks hard!
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