No
Omega are an awesome band from Sweden whose sound straddles the line between
contemporary screamo and more straight-forward hardcore ala Hope Con or MLIW. I
heard about them recently due the fact that my friends over at Protagonist
Music are helping to release their new one-sided LP “Occupants”. I’m always
curious to see what Protagonist has up their sleeve and was blown away when I
checked out No Omega, particularly their disturbing and yet incredible video
for “Comfort”.
I
decided to drop them a line to learn a little bit more and had the following
exchange with Daniel. Make absolutely sure you check out “Occupants” when it
drops next month.
Sweden
obviously has a somewhat legendary hardcore and punk scene in certain
respects....talk a little bit about your first experiences with the music,
including some of the first bands you discovered, shows you went to, etc. What
are some lesser known Swedish bands that people should check out that perhaps
had a hand in introducing you to things?
I got into hardcore through indie rock more than metal or
punk like most do. Hence, I listened mostly to stuff like At the Drive-In,
Refused and The Blood Brothers, and went on from there. My first DIY
hardcore-esque show was when my old band put up a show with Suis la Lune, a
band that always will be very dear to me. Around then there was some great
screamo in Sweden, like Amalthea and Anemone. There was also a band that has been
a great influence to us artistically called Meleeh! There are SO many good
bands coming out of Sweden, punk and non-punk so I could make an endless list
but currently some of my favourites are: Sore Eyelids, Via Fondo, This Gift is
a Curse, Scraps of Tape and Mattias Alkberg.
Give a
little bit of background on how all of you guys came together as musicians.
Over the course of a demo, two LP's and now a new e.p., how would you say the
band has grown and changed, both sonically as well as lyrically?
Right, so I guess everyone who started the band had been in
various bands together before forming No Omega, and after some people leaving
the band, especially our old singer Andreas, we were forced to essentially
reform the band. Oscar who used to play guitar picked up the microphone, which
made a lot of sense since he's written a majority of the lyrics from day one.
We brought in our best friend Joakim to play the bass, and we now are faced
with a situation where we will be touring with a somewhat rotating lineup this
year, with me and Oscar being the only constant members at shows.
From the beginning Oscar and Andreas wrote most of the music
and lyrics, with me coming in a bit more after a few releases. On the past
record, “Shame”, and on this new one we've had more of a conversation within
the band about the themes and direction of what we're doing which is great.
No Omega's always had quite simple song structures, without
a bunch of guitar solos or flashy playing, focusing more on mood and an overall
texture to the songs I guess... With the new record we pushed it a bit, and I
added a lot of more guitar than what we're used to. We always have a core of
what is our band with every release, but try to widen the pallet of what we can
do, as the band evolves and our influences in life changes.
I usually see the records very loosely as different style,
with the first ep being more post-metal, “Metropolis” as the melodic hardcore
one, “Shame” the fake-black metal one, and this new one I guess has nu screamo
and post-rock as the new thing going.
Lyrically, it's always been within the same general area but
about different aspects of it. A world that is wrong can either make you feel
angry, sad or just hopeless, and we try to take up the various ways things are
wrong and often more in a ”this makes me feel this” kinda way than ”this guy's
an asshole”.
You
guys have worked with a bunch of different labels; Thirty Days of Night, Get
This Right, the last record on Throatruiner and now the new effort being
co-released by Dog Knights and Protagonist. How have those working relationships
been, and more recently, how did you hook up with Dog Knights and the homies
Brendan and Bill from Protagonist?
Our relationship with Mathias and Throatruiner was great, he
helped us a lot and was easy to work with, we liked his ethics and he'd released
some great bands, so with him it was us contacting him.
Darren had been wanting to do something with us for a while
but it didn't really work out, and now when we decided to try him after seeing
him doing some great work for our friends in bands like Disembarked and
Shirokuma we couldn't be more happy – his part in this record is very important
and it's been great.
For Protagonist we'd just seen some good music coming out of
them for a while and when we got in touch it turned out they were into our band
so!
In
terms of the rotating line-up, I imagine that's due to work/school commitments.....what
are the logistics like in terms of pulling that off with people playing
different instruments and doing different things in the context of your live
performance?
Yeah pretty much. We've only taken in good friends of ours
to play, and now that everyone live in Stockholm again it's quite easy to just
go out and practice with them. Right now we're playing with our real bass
player and two extras, which just means I have to play the old songs a lot more
than I'd have wanted haha.
We've been lucky enough to have found friends who are able
to play our songs and share similar views and ethics, and don't feel like the
picture of the band is being tainted or anything.
You guys have toured quite a bit over the last several years, often with some fairly big bands (Touche Amore, Birds in Row) and sometimes with those who are a little less well-known (This Routine is Hell). How do those tours compare and in general do you prefer the exposure of playing a big room or the intimacy of something a bit smaller?
We've only really done one actual ”big room” tour and that
was with Touche. Some shows on that tour were cool but generally the promoters
didn't really care about us and a lot of people who'd come out to see us missed
our slot with the venue not having our stage time properly announced. But it's
whatever. I mainly care about being out with people I like and the people doing
shows for us being decent. I don't have a problem with a big stage but usually
the 100-200 cap rooms are the best!
There
was a reference on your Facebook a while ago about "planning a world
tour"....what are the chances that we might see you guys over here in the
States at some point?
Might take a little while, but the US is on the list! I
didn't really enjoy my last first tour over there, so I hope to get another
chance. We'll be doing most of Europe and another part of the world we haven't
announced yet this year mainly!
Yeah in
the States you always hear American bands that have traveled to Europe talk
about how much more awesome bands get treated, the shows are generally better
and there is a difference sense of hospitality. As a European who has toured
the States, what did you see as the biggest differences and why do you think
those differences exist? Is punk and hardcore just a lot more popular there,
are there cultural differences that make Europeans appreciate touring artists
to a different degree?
It's hard to tell what makes the differences exist, like I
don't think Americans are shittier people than Germans... I guess it's just
cultural, and the English speaking countries might've had bands going around to
play for longer, or I don't know. In England it's not AS bad as in the States
when it comes to hospitality at shows, but they're not far from it. My experience
in the US was that there barely was a promoter each night; just a room with a
small PA and a microphone and then a FB event say what five local bands were
opening for us each night. Like... it didn't feel like there was anything
demanded of a promoter, which to me is weird. Decent food, a decent place to
sleep and a working PA with as many microphones as you actually need are basic
parts of a DIY show. If you can't even deliver that you shouldn't have booked
the bands from the start.
I am aware we played a lot of odd shows though, and that
there is a real DIY scene in the States also, we just didn't see it too much.
Loads of the shows, like the 25 minutes we played, were great though! People
were really nice and interested in our band, and that was a great thing, way
more than we expected!
So the
music video for "Comfort" is incredibly powerful, offering a chilling
look at humanity. I'm curious if you could first talk a little bit about the
visual concepts you had in mind. Also, you offered a little bit of narrative
online about your thoughts on how our culture is based on dominance and things
of that nature, I was hoping you could expand a little bit more on that.
We were aiming at having two very different videos for the
record, and one would be really raw and abrasive and capture something we can't
really say without those pictures. Chariot of Black Moth helped us out and the
end product was way better than I'd expected of such a concept.
Well. Essentially, what we mean is that it's quite obvious
how our species as a whole isn't the missing link or the cause of all problems,
making us behave like we do. It's an issue of culture that not that many
critics of the human behaviour talk about. They quickly start blaming humanity
itself, for things like capitalism, sexism and the destruction of our planet,
when we know that people went on fine for a long time not messing with the
order of things.
Alright
last question. If a person only took away one thing from No Omega, be it from
the live experience or from listening to your music and reading your lyrics,
what impression would you hope they come away with?
That's a good question. Even though we're a generally dystopic
and negative band, I wish they picked up what's said between the lines about
issues we want to correct and try to make their lives more cruelty-free and
have a better impact on their surroundings. I've had a few people going through
rough parts of their lives coming up and talking about how our band has... maybe
not helped, but been a support to deal with their issues, and that is sooo
humbling. So whether our records and shows make you speak up the next time a
friend uses a homophobic slur, or get you one step closer to being vegan, or
just help you through a shitty day that's great.
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