Skaphos Line UP:Stéphan Petitjean : Vocals / Guitars,Jeremy Tronyo on Guitar,Theo Langlois on Bass and Paul Sordet on Drums
Well,Friends Of Aristocracy!
We will now begin, in all its emotions, the fifty-first interview of the Aristocracy with the French band Skaphos founded in 2018.The band Skaphos showing us their second full album titled Thoi.The band combines Death\Black with high intensity and a lot of fury. made on tour with I am Morbid, Belphegor and the historic Polish band Hate.Since they have already played shows with another historical Polish band that is Vader and will soon arrive in Romania, to play, among other wonderful bands, the spectacular Marduk. thanks to Bloody News. A Romanian web magazine that showed us about the show in his homeland and of course to Stephan.Full album now!
A1:Talking about the composition work in Thooi ?
Stephan Petitjean:Hello and thank you for the interview ! When we write an album we really like to take our time, so we did a first demo with few riffs, then we made a break of few months and come back on it again, made a second demo until we find the best balance between the riffing and athmosphere. We put everything together to made a story out of it.
A2:Each band of their style or similar, treats the abyss in a way. How is your way to treat this abyss and see this planet already in the process of the abyss in the stimulating for the band in terms of music?
Stephan Petitjean:The abyss is full of mysteries and legends, almost nothing is known down there. We really like to get inspired from few writtings but the most of our way to treat this abyss is to make our own mythology and story out of it. For this album « Thooi » is an entity, a god hidden in the depths, that only few humans have been able to experience this horrible dread under nightmarish conditions. « Thooi » transcribes the fear of men facing this nightmare.
A3:DOSEY is a code for something ?
Stephan Petitjean:The numbers between the letters represent the time at which this title was written. « Dosey » was at the beginning a running joke between the bands members related to interlude from the first album « Bathyscaphe ». When you put these two interludes together, a special code will appear, and this will maybe help you to escape from the drowning.
A4:Can we find some philosophical references in the band?
Stephan Petitjean:There is no philosopy in the abyss. Of course you could make some philosophical thoughts about our music, but it's not our job.
A5:Besides thanking him, what would lovecraft say about heavy metal putting him on a pedestal almost like a deity ?
Stephan Petitjean:I don't know about what Lovecraft would say, but he will be proud to be a part of the underground culture. It's still a great inspiration for a lot of bands like « The Great Old Ones » who dedicate their all music to this writter. For us, it's one of the biggest inspiration to write our music for sure.
A6:Of course you're french and it's natural that you make songs in your mother tongue. But was that to not lose the meaning or something that came naturally ?
Stephan Petitjean:Of course it's easier to feel when we write songs in our mother tongue but it's also because french language feat really well for that kind of music and it's too bad that not that much band especially in our music genre use english instead of french when they are french.
A7:Black and Death are allies. But do you think that one overlaps the other, at least in the case of Skaphos?
Stephan Petitjean:For us, it's really important that we use Black or Death part with an appropriate sense behind. We akways try to find a good balance with really heavy and powerful parts mixed with melancolical and sads moment but always in a epic touch. So it's really depends of songs, for « Thooi », some songs are almost only Death and the others only Black or together at the same time. But i think that we are defenetly more Black than Death at the end.
A8:How is Skaphos different from other projects?
Stephan Petitjean:We would say that musically we dont do a traditionnal Black Death music, we have a lot of different inspirations, sometimes jazzy, sometimes really athmospheric and bizarre with this french touch.. We love a lot of different kind of genre and you can feel in the music.
A9:What´s the idea behind artwork´s album?
Stephan Petitjean:As you can see in the middle stays the god « Thooi » in this ruins temple, he hold the fish from the first album « Bathyscaphe » and you can see in the righht corner the bathyscaphe. The listener have the scene in front of him and he is ready to drive in the sea with us.
A10:What band mean with Cephalopoda?
Stephan Petitjean:It's about a big creature out of a Cephalopode in french, we called the song like that because this song was really heavy and sticky, like this big monster that we created.
A11:Explain the second song,please?
Stephan Petitjean:L'éveil de Thooï means literally the awakening of Thooï, it's the start of the nightmare.
A12:Can the wizard Crowley also be a good source for the band's evil side?
Stephan Petitjean:It's a really good dark and interested writter, why not in the future !
A13:Should we question whether there is good?
Stephan Petitjean:In the abyss everything can exist, i guess it would be a bit boring if there is no entity in this world or around.
A14:This album is conceptual?yes or no and why?
Stephan Petitjean:This album is the next page from « Bathyscaphe »,i would say it's half conceptual, with a lot of differents colors related to the fear of the nothing,to the mysteries out of legends that the man can make, and the madness who results out of all of it.It's better to stay away from that for you health.
A15:What kind of subject don´t deserve a Skaphos song?
Stephan Petitjean:Defenetly politics and religions topic.
A16:How did the invitation to play with the supreme Marduk happen?
Stephan Petitjean:We had the opportunity to made tour last year with Vader, it was succesfull, and Massive Music sent us to make kind of the same with Marduk. We hope it's just the beginning.
A17:Is it better to think of the human being as agony than an animal for health?
Stephan Petitjean:The humanity don't deserve to be on this planet, they should disappear for such a long time already. Unfortunatly, we are still there, so let's make extreme music !
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