Interview: Scour
The sound is harkening back to the more primitive, punk roots of black metal when it was just emerging and it's taking that and then putting kind of a modern twist on it.
Scour are a veritable extreme music supergroup that consists of Phil Anselmo (Pantera/Down) on vocals, John Jarvis (Agoraphobic Nosebleed) on bass, Derek Engemann (Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals, ex Cattle Decapitation) and Mark Kloeppel (Misery Index) on guitar and Adam Jarvis (Pig Destroyer) on drums. The bands debut full length album Gold is out very soon and is a feast of black metal inspired darkness. Gavin Brown caught up with Mark Kloeppel to discuss the release of Gold, Scour’s live shows, the band’s black metal influence and what his other band Misery Index have got planned next.
E&D: The debut Scour album Gold is coming out very soon. How excited are you to be finally bringing this one out?
Mark: Yeah, it’s been a while in the making. Man, we’re pretty stoked that we’re finally getting to it. We did a series of EPs, just kind of testing the waters. When it first started, it was very tentative, it was just a studio project that John and Derek were doing in the backstage rooms on tour, while John was tour managing one of the bands Derek was in and when they finally had some songs, they said, who can we get to sing for this? How about Phil Anselmo? And they sent it to him, thinking, we’re not going to get a reply. But instead, he said, I’ll kill it, and they proceeded to start working on the first EP, and that turned into two and turned into three. Then Adam and I joined the band along the way, and, and now we’re on to our full length record, man. So things just keep kind of evolving, and we’re just going with the flow, doing it on our own time with whatever works. We’re very excited about it, because everybody’s super into it.
E&D: Is it a challenge getting everyone together because of every band members separate musical activities?
Mark: I don’t know. It’s really a challenge. We just get together as we can. So when we figure out, we keep tabs on everyone else’s schedule, and then we set aside time for it.
E&D: What are the biggest influence on the sound of Gold and how did the creation of the album go?
Mark: Well, I didn’t write any of these songs. Derek Engemann is the primary songwriter. So the way this works is, Derek will start demoing songs, and then he will go individually to myself, Adam, John and Philip, and get feedback on how things are going in the direction, and gather ideas and stuff. But ultimately he’s the one that puts it all together. And then modifies things with Philip, based on how Philip is seeing the vocals laying into the songs. Philip writes all the lyrics and does that bit, if they can figure out a spot for guitar solos and stuff like that. Then they hand that over to me to do my thing, and I send that in. That’s generally how that works, but as far as influences go, I mean, that’s more on Derek and less on me. I have some influences for lead guitar playing and things like that, but essentially the sound is harkening back to the more primitive, punk roots of black metal when it was just emerging and it’s taking that and then putting kind of a modern twist on it, never forgetting the minimalism and primitivism, and then adding these melodic theme atmospheres. So that’s generally what it is, you can find a bunch of early, primitive black metal and, and you’re the direct correlation. There’s not like a symphony behind it, or keyboards and stuff.
E&D: So you still wanted to keep that raw nature with this album?
Mark: Yeah, there’s basically some opposing context there. On one hand, we do want a big, clear production, we want you to be able to hear what’s going. On the other hand, we don’t want to lose the raw character. So on Gold, I thought we did a good job of achieving that.
E&D: With Gold, being your first full length album, and your previous EPs being so well received, did you feel any pressure in making it?
Mark: No pressure whatsoever, it’s not that kind of gig. We’re doing this extreme side project, we’re not trying to make it. We’re just trying to put out some super extreme stuff. We have somehow all come together in this group and coalesce, so to speak, and we’re just like making what we want to make when we want to make it.
E&D: Are you looking forward to playing the playing live at the Milwaukee Metalfest in May?
Mark: Yeah, That’ll be sick. It’s gonna be cool. It’s gonna be a good show. Jamey Jasta has done a really great job resurrecting that fest. At one point in time, that was the only Metal Fest the United States, so it’s got a pretty good history, they brought it back and it’s a cool affair. We’ve all played it in various other projects. It’s cool to go back there. I remember going there in the early 2000s before Misery Index was a band.
E&D; Have you played there with Misery Index?
Mark: Yeah, we played there a couple of years ago.
E&D: Have Scour got any other shows coming up?
Mark: There’s plenty of talk about many things in the works, though. It’s kind of like, we’ll see what the cat drags in, and if schedules align and the offers make sense, we’ll do it.
E&D: How did your show at the end of last year with Exhorder and Pentagram go and did you play a lot of new material as well?
Mark: Yeah, we played the two singles. We played ‘Blades’ and ‘Infosorium’ at the show. It was cool to see that crowd reaction. The show was good, man. It was pretty packed out, and my good friend Pat O’Brien was playing in Exhorder, so it was good to sit down and catch up with him. Misery index did a good amount of touring with Cannibal Corpse throughout the years when he was there. I talked to him on the phone but I hadn’t seen him in person in a really long time, so it was cool to catch up with him. He actually did a solo on the Black EP that’s pretty ripping. Exhorder was amazing as always, it was killer to see Kyle Thomas play guitar and do all those amazing vocals. Yeah, really killer stuff. Good crowd, good show.
E&D: What have been some of the most memorable live shows that you’ve played with the band?
Mark: Well, Roskilde stands out. It’s probably one of our best live shows. Scour has not played that many shows, but there we were on fire, on that one energy. Just good shit, man, we came out swinging on that one and it felt really good.
E&D: With the big black metal influence on the band, have you always been a fan of black metal, and what were some of the the albums that have inspired you and your guitar playing?
Mark: Kind of, it’s more, like I said, I don’t write all the songs for this, that’s on Derek. I’m more interested in the stylistic stuff. I think it’s cool. I don’t have this overwhelming knowledge base of black metal history. I know a little bit here and there. I understand it’s the response to Christianity being in the Nordic regions. I’ve heard the argument about how it actually started in Britain, that kind of thing. We’re more focused on, Bathory and things like that as terms of influences. Obviously, there’s some good relationships with Satyricon and those guys, and respect their music as well. If I’m being real, as a younger man, just getting into it. Cradle Of Filth was my intro to something that’s closer to that style, if we’re being honest, the Cruelty And The Beast album. I was too young in the 80s to be into that shit, so that was my intro to that sort of stuff. From there, I got into Dimmu Borgir, and then sort of moved backwards from there. What we’re doing is not like Dimmu Borgir, the symphonic elements and keyboards, things like that. It’s more akin to the original, primitive stuff and but with maybe a slightly bigger production.
E&D: Would those symphonic elements something you consider in the future?
Mark: No, absolutely not! We do have some interludes that have some elements like that, but that’s mainly for in between song type stuff on the album and live, we would never have keyboards or samples and stuff in the song, with the exception of ‘Doom’ that has the air raid siren.
E&D: Is it refreshing, that you could play live shows with bands like Saturicon for example, but then also like Exhorder and Pentagaram as well?
Mark: Yeah, we fit in pretty much with anything. Obviously, we fit in with the extreme bands. Having Philip in the band adds a different flavour, a different outlet of possibility, where we can kind of fit anywhere. Anything that’s relatively metal tinged, they can pair us up with, and no one’s gonna bat an eye like on a festival stage or a tour package, It’s interesting.
E&D: What are your favorite projects that the other members of Scour have done?
E&D: Well, for Derek, outside of Scour, I have a great appreciation for the Cattle Decapitation album, Monolith Of Inhumanity, that’s a really fucking good album, a lot of good songwriting, he contributed a lot to that. Got Johan and Adam, I really liked Fulgora. That’s how, Phil and John and Adam, came to know each other. Phil came across that project fairly organically, signed it to Housecore. That’s a really cool project, sort of like death metal meets East Coast hardcore. For Philip, man, I really like En Minor a lot. Of course, Down. They’re all great. Everything that dude’s done, Superjoint Ritual is killer Down is killer, En Minor’s killer.
E&D: Will Misery Index be releasing any new material in the near future?
Mark: Yeah, we’re working on it. Slowly trudging away at that I got. We have several tracks in the works. I’m working really hard on getting it done. Some of the combinations of new elements psyched me out, because I want to incorporate them and do it well. It’s created some interesting problems that need solutions. Sometimes those solutions don’t present themselves quickly, you know. But we have about eight songs in the works. I had one come all the way through to completion of these new elements in mind, and that was the breakthrough moment where I could hear what sounds like a new record. It really gave a framework of what the vibe is. The next one is going a bit faster, you will probably see something from us next year.
E&D: Will that be followed with with touring as well?
Mark: Yeah, it sure will.
E&D: What do you still want to achieve with Misery Index?
Mark: What do we want to achieve with the band? I don’t know. We’re several albums deep, and I think, the goal is always to keep progressing. That’s what is the most fun, progressing the music and moving the ball forward. Our last album Complete Control when we signed the Century Media was a bit of a stylistic retrospective on everything that we had done up until that point. We weren’t exactly trying to write hit songs. Not that we’re a hit song band, but for example, Rituals Of Power has some, I would say stronger singles on it. I mean, some of those songs on Complete Control really translate well live, we’ve tried them out and they rip live. But the approach was more along the lines of, what went into the very first EP, the Overthrow EP, capturing that spirit, We’re a death grind band, so we straddle that line between the high production value stuff. But I think with this next one, we found a good way to balance, stylistically, the type of stuff that we want to do. This new one is going to be different from what e have done before.
E&D: Going back to Scour, have you had anything thoughts about new material at all?
Mark: Oh yeah, yeah, Derek, he’s got stuff written already. He’s always writing, very prolific writer. He’s always got some ideas in the bag. Right now, though, we’re just embracing this release.
E&D: Have you got one final message for all the Scour fans in the UK?
Mark: Yeah, you can pre-order our album, Gold from Nuclear Blast Records, and it’ll be out on February 21, until then, you should check out the two video singles that we have out for ‘Infusorium’ and ‘Blades’. I hope we can come across the pond and see you all in person here, sooner than later.
