Remnants of Machinery Remnants of Reason

SCHOLOMANCE

While most bands decide to revise, rehash and recycle, Scholomance have chosen to inspire and innovate. With their second more than full length album The Immortality Murders, the band have far exceeded the work set forth on their debut, also shaming many other "technical" bands in the process. Yes, there is a lot of flash here, but instead of being a solid wankfest, songs were built, forcing extreme melodies into one's head, implanting their work in my memory banks against my will. It's really good stuff, and from great minds also come great interviews! So hopefully you'll be able to follow Scott's tech talk as we discuss everything from the darkness of Korg to life in a small Missouri town. So sit back, kill the lights and read on...

 
RoR - Hi Scott, just checking to see that this works...

SC - Yep, it works.

RoR - Sweet, I'm not such a techie maladroit after all.

SC - Yeah, well I'm a computer geek so no problems.

RoR - I'm supposed to be, but I live in the UNIX world...

SC - I see...

RoR - Is that disdain in your typing?

SC - Nooo...

RoR - Actually, I want to pick your brain for drum prog tips as I just bought a DM5 and have to correct all my MIDI mistakes post production so you're in for a treat!

SC - Ah, well I'm sure I could lend some ideas. Dm5 is made by who?

RoR - Alesis it's their module.

SC - Ah, we're diehard Korg boys.

RoR - So I play electronic drums to the module, record it to a QY20. Do you play the drum parts on your keyboard or through drum pads?

SC - Keyboard. Jimmy calls me a hand percussionist!

RoR - So what drum sounds do you actually use, the Korg ones? Or something like Gigasampler or soundfonts?

SC - We use Korg sounds live, but of course everything can be modified in the studio.

RoR - And the Scholomance drum sounds are ten times better than the ones found on Emperor or Morbid Angel's "live" drummer sounds.

SC - They're pretty close to being pure on the new CD. We only really modified the EQ to get things to stand out. Korg's sounds are very dark for the most part, made for metal.

RoR - Ah... I'll have to get some... :-)

SC - Excellent evil keyboards too.

RoR - I get these Akai disks full of sounds, but that's when the note duration problems come in.

SC - Is that a problem of having too much data loaded in?

RoR - Yeah it might be. If I use what I time tracked "live" the note durations are only like two ticks, instead of like 15 for a 32nd note, so when it triggers the .WAV sound the cymbals or toms are "choked".

SC - The Korg will clip notes if the memory is too full. We have songs that take 90% or more of the onboard sequencer memory. Yeah, I avoid going into computers except in the studio.

RoR - Do you find yourself composing more on the keyboard or on guitar?

SC - Keyboard or piano mainly, although I'm trying to get back to writing on guitar.

RoR - And when do the drum parts come in? Do you have a basic rhythm or just play to a metronome?

SC - Usually right after I get the piano riff down enough, then start going at it to the click.

RoR - Right hand bass drum, left hand snare?

SC - No, left kick, right snare... Or any combination necessary.

RoR - I guess I would wonder how much is composed "live" if any, or if separate pieces are brought together later? Like, does each person compose their own parts, or does one person take care of one song?

SC - Jimmy and I both write keys and pianos, but separately. He has songs where the basis is entirely his, then I have mine.

RoR - Are your solos planned out or improvised?

SC - We play at least 90% close to the same solos every time unless we wanna just go off.

RoR - (Jumping gears completely here) So what's life in Willard like this time of year?

SC - Life in Willard is always basically the same. It's a town of 2000 people so it's the small town atmosphere. It's not very cold yet and people are doing the Christmas thing.

RoR - Are you into the whole holiday thing?

SC - I like Halloween! but I don't care for religious holidays.

RoR - Ah. How about getting presents? Everyone loves presents!

SC - That'd be nice but I don't really get presents, so Christmas is pretty much a waste of time.

RoR - Did you meet Jimmy in Willard? If so, then that's pretty cool for two guys like you in a town of 2000.

SC - We met in Springfield through other bands and musicians. We played together in another band before Scholomance. We actually used to dislike each other.

RoR - It's funny, I knew a bunch of guys from Springfield... College town? How did you get to like each other? the music? Or the love of the Korg?

SC - Yeah springfield has like 5 colleges... Well in the course of playing in this other band, we realized that only the two of us agreed on what we really wanted to play, so after that band broke up, we started this one together.

RoR - Where you a guitarist first or pianist? I guess I'm assuming that you were classically trained?

SC - I was a guitarist first. I've played guitar for about 12 years, and piano for 4 or 5 years. I've had absolutely no training.

RoR - That's cool! But you read music?

SC - No, can't read it at all. I play by ear. Jimmy can read music though, but he's also mainly self taught.

RoR - Without the discipline of training, most people just sort of go for "groove" and forsake the techincal side, what made you strive to get better?

SC - I suppose it's just my personality and upbringing. I won't settle for less than self torture really! Of course certain people were inspirational to me too.

RoR - Are you just totally serious all the time? You look pretty mean in your photos. What sort of inspirations did you draw from then? Musically and otherwise...

SC - I am a very intense individual, definitely not mean but when it comes to music, I take it very seriously. I'm kind of a goofball outside of music and art...

RoR - Ah... Do you find yourself just chucking whole songs/projects after working on them for a long time because all of a sudden they just seem to be completely not working for you ?

SC - When I started I just wanted to be a rhythm guitarist, but found no lead guitarists, so I had to learn lead too... I've only tossed a couple things. I'll usually work on something until its done right and won't quit on it.

RoR - Do you ever find your imagination outplaying your techinique? I mean do you create songs that you can't yet play?

SC - Once in a great while, but what usually will happen is the idea just changes itself and presents itself in a new way. I can usually play what I hear in my head. Accidental things turn out to be cool a lot of the time.

RoR - So in The End (no pun intended) are you happy with the final result of The Immortality Murder?

SC - Mostly. It could always be better but with the limited amount of time we had to do this album, it came out very good. I'm very happy with the art and sound quality.

RoR - You did this album in like 8 days, right? Most times there have to be tons of sacrifices, especially with how technical this is, are there any cringe factors that only the band could hear? I was still digesting the first song after two weeks...

SC - Yeah about 8 days recording and mixing... There are mistakes that make me wanna hurl sometimes, but most people would never know they're there.

RoR - In a year when I have the album memorized you'll have to let me know where they are...

SC - I dunno if you'd still be able to hear them!

RoR - Since most of this was sequenced (another assumption) then there was a lot prepped before the studio, right?

SC - Well the drums were of course all done. That was a lot of work. Prepping the drum tracks took forever at home, but then there's no mistakes in the studio. And we lay those down first day, so it takes away a lot of stress on that first day of tension.

RoR - You said that you play them in real time, but do you then go back through and edit by hand?

SC - Oh yeah, I have to make sure everything is just right later. There are about 4 to 5 drum tracks per song so it gets tough.

RoR - Death metal hand drumming... Do you have drummers that you listen to for ideas, or do the rhythms come from the songs that you create?

SC - I really freakin' love listening to drummers. I listen to drummers more than guitarists. I can play drums a little, but I tend to suck...

RoR - Really? Like who?

SC - Dave Witte, Mike Portnoy... Uh... Sean Reinert of course. The guy from Meshuggah is a god and I should be shot for not remembering his name now.

RoR - Tomas Haake I'll send someone over to shoot you . Do you ever listen to programmed drum albums like Oxiplegatz?

SC - Yeah I like those CDs the programming is almost totally inhuman sounding, but those are cool CDs. Erlandsson's (Daniel) playing on the new Arch Enemy impressed me too. It's not overly technical but its tight as hell. The dude from Children of Bodom is tight too.

RoR - I really like Erlandsson on the 2nd Eucharist. It's weird, I like Peter Wildoer, but only in Darkane, I much prefer Erlandsson in Arch Enemy (especially Black Earth).

SC - Eucharist were just awesome all around. Oh he's amazing too. I was diappointed with Insanity, but Rusted Angel still kicks my ass.

RoR - You mentioned the inhuman sounds on the Oxiplegatz, but that's almost the way that he made Adrian play on those first ATG albums... Yeah, but then people just dug SotS. That was all Alf I think on those first 3.

SC - Those were some technical albums. They don't really get credit for tech metal, but they're pretty intense at times. I like them all actually. They're all different.

RoR - Did you ever feel like there's a bar that was raised before you in terms of the music you're creating? Like you felt you wanted to be the most technical, or the most...

SC - I never wanted to be the most technical, and we're far from it. My main concern is still being able to write good songs that are memorable, while incorporating extreme levels of musicianship. I will always dig the challenge of this stuff though.

RoR - It's only my opinion of course, but I feel that the technicality didn't say, exponentially increase this time around, but the songs (while not bad mind you on ATOL) are so much more powerful this time around. It's almost like you had this bolt of direction that goes straight to the listener...

SC - Its mainly the piano stuff that's more technical this time... There's a lot of it that's harder to play though, mainly due to key changes and time changes.

RoR - Andreas gave me some listening instructions this time, and it was pretty good, he told me to listen to disc 1 a few times, then work with disc 2 to really appreciate the music,. Then go back to disc 1. The vocals really are a dominant force there. That's also what's sneaky about real technical music, things can sound simple until you try and play it.

SC - Yeah, the vocals are absolutely demented this time...

RoR - I love it... But evidently some people don't? What's up with that?

SC - I like sneaky stuff. I do some weird things on guitar that ya cant hear. Like sneaky stuff? I dunno. Fuck 'em. I'm not here to show people Metallica riffs. We're here for the people who like this style of music. We're here to make those people happy with this stuff.

RoR - But you did include the second CD... (to play devil's adv...)

SC - Well that had to do with the vocals though. The music is still the same.

RoR - Right. That's what I was talking about, the vocals!

SC - I think I got lost. Heh

RoR - That's ok, you were like at Defcon 3 all of a sudden! I was saying that some people have trouble with the vocals.

SC - I think these vocals may be over the top for even death and black metal people though. We're really happy with the vocals. You should've heard the vocals tracks in the studio minus the music. Scared the crap out of us in there. It's The Exorcist on crack.

RoR - One thing that's pretty funny is that it's been really difficult to review albums lately. I mean, I got the New Bolt thrower, the new King Diamond... I think they just change the covers each time...

SC - Yeah, there's lots of bands like that.

RoR - You guys are the one raising the bar, you know... And maybe if Watchtower reforms.

SC - The Eye was the only King album I ever really liked.

RoR - Really? I like Conspiracy a lot, but I dig Mikkey Dee.

SC - Watchtower kick ass. You know Jimmy did some solo stuff on the new Spastic Ink don't ya?

RoR - NO! I didn't! So should I even broach the subject of the lyrics with you? Between these and the artwork for ATOL, you scare me a little, heh heh...

SC - You're welcome to delve into the lyrics if you like.

RoR - You mentioned something somewhere about being part poetry, part nightmare material? And that you wrote the first 4 songs in one sitting?

SC - Something like that... First 4 songs, the whole concept part came at one time... They're part nightmares, part reality, part mystery.

RoR - I ask because they are very enigmatic, yet seem pretty personal as well.

SC - That's pretty much my writing style. I don't like being blatant with writing. SC - I like to give people something to think about and challenge myself in the writing as well.

RoR - But it seems like there was a certain someone or somebodies that should be skinned alive?

SC - Heh heh

RoR - Maybe a certain porcelain faced whore?

SC - Yeah, those people are always inspiring for writing. Maybe.

RoR - Actually, it sounded like you had been hangin out with ... (censored to keep the guilty anonymous).

SC - Well, I've gone through more than my share of shit with the opposite sex.

RoR - I think this lifestyle doens't facilitate a steady family life, yet Jimmy has a child, am I right?

SC - Yes he has a daughter.

RoR - How hard is it to blalance family life with everything? It always makes it difficult to tour.

SC - Well, he is divorced so he has the whole custody thing to deal with... It's hard for him sometimes. Jerry and I are usually single. I think we both can go through a girl a month.

RoR - I'm assuming that you're not endowed with a healthy trust fund, so that means a full time job as well, right?

SC - Yeah, we all have full time jobs. I'm trying to get through college as well.

RoR - Ah, what are you studying?

SC - Computer programming and web design.

RoR - Wise, stay away from science.

SC - I like science, but I suck at chemistry.

RoR - I have a degree in it, but can't remember anything anymore. It's pathetic actually.

SC - I prefer the hands on stuff that you can actually touch. I'm a big nature buff and I definitely like animals more than people.

RoR - What's your job that you're there till 3? And am I right that you're near the Ozarks?

SC - Yeah, I'm in the Ozarks. Its this whole lower to mid area of Missouri and northern Arkansas. I work 2nd shift and I'm a cook. I leave at like 2 or 3 in the afternoon and get home around 10 then I just stay up all night.

RoR - (Back to the gear, another jump...) What do you have, like a Korg workstation that you use to write and play with?

SC - Yeah a Korg x3. It's a 16 trk with a disc drive.

RoR - And there are enough sounds on board to use? Or can you just load more at will?

SC - Oh you can get a lot more on disc, but there are plenty to use and modify already.

RoR - And you mentioned that they were dark for this style of music...

SC - Yeah, the keyboard sounds are really dark, and the drums too. You can build some really wicked sounding combination sounds. Its not like Roland where everything is happy happy. We dont get to use a lot of the weird sounds since they dont attack sharp or fast enough.

RoR - You couldn't use some of them because of the attack? Do you have any tricks you'd share with the more techie readers?

SC - Oh yeah. Yeah, well you can maybe imagine how things have to be really tight in this style of music, and if a key doesn't attack fast enough, it tends to sound too loose. I'm sure I do have some tricks but I wouldn't even know what they are since I don't know any other programming freaks like myself.

RoR - You feel that the guitar is more or less dominant this album?

SC - I wouldn't say it's dominant, i'd just say it's more equal with everything. I think everything has its place on this album. We made sure every track was going on a different frequency. We still almost ran out of space in the soundscape though. Things started to fight with each other since there's so much going on. We also try to write the songs so each instrument is in a different range, not like high guitars, high keyboards, high bass. We fill it out pretty well.

RoR - That's a good point, everyone seems to want to tune down and have everything compete in the same frequency range.

SC - Well we generally try to keep everything sounding the same when we come in, or else you lose your real sound... Like you can't be changing your guitar sound to suit the studio if you want it to be YOUR guitar sound. It can all be adjusted in the mix.

RoR - That's true. And BC Rich is the guitar for you? What types of effects are you using?

SC - Yeah, I'm a BC Rich freak, but I still play my older Ibanez's too... I use a ZOOM effects processor with an ADA MP1 preamp and a Mesa Boogie poweramp

RoR - The Iceman? From your Tom Warrior days?

SC - Noo not that old... I sort of collect the 540P Alex Skolnick models. They were only made for 2 years but they're the best shred guitars made.

RoR - Have you heard the new Testament?

SC - No, I haven't cared for them since Skolnick left.

RoR - But he's BACK!!!! I mean the new OLD songs... First Strike Still Deadly.

SC - Really? geez, I just totally ignored it.

RoR - It's not bad, my buddy the Testament freak is totally into, I think it sounds really cool, but some of the atmosphere from the originals are gone... They just re-recorded tracks off the first two albums... Skolnick redid the leads.

SC - Does he go off?

RoR - It all sounds pretty similar to me, but smoother. You might hear something completely different though. The drums are completely processed...

SC - Well Testament never really had impressive drums.

RoR - True. We opened up for them last September, Jon Allen from Sadus was playing drums then, I got to sit there and watch, I'm a Sadus fan from day one... But enough about me, heh heh.

SC - Oh yeah, Sadus were cool.

RoR - To segue back in, how far do you see The Immortality Murder going? Would you put a limit on it if things were getting too big? I mean, you might have to move to LA you know...

SC - Yeah, right... I really don't know how far it's gonna go. ATOL had quite a bit of longevity though.

RoR - I can tell that music is your life, but would you want to have to perform the same hits over and over, or always retain the freedom in creativity that you have with The End now? You know how the music business can get...

SC - Well I like my freedom, but I wouldn't mind making decent money off what I do, but that's just not gonna happen. There are bands who sell 100 times what we do and still don't make a penny.

RoR - So are you content to live life as it is now and continue to make music this way, or do you see a time limit on this? That's true about the money, but with The End's new distro, you may start to see something.

SC - Well hopefully as I get done with college, I'll be able to live more comfortably. I'm OK now, but you know... I'd have to work a little less and have more free time. I'm content just having a good label that pays our recording and all that good stuff.

RoR - I don't know how everyone else will feel, but with the new album I went from a listener to a true fan of the band. I think there's really something special going here...

SC - That's cool. I hope the general public feels the same. I'm happy that we've really topped the first CD. That's often hard to do.

RoR - I also listen to the last album with new ears. You have to know that these albums are so complex that it takes a really long time to hear everything. But that's what gives them their longevity. Like I still hear new things on Control and Resistance, or Focus.

SC - Yeah, it gets hard for me to sit back and really look and listen to them as someone new to us would do. You get really jaded to the stuff, even though it is complex. It eventually becomes somewhat easy to play for us.

RoR - Ah. Are you thinking about live performances right now? Or at any festivals? Or would that just be a logistic nightmare?

SC - We're thinking about getting out locally again, but honestly... The scene here is so pathetic that it's almost not worth doing. You can hang 1000 flyers, advertise on the radio, and get 5 people one night, 100 another night with no promotion... It's just a total gamble.

RoR - Well, I think that this is going to have to be the end for me here. I really appreciate your time. Keep in touch if you like, and I'll spread the word heavily!!!!

SC - Alright, thanks for the interview.

 

 

Scholomance:

Scott Crinklaw- guitars, piano, percussion
Jimmy Pitts- vocals, piano, keyboards
Jerry Twyford - bass

 

Scholomance's Official Home Page can be found at: www.angelfire.com/sc/scholomance/main.html


       
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