Interview by Kris Peters
Fifteen albums in to their career and US/French-Canadian based melodic death metal syndicate Kataklysm are still as relevant as ever.
With a back catalogue filled with success and a recent history of capitalising on every opportunity, Kataklysm are deep into the promotional campaign for their new album Goliath which will be released on August 11 through Nuclear Blast Records.
HEAVY recently sat down to chat with guitarist JF Dagenais to find out more.
"It's a weird thing," Dagenais replied when asked if the whole album process becomes easier the more you put out. "On the one hand we've done it so many times before that we're not really stressed about it and it's kind of natural to us. But on the other hand we're the type of people that we wanna release quality, and we wanna push ourselves as hard as we possibly can. We're always anxious to see what the reaction's gonna be on the new music and the stuff we do. We really do care to an extent. At a certain point you have to let it go, because everyone's gonna have an opinion on whatever it is you do, but we actually really do care. When we hear a lot of negative stuff it actually hurts. I'm not gonna lie, but I just try to push it away (laughs). But sometimes when it's constructive I like to listen and get a few pointers but if it's just mean to be mean I think it sucks, but it is what is."
In the full interview JF talks about the musical side of Goliath and what they were going for, the two singles released and the two part story they tell, how Goliath reflects the current state of the world, taking their time with Goliath and how that influenced the final product, the early days of Kataklysm and how their focus has changed over the years, musical experimentation and where to draw the line and more.