Dead Rhetoric: What have some of your favorite tours been through the years, and do you remember your first proper North American touring escapade in 2005? At this point, where do you preferences lies in terms of club tours versus the festival circuit?
Jensen: Wow that is like 5 questions in one. (laughs). I would like to say I’ve remembered most of the tours through the years, we’ve been very lucky that we haven’t had any miserable tours. If we had a not so good tour, we had it in combination with another really nice, cool band so we could feed off the energy of each other’s shows. In 1996 was one of our first proper, little bit bigger touring years, we did a European run with Edge of Sanity which is how we got to know Dan. Over the turn of the years he became a good friend and he also mixed our new record, which is where the circle closes. We supported Morbid Angel that year, and that was special because it was the last shows that David Vincent did with them before he exited the band. We did a couple of shows with Death, I remember that vividly because they were a big influence.
Yes, I do remember the North American tour, it was a great time for all of us. It wasn’t as tough as people were saying about touring North America, because we got into a lucky situation of jumping on a tour bus at the time with Vader and Decapitated, as they were the two other bands on that tour. Along the way, one of the guys in the band had to go home because he got sick so we ended up doing the tour as a four-piece. The memories were very positive, and I wish we could do that again one day, not only come over for just a festival show or a short run but an actual coast to coast thing, including Canada.
Even though these days everything seems to be festival driven, I really am still a huge fan of club touring. This is where our music and our style feels the most at home- when it’s very compact and a better, more direct interaction with the audience. It’s dark, it’s square, (and) the sound is not going to fly away because it’s a windy situation that can take the power away. At festivals, you are never in control- it just seems like you start from scratch and you are doing a showcase. That’s why I prefer the clubs, they are more intense. Obviously it’s a little bit of both these days, with so many festivals you are given plenty of opportunity to play in front of new people.
Dead Rhetoric: Do you ever feel like you could possibly run out of proper I-word album titles for Dew-Scented – as Intermination is the tenth studio album in the series?
Jensen: (laughs) Yeah, totally. I think we have felt that way for 5 or 6 albums now. I think around the time of Inwards our fourth record in 2001 we started to doubt the concept, because we didn’t think we were going to make it that far in our career with this. We thought we wanted to give the I-word titles some unity, then all of a sudden time passed and we were still at it. I think we agreed on changing the scheme if we ran out of proper titles, and so far we have been lucky that we have come up with something Intermination is a weird one I guess, it’s been confusing some people because it’s not a proper term that’s in use I believe although it existed at some point. It is Latin based, it stands for menace or threat when you go to the root of the term. It started with the lyric of the song “On a Collision Course” where some words said ‘obliteration/intermination/on a collision course’. It was two separate words, and I decided to make it one word. It sounds very metal and opens the door to the album, that’s what the title does to me. We got away with it one more time- what will happen on the next album I don’t know. We don’t have a prepared list of titles, we just start to base it back to zero to fit the vibe and the atmosphere of the band at that moment. Honestly I hope there will just be a next record and the possibility for it to work out.
Dead Rhetoric: Given your vast experience working at the European offices of Century Media in the past as well as what you do with Clandestine Music – what are your views on the current metal scene, and in what areas do you think musicians/bands do not spend enough time developing to further their possible long-term impact?
Jensen: Oh, that is hard to say because the business has changed a lot in the past few years because of technology and the way music is appreciated by people, formats, Internet. A lot of bands are learning to be more DIY again, learning to do a lot of things that used to be assigned to other people. To do them now again by themselves, because not only is it a sign of the times but it gives you more control, more flexibility, more say at the end of the day. Some of it is not impossible to do for yourself, and a lot of people may have forgotten about that throughout the years.
I think a lot of bands should spend more time on songwriting these days. To actually craft their ideas, to develop the best possible riff, the best possible song, the best possible production to it. I think because of record sales going down, the medium or larger bands have been living off of touring and merchandising. Maybe they need to be conscious of the fact that albums are not only a method of going back on a touring cycle but they are an artistic statement for all times – these records are still going to be there in 30 years. I like to pride myself in the fact that with our band we have never paid attention to the necessity of releasing an album, we’ve only done it when we’ve felt that we have enough songs that are good enough to put out. We’ve never needed pressure to have to do it. I think this is why so few classic records are being written these days. Some people take the easy way of taking the record and being over and done with it. But then again, who am I to say that, everybody needs to be their own judge and see if you have a chance of doing things better. Not many people do pre-production demos anymore, or have an outside producer, they prefer to self-produce in their own studios- which sometimes hinders them from having a better result in the songwriting.