Despised Icon: The Keys To Survival
In 2010 darkness descended over the deathcore genre as Canadian pioneers DESPISED ICON called it a day and left a lot of fans with an emptiness in their hearts. Many years passed and just as everyone was beginning to give up hope of ever seeing a glimpse of a reformation the band announced they would be reunited to celebrate the anniversary of debut release The Healing Process. Once the dust had settled an announcement was made to signal their full time return with a triumphant return to the studio in the form of 2016’s Beast album. This was the catalyst which now sees the band continuing to provide their own devastating blend of grind infused death metal, evolving into a much more dangerous animal than ever before.
“I remember the feeling when we broke up in 2010, it felt more like a business than us doing it for fun,” explains long time guitarist Eric Jarrin. “We’ve all got to make ends meet and when all the revenue you get is from the band you have to be active and be on the road all the time and that takes its toll on you. Now we have family and kids it’s harder, you want to be around to raise your family. When we reunited in 2016 we kind of reconnected with the same feeling we had when we started the band which was for fun and just being in a room with a bunch of friends, jamming, cranking up amps, having a few beers and laughing. That’s what we’re trying to keep as a constant.”
The septet are not as active as they once were but their revised schedule has allowed them to have the best of both their personal life and still express themselves in a musical capacity. “Not many people are aware of this but when we decided to reform and release Beast there was one condition that was put on the table. Going forward it was all going to be on our terms. We wouldn’t make a decision without having every band member on board,” explains Eric. “I’ve seen too many bands having session members and touring members and I feel like that takes away from the entire experience and from the essence of the band. We only really do one or two tours a year now and this way everyone is having a good time and enjoying it all. It’s the same when we’re in the studio and when we’re rehearsing too. That has to stay for DESPISED ICON to survive.”
2019 is poised to see the return of the Montreal visionaries in the shape of their sixth full length studio release entitled Purgatory. This one is not for the faint of heart! “When we finished the material and took a step back it was like ‘Jesus. This is some really heavy stuff!’” says Eric. “This could well be the heaviest stuff we’ve ever written. The music was all pretty much done and it was a while before we were due to head to the studio, one morning I woke up, it was super quiet and I went down to my home studio in my basement and grabbed my acoustic guitar. I was in quite a melancholic mood at the time and I just hit the record button and started laying down these clean guitar tracks. It just flowed so easily. I sent it to the guys and they were like ‘it’s so different to the other material we’ve done for this album. Why don’t we put it on the record?’. At first we weren’t sure where to place it as the album is so relentless but Alex Erian suggested it opened the album as it would be a nice breather before like 35 minutes of being repetitively hit in the face!”
DESPISED ICON normally have two sets of writers. Eric joins forces with Alex Erian and Alex Grind in two teams to begin piecing together ideas. Interestingly the vocals and conceptual themes all follow when the music is almost complete. “We always start from scratch and usually start with the music, adding the lyrics on later,” explains Eric. “That’s usually when a concept or idea comes to life. We always try to find one idea which connects all the ideas together. It all came during the creative process and that’s how it usually happens. With Alex Erian being quite busy with his commitments to OBEY THE BRAVE his schedule is pretty busy compared to the rest of us. Whenever he is available I invite him up to my place to lay down some material. After five or six sessions we browsed through the material we have compiled throughout and that’s where the magic really happened. For every piece of music on Purgatory there is probably about three times as much material which didn’t make the cut. It was a really different approach this time but it worked very well.”
Purgatory is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.
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