INTERVIEW: David Davidson – Revocation

Since forming in 2000 death metallers REVOCATION have gone from strength to strength. 2018 could prove to be a landmark year for the band as it will see the unveiling of their seventh album The Outer Ones which is due for release on September 28th via Metal Blade Records as well as their hotly anticipated first headlining UK tour alongside the mouth watering prospect of ARCHSPIRE, SOREPTION and RIVERS OF NIHIL. We caught up with founding member and frontman David Davidson to talk about the inspiration for the new album and how he has continued to pursue his love of music throughout since a young age.

REVOCATION’s new album The Outer Ones is due for release in September, how do you feel it differs from your back catalogue?

David: I would say this record we really doubled down on the death metal elements of our sound. It’s always been a part of what makes us who we are but as we’ve progressed as a band those elements are creeping in more and more so yeah, this is our most death metal release to date.

What inspired you to go down the route of horror/science fiction themed lyrical content with this release?

David: It’s something we’ve flirted with before in the past going all the way back to the Existence Is Futile record. We had a few Lovecraft inspired songs on there. With Great Is Our Sin I was looking at history and the present day and I was really critiquing the history of mankind which can be quite a mentally taxing thing writing a concept record especially when you’re dealing with societal themes and exposing the underbelly of humanity. For me metal is about social commentary and social critique but I guess the other half of that is the element of escapism. Nowadays I think there is so much crisis happening in the world it’s kind of nice to use metal as that kind of element for that different form of creativity. Escaping the madness of all that even if I’m writing about themes that could also be maddening I guess you could say.

I can imagine if you’re going down the route of historical events and the like it can be quite intense as a lot of research is involved to make sure its historically accurate so it must take the pressure off a little when you can use your imagination a bit more?

David: Yeah and I think I got that out of my system, there are so many historical themes you could write about. There is a never ending treasure trove of atrocities that mankind has committed. I feel like I addressed what I wanted to and I can always circle back to it but I needed a bit of a pallet cleanser and to use my imagination in a different way and view lyrics through a different lens because the last record was so intensely focused on that theme.

One aspect of your writing I always enjoy is that your music is technical but not to the point where it feels too difficult to digest, is this a conscious decision?

David: I think it is a natural product of our writing, I try to think about the song at the end of the day rather than just being technical for technical’s sake. I prefer to use it as a colour on my palette while I’m trying to paint a picture. I try to think about motifs, whether I can bring things back in more obvious or subtle ways so I think it makes for a more enriching listening experience when something is more thought out than just a bunch of stuff thrown together.

How do you approach the writing process considering you and your other bandmates don’t live closeby?

David: It’s the same as it was on the last record, we’ve been separated for a few years now. We all write demos at home, record them and send them out to the rest of the guys. It’s usually me and Ash working the closest together as I want to lay the down the skeleton of the song with the rhythm and then bring the other guys in to flesh it out a bit more. Just so there aren’t too many cooks in the kitchen in the beginning stages of a song. So I’ll send a demo over to Ash [Pearson, drums] and we’ll chat over Skype about it, how I’m feeling about certain parts or if there is any questions with like upbeats or downbeats so I can explain little intricacies of how I’m hearing the riff. Sometimes I can already envisage how a song is going to sound in my head with the drums etc and if Ash hears something different, it’s happened in the past where he will send me some programmed drums over and we’ll discuss how we are feeling about certain sections so sometimes you kinda just have to hash things out and hear things in different ways. We’ll go back and forth using the wonders of modern technologies but there is no substitute to getting in the actual room and jamming on it so whenever we have a tour coming up we always try to reserve a little bit of time to work on any new material that might be coming up.

The press release stated that the album went under various revisions throughout the writing process. I can imagine you are quite the perfectionist. Do you get to a stage where you have to put your foot down and finalise a song before you spend your life tweaking it?

David: [Laughs] Yeah at times you just have to take a step back and sit with it, because when you get into that mode of revisions you can get down that rabbit hole and be there forever. I think in the earlier records I had so much material and the riffs were flowing, when you’re young and you’re listening to all these different bands for the first time you’re being inspired so a lot of those songs just kind of came together out of thin air. They were compositionally sound but as you get older you just want to naturally refine your craft like any person that’s been doing something for a long time. Taking different approaches like ‘Well I did this on the last record so how can I avoid doing that, so I don’t repeat myself’. Your musical taste changes as you grow up too so you’re listening with more of a critical ear to your playing, every musician is trying to push the boundaries. For example, Chuck from DEATH, you can sense different writing periods like Leprosy sounds different to Spiritual Healing which sounds different to Symbolic etc. I wanna try to sort of push our boundaries with every single release and that means listening with a critical ear to what you’re writing rather than just accepting it as ‘Oh that sounds cool’ and no further work is needed. I really tried to sort of listen to every part of the song and think ‘Could this flow better?’ or ‘Is this necessary here?’ and I think at the end of the day all that extra work really paid off and I’m really loving how the new album turned out.

You worked with Zeuss once again on this release, does it make the whole process a little easier when you have someone involved in the process who has a long standing relationship with the band and understands your way of working?

David: Yeah of course, Zeuss has been our buddy for a long time now. We feel comfortable working with him and I feel he delivers a great product.

Throughout the years Revocation have experienced considerable lineup changes, you are now the last remaining original member. Do you feel those changes were necessary for the band to evolve?

David: At the end of the day if people want to move on for their own different reasons those changes need to happen in order for the band to move forward.

You studied at the prestigious Berklee College Of Music, is this where you first began to pursue your love of Jazz?

David: I went to an art’s high school called Boston Arts Academy before that which is just down the street from Berklee and it was there that I was introduced to playing in big bands like jazz combo’s and quartets. I was in a jazz guitar ensemble with three other guitar players. My teacher was great and I’m still friends with him, great guitar player. He really opened my ears to other ways of playing, in addition to all the theory of chords he had us working on transcriptions and solo’s which opened up my mind to different possibilities. I wasn’t really taking it super seriously at that point as I was so focused on metal and entrenched in that, I still am obviously but I find myself more dedicated to jazz than I was back then. I’m teaching so it’s good to stay sharp with that and just in general as a player I find it really interesting like a never ending well of creativity that I can pull from. There’s so many different playersand styles. Guitar is a big part of jazz but it’s not the main instrument as you have piano’s and saxophone’s which are the leading instruments when most people think about jazz, so learning solo’s which weren’t exactly made to be played on guitar opens your mind up to different possibilities like ‘Oh shit, I’ve never played that combination of notes before’. I’ve gained a lot of insight on melody and harmony too.

Oh absolutely, obviously REVOCATION material is very metal orientated but I love how there is a lot of free flowing melodic elements to the arrangements as well.

David: Thank you, we’re a metal band through and through with our weird synthesis of death, thrash, black metal, progressive and whatever but I think having those other elements adds another dimension of complexity to our music.

You just touched on the fact that you have been doing online tuition, how have you found it? I can imagine you get a lot of interest?

David: Yeah, I’ve had some good interest and it’s fun, I can work on certain aspects of my playing alongside whatever my student’s want to work on and it helps me stay sharp. When I’m working with beginner or intermediate players it’s great to see them have those lightbulb moments and it really feels rewarding, especially if they’ve hit a wall with something and they’re finding it hard and you spend an entire lesson helping them work through it and it’s really satisfying. Music is a gift and I think it’s one of the few things that human’s have done that’s worth really celebrating it’s one of the things that brings us all together. Whether you’re from Indonesia, America or Europe and it sounds kinda cliche but it’s that universal language. It’s cool you can connect and you can share your passion with other people and hopefully get that spark to go off. It’s even better when your students begin to write their own material and you sit down to listen to it and you’re like ‘That sounds really cool!” and obviously it came from them but hopefully I influenced that in some way just like so many great musicians have influenced me.

Empire Of The Obscene was first released when you were only 22/23 years old. You’ve now got seven albums under your belt. If you could have gone back and given yourself any advice what would it have been?

David: I don’t know! Probably just start the guitar earlier. You read these stories of people who are at the top of their game and they started out when they were like four or five, I started when I was twelve but man, I can only imagine what the outcome would’ve been if I had started that young when your brain is first developing language. It’s like people who are bilingual they can grow up speaking multiple languages and that was just a natural product of living in their household. I discovered music on my own but I can only imagine if I’d gotten into that earlier. Who knows! Maybe if I started that young I would’ve been turned off by music and I would have never played music at all, or I would’ve followed a different path and became super technical but not very creative with my writing because I was in a different thought process. It’s so hard to say but I’d take the risk and give four year old me a guitar!

The only time I’ve witnessed REVOCATION live was in Manchester, it was 2010 on the Thrash and Burn Tour which I think was your first tour here in the UK, you were a three piece and had two albums to your name. UK tour dates have been few and far between since then and later this year will be your first headlining tour over here. Has something hindered this or have the right opportunities not surfaced?

David: I think we got heckled that night! [Laughs]. It’s expensive to go over to Europe and we’ve been touring a lot all over America, usually for us we do like maybe two tours in Europe every cycle which is cool as it builds up a little of demand so we aren’t over saturating yourselves but I’d love to get like three or four banging tours over in Europe every cycle but at the same time there is only so many dates in a year and you have other obligations. I think we’ve been fairly active over there but we are hoping to be more present and I hope the headline tour will help with that. We’d love to do a headlining tour in Europe and then maybe some festival dates and rotate back and forth.

I’m very surprised that REVOCATION haven’t played the likes of Bloodstock Festival and Download Festival over here.

David: I know! We really wanna play Bloodstock so if anyone’s reading this we’d really love to play!

Every time Vicky and the organisers post on social media asking about who the fans would like to see I am always name dropping you guys so fingers crossed!

David: Hopefully! It seems like such a cool festival. We played Leeds before for Damnation Festival and we got to see BOLT THROWER and that was really cool. We love the UK, it seems like the fans really get where we are coming from and appreciate our take on metal. Bloodstock if you’re listening, come on! Throw us a bone! [Laughs]

What can the fans expect from a headline set? A good mix of your back catalogue?

David: We’re going to focus on the new stuff with the album coming out, old classics, some deep cuts which we don’t really ever play live so it’ll be a really cool headline set. The lineup is so cool in general and I’m really looking forward to doing a headline set. If you’re a fan of tech death this tour is the one for you!

Thanks very much for your time, I’ll leave you with one final question. Do you have anything you would like to say to the readers of Distorted Sound?

David: Thank you so much for your support over the years if you’re familiar with the band and come out to shows. If this is your first time reading about us we’ve got a new album coming out called The Outer Ones.  We’re coming out on tour later in the year so hopefully you can make it! Thanks very much man, appreciate it.

The Outer Ones is due for release on September 28th via Metal Blade Records.

Like REVOCATION on Facebook.