INTERVIEW: Mario Duplantier – Gojira

Back in the 90s France wasn’t a country that instantly sprang to mind when discussing the prominence of metal music. Suddenly a four piece burst onto the scene in 2001 with their first album Terra Incognita and since then GOJIRA have continually raised the bar, achieving the dizzy heights that some bands can only dream of. After just playing some of the biggest shows of their career, including a breathtaking headlining performance at this year’s Bloodstock Festival (read our review here), we had the pleasure of speaking to the extraordinary Mario Duplantier to find out what plans GOJIRA have in store moving forward.

GOJIRA are fresh off the back of a string of festivals including headline slots at Brutal Assault and Bloodstock, how has this run been for you?

Mario: Amazing! It’s been one of the best run of shows we’ve ever done, we’ve had the opportunity to headline and being so high on the bill is a great feeling. We’ve been able to use bigger production so it’s been amazing.

Bloodstock has kind of became GOJIRA’s UK home away from home in recent years, was it a pleasure to get the call to headline?

Mario: Of course, Bloodstock is a very special festival for me, it’s all about the quality of the programme. I think Bloodstock is really on point with the quality of bands on the heavier metal scene, it’s a big honour to headline such a prestigious festival. I had a lot of pressure on my shoulder before our show so I was really nervous but at the same time but I know the crowd is always intelligent enough to understand the music conceptually and it’s an amazing festival.

Magma has been out for two years now and it has cemented GOJIRA’s status as one of the elite metal bands of their generation, news is circulating that you are working on new material, how is this process coming along?

Mario: Very good! It’s a long process to write music and I feel we need more time to jam and put ideas together. I feel that we are thinking a lot about the future and which direction we should take so we try to be spontaneous but at the same time we can’t stop thinking about the future of the band. Magma was a bit more open and maybe a bit less technical and further away from our death metal roots and the new album will be a little bit like this. We are older now so we think differently and we want a different atmosphere in the music, we want to open our sound. There is a lot of discussion between us, a lot of jamming and I feel that we have some killer riffs but we still have to put everything together. We want to come back with an amazing album which has been well done, very balanced and intelligent. We will take care of the mixing, the covers, the concepts. We just need time.

There has been some wild statements made that there are 100 songs in the works! Is this true?

Mario: No it’s not true, it’s impossible to have 100 songs! We have maybe about 50 to 80 riffs, not songs. The first few album’s we focused mainly on just doing songs and we were recording them right away. For example, From Mars To Sirius we just composed those 12 songs. Now we try different ideas, we keep some and some we put in the trash. It’s a different process now. We try many things in many directions, we are not specifically about death metal anymore and our sound is very diverse. We have clean vocals and some rock aspects which can be intense and organic, we just have to find a good balance. We have a lot of riffs but yeah not 100 songs, that’s not true. [laughs].

Do you have a time line in mind for the next release? Can we expect it next year?

Mario: Next year for sure. I would say after the summer. At first we wanted to release it as soon as possible, like March 2019 but we finally thought no, lets jam more and more and really bring the best songs we can write. I think towards the back end of 2019 we will be ready to release something.

Going into this new endeavour is there any feeling of pressure that you have set such a high standard with previous releases that you have to maintain that level of quality?

Mario: The pressure is only really internal between me and my brother [Joe], we are very picky people and with regards to quality in general we know if something doesn’t sound right. I will never submit something I’m not happy with. We need to make sure the songs are good enough for us and of course for the fans. We need to be happy with what we create and that’s very important as a personal goal. There is a little bit of pressure as we know things are going well for us and we have the chance to headline more and more festivals so we need to write great songs!

GOJIRA are well known for pushing creative boundaries and artistic expression, recently you have unveiled the Vers le Cosmos art collection which looks absolutely stunning, what gave you the idea to go down this route of rhythmic artistry?

Mario: It was a collaboration where I played drums with sticks that were lit up and the photographer took pictures of my movements. I loved the collaboration side of things. I do have my own paintings and galleries where you can see my creations. I’m a really creative person, I am always painting when I have time. Sometimes on tour! It’s a good way for me to talk about my life and my ideas. I don’t feel very talented with writing or even talking [laughs]. I like to express my feelings through videos or pictures or paintings. It’s the perfect medium for me. But yeah, I loved working with the guys from LA on this project and I love the results. It’s not necessarily about me, it’s more about the photographer who took the pictures.

Part of the proceeds from this collection will go towards The Ocean Clean Up project, could you tell me a little more about what this project entails?

Mario: It’s an organisation which are trying to find better solutions to cleaning the ocean. I love the ocean, I go surfing all the time so I’m pissed off when I find all this plastic in the water and I think we could avoid a lot of this. I live in New York currently and I feel the progression here is slow compared to some places in Europe and I feel a bit sad about it. Whenever I go to a store I try not to use plastic bags. The guys from LA proposed the idea of donating some of the proceeds and I found The Ocean Clean Up Project on the internet and I think they’re doing an amazing job to help clean the ocean so I decided to give a little bit from my creativity to them.

Is the focus for the remainder of 2018 now on the new release or are there any other plans in the works for GOJIRA?

Mario: We have some DVDs in the works from our touring as it’s been some of the biggest shows of our career. We recorded the audio so we would love to release something about this. We played the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver, Colorado and we would love to release this too, maybe not a DVD but give it to the fans. We are still working on the audio but this is one of the goals for 2018, to release something before Christmas. Our Bloodstock show was recorded too so to release that would be amazing. We want to show the fans our rise in performance. From September 1st I will be in the studio with my brother writing riffs and working very hard on the new release.

Thank you so much for taking time our of your busy schedule Mario, it’s been a pleasure to speak with you. I’ll leave you with one final question. Would you like to say anything to the readers of Distorted Sound?

Mario: Thank you so much to our fans in the UK. We love the UK and we know it’s one of the most important countries in the world for rock and metal so it’s always an honour to be able to do interviews and play festivals. It’s so cool for us you know? We can’t wait to come back with the new album. We love you!

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