INTERVIEW: Mark Kloeppel – Misery Index

After their highly applauded release of The Killing Gods things went slightly quiet in the MISERY INDEX camp. Much to everyone’s relief this silence was finally broken with the announcement of the next chapter in their path of devastation entitled Rituals Of Power which was released last month via Season Of Mist. Prior to the release of their latest effort, We caught up with frontman/guitarist Mark Kloeppel to get the lowdown on their highly anticipated return.

Rituals Of Power will be your sixth full length effort, what can the fans expect from this release?

Mark: More Misery Index songs [laughs]. We took long enough to write it didn’t we? We did The Killing Gods in 2014 and it seemed to be pretty revered and that’s when we knew we were onto something special. Over the course of time we knew we needed to really come up with something amazing to follow that up and up to two years later into 2016 we were psyching ourselves out! No riff was good enough, no song was good enough and it really stifled out creativity for a while. Perhaps some of it was that we made a pretty complete statement with that record and said everything we had to say. We tried to force it and it wouldn’t come. After a while we just got rid of that mentality of topping the last record and that’s when the creativity started to flow. Just writing what we wanted to hear. I think we went into some pretty dark places on The Killing Gods and we used a lot of allegory as a way to talk about real world situations. So with this record we are retreating out of that dark place and bringing back more of our hardcore and punk influences. It’s not as darkly tinged. Instead of using so much standing on a pedestal of sorts and talking about world events at a bit of a distance with this record we got more down and dirty and involved. There are certain things happening now and social situations and trends we felt it was our place to speak out against them. Especially when you have people wearing social movements as a new pair of shoes and intentionally or unintentionally trying to dissolve what was otherwise a pretty good humanitarian effort. We just felt it was high time to speak out about it. That’s what you can expect from the record.

I can imagine the current political climate over there is providing you with a lot of thought for thought and inspiration?

Mark: Endlessly it seems! I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist or anything but some of these social happenings like right wingers burying tiki torches you can buy at Walmart in some kind of racist march of some sort. The kid with the M.A.G.A hat getting in the face of the native american protester and the way that unrolls, people demonising the kid and then more facts come out and they demonise the native american. Everyone just needs to step back for a second and the context and the unimportance it has on everyone’s every day lives is polarising and it’s broadcasted and creates extremes. The divide and conquer routine has been going on for a long, long time and it’s not the first time this has been used in social situations to make social divisions and lines more concrete in everyone’s minds, thus being able to control the population. There’s a lot going on and a lot to talk about and some there is some more insidious stuff at play than just saying all these broadcasts are just happenings.

There are so many media platforms these days it is easy for information to become skewed and it really is difficult to get a grasp on what is legitimate or just fabrication anymore.

Mark: The influence social media has had on what has otherwise been fact broadcasting entities, those news outlets have never been 100% objective but now it’s like everything has turned into an editorial section where you can’t see any facts without a slant or a skew involved and for someone who isn’t an analytical thinker and is maybe just a labourer who want’s to get news updates or facts about reality now all the facts are skewed in some direction and after a while this starts to skew the minds. Especially people who can’t think for themselves are fed this kind of stuff, not everyone is a leader, most are followers and trends are perpetuated. What’s going on right now with fact broadcasting is where are the facts? Where can I find a fact that isn’t attached to some asshole opinion? I can’t find any! It’s ridiculous. I could rant about this all day but I’m sure you’ve got other questions so I’ll stop there.

If it makes you feel any better we’re all stuck in limbo over Brexit and the EU situation and are becoming more and more disillusioned by it all so I feel your pain!

Mark: Dude! What is going on with this planet? You’re looking at all these different countries and regimes are beginning to take over in a lot of different places which is quite a frightening thing. Those kind of world leaders man, they go to war and we’ve been down this road a few times and it comes down to that kind of mentality. You also see the lack of humanitarian aid and shunning people from seeking safe haven. That’s a big hot topic because they don’t want more than their population of immigrants taking over their country culturally and I get it, it’s a concern but addressing the issue that people have been cast out and that’s wrong is not some kind of leftist propaganda which some people will try to claim. If you sit down and think rationally for 5 seconds you will realise there is multiple sides to the damn problem. The solution is not that simple as to throw some people away. That’s Hitler’s mentality!

How was it getting to work with such legendary figures as Will Putney and Erik Rutan?

Mark: We’ve known Rutan for a long time. I’m trying to remember when we first toured with HATE ETERNAL. He was always bugging us to work with him on a MISERY INDEX album and we couldn’t give it to him. I don’t know why! [laughs]. Adam chose to work with those guys, he wanted Putney for mixing and mastering and Rutan to record drums. Those guys are great and we had no problem with that plan at all. We’d been teasing with Rutan to record with him for so long so we thought we’d better get down there and do it with him. We could’ve done the whole record with Rutan but we have so much stuff going on and we’re kinda all over the place. It wasn’t on the cards to get down there and for me it was hard to justify as technology is really good for that kind of thing. I have my guy down the street for all my rhythm and vocal tracking so yeah it’s hard for me to justify.

I can imagine, a lot of bands these days live on the other sides of the country or even the world apart from each other and they can stitch an album together from the comfort of their own homes which is crazy to think about!

Mark: Exactly, everyone is doing the MESHUGGAH method! But yeah, Rutan is awesome and he did a great job. Will has got a reputation of his own and a bit more of a new school kind of mixing style but he is getting to be pretty diverse. He did BODY COUNT and PIG DESTROYER and the new FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY stuff. He’s got a pedigree for sure and we had the record nailed in just a few revisions.

In numerous interviews yourself and Jason have cited NAPALM DEATH and TERRORIZER as some of your key influences. Are there are bands in recent years who have caught your eye?

Mark: You kinda caught me off guard with that one! I like SULPHUR AEON a whole lot, I think they’re doing something pretty special. I’ve talked to them and I wanted to bring them out on the road but they don’t tour which is fine y’know but they’re fucking amazing. Our label mates LION’S DAUGHTER who are also on Season Of Mist are super killer. They incorporate synthwave elements in their stuff and are pretty killer. There is this killer death metal band who has recently signed to Unique Leader called CORDYCEPS and I really like those guys man! They’re just mixing super heavy stuff with dark atmospherics and overall that’s the kinda thing I’m into. There’s all kinds of good bands out there, if I’d have known this was coming I’d have made a list!

[laughs] there is so much music at your finger tips these days that it’s hard to keep track of it all.

Mark: Yeah man and a lot of the really good stuff is totally underground and really unknown with a Facebook page with like 2,000 likes on it. Some of that stuff is crazy!

Over the years MISERY INDEX have been regarded as the workhorses of death metal for your multiple spells of touring, I’m guessing 2019 will be no different?

Mark: We’ll do some touring but we kinda slowed down a little bit over the last few years. We all have stuff going on and I have two children who you can probably hear have been screaming the entire time! We all have different interests too. I know Jason is finishing his studies right now and during this time I got my Masters and I also work for a management company looking after bands so we all have quite a bit going on. You’ll see us out there though. We’re heading out to Japan with MELT BANANA, NAPALM DEATH and EYEHATEGOD then we’re headlining Europe and taking LION’S DAUGHTER out with us as well as WORMROT and opening the package is TRUTH CORRODED who is pretty cool and their album is coming out before the tour which is pretty awesome, I feature on the album too. Kevin Talley drummed on the album, Stef from DEFTONES is on it as well as Terrence Hobbs so it’s pretty stacked!

Can we expect to see you guys return to the UK?

Mark: We’re talking with our agencies who handle the EU and stuff. I say the EU and stuff because.. [laughs]

[laughs] yeah, who knows where we’ll be by that point!

Mark: Geographically speaking you’re still part of Europe man! Possibly later in the year we’ll be looking at that. We played the UK back in 2017 at Ritual Fest and IHSAHN was there, ANAAL NATHRAKH was there! Obviously they’re killer. We’ll get back over there!

Since your debut release all the way back in 2001 MISERY INDEX have continued to go from strength to strength, what keeps you motivated and inspired?

Mark: It’s involuntary! We’re compelled to do it, just like how your heart beats. Maybe that’s not that an interesting answer but it’s an honest one. Dude, doing albums is miserable! The whole recording process is miserable and you’re with an engineer trying to get everything perfect, switching strings, this is out of tune. We’ve gotten pretty efficient over the years but I wouldn’t call that an enjoyable process. The writing and the review and if someone doesn’t like this or that and we’re trying to come up with different ideas. Maybe it’s not good enough? ARGH!

Do you ever encounter any conflict over which path a track should take?

Mark: We used to have more arguments but especially with this last record we released the stranglehold on the process. If someone didn’t like this or that then it was out and we do something different. The rule is you can’t just say no to the part you have to at least come up with some sort of solution otherwise you end up going backwards and that doesn’t get you anywhere. You don’t want to be too cut throat with a part of a song either because that part might fit really well when the song is done or in a certain context. It maybe just doesn’t work where you have it placed. Maybe it wasn’t a great ending but it works really well as a lead part and then you can add some chord structure for a solo to go over it. Some of those ‘lesser’ riffs with a bit of retooling can be really useful for making transitional repeats. You don’t just wanna throw some stuff out. When we started writing a couple of years ago we were throwing things out too early. Like I said, miserable process but it’s just what you’re supposed to do. Artists that paint that are really into it, their motivation comes from somewhere within and I really don’t know where!

[laughs] I guess there is always a level of sadism in any form of artistic expression.

Mark: Yeah man, well that’s how I see it. I’m not trying to punish myself or anything but I get this thing in my head and I just have to make it manifest into a reality. It must be! How about just put it out? You’ll get a whole bunch of people who’ll praise it but there is always nay saying, shit talking assholes. Or you may get the German compliment, “It was good this time, better last time” [laughs]. Thanks for that buddy! I get really annoyed when people start to make judgments about us like we’re extreme leftist propaganda or something. We’re anti-oppression and pro human that’s where it ends! Extreme is not accepting over peoples ways of life as being valid. We’re the polar opposite of that. I saw that comment once and it pissed me off to no end! I’m not that person.

Is there anything you would like to say to the readers of Distorted Sound?

Mark: We’ve got a brand new album coming out on March 8th. We’re going to be on tour in Japan and Europe. Make sure you continue to support music and buy discs from other bands. Jesus, that’s how I old I am. Discs! Check out my other projects SCOUR and CAST THE STONE which is our not to older Swedish death metal. Thanks man.

Rituals Of Power is out now via Season Of Mist. MISERY INDEX were featured in last month’s digital issue of Distorted Sound. Subscribe to our Patreon Page to gain access. 

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