INTERVIEW: Rabea Massaad – Toska

Ahead of their first ever headline tour which starts tomorrow, Distorted Sound spoke to TOSKA guitarist Rabea Massaad about new album Fire By the Silos, why they’ve never had a singer and how ArcTanGent can be both the best and worst of times…

Rabea, thank you very much for joining me today. Firstly, potentially a stupid questions to start with but how does it feel to have sold out three date already on your first ever headline UK tour?

Rabea: Well, it never fails to amaze me that people actually want to come see instrumental progressive rock music because it’s definitely a niche but it’s nice. I couldn’t be happier, it’s going to be really good!

Don’t blame you at all! What made you decide to go instrumental in the first place?

Rabea: Well, we intended initially to have a singer and we auditioned a bunch, but we didn’t find anyone that fit the mould we were after. Over the course of time doing that it just became apparent that progressive instrumental music was getting quite popular with the likes of PLINI and ANIMALS AS LEADERS and INTERVALS, so we thought “Let’s give it a go and see what happens!”

And it’s exploded quite nicely; you seem to have done rather well off the back of (last album) Ode to the Author so far!

Rabea: Yeah, the response has been really nice. Considering it was just four songs, the longevity we’ve got out of it has been quite cool and very unexpected. It was definitely time for new music though.

Definitely. One of the things I did like, as a final send off to that album, was you began to sell the musical tabs from the album itself. What was the decision behind that?

Rabea: I’d get loads of inbox messages from people wanting to learn the songs, lots of comments on YouTube and so on and so forth. It wasn’t a huge task to get it done and none of us had really considered doing it, but we’d pretty much done everything we could do with the EP and with Fire By the Silos coming out in a week at the time, we decided to release the tabs for all those that were asking.

Moving on to Fire By the Silos – what’s it like writing a concept album without a lyrical storyline?

Rabea: Originally the idea of a concept album came much later. When I’m writing a song I get a vibe anyway – whether it’s a scene, a feeling or an observation. There’s a lot of social commentary on the album in terms of the feeling and meanings of songs, but it all came together when we were in the studio. We‘d recorded everything and as I wanted some spoken word on there, I was thinking about what that should be and it all fell into place. I suppose without lyrics as well, it’s open to interpretation to everyone who hears it but as far as I’m concerned, the meaning behind the songs and the vibe respective of that album is its own identity. It’s a look at where society would be if we went down a certain path in the nest twenty years or something you know, based on how based on the way things are right now.

I’m very much looking forward to hearing it! You co-produced again, as you did with Ode to the Author, you did it with Mark Roberts this time instead of bassist Dave Hollingworth, why decide to bring Mark on board and not co-produce with Dave again?

Rabea: So the first record was done in 10 days: ARCANE ROOTS wanted us to go on tour with them and we needed something to sell because we couldn’t go on tour without having something for people to go back and me and Dave have always worked together on recordings so we thought that was the best way to do it. Dave’s always been very capable in the studio in terms of, you know, mixing it and using gear and I’ve very much been a producer in the mindset of “Can we make it sound this way and that way?” without really understanding the technicalities.

Between the last one and this one however, I’ve learned a lot more and I just think that because I’ve had such a vision for the songs as a whole and the concept of the album, when it came to sonically moulding everything I was worried that if we tried to do another one ourselves we wouldn’t be able to achieve it because I do think that what you produce your music you can often tunnel vision and it can run the risk of it not being what it deserves to be.

Additionally, Mark Roberts had done the last BLACK PEAKS album and a bunch of other bands I was a fan of and he approached me after we released Ode to the Author and said “If you’re doing another record I’d love to work with you guys,” and after hearing and really loving the BLACK PEAKS record and the vibe at Middle Farm I just thought “Let’s try and see if it’s the right fit”, so we went and recorded Congress there and the way we worked together was good so we said “Let’s do the whole album.”

I also think it wasn’t necessarily that we chose not to go with David, more that he wasn’t as involved in the whole process. I was there every day with tracking and moulding people’s performances and sounds and then when it came to mixing I was there every day with Mark and Dave did drop in and out but it’s just I was there from start to finish.

Fair enough! So when you go on tour you’re taking HYPOPHORA with you who are a lovely up and coming band from down south. How did they come about going on this bill with you; were you aware of them or did they come from elsewhere?

Rabea: So I’m really good friends with [BLACK PEAKS drummer] Liam Kearley and he introduced me to them at ArcTanGent so I checked them out and thought they were really cool. It wasn’t until we were looking for bands to take on the road that they literally popped into my head I was like “Oh yeah, what about those guys?” so I got contact details from Liam and asked them because you never know, and they were actually busy at the time said they’d to get back to us but it ended up working out really well. I’m really glad to have them because I really like their stuff and I also think it’ll be nice to have a) a band with vocals open the night and b) a different vibe that our fans can react to.

Are there any memorable shows that you’ve had as a band for either all the right or all the wrong reasons that you can think of?

Rabea: Well, we haven’t done hundreds and hundreds of gigs together but the most memorable wise I would say was ArcTanGent last year. We were third on the main stage and normally on the Saturday it’s quite hard to get a lot of people down there early, but we started making noise and the whole tent filled. That was amazing because for us it was the biggest stage, biggest gig, biggest crowd. For the worst reasons I would say ArcTanGent this year because we decided to start running clicks on the new album because we’ve got samples and other cool stuff on the album, so we decided ArcTanGent would be the first attempt at using them which was a stupid decision! Basically, Ben [TOSKA drummer]’s snare broke in the first song so he had to change that out and then somehow the clicks weren’t playing to him and he had to rip his in-ear monitors out. Usually we’re quite iron-clad when playing but that was ropey! [laughs]

Not pleasant at all! Are there any that you are most looking forward to over the tour, not just in the UK but in in Europe as well?

Rabea: Definitely looking forward to the Boston Music Room; we’ve sold it out, it’s a cool venue and London is a good fun; the crowd seems to be really rowdy which I really like – I’ve never had a mosh pit with TOSKA until we played the Old Blue Last and we had a full-on circle pit! I’m looking forward to going to Germany because the hospitality is so good – the venues are normally kitted out really well and German fans are pretty full on as well and of course our hometown show at The Haunt in Brighton. We’ve not played a proper headline show there so I’m quite excited because it’s a nice venue with a good vibe to boot.

I’m assuming as well that once this one’s done you’ll take a little bit of time off for Christmas and then you’ll be back playing shows next year?

Rabea: Oh yeah definitely. We want to go to the States and I really want to go to Australia as well as doing another UK/Europe – we’ll just see what happens. I’m not worried about doing any more headline shows; I’d like to get on tour with a band like BLACK PEAKS, other bands we’re fans of. It’s good to do that when you’re a band who aren’t so much ‘up and coming’ but I don’t feel like we should always be headlining shows; it’s good to be humble and do a support gig as well.

Just to round things off then, if you could support anybody who would it be and why?

Rabea: KARNIVOOL, because not only are they my favourite band of all time and space, TOSKA wouldn’t sound the way it does. I think it was a very awesome moment hearing them and going “Everything I wanted to do musically, someone has done!” They also wear their influences on their sleeve and up until hearing them…in my old band I’d think “We can’t use these riffs because they sound too much like this band or that band” but actually it’s really nice to hear things that sounded like you know, PORCUPINE TREE or TOOL, INCUBUS or DEFTONES. It’s okay to do that and you know, actually everybody does it. I’d also love to share the stage of them and watch them every night – I actually think it’s more that I’d get to watch them every night! [laughs]

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of selfishness here and there! Rabea, thank you for talking to me; it’s been an absolute pleasure and good luck with the tour!

Rabea: Thank you very much man, take care!

Fire by the Silos is out now via self-release.

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