Good day, Marche Funèbre! How are you guys doing these days?
Kurt: Hey there, first of all, thanks for having us. It’s always nice to know that people are interested in what we do and who we are. Having said that, we are doing great. We’ve just had our first two gigs after the covid-lockdown and they were awesome!First of all, please introduce your band and band members to our readers.
Kurt: We are 5-piece collective that goes by the name Marche Funèbre. We started out in the dark and gloomy days of the winter of 2007-2008, in January 2008 to be precise. Arne is the singer, Boris plays bass, Dennis is the drummer and Peter and myself play guitar, where Peter takes most leads for his account. Our hometown is Mechelen, a nice (small) city in between Antwerp and Brussels in the heart of Belgium. I think that sums it all up.
I’d like to know about the formation of the band. How did you guys meet and all? Also, is there any special story behind the band title?
Kurt: In fact it started out with Peter wanting to start a doom band and putting an “advert” on the doom-metal.com forum, seeking for likeminded people in his vicinity. When he found a bass player, he contacted me and in January of 2008 we came together for the first time on our former bassist’s (extremely cold) attic. Peter – who can clearly sing – wanted to focus on playing guitar and so he contacted Arne (at that time still active in an strong and upcoming band, called Herfst) and apparently we convinced him to come over by saying that we were covering and old Katatonia-song. After parting ways with two drummers, Arne asked Dennis, and that’s almost where we still stand today as well. We had very few line-up changes and we like it like that. After the departure of Roel (first bassist), a good friend of ours dropped in for live gigs, and in 2012 Boris filled this spot up to this day.
I expect a long reply to this one. Can you please tell us about the concept and lyrical themes of all your previous releases?
Arne: The first lyric I got into hands for MF was ‘On wings of Azrael’, which was taken from a story by EA Poe. We started a kind of tradition there to have on each release at least one dead poet. On our first full-length album ‘To Drown’ (2011, Shiver records) we had Charles Baudelaire (Lethe), next came Emily Dickinson on ‘Roots of Grief’ (2013, Shiver Records). On ‘Into the Arms of Darkness’ (2017, MFL Records) we had a hint of Lord Byron, whom we eventually used on ‘Darkness’ from our 2018 split with Eye of Solitude. On the 2018 EP ‘Death Wish Woman’ we had a full concept taken from Khalil Gibran’s ‘Broken Wings’, and on our new album the lyrics for ‘The Maelstrom Mute’ are coming from Cesare Pavese.
We do have 2 guys in the band who write the other lyrics, lead guitarist peter and I. We both write from personal experiences, as from more philosophical contemplations. There’s no real big plan usually, although our albums always have some kind of red thread. On To Drown this was ‘water’, on Roots of Grief this was trees, on Into the Arms of Darkness it was ‘darkness’ and on the new album it’s about the strange ability of mankind to deliberately end its own life.
On Roots of Grief we had a real concept on 5 of the 7 tracks, which was really fun to do. It was entitled ‘La Marche Funèbre’ and paints the story of someone who is sick of his own mistakes, and the pain and grief he inflicted unto others. Then decides that his only option to deal with it, is to step out of life, and thus he walks straight to hell. When he is about to arrive though, his primal instinct for life grabs him and he is given a new chance to live. In short: life can be over anytime, so better live it to the fullest.
My last really personal lyric was ‘Deprived (Into Darkness)’, from Into the Arms of Darkness, about an impossible love that had to end… All lyrics I wrote for the band since then are more or less descriptions of feelings, sad situations, depression, …
Is there any special reason for choosing your music conception?
Arne: I guess our love for 90ties doom death metal brought us together, and now we just love to make music together, travel together, play concerts together. It’s like a big part of our lives really.
How do you guys manage to create music at all? What challenges do you face while writing and recording an album?
Kurt: Obviously there is a big difference between creating and recording music. So I’ll start with the writing part first, which is – for us – a process that has been mostly unchanged since we first started playing together. It starts out with an idea with one of us (mostly Peter, Boris or myself) that is introduced on the rehearsal and we just work from there. From that point on, every band member has its input and we work and rework riffs, melodies, drum patterns, vocal lines… or entire song structures until we all like it. Of course, this is quite time consuming in some cases. For example “Scarred” took us three years to complete, while “Roots of Grief” took one rehearsal to finalize. Is it challenging? Maybe, I’d rather call it fun.
Recording is a different story, and I can say we really learned A LOT as a band. One of the first things we learned the hard way, was to prepare very well. When we recorded our first albums, we did not work with preproduction or with clicktrack. We know better now. Besides that, we still learn every time again from our engineer. A good relation with the engineer is therefore crucial. In 2015 we decided upon a try-out session with Markus Stock (Empyrium, The Vision Bleak) and he has not let us down. We learn from him every recording session, soundwise and how to layer guitar lines for example.
"Einderlicht" released on September 25th. How was the experience working in the studio? Any funny or even sad happenings during the studio work?
Kurt: As stated above, we are working together with Markus since 2015 and it feels super. So every time we go there, it feels a bit like coming home and meeting up with a friend. This doesn’t mean it’s all fun and games in the studio. When we’re recording, we’re very focused on getting the best result we can get. Next to that, we record as a band, meaning that when someone records their pieces, the others can comment on parts recorded by another. In that way, we support each other but are also critical. If it isn’t good enough, we will do a retake. Sometimes this is frustrating, but in the end we all know it’s only to get the best end result and we all want that.
You guys are still underground/underrated, although your music has been appreciated by the critics worldwide. What, according to you, is the reason behind it?
Kurt: We are still underground indeed. Underrated, I don’t know. I’ll leave that up to you to state that. The reason why we are known worldwide, I think, is because of several things… First off, we are a hard working band. We have played in over ten different countries in Europe, did a tour on the West coast of the US, played in Russia,… So if you wanted to see us live, you’ve had some opportunities to do that. Secondly, it helps to have record labels from different countries. Currently, we are signed to Solitude (Russia), Hypnotic Dirge (Canada) and The Vinyl Division (Spain). Knowing that each of these labels have their contacts in their region of the world helps, without a doubt. And last but not least, the doom scene is a relatively small and friendly scene. So with some good contacts you may come a long way…
Can you throw some light on your past as musicians?
Kurt: We all come from different backgrounds… I think the common thing we share is, is that Marche Funèbre was nobody’s first band. Arne has been active in quite some bands in the black metal scene. Peter played in a heavy metal band, Dennis had been playing for over ten years in a death metal band, Boris played in another doom band as well, and I once played bass in a punk band. I truly do think that this diversity in musical background has a strong influence on what we create as Marche Funèbre. We bring you doom, inspired by all that above-mentioned genres, although punk might be the least audible.
Tell us about your favorite bands, from whom you gain inspiration. Are you having any favorite artist/band that has emerged from metal/rock soil?
Kurt: Referring to what I said before, our musical influences are diverse. So as a band we don’t have one source of inspiration and not one favourite artist. When it comes do doom metal however, we can easily say we were all somewhat inspired by (the old) Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Anathema and the likes… Personally I can add that favourite bands or influences change constantly. I like to discover new bands or new music and this also implies that I learn about new things and can get inspired by these new bands as well.
How is the metal scene going in Belgium right now?
Kurt: Strong. We have quite some “new” talent in Belgium and we’ve had some of these bands on our annual Darken The Moon festival. Next to that, we see more Belgian bands getting signed to big record labels like Neurot Recordings, Pelagic Records, Seasons of Mist, … just to name a few. Of course, the metal scene is mostly about underground bands still, but the scene is alive and kicking. The mere fact that we were able to organize two festivals in a row with top notch Belgian bands only, speaks for itself.
Are you working on any music videos, might it be videoclip or lyric video?
Kurt: In support of the release of Einderlicht, we released a lyric video for “When All Is Said” and a videoclip for The Maelstrom Mute. Be sure to check them out! Both clips were actually made be a fellow doomhead/friend, being Razvan from Abigail (Romania). Another example of how small the doom scene can be.
Rapid-fire section. Just for fun. So just chill, and just type the first thought that comes to your mind when you hear:
* Religion: not for me.
* Death: eventually.
* USA: been there!
* Drugs: once upon a time.
* DOOM: DOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!
Thanks a lot for your time! It’s really nice to know more about you. Would you like to say anything to your fans and our readers?
Kurt: Again, thanks for having us! To the readers… We hope to meet you soon on one of our live gigs! Keep supporting your underground!