Good day! How are you guys doing these days?
First of all, please introduce Asylum 22 and band members to our readers. Asylum 22 is a new project from 2 “old school” death metal musicians from Québec/Canada, namely Martin Heroux (at guitar and producer) and Augustin Savard (at bass and also producing). We have known each other for more than 30 years.
On the album Harmonious Dementia we hired session musicians for the drum (David Lanas) and the vocal (Randall Hammer).
I would 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?
So why Asylum 22, and why now? Well, our former band “Agony” is on hold for many different reasons. As we turned our 50th candles this year we had a couple of discussions and we realized we still have something to say and some music to play. So we decided to start this new project. We also wanted to try an auto-production. It’s a lot of time, money and energy to tackle all this in one shot. It’s a bit crazy, hence the name Asylum. And we started our project in 2022… There you have it: Asylum 22. Plus, there are many Asylum, the “22” set us apart.
I expect a long reply for this one. Can you please tell us about the concept and lyrical themes of all your previous releases?
You know, after living half a century, you’ve seen many things that make you understand how the world works. We chose to approach our theme through the spectrum of mental illness. Either from a single individual, like for “Doom and Depravity” where it’s really the point of view of a single person who chose a different path in life. Or on a larger scale like in “And Dementia”. And Dementia is a song that takes you from the logical world and slowly takes the listener in our Asylum in 3 steps. It’s dementia on the march. It’s a very powerful song.
We’re already working on our second album and the theme will be the same.
Music wise we think we bring something unique, or at least what we’ve been told. The fact that we were there in the beginning of death metal in the 90's, we’re still attached to a certain sound and a certain way of producing, at the same time we’re also in the 2020s so we kind of bring something from both worlds. For instance, Martin likes melodic, energetic leads and eerie guitar arrangements and it’s something that mostly disappeared in modern metal. It’s something you’ll find all along the album. Augustin brings the maturity of the strong supporting bass as well as the song edition to another level. We do not consider our music as technical death metal, not extreme but there are some songs at 320 bpm and it grinds enough, just where it’s needed… Fury is mother is kind of “in your face” type of song, very chuggy, straight from the 90 with a modern sound.
Is there any special reason for choosing your music conception?
The world is crazy enough, we won’t be short with topics. That’s why.
How do you guys manage to create music at all? What challenges do you face while writing and recording an album?
This is an interesting one. Like we said, we have known each other for more than 30 years and we’re used to working on collaborative stuff together. A challenge for younger creators is to accept your work to be criticized or put aside. Between us this phase is decades behind us so we’re effective in our way of working.
Sometimes a song starts with a bass line, sometimes with guitars. However today, with electronic drums, isolated vocal tracks and DAW, it’s very simple to create quick demos. We are millions of miles from the ‘90s. This part of assembling ideas and demos is Martin’s fun.
Then comes the song editions. Considerations like is it too long, not long enough, we should repeat this or that, we should add a talk track, like in automatic obedience… this is Augustin’s fun.
For the album, once we wrote the lyrics we had the material ready. We still had to find musicians to play our music. We tried the platform Fiverr to find our musicians. We produce a first song, namely “In my delirium”, you’ll find on the album. The work was completely done remotely. We received the vocals and the drum tracks, and then we tried to mix it. That was our first experience working with live vocal and real drums. I think we mixed it at least 100 times to finally find the sound we wanted. The guys really understood what we had in mind and went above and beyond our expectations.
In the end, we think it’s a good way to work and we aim to do something similar for the next release.
Harmonious Dementia was released in September. How was the experience working in the studio? Were there any funny or even sad happenings during the studio work?
The studio is in Martin’s office at home. So we were super comfortable, with a couch, beer, and enjoying the pool during the summer. Since it’s a home studio, we had all the time in the world to record and produce the album.
This is our first auto-production and one thing we really wanted is to sound like a band and not like 4 musicians playing their part. One thing we decided early in the process is to not edit the songs “to the grid”. We know it’s a tendency, but for us, we wanted to feel the humans behind the performance. Same thing for the drum, the least replacement possible. I mean, what’s the point of paying a drummer if it’s to replace him with triggers. You better learn to program the drum part. Anyway, we went to the point that there’s some mistakes here and there, like drumsticks or guitar squeaks or whatever… We kept them. We kept a lot of room mics from the drum tracks so you have the feeling you are listening to a band and not an AI or a robot. Those imperfections make it real and that was important for us.
Can you shed some light on your past as musicians?
Martin has been playing music for something like 40 years now. When he was a kid he used to play violin and flute. He left classical music once he heard Metallica the first time. A friend came to him and said, hey man, listen to this. It was on Sony Walkman playing a cassette coming from the big brother of a friend. Many things happen on a school bus.
Since then, he’s been playing the guitar. Which is mostly like a violin, so it was kind of natural to switch from one instrument to the order. He had a couple of high school bands and joined Agony in 93 where he met Augustin.
Augustin started as a guitar player as well, in high school and switched to bass later on. He also had a couple of try-outs in high school and finally founded Agony in 91 he also played with Hidden Pride in 97-98.
Tell us about your favorite bands from whom you gain inspiration. Do you have any favorite artists/bands that have emerged from the metal/rock scene?
There are so many bands, we still listen to our favorite bands from the 90's like Carcass, Obituary, Death, Hypocrisy, Behemoth.
How is the death metal scene going in Québec?
Quebec scene is great. It has always been great. Quebec produced great bands like:
- Despised Icon
- Kataklysm
- Obliveon
- Voivod
- Gorguts
And many many others. For such a small population, we’re doing good, and we can compete with anyone musically.
Tell us if you have played abroad.
No, we did not have the chance.
Are you working on any music videos, whether it be a video clip or a lyric video?
We have a couple of projects on the table. In the meantime, we released Fury is Mother as lyrics video.
Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/BYLiBKOVSBE?si=U0G3ETFEN9X-94cL
Rapid-fire section. Just for fun. So just chill and type the first thought that comes to your mind when you hear:
Religion - Nope
Death – As late as possible
USA - Totalitarism
Drugs - Weed
Give Me Few, Give Me… - Pussies!