Interview mit Jørgen Munkeby von Shining (Nor)

Your new Album is called „International Blackjazz Society“. Did you chose this title in reference to the international awareness of SHINING and its growing listenership?
Yes, the title is definitely an invitation for our growing fan base to come together and unite around Blackjazz and also around jazz and metal in general. I thought it would be cool to bring with us not only the musical idea of Blackjazz but also the name somehow, and I thought the name International Blackjazz Society sounded like an amazing album title!

Your music is very extreme, but nevertheless you got quite famous with it, winning multiple prices and awars as well as getting bigger and bigger in the scene. Whats your explanation for this career? I mean, some years ago I would have declared jazz-metal as an underground-phenomenon …
Well, I don’t think I’m the right person to tell others how to make it big in the music business. But for us I know that keeping the focus on quality all the time has been important, and I think that both our fans and the media and journalists have noticed this and appreciate it. We’ve steadily become bigger and bigger, and I contribute that to our focus on quality and staying true to what we feel is right.

You changed the bandlogo for the album – why? In some way you delete a characteristic trademark every time as well?
Yeah, I don’t have a good answer for that. Before announcing the new logo for International Blackjazz Society, I wrote on our Facebook page that I thought that our logo from Blackjazz, which we had kept for Live Blackjazz and One One One, was perfect and the best logo I had ever seen. But I still wanted to change it just to give me a feeling of starting something new. I guess I’m always looking for new and interesting stuff to inspire me, and that was the same with the logo. Sometimes it might not be smart to abandon great things for new and unsure things, but if that is something I want to do to, then that’s what I’m going to do.

Musically you seem to have found „your“ sound. What are the main differences between your new record, IBS, and its predecessors?
I think IBS encompasses both the extreme, experimental and aggressive parts from Blackjazz while also keeping some songs that are more organized and accessible like One One One. In that way IBS encompasses the whole gamut of the Blackjazz universe. In addition it also adds a new element with the more singing ballad song House Of Control. So all in all I think it’s a more varied album than we’ve done before.

One characteristic point is that there is way more saxophone on this album or at least more soli. Why did you decide to give more space to this instrument?
I think the more ordinary vocal driven songs have somewhat the same amount of sax that Blackjazz and One One On had, but the difference now might be that we’ve included two tracks that are purely instrumental and are really sax oriented. The album also opens with a sax song, which kind of defines the album a bit. I’m not sure why I did that. I guess I just wanted to bring on some of the jazz stuff from Blackjazz, and I think it worked well.

Songs like „The Last Stand“ and „Thousand Eyes“ have kind of a Marilyn-Manson-/NIN-touch. Would you subsribe this thesis and was that intentionally?
I really love a lot of the industrial rock music from the 90s, and it has definitely defined a lot of the songs on this album. While Blackjazz and One One One had a lot of industrial elements in the mixing and production, International Blackjazz Society has quite a bit of it in the writing of the songs and the riffs. I like it a lot, and I’m very much looking forward to playing that stuff live!

„House Of Control“ stands out as it is extremly different from all other songs, expecially when it comes to the vocals. What drove you to write this song, and how does it fit into the context of the album?
I just wanted to have a song that could give our listeners some space, both on this album and also on our live shows. Most of our earlier songs are full on energy and tempo from start to finish, and I think House Of Control will be a welcome room to breathe. I also wanted to stretch my abilities as a singer and see if it could work to sing more melodic within the Blackjazz universe. I think it turned out great!

You established music-videos shot at uncommon places as a typical thing for your band. Whats the appeal in doing and filming performances for example on the Trolltunga or theMojave Desert?
I think it’s a great experience to put us in environments that we have little control over to play concerts. That way we can test our musical abilities and toughness, and also hopefully make a great video where the conflict between the external forces and the musicians gives the video some extra tension and energy.

Don’t you have to expend an enormous efford to film such shows/videos?
It’s definitely the most expensive and most dangerous concert I’ve ever played! It is also the show and film shoot that have taken the most detailed and longest period of planning! Bringing two tonnes of equipment up to the top of a mountain with helicopters, and playing a show on a cliff 700 meters above ground, where one wrong step would mean certain death, is not something you do every day! But I’m happy we all survived!

Does your label support such „insane“ ideas, and pays for them as well or do you have to fund project like this on your own?
We have licensed our album to our label, so while they pay for all the promo and do a great job at that, they haven’t paid for anything we’re creating, and didn’t pay anything for the Trolltunga video. We paid parts of it ourselves, and the local organizer paid a lot of the costs too. And we saved some money by me doing the video editing myself, and also working with our usual mixing engineer, mastering engineer and video grading engineer, which could give us a good deal.

Do you already have new ideas for crazy live-performances?
I have no idea how we can top the Trolltunga location and live video!

You’ve been on tour with devin Townsent lately. What experiences did you gain on that tour?
Devin is such a great guy and an amazing musician! It’s been very interesting being part of such big tours, and I’ve learned a lot from it. It’s also been very inspiring to see that it’s possible to become that big and still keep on making the exact music you want to make and stay 100% true to your own ideas.

Any funny anecdotes from that tour at the end of this interview?
Touring is always crazy, so I’m not sure what to mention from our tours. But I’d love to mention that we’re on tour again since Oct 28, and we’re hoping to see you all on our shows!

Thanks a lot for your time – as always I’d ask you lastly to answer our traditional brainstorming:
festivals: Great!
refugee crisis: Refugees are welcome, and it’s our duty to take them in.
the dillinger escape plan: Amazing and a big inspiration!
doom-jazz: Blackjazz is better!
iron maiden: Have no idea!
vinyl: Looks and smells great, but is much heavier to carry around than files or streaming.

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Publiziert am 3. November 2015 von Moritz Grütz