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When we met Paul at Amsterdam’s Paradiso at the end of November last year, he agreed to do an interview for EmptyWords. Lately we’ve been reading several interviews with Paul and everything has more or less been asked. That’s why we thought we'd try to do something a little different and present Paul with a few statements and allow him to respond. There are only 7, so if you expected a lengthy interview, you might be out of luck. The only condition for us was that it had to be Chuck related. We knew you'd understand. Enjoy! The jumping off point for these statements is a review of Traced in Air from BW&BK by Mark Gromen. These are our own free interpretations and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the original reviewer… |
| The ‘80s are often seen as the glory days of metal (rightly so), but as the ‘90s dawned, metal was a dirty word, except for death metal acts in Florida and Sweden. Fans wanted harder and faster. Words like esoteric and progressive weren’t welcome. Cynic, along with Atheist, Psychotic Waltz and Watchtower before them, found their intelligent music drowned out. Perhaps NOW, in a climate that has fostered careers for the likes of Tool, Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah and Primus, an act like Cynic has a better shot. If it were possible to combine the sometimes wacky output of the aforementioned foursome, it might approximate Cynic, who is often favourably compared to latter-day Death (Paul Masvidal, vocalist/guitar, and Sean Reinert, drums both teamed with the late Chuck Schuldiner on the groundbreaking Human in ‘91). Shame that after 15 years apart, they could only create eight selections (34:45), one being the tribal drum-laden instrumental ‘Nunc Fluens’. That said, the jazz meets art rock meets rock style employs the two vocal approach: predominately smooth and super-clean, backed by another, right out of Death metal. Chuck would be proud! ‘Evolutionary Sleeper’ is moody, whereas ‘Integral Birth’ picks up the pace/intensity and features plenty of growling, yet as with any and all Cynic “songs,” they can switch on a dime. Take the subdued intro to ‘King Of Those Who Know’, complete with a choir of female voices. Suddenly it jumps to metal, a la improvisational jazz. You want virtuoso musicianship? Check out the guitar on ‘A Space For This’. Call it math metal, technical, whatever, just approach with an open mind. Probably an album you’ll hum along to, more than sing. Crazy!
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| One quote from the review regarding Tymon’s vocals on Traced in Air: “[…] right out of Death metal. Chuck would be proud!”. We leave you to respond to this first statement from the famous Canadian magazine… |
I think it’s accurate. Tymon and I are fans of the older school growl when it comes to that kind of aggressive vocal style. Tymon has a naturally tendency to growl that way, so it works well for Cynic.
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| We saw an awful lot of Death shirts in Paradiso, I’m sure it must have caught your eye as well. Anyway, the 2nd statement: “To many Death fans Cynic (live) is, after Chuck’s death, the most obvious substitute”… |
I don’t think we sound very similar to Death (there’s plenty of other bands doing that), but perhaps the link to Human and our relationship to Chuck brings Death fans out of the woodwork at our shows, which is cool.
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| Human is often mentioned as a favorite album and counts, along with Focus, as groundbreaking. Both yield a cult status. Here is the next statement: “One ‘Tribute Tour To Chuck’ with you guys and other ex-Death band members and venues will be sold out”… if only that could be true… |
We’ve been asked in the past, but don’t feel right playing Death songs, without Chuck onstage. It just seems like a cover band at that point. It makes more sense to me, having bands that were influenced or inspired by Death to be covering the songs.
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any case we don’t know any Death fans that don’t love
Cynic and vice versa. In the venue we all asked ourselves one
question, a distillation of our previous statement: “Cynic
should play at least one Death song live”… |
Again, it feels a bit odd, the thought of playing a Death song without Chuck onstage. I know Chuck would be telling us, play your own songs!
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| And: “Paul Masvidal […] and Sean Reinert […] both teamed with the late Chuck Schuldiner on the groundbreaking Human in ’91” brings us to the next to last statement: “Cynic anno 2009 has more elements from Death’s Human as from it’s own Focus”… |
I think there’s a real Death fan in that review and he’s hearing the music in his own particular way. There’s the subjective power of music listening in action! [Note from EW: The coloured statement is all ours, not Mark Gromen's]
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| To end with a fourth outstanding quote: “Shame that after 15 years apart, they could only create eight selections”. The last statement: “Things would have gone different when Paul & Sean would have stayed in Death for some more while”… |
With the kind of music Cynic creates, I think less is better due to the complex layered nature of the songs. We had plenty of music, but intentionally went with 8 songs to maintain a particular vibe for the record. The idea is concentrated, concise and direct work that has density and depth. Quality over quantity is the idea.
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| One real question though: We know Chuck (while living in Altamonte Springs) loved the Netherlands. You Cynic guys (originated from Miami) choose to play with two Dutch guys. Since we (EW) are Dutch (based): What is it with Florida and Holland? |
Weed? I’m sure that had something to do with Chuck’s liking of the country! Otherwise, I’m guessing there must of been some great Death shows and fans in Holland. I remember we had a nice time there with Death and have always enjoyed Holland since. It’s a wonderful little country.
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