The Old Dead Tree- interview met Manuel Munoz (vocals) & Nicolas Cornolo (guitars)
Manuel Mundoz: “We are really happy and sane people, but when it comes to write music, it becomes sad all the time. That is who we are.”
Ruim twintig jaar nadat we zo onder de indruk waren van hun debuutalbum ‘The Nameless Disease’, lanceert de Franse dark progressive metal band The Old Dead Tree een nieuw begin. De titel van dat album ‘Second Thoughts’ vat samen dat je toch wel van gedacht kunt veranderen naarmate de tijd verstrijkt, want hun afscheidsgeschenk in 2019, de EP ‘The End’, suggereerde anders. We zijn er maar wat blij mee en dat lieten we dan ook merken in ons gesprek met zanger Manuel Mundoz. Het leuke was dat hij nieuwe gitarist Nicolas Cornolo ook nog opgetrommeld had om de huidige stand van zaken uit de doeken te doen.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 6 december 2024
What was eventually the spark to enlighten this whole thing again?
Manuel: ‘Actually it happened because of covid-19. We were supposed to play a few gigs and when we released a five title EP called ‘The End’, which was made of old songs we started before we split in 2009. We just finished that and worked to release that and put a few gigs together in order to please the fans and make it a final round. While we were making up a tour, covid-19 happened and we found ourselves without any gigs. We had to find something to do, so we started thinking of other options. The guys came to me and we talked about it. It was complicated. We got older and we now all live in different cities, so it is a little bit more complicated than fifteen years ago, but we eventually said yes and here we are, with a new album.’
You started with the release of a single: ‘Terrified’. So that was the first new song which was ready I guess…
Manuel: ‘Yes, it was a kind of test for us and a test for everything. We wanted to see if we were able to be composing again, something that was relevant in 2023. We wanted to see if the recording quality was the same as we did and we wanted to see how the fans would react and if it was worth to work again and be back for real. Yes, it was a real test and obviously also for playing the HellFest in France, it is a very big festival. So we could see and test the reaction of the audience and everything was perfect actually.’
Making a new album now. When did you write the songs and focus on the new material?
Nicolas: ‘ We played a video in a French studio for ‘Scream’ in a venue near my home and when we prepared this show – my very first show with the band – we were leaving for four days and each of us played our ideas for the others. We started to listen together to our ideas and this enlightened a spark inside everyone of us. We were lucky wit our creations and considered: ‘maybe we still have something to say’. I think ‘Terrified’ was one of the first songs Manuel and Nicolas (Chevrollier, the other guitarist) played to us. It was in the beginning of 2021. There are no old songs on the record. It is all new songs that we composed specifically for our comeback. Then we continued and continued and we wrote a lot.’
In the lyrics one can still find that kind of melancholic touch just like before. A kind of nostalgia now even I think.
Manuel: ‘That is right and most of the songs on the album are about the doubt and the responsibility, because both those feelings go together of course. I was not really comfortable with the fact that we had released an EP called ‘The End’ and that we were about to come back with a new album. I was kind of betraying my own self. So when we started to work on new material, I was not feeling comfortable and that is why this album is called ‘Second Thoughts’, because we finally changed our minds.’
Nicolas: ‘A very good friend of ours, he produced ‘The End’ and in the documentary, he says something like ‘there will never be an end for this band’ and I think he is right.’
Last twenty years there has been an evolution in recording. I saw that you recorded a lot of things yourself, isn’t it?
Manuel: ‘We had to adapt to new technologies, because of the distance between us. Also because we have this new member, Nicolas Cornolo, who is a real nerd about all the gear, guitar gear and he’s got a home studio. We wanted to have control over the tapes, on guitars and specifically on vocals too. So we only recorded the drums in the studio, because you have to have a nice big room, but all the rest we handled by ourselves.’
Nicolas: ‘Now we have three mini studios around France. In my home and the other Nicolas’ home where we are able to produce the same sound at different places in France.’
Where do you all live now? Still in Paris Manuel?
Manuel: ‘Yes, still in Paris. Actually I am in the same apartment for more than 30 years, because it is in a nice house in the suburbs of Paris. The other Nicolas, the one you met a long time ago, he is in the East of France, close to Germany. Our drummer is more in the centre of France and the bass player Gilles lives in the west of France. So it is quite complicated. Actually we are having this meeting in a hotel room, because we all gathered here because we have an important gig in Paris next Saturday. We also have a show here in a small town. We spent all the day preparing the show. We have new material to test. Exciting times!’
The song ‘Solastalgia’ deals with deep rooted helplessness about the climate change. Can you tell something about your worries about that and what inspired you to write it?
Manuel: ‘It is really a good example of what I just told you before. We gathered the songs about responsibility about everything and, regarding that matter, we thought it would be really important to talk about the climate change. You have so many conflict-full situations, saying that in a way you should consume less from everything, but in the meantime all the society, all the advertising pushes you to consume more. You want to please yourself and you know that everything you do is sad for the rest of days and I think it is just a common feeling of impertinence and I don’t know what to do about it. I just do duty all the time and I am not ready to give up on everything I have now, my car and going on holidays by train, that kind of things. I feel guilt about it and I am not sure if I can change myself, but that was the main idea behind this song and Julien Metternich, who released the video and who released all the videos from the band, is the video director. The idea behind it is that he did not take the words for what they were in my mind and of course you will find some common lines in the narration, but it is a different story and it is very moving. It is really great.’
In ‘The Story Of My Life’, the reflective lyrics are also ace…. Which emotions prevail for you in life?
Manuel: ‘In the beginning the song was just about regret. It comes down on releasing the EP ‘The End’ and soon after, I was already thinking: ‘can I take back what I just said?’ After that I started with that sentence and I built a story around it about people who regret things.’
From one thing comes another…
Manuel: ‘Yes. I use to follow the changes that come up in my mind. I don’t have settled plans. Regarding lyrics, I change stories all the time. Is he the guilty one or maybe just witness and I was changing some real things in the story until I have something that I am really pleased with.’
What is the song ‘Luke’ about?
Manuel: ‘It is about a friend. In the beginning we did not have words at all for it and if we put the three songs together – which are ‘Better Off Dead’, ‘Without A Second Thought’ and ‘Luke’ – first I started the story for ‘Better Off Dead’ and the idea was this voice of a friend or a lover, I don’t know, who really asked you not to tell something. There is a secret, there is some guilt in it. After that, in ‘Second Thoughts’, it was all about a hidden secret, because it was too horrible to tell anybody, and in the end, when it came to ‘Luke’, I had to find: which was the secret? I did not have any idea (chuckles). I already composed all the vocal lines and to me it sounded like a conscience, a voice, so I started to make this conscience talk and I wanted this story to be a little bit more complicated, so it was the murder of a friend. So there is a short concept of three songs actually. We tried to find some cinematic atmosphere for it.’
But ‘The Worst Is Yet To Come’ does not seem so optimistic as last song either…
Manuel: (laughs) ‘We are really happy and sane people, but when it comes to write music, it becomes sad all the time. That is who we are.’
Can you tell something about the video for ‘Unpredictable’?
Nicolas: ‘Yes, it was the same director, Julien Metternich, who flew us in and again, it was not necessary our vision of lyrics, but he had a vision and he made us play in the mud all the time. We did not sleep and had no connection in the forest at night. Yet it was a great moment. We played in water, I never did that before. He had his vision about what he wanted to see and we just followed him blankly, going into the wood in the water and when we see the finished video with all the actors and the girl, we were very happy, because it is very dynamic. The images are very beautiful and it follows the music. It gives the song a new look. We want to show our energy and you see that in the video.’
Manuel: ‘The main idea behind the lyrics and this video is doubt, struggling with your own fears actually. I told you about that and the character in the video is a man with no hope and finally he found out something about your self-consciousness, about who you are and the way you think how people can see you. When you just take all these feelings of doubt away, you feel more light and you can do anything. It is about that push and then you can do a lot of things, without any complex or doubt.’
It really leaps to the eye that there are so many diverse vocals on the record: harsh, clean, melancholic and also together. Sounds like choirs, it is something you developed through the years I think…
Manuel: ‘Yes, because during the years when the band was not active anymore, I had some experiences with a project called Melted Space which is opera metal. I was just a singer with many other singers, but I had to work a lot for this project and I learned new ways to work. After that I sang in a band called Arkan, a French band with the former drummer of The Old Dead Tree, and actually in Arkan I was replacing a female singer – a very good singer – and the singer is actually the actress in the video. She is a long time friend. So I entered this band and I had to push myself in order to first be singing the female vocals. It was really hard for me and I learned new techniques and new ways to work again. And after that I also had a project with Nicolas in French which is called Nuit Carmen which is more pop music oriented. I gathered all these experiences from all these different ways to play music and different styles of music in order to create that and sometimes on this album you have thirty tracks of vocals in the song ‘The Lightest Straw’ for instance. I recorded a full choir for that. I worked a lot during these years, so I became a better singer and now I can sing from very low notes to very high notes and I can really do different singings, creating diversity in the stuff. We needed a lot of time and that is why we decided to do this at home in our own studios. It would be too expensive in an established studio.’
The cover artwork was done by Henri Lejeune. Who is that?
Manuel: ‘He actually also worked on the artwork and designs for ‘The End’. I knew him because he worked with Arkan before; but he is not as famous as he should be. He is really talented. We had a lot of debating in the band regarding the artwork that we wanted. We changed a lot of pictures and photographs we found in the Internet and in the end we said: okay, let us stop it and let’s go to see Henri and just give him the lyrics, the music and let us see what comes out of it and the first time was already the artwork we used.’
Nicolas: ‘The one which was okay for everyone, was his first picture and it was a relief for us and it is great, because it is an original artwork. It is not something we found somewhere. He worked on it and we are really proud on this artwork. It is what we wanted to show and what we have to tell.’
What are the plans for the near future? I really hope that this is not the only album you are going to make again…
Manuel: (chuckles) ‘We hope too, but we don’t know. We plan to write new music and to play live. Actually we are working on this and we will see what happens. Because a man makes plans and God decides… we will see. We hope there won’t be a new pandemic and we hope that the audiences will come back and see what we are now.’
Nicolas: ‘If you have followed the band, you may have seen that we will perform ‘Second Thoughts’ in London and it is obvious that ‘Second Thoughts’ is not the last thing we will release, because we already have the next one and we can’t wait to show it because it has the same energy of the band, the synergy of the five of us and that is something you can look forward to.’
