Interview mit Jake Superchi von Uada

Currently we are living in difficult times – the corona pandemic has severely restricted the daily lives of many people and the forest fires in California are practically on your doorstep. How are you coping under these difficult circumstances at the moment?
In the previous weeks things were getting very dire here. The skies were a thick reddish orange color blocking out the sun midday as smoke from the surrounding forest fires came closer and closer. It was like something out of a horror movie really: waking up to this eerie yellow glow and smoke filling my home. The air quality levels reached over double the entry levels of hazardous and remained there for about a week. Everyday life things, like eating dinner, even became a challenge. I could feel the breath being sucked out of my lungs without the proper air to replace it. By the end of that week we found ourselves celebrating when the levels dropped into the “very unhealthy” ratings. All this landed here during the week leading up to and week of our album release. So, with no choice but to push through I was packing and shipping orders non stop. I suppose it was fitting in a way, giving the content of this year and the premises of the album itself. Luckily the rain finally came, over a week past its original expected and predicted arrival, and pushed the smoke west out to sea as well as bringing the fires to a halt. Air is definitely something I don’t take for granted and although I often find myself coming off stage gasping for air, as well as appreciating the quality we have here in the Pacific Northwest when returning from tour, this taught me another level of gratefulness.

You have become quite renowned with UADA in a very short period of time – the word „hype“ is oftentimes used in regards to you. How do you explain your quick success?
Hard work, dedication, manifestation and willpower.

Such high expectations often bring with them a certain pressure to perform. Is it sometimes difficult for you to deal with all this attention?
Performing live is natural, I’ve been playing music all my life, so I never feel any pressure there. I think the only thing that creates some tension is that I am a perfectionist at heart and there are a lot of variables and obstacles when playing live and touring, and this band has seen a lot in a short period of time.
Attention itself is a double edged sword really. I honestly have a love/hate relationship with it. I, myself am not a fan of attention and rather just move out into the deep forests of Washington State and never be seen again. On the other hand, there is something inside me that has to come out through a live ceremony and it’s really hard to not be able to be able to do that on a normal basis, especially right now. But before COVID-19 stripped us of touring, attention for the band was the exact thing we needed in order to accomplish the goals we as musicians want to accomplish before our time runs out. So, we chose to play the game.

Although you have a rather distinctive style, people oftentimes compare you to Mgła and similar bands. Does it bother you if someone denies you your artistic uniqueness in this way?
Yes and no, I think all bands get compared to another at some point and it has probably helped us in some ways as it may have hurt us in others. Being compared to Mgła is what it is, if people think we sound similar, then that is their opinion, even if we feel we are a very different band.
We formed in October of 2014 and had finished writing “Devoid Of Light” by the end of the year. We played our first show in January of 2015 where we debuted 4/5th of the album. In March and April we started recording the album as well as writing for “Cult Of A Dying Sun”, which was over half way written by the fall of 2015, there is also written data confirming this as well.
When our debut finally came out in April of 2016, it was coined a rip off of “Exercises In Futility” which had come out just six months or so before it. Of course we know this is not true and that there is live footage of us playing these songs 9 months before that album came out. There was also a band from France by the name of Griffon, who we had never heard of at the time, accusing us of lifting one of their riffs as well. And to me it is the absolute closest we’ve heard to one of ours. One of their members that contacted us, had shown us a video of himself playing this riff in an online pre-production video back in March of 2015. He completely thought that we had seen this and stole the riff. I replied with the live video of us opening our set with this similar riff of ours in January of 2015, which was two months before his and he then realized that it was indeed a crazy coincidence.
We’ve seen the same accusations thrown our way with our song “Cult Of A Dying Sun” being a rip off of Behemoth’s “Come To Me Bartzabel” although the Behemoth album was released after our album came out. So, I think it is safe to say that there really are a lot of similarities to be heard in all aspects of melodic metal/music as well as visually in all forms of art. A song I wrote in one of my old bands sounds more like “Exercises In Futility I” than anything UADA has written or released and that came out nine years previous. Not to mention this band as well as another of mine also wore hoods. So, if we’re being compared because there are similar sounding scales and riffs then it is what it is, but to see a lot of people throwing the plagiarist and rip off accusations are just following the online echo chambers formed by our haters.
We’ve even received a bit of hate mail from it, and instead of ignoring it we share our past music to show where we’ve come from and how it progressed to where we are now. And we’ve had a lot of people actually realize they were wrong and apologize for wrongfully accusing us, which is pretty wild in this day and age if you ask me.
It makes me wonder if this was happening to bands like Death Angel, Metallica, Overkill, Sodom, Slayer and so on back in the 80s? A lot of thrash bands sound very similar and it’s because it’s a style that they all evolved from and were influenced by. It is no different here and now and I hear a lot of bands that I think sound more like Mgła than we do, but they’re probably flying under the radar. I guess with success comes the tear down legions. So, all we can do really is just laugh and keep pushing forward. We don’t write our music for them anyways.
As far as influences goes it was always about if Dissection decided to play Judas Priest. That was the combination of styles that we wanted to write and play and I think that is what our music sounds like: Vinterland meets Iron Maiden, Dawn meets Black Sabbath, Unanimated meets Thin Lizzy. That was the foundation we wanted to build on while incorporating influences from other genres. Regardless of opinions, we will continue to write and play the music we want to create. Some of us have been playing this style for well over 20 years now, and we aren’t stopping anytime soon.

You recently released your new album „Djinn“. How does the mythological spirit being of the same name relate to the themes you sing about on the album?
Djinn are beings that we in the west would otherwise know as demons or angels. Those who had inherited this world before us and continue to live in a different dimension alongside our own, who occasionally intervene in ours from time to time. Since they are entities that are known to be called upon to do thy bidding, it seemed like a perfect title for an album that I view wholly as a spell. On top of this, the concept really came together as “Djinn” was a working title for a song on our previous album before it was later changed to “Mirrors”. Knowing that we would be heading to the desert for the third album, or what we call “our third wish” it all just seemed like no other title would fit into place more perfectly.
I have also had a lot of interesting experiences and communications in my life with things that are beyond my ability to accurately explain. Some have even granted wishes, some instantly while others over gradual time. So, I can’t help but wonder if what I have experienced would be what others would consider a djinn.

Despite the title of the album pointing in this direction, there are only few oriental influences to be heard on the album. Do you think it would have seemed too much like a gimmick if you had included more of these exotic sounds?
I’m assuming by oriental, you mean “eastern”, as I believe that is its meaning. I’m not sure if this word is looked down upon in our current age, but I think the accurately correct description and type of sound to incorporate would have been an Arabian one. We honestly never really talked about it. It is never really a goal to specifically sound a certain way. Although we have our influences, we still have to just let the music naturally come out of us. What we write and what we feel from the writing is what matters most in the end. So, it never was an idea for us to purposely incorporate a more eastern type of sound. Although the title is of eastern paganism, this album is very much a western focused album.

Your songs tend to get longer from album to album. How difficult is it to maintain consistency and tension when writing more and more extended compositions?
Everything just comes naturally. When writing we follow the flow and feeling of and where we expect the song to go. We end when it feels like it should. Again, it is not a purposeful thing for us to write extended compositions but that is what is coming out and what makes sense to us. With that said though, I’ve always enjoyed long epic songs and when I was learning to write songs a lot of the bands that I modeled my songwriting after in my teenage years were bands that had long epic songs. Those songs always kept my attention and took me on a journey and I think that is why today the songs we are writing are coming out that way. It is all about peaks and valleys or highs and lows that model after the lives we live.

In my perception, the pre-release songs for „Djinn“ were received much more mixed than your first two albums before. Were there just a lot of internet trolls at work or was it in part even justified criticism from your point of view?
That is interesting because from our point of view as well as the label’s, it seemed that these two songs had a far more positive and less mixed reception then the previous album song premiers. I was personally surprised honestly, because I expected far more negativity regarding the direction that this album took.
I’m sure there were some internet trolls at work, as they always are, but we always work the trolls ourselves. In my very early teen years before finding darker music and black metal, I was idolizing Peter Steele, Kurt Cobain and Marilyn Manson who were all really good at trolling the media. You could say I learned a lot from them and even though I personally don’t like the attention, as mentioned earlier, I’ll use it to my band’s benefit if need be. So, trolls are always welcome… we like to be entertained from time to time. Besides, the haters sometimes are the best promoters for us, they just don’t realize it.

Especially with „No Place Here“ you started quite a big discussion. Some people interpreted the political lyrics to be leaning to the left or to the right, others even thought the song was too vague and centrist. Was this ambivalence intended by you?
This song was indeed something that we knew would cause such a reaction, especially at the time it was released. Although the lyrics were written in late 2019 and early 2020 before this year became what it became, it just felt like the song that needed to come out. It wasn’t our original plan to release this song as the second single, but as tensions were rising it felt like the right one, or what some might consider the wrong one.
As you said, within minutes after the song’s release, accusations of them being left, centrist, right and so on were flung in our direction. Maybe this is the mixed reaction you’re talking about in the previous question, but this is obviously over the lyrics and not the song itself. For me as a writer, especially when writing a song, it is important to write in an ambiguous way so that the reader may interpret their own experience from what they’re reading. What everyone wants to call left, center or right is really just about humanity in general. The lyrical concept is no different than that of “S.N.M” or “Snakes And Vultures” really, just maybe a bit more straightforward.

Either way, there are certainly some listeners who will misunderstand or misinterpret you here. In your opinion, isn’t that problematic for a song that is supposed to convey a political message?
If you’ve been paying attention to what is going on in the United States of America right now, the fact that this song is being politicised shouldn’t come as a surprise. Everything is being politicised in this country right now, down to wearing a mask. There is a line in the song that literally says “In the end they’ll hear only what it is they want to hear”. There really isn’t much more I can say. What I wrote is what I see and what I’ve experienced within my own life and band over the past handful of years.
The song itself is not meant to convey a certain political message but more so the faults that come from allowing ourselves to be completely indoctrinated into an extreme form of governing. No matter which way you spin it, it rings true and both sides of the extremes start to look like an oppressor to the average every day working class human being. It’s not my goal to seize power over someone else’s life, just as I’m not interested in any authoritarian movement taking power over mine. Isn’t that what people are fighting for in the streets now? Or are they being coursed into a narrative that was purposely laid out for them? It’s a bit hard to tell sometimes, honestly.

Unfortunately, many black metal bands use rather vague language with certain buzzwords or dog-whistles to convey extremist messages. In your opinion, how can listeners distinguish with certainty radical projects from those that only want to provoke or even deter from extremism by showing it in all its ugliness?
That I really can’t attest to this because for one, I don’t read other bands’ lyrics these days. As for my own lyrics all I can say is I’m not here to preach to people or tell them what to believe. It’s their job to think for themselves. They walk a path that I can’t speak to. We are all human though, and can find common ground if we wish. Unfortunately most people rather seek division and create enemies without realizing why they do it in the first place.
Here in the USA it’s easy to see that big business runs the world with organizations like the Bilderberg group laying out our future for us, all through a fake two party system narrative that is created for the sole purpose of keeping us divided and at war with each other. The media and the politicians lie daily and most eat it up so that they can get behind a cause and feel good about themselves. Well, the sad part is most of these causes are only presented as good on the surface but the demeanor (or intent) behind them is far from it. None of these rich and powerful people give a fuck about the common daily workers such as ourselves. Our deaths mean nothing to them and they’ve proven that time and time again, yet people still allow themselves to get sucked in. They find the people they want to listen to and they digest the rhetoric just to spit it back out and join in their favorite echo chamber existence, surrounding themselves with people that will only repeat back to them what they want to hear. And don’t you dare ask a question, because instead of answering it, they’ll just assume you’re the enemy for questioning their precious indoctrinated existence.
More often than not I’ve seen friends and families torn apart over these very certain subjects, even some of my own. In reality I think most people just want the same things, which is a fair and equal shot at living a life worth living. Unfortunately the rich get richer and the poor stay poor, meanwhile the media pushes the race card issues every chance they can to keep everyone focused on that one particular issue, which shouldn’t even be an issue if you ask me. I never understood why anyone would hate someone else over the color of their skin, but I grew up a metalhead in a small farm town where I was hated for looking different, which also made no sense. The big difference is that looking different was a choice of my own, where most don’t have a choice. Why we judge based on anything other than personality and the actions of the people themselves I’ll never understand, but what I don’t understand even more is the ones that turn their cheek away from the blatant racist remarks their party has said or done, while only focusing on the other. The lesser evil I suppose, although if you ask me it’s an equal if not greater threat people are playing into.
It’s really easy to see what is driving people to constantly vomit their political morals all over social media daily thinking they’re making a difference. I’m not sure what it is like for other parts of the world, although I’ll assume similar because we’re all human, but what I’ve come to learn is most of the people who are pushing their “good guy” narratives so boastfully online here, usually are the ones that are hiding something. It is something that we have even seen in this band, where a new member would come in and try to use their politics as some justification for status and power, all while not being able to live up to the expectations they want to hold everyone else around them to. Some even turn the cheek to one’s toxic actions so long as they’re identifying within the same box. At the end of the day, people can identify as whatever they want to, but to me you’re either a good person or a piece of shit and I have no interest in the latter.
Meanwhile, I watch the country divide further all while doing the exact same things. One side justifies a shooter that fits into their political narrative, while damning the shooter on the other side, and vice versa. They don’t care about facts, just their own personal narrative based off of the doublespeak their heroes constantly display. So, people are getting killed in the streets daily in my country, politicians who can barely form a sentence are consistently getting accused of rape, people praising murderers, and saying vote for “input idiot here”, but my lyrics are the problem?! These are the actions I’ve seen over the years that have inspired me to write these words. So, maybe people should take a step back and look in the mirror before they point the finger at someone who chose to write a song instead of publicly going to bat for a pedophile.
The media is brainwashing and programing us all in one way or another. I’ve always tried to remain free from it and eventually I was forced to pay more attention to it, and without any personal political bias, (as one who identifies as pagan I’d vote for the environmentalist) it pushed me to write a song about it. It’s meant to be thought provoking and strike emotion. I feel all good art should push those boundaries. If someone takes offense to it, then I’ll just assume they’re guilty. To some extent aren’t we all?

As far as I know, this time you took care of the recording and mixing yourself, instead of leaving it to an external producer. Why did you want to do it on your own this time?
I like to be hands on as much as possible if I can be and I have a passion for recording and mixing. I figured since the album concept is about possession then I’ll take possession of this end and let it consume me as much as possible.

If I’m not mistaken, there was a mishap with the production, so the original final mix was lost, right? What happened and how did you proceed? Why did you decide to proceed in this way, and was it the right decision from today’s point of view? Do you think the album is now as good as it were with the first mix, or did you have to make a compromise here?
Well, it was a forced end unfortunately. Since this was my first time mixing on a computer with a ton of new software I’ve never used before I was experimenting a lot to see what each and every gadget would do. When I was getting close to the end of mixing I was having a lot of issues with the computer due to pushing the processor beyond its maximum limit. What ended up happening is that certain files started disappearing. It was like the harddrive was starting to eat itself and eventually it got to a point where I ended up losing the progress I had which was about a week past the previous mixdown that ended up being what you hear on the album.
There were some things on this album that I don’t think could have been re-created and so it was a decision to see if we all felt it was good enough to proceed forward with or restart the whole entire process, setting us back about six months worth of work. Everyone seemed to think that the mix was not bad and worth pushing forward with. I of course learned a lot about this process and “Djinn” will be the daemon I have to live with. But, we can only move forward and I’m making the correct steps to alleviate this issue again in the future. Although we have seen some complaints about it, which we also saw with “Cult” and “Devoid”, we also have received a lot of praise for it as well. And even though I know the exact issues and how to correct them next time around, it’s apparent that no matter what we do there will always be criticism from the outside world.

The artwork was created by Kris Verwimp just like on your first two albums. What exactly do you like about his art in particular that you have already made it an integral part of your output?
Kris and I have been working together for over 16 years now. I first found his work back in the mid 90’s from album covers from bands such as Absu, Marduk, Enthroned, Moonblood and so on. His work always stood out to me because it had this colorful epic aura that was able to transport me to other worlds. It was something I always wanted for my own musical releases and why I chose to contact him back in early 2004. We work really well together and it is an honor that continues to work with us still to this day.

In his pictures for your artworks there are some continuous motives to be found – it’s always an obscure figure in the middle of a desolate landscape and above it a celestial body. What’s the thought behind this ongoing concept?
Each album is a chapter from our story and as we progress with each one the album covers take a reverse role or narrative. As we move forward the art moves backwards in a sense. I can’t remember the word that describes this at the moment, but I thought it was an interesting concept and something I’m not sure I’ve seen from another band. Not saying it doesn’t exist out there, it possibly could, I just haven’t seen this before. How far we will be able to take it is another thing, but we will continue it as long as it makes sense before deciding to change to another concept, if that happens.

Under the current circumstances it is of course difficult to plan ahead. However, how likely do you think it is that next year’s tour will be able to take place as planned?
I’m honestly not hopeful at all unfortunately. We have been unable to rehearse since February and playing a live show now is starting to seem like a fantasy that may not come into fruition again. Not to sound pessimistic but it is what it is. I’m a very optimistic person and I believe that a lot of our own thoughts can be manifested into reality, which is what UADA is highly based off of. With that said though, all we can do is plan and hope for the best. At some point if we are able to step back out into the live realm, we will when the time is right. Until then we will turn our focus to the next album that we are already working on.

Finally, I would like to go through a short brainstorming session with you. What comes to your mind with the following terms?
World music: universal language
Comics: paperback
Climate crisis: political science
Presidential election: a sham
Streaming concerts: sad reality of the future
Punk: non conforming attitude

Thanks for the interview. Is there anything else you would like to tell the readers at this point?
I’d just like to sincerely thank those who have supported us over the years and continue to support us now during some extremely tough times. This support is what helps us remain able to push forward and we will continue to work hard from behind the scenes. We hope we will be able to see you all on the road soon, but until then stay safe and stay haunted!

Publiziert am 30. Oktober 2020 von Stephan Rajchl