Waning is a Black Metal band from Sweden, with great material released, this year they give us the excellent “Feeding of Fragments”, the bassist/vocalist, Ronny Attergran gave us a great interview, spread the word.
GroundCast: To warm up, tell us, how everything started?
Ronny Attergran: Waning was formed 2007.
Right from the start the founders agreed that Waning should be a conceptual band, both lyrically and musically, and that the concept should revolve around humans and everyday situations.
GroundCast: What the name “Waning” means for you, you said that is a conceptual band, so why do you use this name?
RA: All grand civilisations have fallen due to indolence and pride.
Our society has reached its peak and are sentenced the same faith.
GroundCast: What are your influences?
RA: Everyday life.
GroundCast: Do you use yourselves, friends and family as influences? Which point of everyday life is more important to write? (in your opinion)
RA: Of course some people close to me have inspired me, all human interaction are interesting.
The depressed society of today and desperation are my two favourite lyrical subjects.
GroundCast: You have a demo (Waning) and a Full-Length (Population Control) from 2008, The Human Condition released in 2012 and now the EP, Feeding of Fragments (from this year), what changed in the band since the beginning?
RA: First I just like to add that
Waning also are participating in a vinyl art project “Eternal Nightmares” a compilation of 26 Bands divided on 13 7″ vinyls forming one artwork.
Now to the main question
The biggest changes since the start are the line up, after “The Human Condition” previous drummer CS announced that he was tired of playing drums and was quitting.
With a lot of luck, an old friend of all band members JW was able to join the band fairly immediately.
After finalizing our video “At the Peak of Indifference” we started the work of what later became “Feeding of Fragments”
During that work our vocalist LRA also left the band. Instead of holding auditions for a successor I (RA) how previously have done the backing vocals took full responsibility for the vocals.
GroundCast: How was the acceptance of the EP “Feeding of Fragments”?
RA: Since “Feeding of Fragments” is quite new the response has been great from our devoted fans.
It remains to see what the general population thinks.
GroundCast: I can say that the name “Feeding of Fragments” is a quite curious, what it means for the band and for the music?
RA: It’s about the signals you send out every waken minute. In your attempt to show the world how you are, by wearing a certain shirt, religious symbol or your latest tweet.
GroundCast: What are the future plans for the band?
RA: Hopefully we’ll find a label that can help us spread our message of Impressionism and cynicism.
Otherwise we have at least one more EP in the pipeline.
GroundCast: What can we expect from this new EP that you want to release, and what about a full-length?
RA: It will be a worthy crowning and end to the “The Human Condition” and “Feeding of Fragments” era.
After that our goal is to be a little darker.
GroundCast: We are in internet era, is easy to downloading anything, what is the position of band about it?
RA: It’s sad that the small record stores I visited as a young and fanatic aggressive music fan doesn’t exist anymore.
But it’s a part of progress, nothing is forever.
And isn’t it nice to find all the music you like by a click of the mouse?
Hopefully people pay for the music and support the artists they think are good.
GroundCast: Yes, you’re right, is really nice we can find everything with just one click. In Brazil we have a hard reality, CDs are so expansive (merchandising in general) and me for example, is impossible I buy and have everything I like. What do you think the bands can do to manage this?
RA: I think we’ll see more internet radios and app’s where you’ll be able to stream the bands from your favourite label and more digital releases.
GroundCast: There’s some concept behind the EP? Something you want to tell us.
RA: Apart from the overall impressionistic thought that is Waning, no.
GroundCast: Do you have some project that would you like to share?
RA: Our guitarist AA is also involved in Obitus
And I (RA) am involved in Stykkmord
GroundCast: You play black metal, but is something different from conventional, your sound is solid and clean, how is your composition process?
RA: The process is fairly standard I think.
The guitarists do the musical framework over a cup of coffee and then send it to the rest of us, so we can listen, take notes and give feedback.
After that we take it in to the rehearsal studio and finalize it.
GroundCast: I believe music is a good and important part of your life, what means for you “create music”, compose something that can inspire lots of people?
RA: I don’t know if we are inspiring; hopefully we can make one or two people recognize the bleak world we depict.
GroundCast: In one word, describe what Waning means for your life.
RA: Indulging
GroundCast: We always see lots of bands from there, I could lost my day talking about it, how is the Swedish metal scene?
RA: The Swedish metal scene is sadly more or less dead, with far too few venues for small gigs.
GroundCast: Its very sad, because I can remember of lots of bands from Sweden. I don’t know if you have this, but in Brazil it seems that every band wants to be Sepultura or Krisiun, how do you swim against the tide?
RA: The bands still exists, the sad part is that there are no good, smaller gigs for the new bands in Sweden.
The copycat bands are a worldwide phenomena, and I think that they exists in all genres.
I think, that if you desperately try not to be a copycat, there is a chance that you actually are.
GroundCast: Thanks for your time, now this space is to you say something to our readers.
RA: If you are one of the human beings that we portray in our music. Don’t lift your eyes from the ground, don’t ever change, keep on living your mundane life and stay in your corner.
Because we are feeding of the fragments that you share.