First of all, I would like to thank you for your time to answer our questions and thanks to add me in facebook, hope we stay in touch. I’m a great fan of Doom Metal and your bands Remembrance, Aythis and Lethian Dreams are fantastic. You’re are unique and exceptional.
GroundCast: First of all, to warm up, tell us how everything begun, the idea to be a musician and have a band (s). Are you always connected with music?
Carline Van Roos: Hello, yes I’ve always felt connected with music, it’s always been in my mind since I was very young. Nevertheless, it’s only when i got 16 years that I really started playing instruments (guitar and bass). After many years or playing alone, I founded Lethian Dreams with Matthieu Sachs, in 2002. This is how it all began, few years later I started to learn a bit of keyboards and we created Remembrance. As I felt the need to have my own project, I started Aythis in 2006.
GroundCast: How are your influences and if you know something from Brazil?
Carline : My influences are completely diverse. I don’t think I’m especially influenced by this or that band, but I’m influenced by dark or emotional music in general. Bands from Brazil…Unfortunately only Sepultura and Angra come to my mind, but I don’t know anything from the Brazilian underground scene, sadly.
GroundCast: Why Doom Metal? You have a lot of genres of music and you chosen doom metal, exist some particular reason for this?
Carline : I’ve haven’t really chosen any genre… I just compose and see what comes from it, same for Matthieu. I guess we are attracted to any kind of depressive music. Not necessarily Doom metal style.
From my bands/project, the one which is the most classified as Doom metal is Remembrance.
Lethian Dreams has always been more ethereal. Now, Lethian Dreams is evolving slowly with faster riffing, but still contains the same sadness and
nature melancholy. I don’t how I could describe the genre of the new album (Season of Raven Words) but I’ve read some people labelling it as post-black-doom, which is certainly a good description I think.
GroundCast: You’re a talented woman in music and this is so hard to find. Do you suffered from some prejudice? Its not “normal” (what is sad), a girl manage everything in a band (and you do this in 3). Tell us your first experiences in the world of music.
Carline :Thank you for the kind words. I don’t think I suffered from prejudice because I’m a girl. Or maybe I did, but I don’t really care about
what people think. I manage everything alone in Aythis, but we are two people taking decisions and composing in Lethian Dreams and Remembrance. I only have good memories from my first experiences in the world of music, for instance our first rehearsal with Lethian Dreams or the first album released with any of my bands is a great memory.
GroundCast: Recently we did an interview with Beyond the Pain (Progressive Death Metal band from France) and I said to them that I like of French bands, because you’re unique and special. I can give you some examples as, Anorexia Nervosa, Alcest, Les Discrets, Carnival in Coal, Wormfood and your bands of course. What do you think that makes the sound of Remembrance, Aythis and Lethian Dreams so special?
Carline : Thank you, it’s hard to say what is special about Lethian Dreams, Aythis or Remembrance… maybe we care more about feelings and emotions than about technicity… Alcest and Les Discrets are indeed emotional bands too.. I don’t know if it’s typical French, but I guess that’s what we have in common.
GroundCast: You told about your influences before, but what inspires you outside the music?
Carline : Nature, dreams… The good and the bad events of life..
GroundCast: The Golden question (laughs), we are living in digital era, the music can be foound easily in internet. What do you think about it? Remember that CDs are so expensive in some countries (and in Brazil, some bands never reach here and we have to import).
Carline : There’s a positive and negative side to digital era.
Positive side is that bands can get more attention.. it’s very pleasant to discover bands via internet, it only needs few minutes to get a whole album on your hard disk so it’s something nice and tempting for every music lover.
We were particularly happy to see that some people can’t afford buying the real CD but wanted to download Lethian Dreams, “Season of Raven Words” legally so we’ve added it to Itunes and to other legal download platforms for them.
But in anycases , people listening to our music is what makes me most happy. No matter if they buy the CD or not.
The negative side about this all is that releasing and recording a CD in good audio quality is expensive. If nobody buy the CD afterwards, you don’t have any money left to re-invest in future records. Its a hard time for almost every label now…they’re closing one after the other.. If labels can’t sell records they produce, they will close, it’s a normal fact. If bands can’t get labels, their CD don’t get released. If bands release CD’s themselves and don’t sell them either, they won’t invest money in expensive music gear anymore.. and so on… It would be sad that in 10 years, the only good audio quality music would be coming only from bands released on Major Companies.
GroundCast: You recorded recently “Season of Raven Words” with Lethian Dreams. Exist some concept behind the songs? Some plans to record something with Remembrance this year?
Carline : Season of Raven Words is mostly based on Nature. Yes we’re currently working on Remembrance but I can’t promise it will be released this year. We don’t want to put pressure on ourselves, we take our time.
GroundCast: Its normal the artists have another job, something parallel with the music. Does it happen with you or you can live with this (not necessary the bands, but producing bands, playing in parties, etc)?
Carline: No I’m not professional, I think it’s the case for many bands, even some bands much more known than ours. The downloading area is certainly one of the reasons for it.
GroundCast: If Carline wasn’t a musician, what would you be?
Carline : I can’t imagine myself not being a musician !
- Lethian Dreams – Seasons of Raven Words (2012)
GroundCast: How do you see the actual “Metal Scene”, in France and in the world?
Carline : It’s hard to answer because I don’t really follow all news bands… there are so many.. I don’t only listen to metal but also to neoclassical, ambient, alternative, rock.. so it would be hard to follow all the scenes, I don’t have enough time for it unfortunately.
GroundCast: Well Carline, thanks for your time, now this space is yours, to say something to Groundcast’s readers and for your fans here in Brazil.
Carline : Thank you for this interview and for your support, cheers to all Brazilian fans! Don’t hesitate to join our facebook pages to stay in contact with us