Boris - The Interview

Boris formed in 1992, but as far as I know, this will be your first visit to Australia – certainly your first to Perth, at the very least. I think that in Australia, as in other countries like the US, you have a lot of fans, so what has taken you so long? Is there anything you are looking forward to in Australia?

We’ve had tour and gig offers in the past from Australian bands and fans, but nothing ever really happened. Our schedule just kept getting swamped with our own recording and tours to places like the US, and so we just never found a good time to visit Australia. We’re heading down with Sunn 0))) this time, and that was possible thanks to the efforts of (Australian experimental musician) Oren Ambarchi, who was also a support member with Sunn 0))) on our last tour to the US.

We’re only visiting the major cities, so there won’t be so many actual gigs, but I think we’ll be able to put on some content-rich shows. I’ve heard that the climate and scenery are awesome in Australia, and the bands we know who have played there have all told us that the music scene and the audience are great. We’re really looking forward to it. Plus, there are koalas, which (guitarist) Wata loves!

Are you aware of the ambient noise scene in Australia? Bands like Grey Daturas are getting attention at the moment, but is there anyone else you’re interested in?

We know Grey Daturas. We’ve had tour offers from them and been able to hear their recordings. Apart from that, unfortunately, I don’t really know much about the scene in Australia. When I ask people I know who have been there, they say that for every style or genre there’s a solid scene that really gets into the music.
Our favourites are AC/DC and Nick Cave and The Birthday Party. Personally, I love the Hard-Ons. I went to see them years ago when they came to Japan!

It’s difficult to answer the question, “What kind of music is Boris?” because you play in so many different styles – the sludge of Absolutego; the energetic, powerful rock of Heavy Rocks; the depth of Pink. What do you as a band think is the underlying theme that connects all your music?

Looking back, we have put out a lot of releases. I think as we’ve got older, there have been some surface-level changes to our sound style. Perhaps we are difficult to describe in words because of our wide range, from ambient to heavy rock. The theme going through it all is ‘rock’, I guess? I don’t know, if you were asked “What kind of music is Boris?” I think I’d be happy if you would answer “I can’t really say.” That’s just another way of saying that it’s something new, right?

How do you go about making an album? Do the three of you get influences from your own moods and the music that you’re listening to and that just naturally leads to a certain result? Or do you start with a specific style or sound in mind?

When we make albums or songs, it’s always just by jamming in the studio. Nobody comes in with a riff they’ve written, or whatever. Like you say, the songs just emerge naturally, from all sorts of things: how we feel at the time; the feel of the studio; the music we were listening to the previous day. We don’t ‘make’ the songs, the songs just ‘come into being.’ The speed at which those fragments – which might seem at first to be so scattered – then at once all come together, heading towards completion, is amazing; it’s always such an awesome feeling to sense the songs breaking out of our control.

How have you been influenced through collaborating with artists like (Japanese experimentalist) Merzbow and Sunn 0)))?

Those guys are generally recognised as noise or heavy drone artists, but that’s only a very small part of what they do. We’ve played with them heaps of times and collaborated on releases, and through this we felt very strongly that we were all on the same page in terms of what we were aiming at and thinking about in producing ‘sound’ as expression. More to the point, we felt that the ‘rock’ attitude I was talking about was something that we all shared.

We’ve also been influenced by the many other bands and musicians that we’ve performed with, but this just made us realise again that no matter what sound we produce, only Boris is Boris.

I think that Pink, which was recently released in Australia, is your deepest, most diverse release yet. On tracks like album opener “Farewell” and closer “Just Abandoned My-Self” a warmth comes across that hasn’t been so apparent on your other records, and in particular the vocals are more complex and emotive than before. Was there anything different in the creation of Pink?

Since Feedbacker we’ve been doing all the recording ourselves, so we have a lot more freedom in recording methods and jam sessions have become more important in writing songs. Our tracks spring out now from words that we think up or sounds that we happen to strum.

During our jamming, we get a little surprised that we start feeling empathy with the songs as we play and sing them. It’s a really exciting process. Because now we also do the recording as we see fit, the recordings that you might normally call ‘mistakes’ can give us impressions that then lead us onto new songs. So, I guess the concept of ‘mistake’ itself in the process of writing songs has kind of disappeared.

We’ve never worked on songs by having someone write a riff or a progression and then going over it and over it, so I guess maybe we feel that now there are even less restrictions on us than before. I think that’s reflected in how everything – the vocal melodies, the riffs, the chord types – is more direct, natural and emotive now. I mean, we didn’t ‘write songs’ when we made Pink. The melodies, the riffs, the lyrics; they all just emerged by themselves, and all we did was to give them an output, thinking “we want the song to end up something like this.”

Finally, then, the future. Vein is already hard to get a hold of here, and Pink was released in Japan two years ago. Are you working on something new at the moment?

Our limited releases are often mentioned around the place, but there are lots of things that you can’t get done by limiting yourself to making products for sale at some “standard price”. At the same time, making those standard products that still have excellent content is something extremely meaningful. Whichever it happens to be, we want to continue to make quality, interesting records.

Since Pink, we have released Rainbow, a collaboration with Michio Kurihara, the guitarist formerly of Whiteheaven and currently of Ghost, The Stars, and Damon and Naomi. It will be out overseas in May. We’ve also got another bunch of projects on – so many that even we can’t keep track of them all. We’re releasing albums separately designated as BORIS in capitals, for expression heading to the core of rock, and boris in lowercase, for expression heading outside rock, and we have lots of releases scheduled for within the year. The follow-up to Pink, by BORIS (capitals) is in the works at the moment. Most of the songs are set. We hope you’re looking forward to it!

Of course, we hope that a lot of people come to listen to, watch and enjoy our music on this Australian tour. Thanks very much!