Alchemist
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Throughout their 22 years together, Canberra-based outfit Alchemist have become one of the biggest and most highly regarded metal acts within the Australian progressive metal scene.
Never ones to release anything that falls below the standard they’ve set for themselves, the four-piece act (comprising of vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Adam Agius, guitarist Roy Torkington, bassist/keyboardist John Bray and drummer Rodney Holder) took four long years to follow up 2003’s Austral Alien with their sixth full-length album, Tripsis finally surfacing in August 2007.
The release of the album was followed up with an extensive tour throughout Europe, which coincided with the international release of Tripsis in October. And in-between plans for a return assault in June, the band have decided to play a string of dates along the east coast of Australia.
Upon returning home from a visit to Brisbane (Queensland), I caught up with Agius to discuss just how successful the group’s venture over in Europe was, the near demise of Alchemist following the resignation of one of its members, the status of their planned DVD, the possibility of a resurrected Metal For The Brain and just how well Tripsis was doing some nine months after its release.
“There have been some pretty consistent comments about Tripsis and it’s all been very positive,” begins Agius. “I think you could go as far as to say that it’s a lot more straight-forward sounding for us compared to some other releases, and that seems to be really striking a chord in a lot of people. There’s definitely a lot more aggression on this album than Austral Alien and that purely came out of us wanting to do something a little bit different once again. Austral Alien was really as progressive as we could take things within our sound. It’s definitely the most progressive sounding album we’ve ever done. But rather than just repeat that, we reacted to that, and Tripsis is what came out. It’s all about keeping ourselves interested in what we do, and also keeping the fans interested as well.
“We haven’t sold a million albums, so we don’t have any use repeating ourselves. If we did sell a million albums, I think that when we’d realise that we’ve found the perfect formula for success. I think that’s what happens to every band that becomes successful in a sales sense. I think they tend to think, ‘Well, shit! We’ve hit something here. So let’s do it again!’ But like I said, that’s something we really don’t need to think too much about.
“We over-thought Austral Alien a bit by making sure that certain songs contrasted against others, and that each song had a certain direction and sound. This time around, we just worked on the album with no preconceived ideas, and I love it. The only other thing I didn’t want on the album was esoteric lyrics or anything that was conceptually based. We all agreed, and there was a big contribution from everyone to try and keep things more personal, and not esoteric, spacey or environmental. I still care for a lot of the lyrics we’ve had in the past, but I have already touched upon those subjects.
Indeed, the four year gap between Austral Alien and Tripsis is the longest break between releases for Alchemist, but what a lot of people don’t realise is that it was Holder’s resignation that brought the band to a complete standstill. Agius agrees.
“Wow! You know about that! OK., well here’s the story: When Holder moved up to Brisbane, the distance between where he lives, and us in Canberra was really hard. Holder was going through a bit of a rough time then as well. So yes, he officially left the band there for a while. Our European tour was supposed to be his last shows with us. There was a lot of tension within the band for about a year, and then he decided to leave. But within a couple of months, he was back in the band. It became so fucking obvious to us that there were only three of us left. We didn’t want to play with anyone else. It was obvious to him as well. I think it needed to happen in some ways, because it’s improved the communication between us all.”
“We all know what we’re doing now,” he continues. “But when he left, we simply didn’t want another drummer in the band. We did try a couple of people out, and while all of them could play the songs, we’d been playing with Holder for so long that it just seemed really weird to see someone else sitting there behind the kit. I rang him and said to him that I really wanted to keep doing Alchemist, because I didn’t like the idea of doing something new and starting from scratch. Basically I didn’t want to do it unless he was in it. And he told me that it was pretty lucky that he still wanted to be in it too! (Laughs) So getting Holder back in the band was as easy as that. It’s just too hard to replace a member of the band when you’ve been the same guys for so long. Sometimes you don’t see it, but that’s a really big bond between us all. I just have a hard time explaining what the four of us have together.”
But while Holder’s position within Alchemist has remained intact, Alchemist has had a minor line-up change since the release of Tripsis, namely live sampler Nick Wall.
“Basically, Wall wanted to do his thing with his own band, and that’s fair enough, because his band is a really good band. We’re happy for Wall to go do his own thing. But aside from wanting to do his own thing, Wall always found it hard to relate to us because we’re like ten years his senior, and it was becoming more apparent that he wasn’t interested in the band. There were some performance problems at times. So we parted ways amicably. Wall was only a hired hand anyway and never contributed to the band musically, so nothing has really changed apart from a performance point of view. There were problems, but not anymore! [laughs] I’m happy to be doing the samples and keyboards once again, and the last couple of shows we’ve done we have noticed a great vibe within the band.”
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