CARL MCCOY ON "ZOON"
SIREN MAGAZINE
Carl McCoy has taken his fucking time. Five years to be precise. Even lord
of goth Andrew Eldritch takes shorter artistic retreats, but he's finally
pulled himself round with a new album 'Zoon' more importantly a new hard
edged sound. Infected took it upon themselves to bring out the recluse out
of his post- radioactive shell to explain what he's actually been doing all
this time.
Carl McCoy, he of steel claw hand and post-apocalypse cowboy image, has
returned from the wasteland. Five long years spent searching for the people
who can help him turn the tuner in his head into the apocalyptic war chants
of the reborn and 'Zoon' is the result. A more different album from the
former king of throaty goth you could not expect, drawing as it does from a
darker, more vicious intensity that the Fileds of The Nephilim failed to
engage. Think Ministry, think Slayer. Goodbye plodding, progressive rock
epics - say 'Hi' to the new adrenaline hate of 'Venus decomposing'.
"There is a logical progression between 'Zoon' and 'Elyzium'", says a chirpy
but cautious McCoy. "I think that there is only one album missing in-between
and I know where that went because it wasn't in my head."
"I wanted to creat a real contrast in my music. I wanted to feel some real
energy at the peak of an album or a song but at the same time be in control
of the mood. The Nephilim were always very handy at the slower atmospherics
but never quite managed to capture the power".
It seems surreal to be sat in a pub talking about The Watchmen and sumerland
like they were old friends with the man who crafted the epics, but it's even
more bizarre hearing he fucking hates them!
"'Elyzium' was far too
controlled and safe. We were playing these ten minute songs that went
nowhere and all the time I was getting more and more angry and I didn't have
any fast song to take it out on."
Frustrated by the apparent lack of energy in The Nephilim camp McCoy put his
ideas to the rest of the band soon after the 'Elizium' tour ended in 1991.
The singer suggested a darker, more brutal approach was necessary if the
band were to survive but they refused to compromise the endless twiddly
solos and even suggested adding a drum solo to the live set (actually that's
a lie, but if you've ever seen a Nephilim gig you'd know what I mean...)
"I really hate the idea that people can think that Fields Of The Nephilim
coud be seen as progressive rock, but so many years on that's what it was
turning into."
"I always wanted to move things forward but they never listened to my ideas
for the music and they were never at all interested in the lyrics. we really
just grew into two separate camps - me and the rest of the band!", he
laughs. In the end a decision was required;
"I decided that I could play safe and reamin miserable but secure or I could
go for the challenge of creating something new, and the first step of making
anything new is destroying the old."
During the five years which it took to make 'Zoon' man musicians and 'name'
producers saw the inside of the Nefilim studio but failed to hear what Carl
McCoy desired. Half of the musos were intent upon proving how good they were
at playing 'Psychonaut' instead of learning how to make something as
brutally effectiva as the scathing 'Penetration'. According to McCoy the
producers were even worse.
"I'd go for these well known producers because they had a reputationfor
acheiving a standard and then watch them totally fail to understand what I
was after. No-one knew how to achieve the integration between heavy guitars
and moving atmospherics. In the end I just told everyone to leave me the
fuck alone until I'd finished it myself."
In five years you can go through a lot of doubts, particularly when you
carry the burden of a reputation as big as McCoy's.
"I've been to hell and back making this record", he nods, "I've never felt
so low in my life than at certain pointsduring the last few years and I
don't know why that was. I don't feel that it was the stress of making the
record myself, but obviously so many things in my life seemed to end up
revolving around it."
"I think it was so difficult to make 'Zoon' because I had to learn how to
express feelings in a totally different context to what I'd been used to",
he offers by way of explanation, "tracks like 'Venus Decomposing' or
'Pazuzu' can't nurture a fragile attitude. It has to be a threateningly
aggressive posture and writing that sort of music effectively was a real
learning process for me."
'Zoon', like it's three predecessors 'Dawnrazor', 'The Nephilim' and
'Elizium', comes packaged in a dark cloak of mystery and cartographic
dyslexia. Hand-written scrawls from ancient texts drip from every page of
the cover booklet recreating that 'lost world' experience that those
original Nephilim albums held all those years ago. Lyrically 'Zoon' is as
impenetrable as any of it's ancestors, but it qouldn't be the same without
that world of mystery distancing listener from creator.
"I have to include the lyrical philosophies because they're part of me. As
long as what percieve to be the appropriate and emotions are triggered in
any particular soing then I don't care what anyone thinks about lyrics which
are personal to me."
"I know I have these big ideas but these, er 'concepts', and I really hate
that word, have been there from day one so I'm not going to lose them
now." "I've got a huge problem in writing just singles or just one song,
because I just can't do it", he says, a sly grin creeping across one side of
his face, "I suppose that's the best excuse I ca think of writing what I do.
As long as you can turn it up really loud and have it make you feel good at
the end of the day I really don't see what the fuck difference my lyrics or
concepts make."
From a fan's point of view I can't help feeling just how sad the situation
has become with Carl disappearing for years in incommunicado while the rest
of them disappeared up their own arseholes in Rubicon. Why can't people
learn to compromise and communicate more? We really don't need anymore
rampant egos on the loose. Carl nods in slow agreement.
"I was so disappointed at having to call it a day in Field of the Nephilim.
I honestly usd to think of them all as friends, but there was so much
resentment and jealousy going on towards me that it became too much. It
seemded like whenever something was going well everyone was there to share
the glory, but whenever it went wrong they were all somewhere else pointing
at my and making it my fault."
However, with 'Zoon' attreacting major interest on the continent and a new
band ready for a May tour of Europe there is a renewed sense of purpose
aboute The Nefilim.
"I've got a lot of new options before me now", he remarks positively.
"There's a new strength in my music that I want to explore, and although
'Zoon' is a very special album to me, it's not the be all end al of The
Nefilim, it's just another beginning."
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