Stories

In the Depth of the Soul

There are times when you pick up an instrument and you write a song in an instant, but sometimes you end up with only a very good beginning. This song started just like that. The main theme of a song, the context and the motivation behind it are very important parts of my creative process, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t work out of impulse. ‘Sielos Dugne’ is mostly pure impulse, even though it wasn’t written in one sitting.

The instrumental part of the song, with all it’s fixes and rearrangements, was finished just before my flight to Rome. At that time, in the beginning of 2017, I was listening to a lot of Pink Floyd. I think most people have these periods when they only listen to a certain band. Pink Floyd caught me in Rome right in front of the Pantheon. It was a group of street musicians. They were so good that me and my friend decided to visit Pompeii, where one of the most famous Pink Floyd gigs happened. A once glorious city that fell into oblivion after a few eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. It as an astonishing sight.

I am certain that without my trip the song would have ended up different. Rome, which entwines a huge legacy of a once great empire, incredible christian monuments and the modern lifestyle of today and Pompeii – a live monument to the fragility of man. Both of these cities charged my inspiration and I just had to direct it properly. When I returned home, all questions about how to finish the song were gone. All that is wonderful, spiritual, great and all that is cruel, foul and absurd comes from the depth of the soul.

I always saw ‘Sielos Dugne’ as the last piece of NERIMO DIENOS. That Pink Floyd inspired ending fits it so great! As it turns out, our album will be closed by a different song, an unusual one for us, but ‘Sielos Dugne’ and the opening track ‘Mechaninė saulė’ were always the backbone of the album. We only had to fill the space between them.

This song had the longest road of all the ones that fell on the album. It’s beginning dates back to 2013. At the time Juodvarnis had finished recording the debut album and were planning the release as well as the themes for the follow-up album. Me and Augustinas were roommates, 3rd year students. During the summer of the same year his band Life’s Edge called it quits and Augustinas was left ‘jobless’, whilst I had more time in between both Juodvarnis’ albums. It was a time when we practiced a lot improving our playing skills and techniques. Naturally it was tiring. I don’t remember which one of us had the idea, but we decided to create a side project, that would allow us to play simpler songs, rehearse only then, when we have time off from our other duties and maybe record and release something in the future. I wanted to try out a new guitar tuning and ditch the position of lead vocalist.

With Augustinas we quickly generated 4 songs. We invited Marius and Viktor (both from Life’s Edge) to the project. We played with Marius a few times, whilst our session with Viktor was only a beer drinking session during which we uttered our mutual desire to play together, not actually accomplishing anything in the end. There were a few reasons. Juodvarnis started writing again, Augustinas joined a few other bands and maybe the fact that we did not want to invest the time needed for this project to stay alive. It was soon buried. But what was not buried were the demo recordings and our thoughts that we actually had some good stuff there.

Now let’s jump to 2018. Augustinas is now a long time member of Juodvarnis and we are finishing THE DAYS OF DISQUIET. During these years he said numerous times that we should revisit the first song of our long buried project, because it did have something. I was skeptical. Yes, I agreed, the song actually had some good moments, but it had to be renewed and it needed the vocal parts. To put it plainly, only two or three riffs would be left. It would basically be a new song. So why bother revisiting? Why not just write something new? Especially when there was a lot of inspiration at the time. But Augustinas was not convinced (and I understand why). When Modestas joined his side and said that we should at least give it a try, we did. If it fails, then we’ll forget it for good.

It would seem that the song was meant to be finished. We did it and what a song it turned out to be! My skepticism was silenced when this song squeezed from me the highest notes I’ve ever performed. I almost fainted the first time, but it showed me that I can. It’s symbolic that this song predicted the future, that one day me and Augustinas will be in a band together. Only now when I write this, I realize how much the name of the song has in common with the story of it’s birth. Nice.

Emotionally it is one of our most melancholic songs. Maybe even a bit romantic, but not without some extremity. It’s beginning does date even before MIRUSIO ŽMOGAUS KELIONĖ, but if we look at the time it was finished, it is actually our second newest song. Interesting combo. We hope it’s going to be interesting listening to it.

Paulius

When we started writing new songs, we didn’t quite know what the lyrical themes would be. One thing was clear: the album will not be a conceptual piece and will not tell one story. We had just finished „Journey of a Dead Man“, and even though the creative process was a relatively easy one, we wanted to give ourselves more freedom. This freedom would be limited if we had chosen to do a conceptual (one story) album.

One day Modestas brought a riff to the rehearsal which would become the first one of „The Day I Grew Old“. The energy it had clicked with our wish to write an intense death metal-ish song. We wrote most of it and… put it to rest. Something was wrong. Something was missing. The main reason I lost interest in the song was that I didn’t quite know what it was about. What part lies under this beat, what idea is under this melody? Simply „sounds good“ isn’t good enough. There has to be something deeper, something more. Otherwise it becomes boring to me, and it’s almost impossible to accompany the music when you’re out of ideas. I did not realise that at the given time and I was frustrated that the new material of “Juodvarnis“ did not please me. Almost all of the songs written back then were put to rest in a computer folder. Then I started realising that if I wanted to be happy with what I do, I had to be completely honest with my work and to myself as well. I had lost all interest in reconstruction. Myths, legends and fantasy are all nice and have greatly influenced our first two albums, but by this time they did not resonate with me at all. If I hadn’t realised that I needed to sing about things that were happening now around me and in the world, I greatly doubt that the third album would ever be born. This realisation brought back the joy in songwriting and opened the gates to new ideas.

After writing three or four songs we decided to play the “Blaaast“ again (that was the working title of “The Day I Grew Old“). In an instant it was clear what needs to improve and what the lyrics are going to be about. Just like that this song became one of our favorites! A lot of shit was stirring in our lives back then. I was extremely angry, I wanted to yell at everyone, I wanted conflict. Maybe that’s why this song has zero clean singing. From all of this came one of the most aggressive of “Juodvarnis” songs. It worked as a lightning-rod grounding all my anger. I hope that I can do the same for somebody else. What to expect from the song? Intensity, energy, a lot of blast beats and guitars.

Paulius