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Interviews : “We’re looking forward to finally playing in Australia” – An Interview With Luc Lemay (Gorguts)

By on November 14, 2014

Gorguts 2014

Luc Lemay – Gorguts

Gorguts are a name synonymous with death metal, especially that of the technical variety. Whilst the band has seen lineup changes and more over the years, with Luc Lemay remaining the only constant member of the band, regardless Gorguts have carved a legacy for themselves in the annals of extreme music that easily sets them on a pedestal alongside the other greats. With that being said, it was my great honour to speak with the mighty Luc Lemay, guitarist and frontman of the band, on behalf of Metal Obsession.

It was a hilarious start to the interview because Luc was stuck in traffic and pretty miffed at the car in front of him. “Hello! I’m sorry about that, I was following this guy at like five miles an hour and yelling at him: ‘MOOOOVE, I’VE GOTTA GET HOME!’ Besides that things have been pretty awesome. Getting ready for all the shows; playing a lot of guitar; writing new music. So it’s all good, life’s been good!’

The Canadian metallers are finally making their way down to our faraway land and Luc is pretty psyched about the whole thing as well as playing with some of our best bands! ” I’m not too familiar with Disentomb  but Portal we played with two or three years ago, when they came to America and played Maryland Death Fest. We did three shows, I think, with them and also met them! They’re very nice people so it’s definitely going to be nice to play with them again for sure, as well as with the other bands! And of course we’re looking forward to finally playing in Australia – I’m really excited to go there and Japan and New Zealand, as well. I also heard that a lot of people are going to come to the shows and that the tickets have been selling fast so I’m very, very excited about it!”

It took Gorguts 12 long years to release their latest album ‘Colored Sands’, the follow-up to the awesome ‘From Wisdowm to Hate’. Luc talked about how ideas developed for the new album and where it all started. “First thing is the idea came from Big Steve that played on ‘Obscura’. We used to have Negativa together and one day he told me that the 20th anniversary of the band is around the corner (in 2009). He brought up the idea that I should do a record to celebrate the anniversary, and from there, you know, I had a song or two written but one of them was for Negativa but I wasn’t writing much back then. I had this material ready and then I got in touch with Colin, Kevin and John, everybody said ‘yes’ and that’s how things started. But mainly it was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band. That was the point.

To be honest, before I even listened to the album, I was extremely intrigued by the album title ‘Coloured Sands’. And now I finally had the chance to really understand what it meant. “The idea for ‘Colored Sands’ actually came to me when one day my girlfriend visited a friend and she had taken a little gift for her friend’s children they were so happy to receive the gift so they took one of the pages of a colouring book and they offered it to her. And it was of a mandala. When she came home she told me about it and the word caught my attention and that’s how the idea came. Then I went on the internet and looked it up and saw monks drawing with coloured sand on the floor, and that’s when I decided I wanted to talk about it on the record. Lyrically, it was a bit ambitious. I wanted to devote this whole album to that particular process and idea but then it was kind of difficult to talk about it on 8 – 9 songs about drawing mandalas on the floor and then I started reading more about Tibet, how they discovered the Dalai Lama, etc.!”

Gorguts - Colored Sands - Cover

‘Colored Sands’ out now via Season of Mist

So what’s Luc from Gorguts listening to these days? “When I wrote ‘Colored Sands’, I was in the phase where I had just discovered Porcupine Tree and I was listening to a lot of music by Steven Wilson and he was a huge influence on me when I wrote ‘Colored Sands’ and then I revisited Opeth’s discography as well. But lately [I bought the] new Decapitated album – it’s great! I love the guitar playing, the riffs! I got the new Slipknot, I’ve been listening to Ulcerate, playing a lot of classical music too. I like also Ghost Brigade. So many records! Vallenfyre! Splinters. What are your other interests?”

Sometimes it’s like musicians have secret alter-egos that no one really knows about. Luc’s alter-ego is being a woodwork man! “For a living I do woodwork. I do a lot of carving, I’ve been doing that for about 12 years now. I carve a lot of signs. When I turned 30, I’ve been saying for a while I was really interested in carving, so for my birthday I got myself a set of chisels and then I started carving. By word of mouth and I live in a very, very small town. People wanted to revamp the main streets. People started calling me to redo the whole street and I carved signs for everybody and then it became my business – one job after another. I started making building furniture, as well. And before I knew it, I had over a 1000 square foot woodworking shop and I’ve been building kitchen cabinets, old kinds of furniture, and carving. I put that aside when ‘Colored Sands’ came out because I wanted to focus on the band. And even now I want to focus on the composition – actually I’ll be scoring a feature film after Christmas. I’m gonna start working on that, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time!”

After that, the interview came to an end as the awesome Luc Lemay had one last message to his Australian fans. “I’m very, very inspired to go play for all of you lovely people in Australia, you’re very enthusiastic people and I’m very excited. I can’t wait to play some music for all the metal fans and spend time with them! See you soon!”

Gorguts’ Australian tour begins tonight in Melbourne! Tickets are still available in Sydney and Brisbane via Ticketscout and Oztix.

Friday, Nov 14 – Melbourne, Northcote Social Club

Saturday, Nov 15 – Sydney, Newtown Social Club

Sunday, Nov 15 – Brisbane, Crowbar

gorguts australian tour

Gorguts Australian Tour 2014 w/ Portal

About

Prarthana is a vegan, Indo-Aussie, heavy music addict, fluent in sarcasm and metal. Traveling is an obsession as she enjoys taking in the history of various countries and following her favorite bands. She's either eating, teaching grammar or learning an instrument, when not occupied with windmilling in the faces of other humans.