Inside the shred factory with Consentium
After several years of writing, rehearsing and recording, Perth prog-metal act Consentium have unveiled their long-awaited debut EP Echoes from the Shred Factory. To mark the occasion, the four-piece are celebrating with a live show at Lynott’s Lounge on Saturday, August 12, where they’ll be joined by some of Perth’s best heavy and progressive bands, including Daniel Wiggins Group, Primrose Path and Illyria. BRAYDEN EDWARDS caught up with Consentium guitarists John Maisey and Aden Griffiths to find out the story behind the band and the EP.
Congrats on the release of your debut EP Echoes from the Shred Factory. How long has this been in the works for, and how does it feel to finally be releasing it?
John: I’d say close to two years, it’s been a journey for all of us. I’ve been learning a lot of new guitar skills and techniques, getting to hang out with friends more experienced in playing is a great source of inspiration and it’s helped me improve a lot. To be where we are now is surreal, I never expected I’d ever be playing live, let alone releasing a legitimate EP and having songs I’ve helped write and record be available for people to hear.
Aden: Due to the technicality of these songs and limited free time, this hasn’t been the type of project that needed to be rushed. I’ve personally worked on and composed a lot of our tracks over the course of around 10 years at this point, so to see some of them finally available for the world to listen to is incredibly surreal and I don’t think I’ve really processed it yet.
I can tell you all put a lot of thought into how the songs were constructed and produced. Were there any particular artists that inspired that, and your style of music?
Aden: Having refined the compositional elements of whatever our ‘style’ is over a long period of time, the influences can be incredibly varied. A lot of Iron Maiden, Rush, a lot of classical influences as well and maybe a bit of Killswitch Engage here and there.
I also heard some of the songs drew inspiration from old school video games too?
John: We are all gamers as well as musicians, it’s fun to implement different hobbies into writing music. Listen closely, you may just pick up a few easter eggs in some of our songs…
Aden: I’ve always appreciated the ability of a video game score to be able to subconsciously set the tone of an environment or setting. Spyro the Dragon or Diablo comes to mind when it comes to setting the mood. The same can be said for film scores.
How did you go about capturing these sounds for the record? Did the songs change shape or direction once you were in the process of laying down the tracks?
John: I feel we had sat on these songs for long enough that when it came time to finally record them they were pretty well set in stone. Aden recorded all of us separately and mixed the entire album himself, we’re going to have to post up some of the photos… There were a few curve balls during this process, the biggest being a major hard drive corruption, we mourn the loss of all that data today but we carried on and re-recorded what we needed too and now here we are!
Aden: We came to the decision early on as a band that I would be the engineer for whatever we were going to put out, I was going to Leederville TAFE for sound production at the time and it seemed appropriate. In hindsight the process would have been much smoother if we opted for an external engineer, my usual approach to recording and all of my muscle-memory didn’t necessarily apply to how we chose to record, which in turn meant I had to learn a lot on the fly whilst mixing. Despite the difficulties I couldn’t be more proud of the final product.
You’ll be celebrating the launch at Lynott’s on Saturday, August 12. Who else is performing on the night and what made them a great fit for the occasion?
John: Daniel Wiggins Group, Primrose Path and Illyria. When we managed to journey from the jam room to the stage, these guys as well as many others have been so supportive, it has been very humbling. Also, their music rules, odd time signatures, clean melodies, heavy chugs, combining different styles, basically doing what they want and what they feel in themselves. That’s what music is about, and we are honoured they agreed to join us on our launch.
What’s next for Consentium? Anything more coming up, like live shows, that we can look out for?
John: There’s nothing concrete at the moment but we will still be taking on gigs as well as working on some new material.
Aden: I mentioned before that I’ve personally worked on a lot of our songs for a long time and given the response we’ve gotten so far from the EP it makes me really excited for anything we release in the future, regardless of when that is.