Rhap Session: Gojira

On the new record
It’s my favorite Gojira album [laughs].  That’s not very original but it’s a fact.  The sound is better than before and we worked in a different way than usual.  It’s our fourth album, I know a lot of people mainly know our last two albums, From Mars to Sirius and this one, but it’s our fourth so I think we’re more mature. It’s more personal but at the same time more straight to the point. With the composition, we took some risks -- in one song, we use a vocoder keyboard, and it’s less death metal, more open-ended metal -- probably because we’re getting older. Not old [laughs] but more mature.  I’m 32, I’m not a kid anymore and I think it brings the music a bit of experience.

On the concept
Since the beginning of our band, I write the lyrics and it’s always about questions I have about life in general and in particular the soul and the mysteries of life, ancient mythologies and cultures, like what’s in outer space?  What’s inside of us?  And on this album I talk about death: the fact that we’re all going to die. It’s not very fun, but to me it’s really interesting to think about because facing this truth brings a lot to your life if you accept the fact that one day the body will not work anymore and disappear. Everything is changing constantly, it’s what we call impermanence, and it’s an interesting concept to talk about death. In that way, I’m talking about trying to overcome the fears that I have about my own death on this album.

On the record’s message
It’s don’t be scared, there is more to come after life [laughs].  That’s a personal belief that I have - that the soul is immortal - and you can find this idea in a lot of civilizations for example in India or the Tibetan people, African people, South American mythology, even the American Indians. There is only a small percentage of humanity that’s not into these ideas of reincarnation and to me it’s just a fact that we are not just bone, flesh and blood.  We are more than that, we have ideas, we have intentions, we have dreams, we have personality, memory and I think this will remain after death.  So the message is we are more than what we think.

On questioning death
I think I’m like that since I was born. Nothing really particular happened to me, no near death experience, nothing like that. I’m just full of questions.  The first thing I can remember when I was little is a question asked to my father, I asked him when am I going to die? I was 4 years old, so I was wondering about that, and he said “oh you have plenty of time, don’t worry.” And I don’t worry, I follow his instructions [laughs].

On Gojira and nature
Nature is very important, and some songs are about protecting nature, but I would say the main thing is really soul searching.  Because we did put a tree on the one cover, and the whale on another cover, people would think that the lyrics are mainly about protecting nature and that is something that matters to us. A few years ago I built a cabin in the woods with my own hands and I spent one year and a half there. It was not a retreat - I was not on my own all the time meditating - it was just living without electricity or running water or ‘comfort.’  But it was an amazing experience. I finally had to take an apartment because I would go on tour all the time and it would just be too hard going from a tour to a cabin.  It’s really a lifestyle that I would love to have one day because I felt really in contact with nature and that’s what we are. We are nature. We’re not separated from nature, we are made of earthly material and it was just a very powerful experience. We’re on a small planet and we have to protect that intensely because that’s the only spaceship that we have. That’s just one aspect I would say of our music but, you know, this topic of never-ending life, the spirit, the soul is really in the lyrics since the beginning -- its not really something new, but it’s a new aspect.  It’s a bit darker than before, but it’s just one page, you know, death is one part of life in general.

On the title The Way of All Flesh
It’s a saying that I found in a book I don’t even remember but it’s something that I kept in my mind since. It’s a quote I picked in the English language because I thought it was very cool. The ‘way of all flesh’ means death, but at the same time it’s very poetic because it’s also everything that we have to go through during life, in this album I’m also talking about how hard it is to be alive and all the tears that we cry and it makes me feel good to talk about all this; I need to express that.  The first thing we do when we’re born is we cry, so I think the pain that we feel is very important. If you go to a party, you don’t talk about death or how hard it is to be alive, so through art or music, it’s a good way to express it.

On “Oroborus” and “The Art of Dying”
Oroborus is a symbol of eternal life that you can find in a lot of different cultures. Sometimes it can be snakes, sometimes it can be a mix between a snake and a dog, sometimes it’s a dragon, and it’s really interesting that you can find that symbol in a lot of different civilizations. It’s in Ancient Greece and Egypt -- they had the same intuitions of the symbol of the tale devoured and they were separated by oceans.  It’s a symbol, but at the same time it’s sophisticated; it represents the circle of life.  I just wanted to start the album with a song about never-ending life to express the positive message of the album [since] it’s an album about death. 

“The Art of Dying” is a song about one way to behave during a lifetime that could help prepare for the moment of death. Where we accept to let things go and just be centered in ourselves without belongings, because that’s what I believe is going to happen during death. If you want to keep material things, like money and cars and houses with you, you won’t bring that when you die.  Because I believe the soul will remain, we’ve got to be prepared to let things go and if we practice during the lifetime, it will be easier when we die. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but there’s a bit of Buddhism in that.

On studying ethos
I didn’t really study this but I went to a class by a Tibetan monk in France. It was for 2 days, it was short, but I listened to somebody talking about it and I took note. It was real interesting because I thought of these things before and I felt connected to this idea. It was very interesting to know that other people have the same ideas in other civilizations I never really studied; it’s just like a personal thing that I live.

On Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe and “Adoration For None”
Lamb of God brought us on the Sacrament Tour in 2007 in the states. They are big supporters for us and Randy is always talking about Gojira in interviews and we are very thankful to him. We did 42 gigs with them and it was probably our best touring experience -- they would take care of us, like “do you guys need anything?  Drink? Food? You guys have a good night?” They would always treat us so well, and I became good friends with Randy. We went camping together [laughs] -- he’s really into survival camps and he’s really interested by nature in general, and so we have this in common. He told me, “okay when you guys record the next album, I want to sing on the record and you have no choice.”  I was like “okay, that’s a deal, no problem” so he came to France and he stayed for 10 days in my apartment, he slept on the couch with my cat and we would write lyrics together and we did that song.

On working with producer Logan Mader
He’s a calm guy, incredibly professional and efficient. I met him during the Cavalera Conspiracy recording and he asked me [about] the next Gojira and I was like “I think we’re going to do it ourselves.” But when I heard the Cavalera Conspiracy record, I told my brother we should definitely work with him. It helped us a lot to have someone external of the band working on the album because usually we do everything ourselves. And it’s a new friend now [laughs] so it’s very cool. I was a fan of Machine Head too, so basically it’s like a dream come true. All these things happening, it’s really incredible.

On Gojira vs. Cavalera Conspiracy
I just did the record with them and didn’t go on tour because I was recording and mixing the Gojira album.  It’s really Max and Igor’s band, so for me it was just an amazing honor to be playing with those guys since they’re one of my main influences in music. It was one of the best things of my life, but after that I had to make a decision and I decided not to go on tour because Gojira is my number one priority. I put so much into this project, I just want to go on with that as intensively as possible and that’s what I did.