interview with Mountains Under Oceans

What´s the name of your band? Mountains Under Oceans 

How was the band formed? In 2011/2012 I had many ideas for a solo album. In looking for players I contacted my friend Iain Macleod. After listening to the material and jamming some of it out, he very quickly convinced me to turn this into a new band rather than just being a stand alone solo project.

Can you tell about your band? We’re a four piece comprising of two (usually seven string) guitarists, a bass player and a drummer. We use synth components and live backing tracks. We’ve considered setting up a fake keyboard on stage with a cardboard cut out of Rick Wakeman or Kevin Moore to explain where the synths come from.

Where are all band members from?/Who does what in the band?
Robbie Tranter (Guitar) comes from the finest fisherman stock of Dingwall, Dan Stevenson (Beards and guitar) comes from Aberdeen, Steven Dempster (Bass) comes from Hell… I mean… Dundee.
I’m Mark Norris and I play drums for the band. I’m from Falkirk.
All of these cities/towns are in Scotland by the way!

What was the ambitions of the band when you started? The ambitions of the band weren’t always clear. It took a lot of pre-gigging and pre-recording time plus many many demos being sent to and from one-another for us to decide how we wanted not only sound as a band but also to appear and to what kinds of music we wanted to synonymize ourselves with. Ultimately, after various experimentation live and in the studio, we went for the four piece instrumental line up with electronic and synth elements. We wanted to have heavy and technical music, but also for our music to have a great sense of melody and atmosphere that we feel comes naturally from some of the post rock/electronic music artists that we like.

Could you explain your music to someone that haven't heard you? Well, there are some bands that we like to think we sound like and some that don’t want to admit that we sound like.
We generally take influence from so many great types of music.
To list a few of the bands that are most obviously prevalent (and that we absolutely, utterly love and respect) in our music’s inspiration:
Animals As Leaders
OSI
Tesseract
God Is An Astronaut
Russian Circles
MaybeSheWill

Where was your first gig? Our first gig was at a bar in Edinburgh(Scotland) called ‘Sneaky Pete’s’. We were lucky enough to get a touring support slot with our now good friends ‘Akord’ who are also from Scotland. They’re recording a new album as we speak. You should definitely check them out. They were incredibly kind, helpful and supportive on the ‘Carry The Mountains’ tour. Carry us they did.

Where was the latest gig? Our most recent show was at King Tuts in Glasgow Scotland. This was our first show with our new bass player Steven Dempster. We opened for ‘Halo Tora’ who we’re going on tour with next week!

Who writes your songs?/Who writes the music who writes lyrics? As it currently stands, myself or Robbie will usually write a whole piece of music or a phrase of what we want to be in a song. When it gets to the stage that we think we’re happy to proceed to learn it, we’ll take it to our rehearsal space and learn each of the sections verbatim as they’re written. Being that I’m the drummer, the other three normally hate me for a good 10 minutes for writing guitar riffs on a keyboard that clearly proves that I have no idea how guitars work in real life. It’s at this point that we can all say how we feel about the song and discuss changes that the other guys think the song needs. Then we re-work it until we’re all happy with it.
Maximum collaboration required.

Who has the best since of humor in the band?

Personally, I’d like to say me. But being that the other three don’t like me very much, I think that’s actually a lie.
Robbie is hilarious. He doesn’t always try to be. He has a great taste in fisherman’s jumpers and wears brogues everywhere. He also looks like Abe Lincoln. You can see his dilemma.

What's good/bad with the band?/What genre do you feel you are?Progressive Post Metal. That answer probably just scored us a solid 89 out of 10 on the pretentiometer scale.

Why did you pick that particular style?/What are your songs about?

We really just wanted to play the music that we enjoyed and to attempt to blend elements of musical styles that have seldom been blended or not blended at all before. The band is effectively an on-going experiment. I’m sure that we’ll discover more about ourselves as a band as we progress.
Being that our songs are without lyrics, we’ve accepted the fact that our music is mostly open to interpretation. It’s the reason that we attempt to blend both minimalist electronic music and heavy technical music and all areas of the instrumental spectrum in between. We like to hear what people visualize in their minds when they hear our music. Sometimes the answer is exactly what we thought it would be and sometimes the answer is absolutely unexpected. Our bands name ‘Mountains Under Oceans’ tries to reflect that too. It’s what you can’t immediately identify as being apparent that what we want people to listen for. Our song titles are usually minimalist, one word titles. Ultimately the underlying concept is within the word. Or the sample, if you see us play live.

Do you write your own material or mainly covers? Own material. We played a cover of And So I Watch You From Afar’s ‘Set Guitars To Kill’ for our original bass players last show in our hometown. That was pretty fun. We’d consider doing covers again in future, but right now our focus is expanding our own music.

Have you made any albums?/If yes what are they? Currently, our releases include our eponymous EP and our up-coming single ‘We Built Our Castles on Moving Sand’ that will be released on September 30th on our upcoming tour.

Do you have any clips on YouTube? We extensively filmed and edited the recording process of our first EP. There are two live recorded music videos for the songs ‘Memory’ and ‘Salvation’ respectively and there’s some recording footage by way of a promotional video for our new single. There are many clips and teasers of us on our youtube page. Check them out! 

How old were you guys when you first stood on stage? 21-25!

What year was the band started? Effectively 2013.

Best/worst gig you've played? Our best gig was probably opening for Dead Letter Circus/MONUMENTS in December 2013 or playing at UK TECH-METAL FEST 2014.

What places will you be playing in in the imidate future? Manchester, Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow, Montrose, Perth and Aberdeen! We have a lovely tour poster to that effect!

Witch band is the best you´ve seen? That’s a hard one. We’ve played with so many good up and coming bands and established respected bands.
Intronaut are definitely one of them.

Is it always the same songs live? We now have a total of 7 songs. 1 is brand new to be implemented (and named!) on tour. We always play ‘Memory’, ‘We Built Our Castles On Moving Sand’ and ‘Salvation’ usually. We feel that these three are essential and find that they’re typically very well responded to.

What are the plans for the rest of the year? We intend to finish writing our second EP and all concepts for it therein. We’re really excited about it.

How do you get psyched up for a gig? Stretching. Lots of stretching. Generally our setting up, in particular regard to our use of backing tracks is enough to get us into the correct frame mind.

What are your goals with your music? To really achieve something. To be able to play with some of our favourite bands. But most importantly to really try and create music that we all enjoy and would want to listen to.

How do you feel about the downloading of music instead of buying albums? I think being able to pay for downloading music is great for people with a busy lifestyle who don’t always have the necessary time to shop, but there’s a certain thrill of being able to purchase a physical product when you see one of your favourite bands. It’s not just a souvenir, it’s a reminder of the night that’ll be forever aesthetically linked to the time that you had a great time.

When you are on stage, what do you fear most then? Failure of our live rig. If the metronome stops or the samples and synths from the laptop stop, then we’re pretty much dead in the water. Luckily we actually have a rehearsed contingency plan in the event that this should happen.

What songs and what years were they released? Our self-titled EP was released in January 2014 and our new single ‘We Built Our Castles On Moving Sand’ will be released on September 30th this year! 
Have you been in any other bands? Dan used to play in a progressive ambient band called ‘Out Of Samsara’ and Robbie recently played with a band known as ‘Last Summer Effect’.

What would you do if there was no music? Invent Music! I have a feeling that I’d get rich rather quickly! Maybe gave my old friend Pythagoras a call and ask him to get his shit together and stop messing around.

How important are your fans? Our fans mean the world to us. Everything we do is for them. The support that they’ve never failed to show us has been truly humbling ever since we started out. Our self-instilled confidence is due largely to their validation, acceptance and enthusiasm for us.  For every EP bought online we like to hand write little notes to them and thank them all personally.

What's the funniest/most memorable thing a fan has done for you? Sent us a picture from India with the merchandise they ordered. That was incredible to see.

How often do you rehearse? Twice a week in our rehearsal space in Glasgow.

Name 2 of your own songs you like at the moment? ‘Memory’ and ‘We Built Our Castles On Moving Sand’. I personally feel that these two songs best exemplify what we’re all about musically.

What drives a band that isn't all that famous and renowned to try to make a living on their music and to keep playing? If you don’t love it then there wouldn’t be any point in doing it. If you do love it, then you needn’t question it. You endure the hardships and do what you have to and pay what you have to progress and succeed. It’s the same with everything else.

Do you have any webpages? Sure! You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Wordpress, Tumblr and
http://mountainsunderoceans.com

Any pearls of wisdom for all other bands out there? Work hard. But actually work hard. Learn to drive.  Don’t be afraid to admit that something you’ve written isn’t very good, you can learn from it. Sleep less. Grow a beard.

How do you view the musicindurty of today?
Better. Expanding at a pleasantly alarming rate.
Progressive Music in particular isn’t all about 8 minute keyboard solos anymore, but if you want new Progressive music where you can still find the 8 minute keyboard solos, then you’re spoiled for excellent choices. Younger bands are being braver and actually trying hard to be innovative regardless of cliques and without conforming to the majority subjectivist choices. People aren’t afraid to say that they like the music that’s nothing like what their friends like. This has to keep happening. All music has something to offer to somebody.

What are the biggest obstacles for a band?
My good friend Tom Cruise once told me that the answer to 9 out 10 questions is money. I have to agree with him in this instance. You won’t be rich within a month. Forget about it.
While your band is a full time job, you also need a full time job to finance your full time band. Saying that “I can’t work full time and work on my band because if you give yourself something to fall back on you’ll fail”, isn’t relevant anymore. The industry has changed. People don’t throw £10,000 grants at you as an ‘advance’ anymore. At least not to start with. In the interim you need to be able to fund it yourself. Unless you’re insanely wealthy. In which case there’s definitely a position for you in this band. You’re going to lose sleep and hate each other sometimes because you’re so fatigued and broke. It’s worth it though. If you don’t think it is then you shouldn’t be doing it.

Tell us about upcomming gigs and why we should be at them?

New Merch, new music, new bass player. I also got liposuction. I need you to validate my paying for it. Only kidding. I’m still fat.
Our Tour has 6 dates and we’re touring with the amazing Halo Tora! These guys are incredible!

How would you describe your sound in one sentence Screaming in Digital.

What was one of the most quarrelsome times for you in the band?
Contrary to what I about him earlier, Dan shaved recently. You’ll inevitably see pictures of this tour and make me look like a liar!
I’ll be having words with him about that…
The other time was when Iain (our previous bass player) and I argued on the way up to a gig in the Highlands about whether we should be an instrumental band or not. He was actually going to hit me. Luckily a distraction by way of a terrifying, hooded figure emerging from the road side apparently from the woods united us. In terror.

Whats your Pre-show ritual? Stretching. Seriously, it works wonders! I also rehearse some basic drum rudiments.
Do you have anything to add? Thanks so much for the interview! 

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