“Yeah, we’re consistent,” Goddard laughs. “We do it in Karnivool time. We were looking at doing it in two years, we thought we’d do this one quicker, but it didn’t happen. It seems to be the case every time.” It would appear to say something, though, of the band’s following – happy to be loyal and willing to wait that long between offerings. “It’s comforting and gratifying for sure,” Goddard reflects. “We’ve got such a loyal fanbase, we know that a couple of people might drop off waiting for it and we know that there was a few people getting frustrated waiting for it this time around, especially in like the last six months, it’s like, ‘come on guys. What’s happening?’ But it’s also motivating, in a way, to get it done.” Karnivool have always made epic music, so it only makes sense that as the years pass and the band gets bigger, the musical dynamics grow deeper and wider. “Absolutely,” asserts Goddard. “It’s always a lengthy process.” The shipbuilding started shortly after the 2009 release of Sound Awake. A year had passed between Themata finishing and commencement of Sound Awake, so the band made a point of sewing some early seeds. “The first seed was in Paris,” Goddard recalls. “I remember we came up with a drum beat idea which turned into the first song (Nachash). That was early 2010.”Goddard says he misses the days when they could simply drive to each other’s houses to try out a song idea. “The geographical impairment is definitely a factor,” he says. “It can be frustrating, at times, to try and get everyone on the same page when everyone’s off doing different things, which can feed into the record. But like you mentioned, I dunno, I guess it’s more worldly.”
Asymmetry was recorded at 301 Studios in Byron Bay with producer, Nick DiDia (RATM, Mastodon). “It was a difficult process,” Goddard recalls. “It was very challenging, but Byron Bay made it a lot easier, just being in that environment. You’d wake up in that town, in a little house next to the studio and there’s a green area with lots of wild life and a swimming pool you could fall into. Each day was pretty hard-going, it was always quite tense, but you’d wake up every day and go, ‘I’m pretty lucky doing this for six weeks, that this is my job’. It was a perfect place to record, but it was a very challenging affair. “It’s a weird little paradox that happens because we find ourselves looking for ways to make it easier, or ways to at least make the process more streamlined and less painful and annoying and then at the same time we mix it all up so that we don’t know what we’re doing and we’re fumbling our way through the dark again. As much as we don’t like that I think it’s an integral part of being in Karnivool. “That’s why we ended up going with Nick as opposed to going again with Forrester (Savell, producer of the band’s first two albums). We just wanted to get outside the comfort zone. We don’t really like comfort zones, it’s an unorthodox process and there’s so many things that we could be doing better to make the process happen a lot easier… it’s a completely confusing process (laughs).” Even so, it’s produced a blasting yet mesmeric piece of work that now takes the band into yet another challenging process – taking the ship out to battle… “That’s when the songs really come alive,” Goddard reflects, “when we get to play them live and deliver them to people because we actually have to think about how we’re gonna put them out there and in that way I think we’ll find a lot more perspective on the record.” While other Australian bands seem to have obviously big profiles, it is Karnivool that consistently grow and constantly surprise, as its fanbase soars both here and overseas. “As people, I think we take the piss a bit and generally roll with the punches,” Kenny notes. “When it comes to music, we take it a little more seriously. I hope this album opens the door for new Karnivool listeners and paves the continuing journey for people who are well versed in Karnivool. It’s as new to us as it will be for them.”
BY BOB GORDON
