GOJIRA Is Working On 'Very Powerful And Exciting' New Album For 2016 Release

RockSverige.se conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Joseph Duplantier and drummer Mario Duplantier of French progressive metallers GOJIRA at this year's Sweden Rock Festival, which was held last weekend in Sölvesborg. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On Silver Cord, the recording studio GOJIRA recently built in New York:

Joseph: "We built the studio around this next GOJIRA record. You know, each time we make a record, we have to think: 'What's gonna be the configuration?' 'Who are we going to work with?' 'Who's gonna be the engineer?' 'Who's gonna be the producer?' 'Who's gonna mix it?' And this time the big question was: 'Where are we going to settle down and write and record?' Since I moved to New York a couple of years ago, now we have two headquarters. With the studio, now we have a headquarters in America. We have our French headquarter where we always rehearsed and composed our stuff. So now we have another one. That's, I think, what we needed at this point. 'Cause it's good to have two different places. And this studio is… At first, we just wanted to find a room and make it nice and buy the minimum to just be able to record. But, thanks to some of my friends' help, especially a friend of mine who lives in Atlanta, who has a lot of gear. He said, 'You can have my gear' for, like, two years or something, because he's not gonna use his studio for awhile. So, anyway, I got a lot of support from that guy, which allowed us to use the advance of the record company to build a real studio, and working a lot ourselves. I mean, Mario and me putting fiber glass for days, for weeks, and carrying… I mean, it was crazy. In the middle of the process, we were, like, 'What the fuck are we doing?' But in the end, it's a beautiful studio. And we did the drum tracks already, the recording of the drums, and it sounds really good, really perfect."

On the progress of the recording sessions for the new GOJIRA album:

Mario: "The drums are done. Part of the guitars… almost all the guitars are done also. So we need the bass and the vocals at this point. Because… We were supposed to record around February, something like this. But we made a statement of the songs in February, and we thought the songs were not enough good, you know?! So we decided to… 'Let's put this song in the trash. Let's just…' We were super picky, like [we] never [were] in the past. We worked on each song super long. Usually we have ten songs, and we record ten songs and that's it. This time we were so picky that we decided around February to just… 'Let's push the limit. Let's do another song — maybe a better song.' And Joe brought some crazy ideas, and I brought some cool ideas too, and together we built four new songs we thought were better than the [ones were had already written]. So we pushed the recording process and finally we started in April. So it's why we couldn't finish everything — because we had this tour also. It's a summer tour planned — three months on the road. So we had two options: we can cancel the summer tour, but we didn't wanna do that. So, finally, we did the drums and the guitar."

On when fans can expect to see the next GOJIRA album:

Joseph: "We're thinking early next year. We were aiming for October this year, but, like Mario said, we had to push the recording. I think the difficulty was… Mario brought a lot of ideas on the table… very challenging drum patterns. It's less complicated than before. It's more… I wanna say it's more straight to the point. That's what we were doing since we started. We're getting rid of layers and complicated things, just to keep the core of the idea. There's always an idea behind a song, and sometimes it gets too crowded. So we're trying to keep the core of each idea. So the energy that Mario has, it's a big signature for our band, GOJIRA — the drum patterns and the double-kick stuff. And I have my own impulse. So it's mainly Mario and me composing… I think the fans know that. And one of the biggest difficulties is to come together on these songs and to create something that, okay, we both feel like, 'This is it. This is the song.' It took a while to get there. Sometimes, on previous albums, Mario wouldn't be totally satisfied — like three [or] four songs — and for me, I [would be] like, 'Eh, this song is just like a drum solo with guitars on it.' And this time, I think we really found something — a balance. [It's] very powerful and exciting. We're very excited about the new record."

GOJIRA's fifth album, "L'Enfant Sauvage", sold almost 11,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 34 on The Billboard 200 chart.

"L'Enfant Sauvage" (which translates to "The Wild Child") was recorded at Spin Recording Studios in Long Island City, New York with co-producer Josh Wilbur (LAMB OF GOD).