Interview

Imonolith Drummer Speaks About New Album

As devastating as the pandemic has been generally, it must have had that extra bitterness to bands who released their debut albums just before it kicked off. Finally realising your dream of putting out your first record together only to be unable to perform it to people could only have been a metaphorical kick in the balls. Such was the case for Imonolith, the band featuring former Devin Townsend Project members Ryan van Porderooyen and Brian Wadell, whose debut full length "State Of Being" was released at the end of March 2020, just as things got really bad the world over.

Two years later and the band are gearing up to release their sophomore album, "Progressions," which had a small scope to begin with, but gradually grew to become it's own beast and in a way, a compilation of everything Imonolith is all about. Before it hits the shelves on May 20th, Metal Underground caught up with van Porderooyen to discuss the record, the importance of including demos, covering Bjork and more. You can watch the interview in full below.

Diamond Oz: The new album, "Progressions" is set to be released on May 20th. It's obviously a fitting title given that it's moved on from the debut, "State Of Being." In what way do you feel that Imonolith has progressed since the first album?

Ryan van Porderooyen: Well the thing is, just the songwriting, Brian Waddell and I wrote all of "State Of Being," or the majority of it, between 2015 and 2018, so it was an ongoing process while we were playing with the Devin Townsend Project, we were writing music. It's no secret that when Devin starts something, whether it be Strapping Young Lad or Devin Townsend Project, it always has a bit of a shelf life. It's never going to be an ongoing thing, so we were surprised how long the Devin Townsend Project lasted, which was pretty much a good ten years, which is the longest thing he's ever done and the biggest, most successful thing he's ever done and he's doing great now. So we were kind of expecting it so around 2015 we said, "Let's write just in case this goes." I didn't really have any interest in joining another band or being a hired gun, I'd rather take a shot at something that was our own.

So with that precursor, we wrote all this music that was "State Of Being," but it was during the time that we were with Devin so we kept it on the side until 2018 when the inevitable happened. It was all good, Devin's awesome, I'm still friends with him and there's no hard feelings whatsoever, it's just now we can move on and do this. So that was the start of Imonolith and the writing back then, but it progressed so much getting Jon Howard in the band. Brian Waddell isn't in the band anymore, basically he never liked touring with Devin Townsend Project either and he just wanted to stop doing it altogether. So Jon Howard and I took over the writing process from when Beav and I were doing it.

When Jon came in, the whole of "State Of Being" was already written. He contributed to "We Never Forget" and "Instinct" but other than that, it was Beav and I. So that progression alone was huge because how Jon and I write is definitely more progressive and heavier, I'd say. I love the "State Of Being" record to this day but it's just a natural progression and there's a little more samples, more keyboards, the production's different, it's more progressive even in song writing. So that's how the band has progressed and the other guys will put in riffs too, it's just that Jon and I are the head guys that take everything, mold it and create the music.

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