Thrash metal act Sanity's Rage have gone through the typical route that bands go through, band changes, playing shows, writing and recording music and have bypassed all of that to keep going! Frontman vocalist Kenny Molly and guitarist Jesse Van Den discusses about the band and what is over that horizon!
1. Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Sanity's Rage, and how long the band has been together.
K: I’m Kenny, singer since the beginning of Sanity’s Rage, about ten years ago.
J: Hi, I’m Jesse, I play the guitar.
2. Tell us the brief history of your band.
K: Before they became a band , Sanity’s Rage original guitar player and drummer were just a couple of guys who got together to jam. Some people joined the sessions some time, but they only started to write songs from the moment the second guitar player came along. That’s also the time they decided they needed a band name and a singer. I was looking for a band since I moved to the region around that period. After writing a couple of songs (that would later become the ‘The Rage Of One’ EP) we did a little tryout gig to see how stuff went down with the crowd.It gave us a taste for more so we engaged Jesse, and even though he was a guitarist by trade, he did a brilliant job as an addition for us on the bass parts.
J: After the release of The Rage Of One I quit the band to do some traveling. They approached another bass player to join the ranks but stuff went sour in that lineup. After a year I rejoined the band, but as the guitar player this time. That lineup change was the start for some more shifts in the lineup, but after years of perseverance and chaos we arrived at a moment where we had enough material for our debut full length. At that moment our drummer also called it quits. In the end we just rolled with the punches, took on a temporary drummer for the recordings and went for it. After finally being able to release You Are What You Swallow we took on Gabriel as our drummer to finally make the lineup whole again.
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there?Are there any local bands you could recommend?
K: We come from all over, but now we are based in the center of the country, around Brussels and its outskirts. There’s a lot of new wave of thrash going on at the moment, but next to that Belgium has always had a steady amount of death, heavy and prog metal acts.
J: The music scene here is comparable with most of the scenes these days, lots of over saturation and waning interest of the public because of it. Maybe you’ll already know After All! Go and check out Warckon, Bloodrocuted, and Hammerhead!
4. What type of band are you?
K: We have a certain thrash sound that is familiar to the old school sound, but we only use that as a frame to express ourselves in.
5. Why did you want to name the band Sanity's Rage? What does it symbolize and represent for the band?
J: The name originally came to be because of the two opposing elements, Sanity versus Rage. In today’s world, any sane man can only observe what transpires every day, the evil that men do to others as well as to themselves, small scale or large scale, it doesn't matter. What you feel when seeing and contemplating these things is what we’d call Sanity’s Rage.
K: Have you ever got the feeling when watching the news that makes you think, how the hell can people put up with this? that’s exactly what we mean.
6. Who are your musical and non-musical influences?
K: I always considered myself as an observer. So everything around me can influence me in a certain way and unknowingly be a lead for a next song. When it comes to musical influences there are numerous bands of many different genres that I need for different moods. I can enjoy classical music, doom metal, dark electro, whatever fits the mood. We are musically influenced people, who use metal as a voice. There’s a lot of days I don’t listen to metal at all, especially when I’m writing for the band. Helps to keep the influences and ideas original and personal.
J: Musically it can be almost anything that hits the correct string. I really dug the release of Carcass last year, Dan Swano returning to form with Witherscape, The Black Dahlia Murder putting out another corker of an album. Anything that has the right energy but very importantly, also has the right kind of attention to detail to it. Non-musically, it encompasses so much, just life really.
7. What are your songs about? (What specific themes do they cover?)
K: Whatever example I can find of human behavior that defies common logic. The way we lie to ourselves to shield ourselves from what we don’t want to see. The way we let ourselves be lied to to rest assured that our lives can go on in the silly way they are. Whatever pisses me off on that particular moment actually.
8. Do you write your own songs? (Discuss the songwriting process in detail.)
J: We start off from some riffs, and then try and find a line or theme in those until we reach something that can be made into a song. Then we’ll flesh it out, play around a bit with details and possible structure or flow until we reach something satisfactory for everyone. If we can’t achieve that, we’ll park the riffs for later. After that, we’ll demo it out a bit while everybody adds their spice.
K: I always try to be involved in the process of the music from the beginning. Discussing even a basic riff and the feeling you get from it adds a lot to the development of the song and the specific feel you want to put into it. So by the time the music evolves to a full song, the idea and theme behind it are more or less set too. The only thing I have to do then is find the proper words to express that idea. Although this is completely opposite from jam session writing, for us it works like a very logical flow.
9. What's new in the recording of your music?
K: We started our recording experience by totally subjecting ourselves to an overpriced producer who didn't really give a shit about our music. So after the EP which we had mixed feelings about, we prepared better for the full album. Pre-production, a clear idea for the producer and good communication. But still we found some things could be cleaner, deeper and smoother in the process. So Jesse got around to building a mini studio and now we’re pre-producing all songs as they are written. It should allow us to really take the max out of every song, its particular vibe and the technical bits and pieces we can add.
J: Turn it up to 11, baby.
10. What are your dreams and goals?
K: To add something of myself to the legacy of metal music, so that after I’m long gone some kid who just got into metal will get to hear my music and go hunt down every album that can still be found. Sanity’s Rage has already given us opportunities beyond our wildest dreams. We played with bands we dared even think about before (Testament, Saxon, Agent Steel, Onslaught…), but more important than that is making music that stands out and survives the times.
11. What should labels/zines/promoters know about your band? Why should they be interested in it?
K: We’re a technically skilled metal band, with something to say. We’re all very much into metal music and its history and we try to add something to it. Too many bands are just living their boyhood dream of trying to be like their idols and forget that what makes those idols good is the fact that they did their own thing and got to where they are.
12. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
J: You can listen to all our stuff in it’s entirety on sanitysrage.com or on our webshop at sanitysrage.bandcamp.com. Go check out our lyrics videos on youtube.com/sanitysrage or come and say hi on our Facebook page! We love hearing from you guys.
13. What plans do you have for the near future as a band?
K: New album, exploring new territories live and continuing to vent all our ideas and frustrations in our music.
J: Getting out there as much as we can, and writing our follow-up. With some extra surprises here and there for you guys in between as well. We’re working on getting a ‘Once You Cross’ shirt out there, featuring a design by none other than Jacen Burrows, the illustrator for the original Crossed series.
14. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
K: Something fresh, yet familiar, touching you in your metal and making you go, fuck yeah, when is the next album coming out?!
15. Any final words of wisdom?
K: There are no posers, except for the people who judge others based on their own narrow minded ideas or their own fears for self development. Stay true to yourself and your own.
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