Changing Tides With ROBIN STAPS From THE OCEAN

Interview by Kris Peters
Fresh from a run of Australian shows with Ne Obliviscaris and
Rivers Of Nihil last September, German based post metal outfit The
Ocean are set to return this June for their first headlining dates
in this country in almost a decade.
The band left an indellible impression on concert-goers when they
were here late last year and have promised to up the ante even more
for this tour which starts in Brisbane on June 5.
Bringing their biggest production yet, as well as legendary US
hardcore pioneers Cave In for their first Aussie shows EVER and
insanely heavy Danish label mates LLNN, The Ocean will be
showcasing last years ninth album Holocene, said to be the bands
most exploratory and varied release yet.
Guitarist Robin Staps sat down with HEAVY to reveal more.
"We're looking forward to being back," he began. "We were only over
there last September but we're stoked to come back with a full
headline set this time and to present you guys our new record
Holecene, which we haven't been touring with so far. We just played
one track on the last tour so there's goign to be a lot of songs we
haven't really played live on your precious continent before and
we're stoked to do that."
"I'm in the middle of tour preparations right now," he continued.
"Inevitably you start dealing with a tour more than a couple of
weeks in advance. There's a lot of logistics involved. We're also
doing South East Asian dates before we get to Australia and just
the whole luggage and merch shipping and transport situation is
extremely complicated. So unfortunately right now it's quite
mundane logistics stuff, but i'm very much looking forward to
finally being over there and touring and playing shows. We love
Australia, ity's always been great. This time I have a feeling
we're actually going to be able to enjoy it (laughs). The last
couple of times it was always super early morning flights so we
just didn't sleep. I was like a zombie."
In the full interview, Robin talks more about what to expect from
The Ocean on the tour, how the shows will be different as
headlining events, the extra production and what that means for the
performance, what has changed with The Ocean siunce their last
headline Aussie tour almost a decade ago, bringing Cave In over for
the first time and how that band helped shaped The Ocean's sound,
how Holocene was received by fans, the slightly different sound of
that album and why they went in that direction, fitting songs with
different structures into a set list and more.


Become a supporter of this podcast:
https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.