Causa Sui Inteview 2006

Denmark is a small country most surrounded by water and a culture of bad pop music so when a great new psychedelic rock band emerges, we celebrate and want and need to know more about this came to be. Below is the story of Causa Sui, one of Denmark’s most promising new band, that rock like hell and experiment and jam with the spirit of the 60’s and raw energy of this era… I caught up with the Jonas, the guitar player to find out more…

By Scott

When and how did the band form?

Well, it’s a bit of a complex story. All four of us played together in a band in our early teens, playing some kind of hardcore metal in different variations. Jakob, Jess and I later on continued the band in various structures under various names and moved into a lot of different styles. When we were 15-16 (when we discovered Kyuss, On Trial, Mother Superior and so on) we played some stonerrock influenced psych very similar to what we are doing now for a while but quickly moved into more prog-rock inspired territory which in the end turned into much more calm and experimental post rock/ambient rock which we settled on for a while. Under the name Limp we actually made a name for ourselves as one of Europes finest post rock bands and released an album in Germany in 2002 that is still by many considered a classic of the genre. Since then we have released numerous solo albums and collaborations with each other in the electronica/hybrid/avant garde area. Even though we didn’t produce hard rock for some years we never lost our love for classic psych and stoner rock. For years we had plans about forming a rock band again but it didn’t come together until the late summer of 2004. We asked our good friend Kasper Markus (who we played with in our early teens but since then hadn’t had a lot to do with music) to become our singer and as soon as we found a rehearsal room we started jamming and writing songs. It was a huge thing for all of us to play rock music again, especially since we had been talking about forming a rock band for years and had an overwhelming amount of ideas to put into the project. We didn’t know exactly what we should sound like but soon we found a comfortable space somewhere between classic heavy psych, stoner and more experimental styles that also bears a thread to other kinds of music we love.

You guys come from some pretty diverse music backgrounds. What inspired you to play some cool psych-stoner- freak out blues rock?

As mentioned above our backgrounds are actually not very different. All of us have grown up together - also musically - so we all share a passion for the same kinds of music. And we never lost the desire to play heavy psych and stoner rock even though we ventured into a lot of very different minded genres throughout the years. But I think the main reason we felt we had to get this band together was the low quality of rock albums being produced. We felt noone was doing anything interesting with rock music anymore so we felt an enormous desire to create music that could make the genre progress. There has been so many stonerrock and psych albums released the last ten years, both on underground and mainstream labels, but most of it is of such poor quality that it is embarrasing. Too many bands simply can’t write songs – hell, most bands can’t even write a single riff that grooves – and even if they can it is impossible to listen their albums because of lame production; overproduced drums, guitars that belong on a Metallica album, too much compression on everything.....basically stuff that doesn’t have a single thing to do with authentic rock. Of all the hundreds of stoner rock albums in our collections there’s maybe a handful we can listen to without getting a bad taste in our mouths. And I guess that was a big part of our motivation to make something truly amazing. -something that would do justice to the genre! And of course also to create something new! Sure, it would be fun to do another Kyuss rip-off or another 1960s nostalgia retro-kitsch trip like everyone else, but we consider ourselves serious and talented musicians and we feel that we have potential for so much more. There are so many possibilities with this genre but I feel that the creativity completely came to a halt around 1971, with a few exceptions popping up here and there the last 35 years. Now that Causa Sui is a year and half old I have complete confidence in the project and believe that we can make something truly unique – something real.

What kind of old and new bands would you cite as influences?

Well, too much goes into the Causa Sui blender too mention here but some of the essential bands and artists could be: Blue Cheer, Soft Machine, Hendrix, Tim Buckley, Tortoise, Motorpsycho, Can, Popol Vuh, Leaf Hound, Stooges, Neu!, Trans Am, MC5, The Seeds, Santana, Kyuss, Slint, Jim O’Rourke, Beach Boys, Sabbath….etc etc.

Your debut CD was released last year on Nasoni Records. Where
and when was the record recorded and how did you hook up with Nasoni?

We recorded and produced it throughout the summer of 2005 in our rehearsal room here in Odense. We mailed out 100 demos as soon as we had mixed it and Nasoni was quick to respond back to us. We really like the label so we agreed to do it with them. It seemed to us they have a good name for themselves as a quality label and besides it seemed like a good idea for us to get it out in Germany.

You have not played many concerts in Denmark, yet, but you just did a tour in Germany. Tell us about some of the highlights of that tour?

Yeah, we just did an awesome little tour troughout Germany. Everything turned out really cool in spite of bad organisation and the fact that Vibravoid (who we were supposed to share the tour with) cancelled the whole tour while we were on our way to the first gig in Miltenberg. We played some of our best shows in small places with no PA, so we could crank up the amplifiers and just play with the power of natural drums and a loud backline. The highlight was undoubtly our days in Munich, playing with the Colour Haze guys. They are extremely nice people and one of our favourite bands so it was an honour to be there with them. We played a concert with them in their rehearsal room for about 40 people. The vibe was truly amazing! People were packed in the small room, everyone beer in hand, the air full of thick smoke, Colour Haze played two long sets – one with entirely new songs, one with old classics – we played a good long freaked out set until our clothes were completely soaked in sweat. And Sölvi from Mother Superior, one of our all time favourite bands, showed up to the concert as it turned out he was in Munich by coincidence at the time. Great night for everyone. And earlier the same day we had a great two hour jam-session with Stefan Koglek in their rehearsal space. Good times!
What is cool about Germany is that they have a big scene for this kind of music. Even though we played in some small city in the middle of nowhere there were venues specializing in this kind of music and a big audience for it. Every single night had a great vibe going and was great fun for us!

What can one expect at a typical Causa Sui concert? Do you  guys play the songs like on the record, improvise a bit, play any cover songs??

We haven’t played any cover songs live yet. We have several in progress so future concerts will definitely see us jamming over some classic psych tunes! LA Woman by The Doors tends to sneak into one of our songs when we play it live though. We always improvise at our shows! It really depends on the atmosphere, the sound on the stage and the mood we are in. Sometimes some songs turn out to be 50% improvisation other times we go for a tight sound more similar to the album. A song like El Paraiso and some of the new stuff sometimes run up to double length when we play them live! One of our strengths is that we have played together for so many years so we know each other very well musically which gives us great freedom on stage. The solos tend to run out of hand when we have had one too many Cuba Libres before the concert. –occasionally the songs get transferred into something entirely new on stage, with Jess and myself working up new riffs while jamming and Kasper improvising some poetry on top.

What's next for the band?

First of all we are writing songs for a new album at the moment. We had a great time playing new songs live on the tour so when we have a few more written we’ll start recording for a new album. If all goes smoothly it’ll be out at the end of the year. Otherwise we are playing the Spot Festival in June and hopefully some gigs in Copenhagen in May/June/July. We’re also working on getting a spot on some of the cool stoner festivals around Europe this summer.

http://www.causasui.com