Interviews : Universum (Stephen Murphy) – 22/10/2008

Adelaide’s UNIVERSUM have been making a lot of noise lately. With a new album out titled ‘Leto Destinatus’ and the national support for Dragonforce, as chosen by DF front man ZP Theart, I had the chance to speak to guitarist Stephen just before the tour kicks off in Perth.

MO: Universum seem to be gaining a lot of publicity for yourselves on the back of the new album and the support for Dragonforce in Australia. For people who are yet to hear your music in depth (like myself I must admit) what can we expect on the album?
U: For us the album really reflects on a whole bunch of our collective favourite musical styles and influences from European melodic death metal to American prog metal, alternative rock and traditional metal. We like music to be fast and heavy and we also like it slow and melodic so the album has turned out to be combination of those styles…heavy melodic death metal.

MO: How has the reaction both from fans and critics been for the new album, along with the band itself?
U: We have been overwhelmed with the great response we have received from our fans, both old and new, and the critics. It’s been awesome and really rewarding to get such a good reaction as we poured a lot of effort into this album.

MO: Is their special meaning behind the album title – ‘Leto Destinatus’ – be it subliminal or personal to the band?
U: ‘Leto Destinatus‘ is a Latin translation of the phrase “destined to death”. Whilst it sounds morbid, we have used the phrase in the context of a greater meaning than any one individual’s existence or death and have applied it to our interpretation of the cyclic characteristic of nature, humanity, and the universe that we experience as humans.

MO: What was the writing process for Universum – both for individual songs and the album as a whole?
U: Michael and I wrote the bulk of the material on the album and some that didn’t make it in the 18 months leading up to recording whilst the band was still forming, practicing, etc. Michael and I both tend to write alone and then bring mostly completed arrangements to the table for development of drums arrangements with Jaron, keyboards arrangements with Rachael, vocal arrangements with Adam, etc.

From all the material we wrote, we just chose our favourite tracks for the album.

MO: And the album is mixed by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Soilwork, Amon Amarth). How did this come about and what was your reaction to the final product of his work?
U: We had got in contact with Jens as we are big fans of his mixing and production techniques and sent him some of our demos and pre-production tracks to listen to. He indicated he was really into what we were doing and keen on mixing our project and it just went from there.

When we received the final mixed and mastered album from Jens, we were very pleased it turned out so great and also extremely relieved that we had finally finished the album.

For me personally, my appreciation for the mix increased further over time as I became more separated from the recording process and was able to hear the subtleties in Jens’s mix that makes it great.

MO: I believe originally ‘Leto Destinatus’ was a self-released effort, but now Riot have re-released and distributed the album around the world. How has their support been to the band?
U: Yes, originally we did release and distribute the album ourselves just to get it out there but we always had the intention of getting signed to a label.

Since our first contact with Riot until the present day, the support from John, Chris and the guys at Riot has been absolutely incredible and it has really helped us capitalise on the release of the album and the opportunities it has presented us.

MO: So as mentioned earlier, the band has the national support for the Dragonforce Australian Tour 2008. I believe the support slot was gained on the request from DF themselves? It must make the band pretty content to have such support from within the scene itself.
U: It was awesome to hear that Dragonforce themselves requested us after listening to our album and then to be invited on the tour Australia wide… we were just speechless and very appreciative of their support.

MO: Anything special planned for the tour? How long a set time will Universum get to show their wares?
U: Our sets will typically be about 40 – 45 minutes long and yeah, if the audiences are digging our shit, we may have a couple things up our sleeve to unleash…

MO: What next for the band after the DF tour? Will you look to capitalise further on the further exposure gained from touring? Or is the band looking to head back into the studio for a follow up?
U: We have started writing some material for the next album and will be writing a lot more when we return from the Dragonforce tour however we will still always take touring opportunities as they come up because we love playing live and getting amongst it with the fans.

MO: We are always keen to find out who band’s like yourselves listen to in the local scene, so which bands in the Australian metal do you think we should get behind and check out their music?
U: We listen to bands like Alchemist, Bloodduster, Mortal Sin, Vanishing Point, Alarum, Psycroptic, Antonomasia, Death Audio, Moredhel… and way too many more to list here. Basically if it’s Australian and it’s metal, we reckon you should get behind it.

MO: To finish up, any last words to the Metal Obsession readers?
U: Thanks to all the Metal Obsession readers who have taken the time to read this and got to know us a little bit more.

Don’t hesitate to drop in on us at www.myspace.com/universumband and listen to some tracks or come out and see us live when you have the opportunity.

MO: Thanks alot for your time!
U: Thank you Metal Obsession, Cheers!

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Band: Universum
Date: 22/10/2008
Origin: Adelaide, Australia
www.myspace.com/universumband