Interviews : “When consciousness moves, the self crumbles or dissolves. This is the Place of No Pity” – an interview with Ruins

Quite a bit has been happening over at the Ruins camp lately. The Tasmanian black metallers have toured the country with Goatwhore and Impiety, and Absu and Ruins over the last year, and have released their fourth (and possibly best) full length album, Place Of No Pity. To find out a bit more about the release, and the future of Ruins, we had a chat with the main man behind Ruins, Alex Pope.

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“Place Of No Pity” has been out for a few months now. How do you feel about the release now that you’ve had some time to separate yourself from the writing and recording process?

Well I spent a very long time with the ideas on this before even really getting to work on production, and same again at each turn of the road during the production process, so it was well considered like this at every step, taking some time, separating myself from it like you mention, then coming back to it and evaluating.  I am very pleased as I have been with all of our albums so far, with the flow of songs.  The sequence, the structures belong in this sequence.  I see the songs in their own right, but I also see them as they relate to one another within the scheme of the album, and how the album sits within the scheme of the other albums.

With each album you seem to be trying to perfect the Ruins sound, building on the same foundations without really straying too far. “Place Of No Pity” is most definitely the strongest release to date, do you ever feel that you’re reaching the point where it seems right to really change things up?

Yes I do.  Our next stuff which I have started to demo is much more stripped back and simple at the moment, much shorter, more minimalistic, kind of just sharp and angular ideas at the moment.  This is probably a reaction to the last work, I do like to try and do different things, so I am not surprised after the epic long structures and format of this last album, then probably the next one will be contrary to this.  “Place of No Pity” is certainly our epic effort.  I personally consider this album to be completing a circle back to our first release.  I always wanted to rework a couple of our earliest songs and I felt it was a good time to do that because some of the newer material was very thematically linked to some of the oldest stuff.  So I guess you can look at the dates and see the first four albums as linear progression; but I think really I see it more as our first cycle.  Where we head from here is certainly going to be huge evolution, or devolution, or revolution? haha!

How do you personally think that Ruins has improved since “Atom and Time” back in 2004?

Well up until probably ’06 even we weren’t really a band functioning like we do now.  Dave and I had the concept for this band since probably about ’98-’99.  Just the idea that one day we could do this band.  We had known one another a while and both played in other bands, had done some stuff together in younger bands.  But I think just talking shit, listening to certain stuff we developed the idea for Ruins quite a while before it actually came to getting some songs together.  And when that happened there was not exactly a plan to be a band in the traditional sense.  It has grown over time and basically it was not until 06 I think that we pulled together a full line-up that could do shows, it just seemed like we had to?  Haha!  I really don’t know how to answer this; technically speaking I have probably gotten worse at guitar haha!  But I think I have gotten to know my voice better, I enjoy the development of the vocals.  Guitars I really only play when I am hearing riffs in my head, so my ability comes and goes, I get myself capable of figuring out whatever it is I am hearing in my head… I don’t practice scales or picking or anything like that haha!  Boring!  It is development that I even consider us a band I guess?  Basically since about ’08-’09 Joe and Kai have become a bit more involved.  This latest album is the first we have actually had all 4 members of the ‘live’ unit appear on an album.  Earlier I had just handled all the playing myself and later shown to the other guys how to play etc.  I am still writing the stuff, but Joe has stepped up in his role as producer and started to get a bit more involved beyond just the technical side… also he is actually playing guitar on this latest one.  And Kai is playing bass and was more involved in the actual stylistics of the bass parts.  So I guess all of this is improvement.  I really don’t know how to answer, we did what we could the whole way really, it has always been a reflection of where we are at personally at the time.  In some ways it is all just the same…

I have no favourite songs, I am pleased with the albums as a whole, and particularly the way the songs flow together, as individual songs I am pleased with them all, if I wasn’t then they would not be out there for you to hear.  Haha!  So a song has to be able to stand alone, but then there is the bigger picture of the album.  I have always paid attention to making a cohesive whole with regard to each album; not just a bunch of random songs thrown together.  The songs belong together in a volume, and they are sequenced as they should be.  As I explained, there is a flow to our entire discography; the first four albums are our first cycle.  My goal is to make a good, solid, cohesive body of work.

Talk us through the lyrics on the album. It seems that death is the general theme, was there anything in particular that inspired that?

They are kind of multi-layered sets of meanings.  To a point I speak about attacking rationality, and attacking myself.  The idea of Death is of great importance, Death as an advisor, not an enemy.  Death informing our decisions, Death is our challenger.  Death gives us courage, puts us in the moment, and creates a heightened awareness.  When consciousness moves, the self crumbles or dissolves.  This is the Place of No Pity.  With ruthlessness the self-image cannot be sustained, this results in a greater range of perception.  Ruthlessness is a premise of sorcery.  Ruthlessness is the opposite of self-pity.  Ruthlessness is the opposite of self-importance.  We try to present a warriors view, which is sometimes a sorcerer’s view.  It is just a personal expression of ideas that I may find resonate with me.  An underlying chaos, that is actually part of some greater order perhaps?  We are attacking self-image, attacking the position of rationality, weakening the position of ‘common-sense’; and asserting the power of the will.  Lyrically it is filtering important things for me, it is dealing with issues in my personal life but done mostly with metaphors, which are mostly just echoes of philosophy or poetry, and other things that I may read, or hear, and that resonate with me; this can in turn make ideas slightly more tangible for others to comprehend, and at the same time actually make the structures that bit more surreal.  I am always thinking about the lyrics being perceived from multiple viewpoints.  It is definitely a death themed album.  It is about life and death I guess, consciousness.  My father in law, a good friend, passed away during the time this album was in the works.  This certainly affected me and my life drastically through this period of time, but I suppose that is only a part of the story.  The album was perhaps likely to end up somewhat like this either way?  It is hard to know the answer to a question like this.  I like for others to find their own more direct meanings, as I have my meanings within my personal sphere, which I am unlikely to share more than this.  This is a reason for the art for me, I guess dealing with my thoughts and feelings, cryptically discussing things in my personal life; but the lyrics can be taken less personally also, in a different context.  I try to write multi-dimensionally, because I know that many viewpoints will interpret this, as they will.

We’ve seen you over on the mainland for a few international supports slots lately, but not so much for local shows. Should we expect to see you touring over here again anytime soon?

We don’t exactly have any solid plans right now, but I expect we will at least do East Coast capitals again before mid-year 2013, maybe WA?  We have a lot of interest internationally.  We will probably play quite a bit through 2013 I feel.

How do you go about writing music?

To be honest I just make what I want to listen to really.  The ideas just kind of tumble out and find their way.  Then I get really motivated when Dave likes some of that and same again if Joe is into it, it helps me get things done.  Ideas kind of filter themselves, so I am just doing what I am into doing, making the music I want to hear, and that is drawing from very diverse tastes and experiences.

How is the music scene down in Tassie at the moment? What other bands from down there should people be listening to?

Well I like Striborg, and Thrall.  But Thrall have been living in Melbourne for the past few years now.  There is a new band called Departe who sound interesting.

Do you have any other musical projects happening at the moment?

Well Ruins is my only real musical concern I guess.  I have done a stack of different stuff over the years but for some time now Ruins is the only thing I really write for or work for or whatever.  Dave likes to be busy and push his abilities as a drummer in different directions, by playing with a lot of different bands.  They are all cool bands in totally different ways I suppose, so he gets to really enjoy diversity in his work.  But nothing else for me really, sometimes I play acoustic guitar and do things I wouldn’t likely do with Ruins, but this is just for me.  I have been doing a bit of visual art again, something I hadn’t really done for a while.  My friend Dave is in heaps of bands though, more than enough for both of us haha!

Last words?

Thanks for the support!

“A Place Of No Pity” is out now. You can grab a copy directly from the band by emailing alexruins@hotmail.com, or  and through Rocket Distribution in all good record stores nationally.

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