Imonolith’s debut album, State of Being, has finally arrived on Friday (27th). A lot has happened since we last spoke to drummer Ryan Van Poederooyen last year on forming the new project. For one, just like many bands, the group was forced to postpone their European/UK run due to the COVID-19 outbreak. With so many plans ahead, the band seems to do what they can to maintain a positive outlook during this time of uncertainty. We caught up with Ryan to learn more about the group’s debut album (order here).
Since your initial formation a couple years ago, how has the overall writing process changed for the new album, State of Being?
The writing process was created by Brian Waddell and I. We wrote the majority of ‘State of Being’ back in 2015 – 2017. When the band formed in March 2018, it was formed off of all the music we wrote. All the guys in the band loved the music, so we moved forward with those songs as our base sound for the band and our debut album. Jon Howard did contribute some writing to ‘We Never Forget’ and the intro ‘State of Being’. He also wrote the lyrics to ‘Instinct’.
The record seems to cover a few dark subjects, which can be heard in songs “The Mourning,” “Forgone,” and “We Never Forget.” Can you talk more about these tracks?
Yes, those tracks may come across dark at first, but in actuality there are positive lyrical messages in every song on the album!
‘The Mourning’ has an underlying message of not becoming a puppet to societies standard expectations. Succumbing to a 9-5 job that you don’t like and retiring at 65 years old to appease the carbon copy life. Don’t become one of ‘The Mourning’. Ultimately, the underlying message is to live life your way and create the life you want to live.
‘Forgone’ is a song about waking up and fixing what is collectively wrong in the world today before all is forgone. Racism, Terrorism, War and so on… there are so many examples. The point of the song is to recognize what needs to be fixed globally and work on fixing it.
‘We Never Forget’ is all about learning from your mistakes and making the most of the time we have. Learn from your past and apply your learnings to your future.
How did you get Jens Kidman and Johannes Eckerstrom to collaborate on songs “The Reign,” and “Becoming the Enemy?”
Jens and Johannes are good friends, first and foremost. Brian and I have known both of them for years. When we toyed with the ideas of having guest appearances, we wanted to make sure we asked people who had strong voices that would work well with Jon’s voice. Both Jens and Johannes fit that bill perfectly. I simply reached out to both of them and asked them if they wanted to guest on our debut album. Both of them said yes after hearing the songs they would perform on. They both did an incredible job with their guest vocal appearances. We couldn’t be happier with the results!
Can you talk more about creating the video for “Becoming the Enemy?”
‘Becoming the Enemy’ is a lyric video. We used Dave Benedict (Square Egg Visions) to direct and create the video. He also did the ‘Hollow’, ‘Instinct’ and ‘Dig’ videos. Lyrically the song is about becoming your own worst enemy through the negative decisions we can make in life. Dave ended up shooting a bunch of extra footage using a character we created for the ‘Instinct’ video, called ‘The Sickness’. In the ‘Becoming the Enemy’ video, ‘The Sickness’ represents the enemy you become to yourself, through making decisions that impact your life negatively. The message is to obviously avoid becoming your own worst enemy through the decisions you make in life.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, what steps are you guys planning to do to maintain prevention while on the road?
We’re all healthy guys, or at least from what I know ? Haha. I personally eat very healthy, drink lots of water and work out 5 days a week to stay in shape. If you have a strong immune system, you then give yourself a chance to fight any disease that may enter your body, as long as you don’t have any underlying immune system problems. Something like Coronavirus is a difficult thing to stay away from if you’re playing to and meeting large groups of people while touring. I think the best thing we can do is stay healthy, keep on top of washing our hands constantly and avoiding heavily contaminated areas with the virus. That may lead to show cancelations. We’re already seeing a lot of bands, promoters, right up to various governments canceling shows now. We’ll pay close attention to it all and do our best as a band to maintain prevention for us, our families, our crew and obviously, our supporters world-wide. There’s no saying how bad this virus will get. All you can do is be prepared and take the best precautions to protect yourself and others.
What plans do you have for later this year?
Tour! We’re already working on our next tour plans after Europe. We want to tour Imonolith anywhere and everywhere we can. We’ll have to see how bad an impact Coronavirus will play in everything. Lots of tours will be impacted over the next several months, we’re already seeing tons of tour cancelations and now festivals are doing the same. Our album is out on March 27th, so we want to go hard and promote the album by touring as much as we can through 2020 and 2021.
Is there anything else you want to say or add about the new album?
I would first of all like to thank all our supporters worldwide. We can’t do any of this without them. Plain and simple. Our album is out on March 27th, 2020. You can purchase the CD, Vinyl, Digital Version and a ton of merchandise at www.imonolithband.com All info is at that website, including all current and future tour dates. Lastly, thanks to Metal Insider for the support and the interview. We appreciate it!
