Firstly, can you introduce yourselves and tell our readers who we’re talking to?
Piotr: Hi Greg, thanks for having us in Where Strides the Behemoth. We are Seum, a sludge (or rather Doom’ N Bass as we like to define our sound) band from Montreal formed by three European French immigrants: Gaspard on vocals, Fred on drums and myself, Piotr, on bass. We only use drums, bass and vocals, no guitars.
How would you best describe your music to people who have never heard of Seum before?
Piotr: We are heavily influenced by the New Orleans sludge scene and you could compare our sound to the likes of Eyehategod, Weedeater, Iron Monkey or more locally Dopethrone: we slowly play Black Sabbath inspired riffs topped by Gaspard’s angry, almost black-metallish, vocals. At least this can summarize our approach for our first records, with time I want to believe that we founded our own sound.
The music being only drums and bass we focus on groove but we don’t want to just play good riffs, we want to build good songs and make them as catchy as possible. So catchy sludge it is – whatever this means.
Can you give us a bit of a background on how the three of you met and how the band was formed?
Piotr: We initially came from Paris and its suburbs and we were grinding the local scene for years if not decades. We played doom (Lord Humungus) for Gaspard, black metal (Uluun) for Fred or hardcore (6-DTC, Trapped in Life, Might is Right) for myself without ever breaking out of our local crowd. We knew each other by sight (and even played a common show with all our different bands without knowing each other much some time in 2015) but we never really hung out. Few years later, we all separately decided to emigrate to Canada at some point for various reasons: adventure, work, new chance… Once in Montreal, we got in touch through common friends, we went together to a Dopethrone show at the late Katacombes and started chatting about playing some music together. When we arrived in Canada we spent our first years mostly grinding, finding jobs and focusing on daily “adult life stuff” but we all agreed at that point that we were missing playing music. I had a few demos recorded and we started jamming together without much thought. This was in late 2019, we played for a couple of months then Covid hit and it brutally changed our plans.
The name ‘Seum’ is quite interesting. What does it mean and how did you settle on that name for the band?
Piotr: Seum means “venom” in Arabic. France is a multicultural country, languages mix and influence each other and the word “seum” eventually became a common French slang word for anger and frustration: “j’ai le seum”. Covid had a huge impact on the band, we just had started playing music again, we were stuck and pissed and the band became a way for us to cope with our frustrations: the name just came naturally. Also “seum” still sounds good in other languages, it is short and catchy and doesn’t root us immediately in any genre. It was a keeper.
Why did you choose to not include guitars in Seum’s music? Why bass-only?
Piotr: This is a conscious choice from the start. We played in multiple standard drum/guitars/bass bands before and wanted to break the formula. Having only one instrument forces you to be creative in terms of sound or song-writing. It took us some months to experiment and eventually find our set up (split signal between a fuzzed bass and overdrive guitar topped with a wah) but as simple as it is it allows us enough variations to keep the songs interesting for the audience.
You could see it as a constraint but having only one instrument also gives you so much freedom in terms of song-writing, you can work faster and… you take less space in the car when touring. It seems like we are not the only ones to enjoy this format, it is great to see more and more bass-only bands in Montreal: Jetsam, Gorlvsh, Truck Violence, Lobotomite… And they all have their own sound!
For the story, the idea started in 2005 with the late discovery of Shrüm, a bass and drum side-project from Audie Pitre (RIP), Acid Bath’s bassist. I realized how heavy a bass can be and that you didn’t really need a guitar. I had this idea since then, it only took 15 years to put it in place!
Your first album, Winterized, came out in 2021, with the follow-up, Double Double, releasing in 2023. How are these two records different from one another?
Piotr: The songs on Winterized were written and recorded in the middle of the Covid winter and we were pissed as fuck: Gaspard had a broken leg after getting hit by a car, I got just laidoff and no longer had a work visa, we couldn’t go out… the album became a way for us to let it all out. We didn’t know anyone at the time, never played any show as Seum, it was only us in the Seum-Cave writing and recording.
Fred: We wanted Winterized to be as heavy and “in your face” as possible. Many layers of bass and guitar amps were actually mixed together to achieve the overall tone of this album. We also went pretty hot on the compression stage to get this massive wall of bass sound.
Piotr: Two years later we were in another reality: Winterized was very-well received, we found some balance in our daily lives, we played some great shows in Canada and France and you can feel this enthusiasm in Double Double. It might sound a bit abstract but as much as Winterized sounds dark and somehow claustrophobic we wanted Double Double to sound large and open in terms of songwriting but also production.
Fred: On Double Double, we wanted to explore a simpler set up, using less layers and less compression, to achieve a more bouncy, organic result, more suited to the lighter mood of the album. It is quite a different result from Winterized but I think we still get our bass tone identity through. We always thought it’s a good idea to experiment with each of our releases: we have more fun and learn a lot!
Piotr: Johan, the owner of Electric Spark (the label releasing Seum in Europe) had the best summary: “Double Double sounds different and still like Seum at the same time”.
On both Winterized and Double Double, your lyrics and artistic direction make a lot of references to Canadian culture as well as the culture of Quebec and Montreal specifically. Why does your music zero in on these topics?
Piotr: As mentioned above about Winterized and Double Double, our environment strongly influences our music and as fresh immigrants Montreal has a huge impact on us. We put references here and there for different reasons, it can be to pay a homage to a place we like (“John Flag” AKA Jean Drapeau), a fun gimmick (“Double Double”) or a critic (“Dollarama” used as a metaphor for over-consumption and capitalism in general). I guess that as we are new to the country and the city we have a different quirky, maybe fresh, angle to look at things that are just usually considered common.
On the track “Dog Days” on Double Double the artist Noureddine is featured and also co-wrote the song. How did this feature come to happen and why did you go to Noureddine for this track?
Piotr: Noureddine is a Paris metal scene legend and a very close friend, he introduced me to the local Paris hardcore scene while I was still a kid. I was a fan of his old bands (Guilty, Unite 4 Life, Darkdawn) and was lucky enough to be able to later play with him in 6-DTC or Mlah!. He is an amazing frontman and the chillest dude. It was only natural to invite him on “Dog Days”, a track reminiscing our music debuts and we really hope one day we can play the song together live in Montreal.
Gaspard: It was a pleasure to collaborate with Noureddine, he’s a friend! I remember the first time we met: I was taking a smoke break in the practice space where we used to jam with Lord Humungus back in the days, the infamous “Belly of the whale” in Pantin’s Parisian suburb. At this time Noureddine was playing in Mlah! with Piotr, they were practicing in the same building as us: he heard our music from outside, came into the studio with a big fat joint and we started connecting! He’s very experienced on stage and he gave me a lot of good advice.
You recently released a live EP that was recorded live at the CJLO radio station here in Montreal. What was it like recording a live EP in that kind of setting?
Piotr: It was tough! Andrew invited us to his show Grade A Explosives on CJLO when we were promoting Double Double and proposed that we play a few songs live. Playing live without an audience while knowing that your music is streamed is a totally different experience from a live show, you don’t have any feedback and can only rely on yourself. To make it more difficult we arrived at the radio heavily hungover after playing Gutser’s birthday show at Turbo Haus the night before! But in the end it didn’t go too bad and CJLO sound’s engineer Zack Bruce did a great job mixing and mastering the songs. Having the recording ready we just decided to release it as a free EP in-between projects with great cover artwork by Bartosz Zaskórski.
What’s next on the horizon for Seum?
Piotr: 2024 should be a busy year. We just announced a European tour for June 2024. We already went once in 2022 but it was a short 5 shows trip across France, this time we will stay longer and play for the first time in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. We also have some new music ready for Fall 2024, the Toronto based label Black Throne Productions will release Conjuring, a split LP with Detroit’s Temple of the Fuzz Witch. This will be an opportunity for us to explore another part of the Doom’ N Bass spectrum with our darkest and meanest songs to date. Hope you will enjoy them!
Thanks again Greg for the interview and you, readers who are reading this, come hang out at one of our next shows, feel welcome to jump in the wagon, you are Seum too!
~ Akhenaten
Where Strides The Behemoth? 