How would you describe your brand of doom metal? I had called Ahab a prog metal band playing doom.

Chris: I actually like your description. I wonder what we would have been called in the 60s and 70s… probably Nautic Art Rock! It’s not that big secret, that we love prog music/art rock from Genesis – “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway,” Pink Floyd – “The Dark Side Of The Moon” to newer stuff like Porcupine Tree or Motorpsycho – “The Death Defying Unicorn” etc. etc. But still I think, we’re an extreme doom band, who loves to write complex and psychedelic songs. I think “progressive” is not really a genre, because in every genre there are progressive bands – for example Esoteric: plain doom yet very progressive and psychedelic.

How has your style changed since your first release, “The Call of the Wretched Sea”?

Chris: Depends. If you ask me as a musician, I’d say not that much when it comes to feeling. We just play, what we can play. Back in 2004 “The Call of The Wretched Sea” was what we could compose at that time. In 2015, “The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig'” is what we’re capable to write now. If you ask fans, they would say we came from funeral/death doom and now play some kind of progressive extreme doom mixed with some kind of jazziness, post rocky/almost folky tunes etc. That’s why we call our music Nautik Doom. Nobody ever defined that genre, but us. And we still play Nautik Doom 😉

Why did it take three years between releases, with “The Giant” coming out in 2012?

Chris: Well, at first you need to get rid of old patterns in your mind. Otherwise you’re too close to what you did on the last album. Also, we do not want to make a living from music. So we have our everyday jobs. In the first year after a release we’ll be touring, get rid of old patterns, look for new inspiration. And then the search for a book starts, which means a lot of reading. And then you need to get into the book and the mood of it. We already had some riffs – almost whole songs before finding William Hope Hodgson. We threw them all in the gutter. They didn’t fit TBOTGC. So three years is actually not that much for us.

I love the concept of “The Boats of the Glen Carrig,” (based on the novel by William Hope Hodgson). What made you guys decide on that book as a concept for this album?

Chris: We were quite a bit frustrated. None of the books we read ntil then seemed to suit our sound and our music. We just couldn’t imagine to really write some good music to the books we read. When a fan hinted us with W.H.Hodgson, we found “The Boats Of The Glen Carrig” and something clicked. We all knew, this is the perfect book with all these strange, psychedelic creatures, the good old language and also the “in-between-the-lines-thoughts” of Hodgson.

For that matter, you guys always write about nautical themes. How did that come about?

Chris: Well, I like bands with a concept behind them – and I’m not talking of being an ordinary occult outfit, or an alcoholic outfit or something boring like that. I like if bands are doing something interesting not necessarily something new – but add their own thoughts to the game. It just happened, that I read Moby Dick at the moment Daniel and me wanted to do “one man funeral doom projects.” We joined forces and we loved to write music that tells big stories of some genius authors in our own “words.” We realized that nautical literature is not only interesting but also fits our music extremely well. So we stuck to that concept ever since.

What are your touring plans to support “The Boats of the Glen Carrig”?

Chris: We’ll do a little tour in France, Germany and Switzerland. We also play Eindhoven Metal Meeting. But that’s it for this year.

Will the setlist be strictly new songs? I could definitely see this album played live in its entirety.
Chris: We’d love to do that, but as we’ve never been to club shows in France, we need to play some kind of “Best Of”  set – of course with new songs as well. But our songs are that long – so we need to choose carefully.

Thank you guys for answering my questions! Any words for the fans out there?

Chris: Decelerate your life and stay open-minded! Thanx for havin’ us! Much appreciated!

To read my review of “The Boats of the Glen Carrig,” click here.

To purchase “The Boats of the Glen Carrig,” click here.