"Every tour it becomes like a family, you get involved with other bands. Sometimes it's sad because you don't get to see them for another year."

The Canadian death metal band, Kataklysm, formed in 1991 and immediately garnered and acquired a record deal with the record label, Nuclear Blast. They've released numerous albums since then and have toured all over the world countless of times. Kataklysm has more than just a made a name for themselves but they've evolved into a force to be reckoned with. With they're latest release, Prevail, Kataklysm started their “Death by Decibels” tour with Keep of Kalessin, Eluveitie, and Dying Fetus. I was able to catch them at The Metro in Oakland where they put on a killer show despite technical difficulties and was able to chat with guitarist Jean Francois for a few and ask him some questions.

Kate: Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions with me. Can you give me a brief history of the band, how you guys came together?

JF: Shit, we're an old school band I guess. We've been around a long time. Nine records, lots of touring, lots of drinking (laughs), lots of parties (laughs). The way it should be.

Kate: Very cool, very cool. How has the feedback been for Prevail?

JF: It's been amazing, the album has only been out for a little while and it seems like everyone knows the songs already. The songs off of “Prevail” are the strongest ones on the set. We're happy to see that we're not living in the past and that the younger people are listening to the albums and know the lyrics. All the work we've done is not in vein.

Kate: That's cool, it's nice to have people respond to the music.

JF: Yeah, with some bands people say that the first couple of albums were great but now they suck! With us it seems like the later albums are the strongest, the ones fans seem to like the most.

Kate: What have been some of your influences?

JF: Oh wow, definitely Iron Maiden, they're one of the reasons I started playing guitar. I was really influenced by the British scene from the classic metal bands and even with the British death metal scene, Carcass, Napalm Death, bands like that. They gave me a lot of inspiration. We put a lot of these elements into our music, when we write we don't ask ourselves to many questions, it's pretty spontaneous. We write what we write and what we feel. If there's something we don't like we'll say “Ok, this sucks” and take it off (laughs) and keep the ones we like.

Kate: What do you have to say to younger bands out there, what kind of advice would you give them?

JF: I would just say work, don't give up. Play what you want to play and write what you feel. Don't try to copy other bands, be true to yourself. Even if people think you're not good, keep being true to yourself. I hear a lot of bands trying to sound like other bands already out there, I don't think that's the way to go. It's cool if you're only doing this as a hobby but if you're serious about it then you need to have your own ideas.

Kate: What are some Kataklysm's plans after this tour?

JF: We're actually going on tour again (laughs). We're going home for a couple of weeks and then we're going to Europe for Christmas. After that we're planning to tour through Asia, South America, South Africa, pretty much everywhere. Then in the spring were trying to see if we can do another tour in the states or get a good support tour with a big band. We've already gotten a lot offers, either or is cool with us. Then in the summer we go back to Europe and do all the open air festivals.

Kate: Are you going to be doing Wacken?

JF: We hope so, we haven't played there since 2004. It hasn't been confirmed yet but we plan on doing it.

Kate: So who are some of your favorite bands that you've toured with?

JF: There's been so many bands, it's really hard to say. Every tour it becomes like a family, you get involved with other bands. Sometimes it's sad because you don't get to see them for another year. Like with Dying Fetus we've toured with them three or four times in a row and actually our very first U.S. tour was with them. It's good to be back with them once again.

Kate: What were some of your craziest memories from your tours?

JF: They've all been crazy times. On this tour in New Orleans and we had a day off, we got a bit crazy and one of our friends were missing from the tour bus when we're getting ready to leave, he didn't make it. We called everywhere trying to find him and at seven o'clock we had to go go so we left him behind. So we got a call around nine o'clock the next day from him saying that he was in the club's bathroom in New Orleans (laughs). He had passed out in the bathroom and just woke up and didn't know what happened. But they had closed the club and just left him there. So he was stuck inside the club and couldn't get out so he had to break one of the windows of the club and just break out (laughs). So he gets out and the sun's out and there are beer bottles are over the street and he couldn't figure out where the hell he was (laughs). He eventually caught up with us though.

Kate: Oh my god, that's crazy! That's fuckin hilarious!

JF: So that's one of our craziest stories, every tour some thing crazy happens though.

Kate: Who did the artwork for the album?

JF: We found this artist in California who did album artwork for local bands and we had him doing the artwork for our previous albums. He's the one who came with the idea of the beast on the last album and we though it looked really cool. This time we wanted something a little more classic and that's what he came up with. We're really happy with it, it came out great.

Kate: Does the whole band have input on what goes on the album?

JF: Yeah, everyone does, we all write. Everyone contributes, whether it's a guitar part or the songwriting. We all lay down something.

Kate: Any words for your fans?

JF: Just a huge thank you to everyone, the album's done really well, the tour's going well. So we're really happy that we have people out there that are really strong supporters. So just a big thank you to everybody who's been supporting us.

Kate: Well, thank you so much and have a great show!

JF: Thank you!

We would like the Kataklysm camp for making this interview happen.

o    Click here for photos/review of the band during the Invaluable Darkness Tour

o   Here for CD Review of Prevail

o   Here for archived interview of the band on the Metal Crusaders Tour