French metal guys Gojirahad a chat to Vanyaland about how their music stands out, and their concerns with the environment. We can’t wait to see these guys atSoundwave and hopefully get a chat ourselves!

Gojiras music and aesthetic seems to really stand out against so many trends in metal nowadays your songs arent all D&D, or fake Satanic, and yet they are definitely so pissed off and just as brutal-sounding as anything else being made.

For me its completely natural to do what we do. Weve never thought Lets put together something and create something. We started to play, and I started to sing about things that I care about, and my brother [drummer Mario Duplantier] and me were surrounded by art and poetry growing up, so the way I see my lyrics is mostly in a poetic way and an artistic way. But at the same time, we have a kind of consciousness that we are on a planet and its a very universal message that we have that is based on the will to evolve and be better people.

I dont know; we were never attracted by gore, we didnt do something to create an atmosphere, we were just trying to be honest to the music. To me, its not strange to do what we do.

You guys are well-known for your environmental focus, especially recently withyour work with Sea Shepherd; how did that come about?

I was watchinga movie about sharks, andSea Shepherdwere featured in it, and I was struck by how they did things: they dont think think too much, they work with their instincts and guts and they just go on the ocean and do what they think is right to do, and theyre highly criticized, because they use tactics that are called violent.

But theres something similar in what we do, we use violent music to express a message that is peaceful, but theres a sense of emergency in our music that Ive found also in the way that Sea Shepherds do things.

The reason that 95% of all sharks are wiped out on this Earth, and the bottom of the oceans are completely destroyed, and people dont really think about, because they have their noses in their iPads and iPhones and they dont look around anymore, you know? Not that people were looking around before, but we werent destroying everything before, we didnt have the tools; now we have them, and the earth is dying.

So when I saw this movie and saw what these guys were doing, I thought that I wanted to put the spotlight on them for our fans. The things we did with Sea Shepherds, we didnt do much, but it was just a message to our fans that was like
Hey, check this out, this is really important. It isnt just entertainment, its survival, its very very important.

Does it seem like a contradiction to make violent music that is essential for peaceful means?

In this great world of technology and communication, a lot of the living things are disappearing, even in human relations: how to truly listen to someone, how to truly be a human being and be balanced and centered, how not to become monsters. So in our music, theres a sense of emergency, thats why were playing hard and fast, yelling and screaming, because were a bunch of sensitive people worried about humanity. Thats how violence appears; although to me its not really violence, its just power, power thats present because of the emergency of the situation.

Read the rest of the interview here