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DOMADORA interview with Belwil Kiba and Gui Omm

March 9, 2014

DOMADORA interview with Belwil Kiba and Gui Omm

Of all the recent stoner and doom metal bands that I’ve come
across none of them have blindsided me so quickly with such sickeningly,
deafening tones and face melting solos! 
From the get-go Domadora’s debut album Tibetan Monk is killer but it
really kicks into gear on the second track “Ziggy Jam” and it’s obvious what
this band is about; heady, heavy, psych shredding over ridiculously monstrous
riffage, backed by an utterly thunderous rhythm section of clockwork drums and
slithering, smooth bass lines popping and exploding in fuzzy rampages.  You can tell when a band is playing off the
cuff and you can tell when something’s been rehearsed, and Domadora appears to
literally be the best of both worlds, spending just enough time to craft a
perfect skeleton of a song and imbuing it with a perfect amount of raw, live
energy to bring the lurching mud automation of the frameworks to life like a
golem in the solitude and safety of the studio. 
Domadora’s completely capable of dialing the speed back a bit without
losing their biting edge as well demonstrated by songs like “Nairoya” and
“Domadora Jam”, which both bleed a staggered metal meets jazz-fusion, but done
right for once.  Simplistic lead line and
stoned riffs build to frenzied crescendos, all locked into place by the
airtight rhythm section helping to propel this ridiculously talented trio into
the hazy, smoke filled atmosphere. 
Starting off with two nice lengthy jams, Domadora also demonstrates
another rare trait amongst improvisational psych bands, with tight well defined
songs which include vocals that almost come out of nowhere, but quickly endear
themselves to you on “Chased And Caught”; a pretty dead ahead stoner-psych
anthem clocking-in at only four and a half minutes following two ten minute
plus long songs.  “The Oldest Man on the
Left” is perhaps my favorite track on the album showcasing how the band works
best, building from a simple lead line growing and undulating like the
tentacles of some monstrous beast reaching up out of the void to swallow your
soul.  The bass will rattle your wall and
the solos will tickle the inside of your chest if you listen to the song at the
volume that it’s intended to be enjoyed at, and from this moment on the album
is clearly moving to its close with “Domadora Jam” bringing the tempo down a
little without losing any of the frenzied energy of the rest of the album and
closing with the brief and simplistic “Wild Animal Skin”.   The vinyl version of Tibetan Monk is due any
day now and I highly recommend you give the link below a listen because you are
not going to want to miss out on one of my favorite albums of 2013, as it will
likely be one of your favorites for 2014! 
Thankfully I managed to get both founding members, Belwil and Gui, to
talk all things Domadora with me in between increasingly frequent live
performances and recording.  Kick back,
load a bowl, click the link below and get ready for a trip…
Listen
while you read: http://DOMADORA.bandcamp.com/
What is DOMADORA’s
lineup?  Have you always had this lineup
or have there been any changes to the band?
Belwil:  The band’s
only existed for two years.  Gui Omm is
on bass, Karim Bouazza is on drums and I’m on guitar and vocals.  Gui and I are original members but Karim is
our third drummer.  He’s played with
Domadora for ten months now.               
Are any of you in
any other bands at this point?  Have you
released any music with anyone else?  If
so can you tell us about that?
Gui:  Before Domadora,
making music wasn’t much more than a hobby. 
I played in a lot of bands with a variety of different styles over the
years, but always just for fun.  To have
music in my life.  I’ve discovered I
don’t feel good if I don’t play music. 
Now, with Domadora, I’m so in sync with the music, the values, the
spirit of the whole adventure, I play in Domadora period; although I’m always
up for a good jam sessions with friends, or soon to be friends.
Belwil:  Yeah I’ve
played with some bands in the past and released a few different kinda things,
but today Domadora’s my only real project. 
Where are you
originally from?
Gui:  We’re from Paris
and still live there.
Was your home very
musical growing up?  What was your first
real exposure to music?  Were either your
parents or any of your relatives musicians or extremely involved/interested in
music?
Gui:  My dad is a
music lover.  Ever since I was a child he’s
listened to, and I’ve always heard, a lot of music.
Belwil:  I didn’t
really grow up in a family that listened to a lot of music.  I was eight when my cousin taught me a little
riff on the guitar and my father listened to Hendrix’s first single “Hey Joe”.  After that I dreamed of having an electric
guitar, but I had to wait until the age of seventeen for it. 
If you had to pick
one moment of music that changed everything for you, a moment that opened your
eyes to the possibilities of music and changed your perception of the world,
what would it be?
Gui:  That would be in
my early twenties, my encounter with techno music and substances that put you
in a different reality.  I realized music
could be more than a just a song that generates emotions.  Music is, and its first purpose like in the
ancient and primitive times, was a way to put someone into a healing trance or
into an altered state.
Belwil:  It was in my
early twenties too, I walked with my backpack and a little folk guitar from the
north to the south of America.  My first
goal was to sleep on the crossroads where Robert Johnson met the devil on Route
61, you know the legend.  On the road,
with my poor French English, I met a lot of brothers and sisters just because
of my guitar and then later in the south, I became friends with Spanish people
without speaking Spanish at all.  Just
with music.  That’s when I understood
music was a magic way to live your life.
Where’s DOMADORA
currently located at these days?
Gui:  In Paris.
How would you
describe the local music scene where you all are at?
Gui:  It’s Paris, and
there’s a lot of bands and musicians of every kind in this region.  There’s a little stoner scene with good bands
and a passionate audience.
Belwil:  The Paris
music scene is limited because you’re not allowed to make a lot of noise here,
you can’t play loud or heavy in most of the places so a lot of cool clubs have
closed.   Now most of bands who get shows
play snobbish jazz, acoustic and light blues or sleepy electro music.  There’s so many cool bands who never
play.  It’s sad.
Do you think the
local music scene has played a large role in the development of DOMADORA’s
sound?  What about your history?  Do you think DOMADORA would be the same band
without the local music scene there?
Gui:  The main thing
about Domadora is freedom.  A free
spirit.  So what we find in the local
scene is love and support.
Are you very
involved in the local scene there?   Do
you book or attend a lot of shows?
Gui:  Yeah, we attend
a lot of shows.
When and how did
you all meet?
Belwil:  Gui and I
were just jamming in a pub in Paris.  We
became friends and Domadora was born.
How did DOMADORA
become a band and when did that happen?
Belwil:  So Gui and I
met in a pub in Paris.  We played
together and realized that we both loved long improvised instrumental jams,
just starting with a riff and never knowing where we’re going to arrive.  Gui knew a drummer Fred, we tried to playing
in the studio and those first jams became our first real songs, so we decided
to become a band.
What does the name
DOMADORA mean?  What does that mean or
refer to in the context of your band name?
Belwil:  We’re a jam
band and we play with on instinct.  When
we get in the studio we never know what we’re going to do.  There’s a riff, some improvisations and in a
magical way, all this wild jamming becomes something real and concrete and at
that point we feel like we’ve “tamed the riff”. 
So we consider ourselves “wild jam tamers”.  The name “The Tamers” is like a lot of other
band’s names though.  In French, tamer is
“dompteur”, not an easy band name, but the Spanish translation is “DOMADORA”. 
While we are
talking so much about your history can you share who some of your major musical
influences are?  There appear to be some
pretty obvious influences but the more you listen to the music the more you
take away.  What about influences on the
band as a whole rather than individually?
Gui:  Lately, I had to
fill out a form about Domadora, and the influences section was like “Without
[the name of a famous band or musician], there would have been no [The name of
your band].”  So without Jimi Hendrix,
there would have been no Domadora.
Belwil:  I don’t like
giving names because I think there’s just too many different influences to
list.  I think that each of us have
listened to really different things and the influences on Domadora are more in
a way to approach music more than in imitating or trying to sound like certain
artists.  It’s more of a mentality, a
common process of creation that we share. 
But yes, its obvious Domadora’s influences are mostly from the 70’s;
although not all of them.
I love almost
everything about music.  What I don’t
love is having to describe how a band sounds to people who’ve never heard them
before.  I don’t subscribe to a lot of
the simplistic labels that people assign to music so it’s kind of hard for me
to describe stuff a lot of the time. 
Rather than me wasting even more time how would you describe DOMADORA’s
sound in your own words to our readers that haven’t heard you before?
Gui:  Ha-ha, I feel
the same!  I never know what to say.
Belwil:  I would say
that you have to feel it.  I mean maybe
it’s not music or maybe it’s only music; it’s more like a trip between
different feelings.  I think you have to
close your eyes and mix all your sensations, your memories, your sadness, your
punishments, your angers and your enjoyments with music and then you’re going
to disconnect from reality.  You’re going
to have a trip into your past, you’re going to meet lost people…
Can you talk a
little bit about DOMADORA’s songwriting process with us?  Is there a lot of jamming and exchange of
ideas while you all are practicing that you kind of distill into a song or is
there someone who comes to the rest of the band with a riff or more finished
product to work out and compose with the rest of the band?
Belwil:  There are several
ways we do it.  Sometimes I’ll come in
with a guitar riff and play it for the other guys and then we’ll jam on it
until it becomes a piece, like “The Oldest Man On The Left”.  Other times we just improvise in the studio
and a new song is born.  And sometimes
Giu proposes a bass riff.  Then there’s
even times when I will come in with a new complete song, like “Chased And
Caught”.
I’ve talked to a
lot of instrumental psych bands at this point and I’m always sure to ask how
much improvisation is in their music? 
Does DOMADORA spend a lot of time writing songs and getting all the
transitions and parts nailed down or is there a large element of improvisation
to DOMADORA when you are playing music?
Belwil:  We never
really play the same version of a song. 
We set some transitions and between transitions, it’s improvisation, but
nothing stays definitive, everything is moving and alive all the time. 
Do you all enjoy
getting into the studio and recording?  I
mean I think all musicians love the end result. 
There’s not a whole lot in the world that beats holding an album in your
hands knowing that you made it and it’s yours, no one can take that away from
you.  Getting into the studio to actually
record that music though, that can be a real feat on its own.  How is it in the studio for you all?
Belwil:  The studio is
a safe place, and playing live is dangerous, but both are different and real
pleasures. It’s a real pleasure to be in the studio because you can take time
to compose and arrange your songs, but sometime we’re limited by money and we
hope in the future to have more time in the studio to record all the music
that’s in our heads. 
Does DOMADORA do a
lot of preparatory work before you head into the studio to record to get
arrangements and compositions sounding just the way that you want them?  Or is it more of an organic experience where
things have room to vary, change and even evolve during the recording process?
Belwil:  We‘re a jam
band, so before recording our tunes we’ve jammed them many times and the
versions recorded in the studio are just snapshots, the songs might evolve over
time.
You released your
debut album Tibetan Monk in April of this year (2013).  Can you tell us a little bit about the
recording of that album first album?  Was
it a fun, pleasant experience for you all? 
Who recorded that material and where was that?  When was it recorded and what kind of
equipment was used?
Gui:  It was very fun
because we were in a big auditorium.  So
our big, heavy, fat sound could breathe in the enormous space, it was very
exciting for us.
You put Tibetan
Monk out?  Is the release limited at all
or is it an open ended deal?  It’s
available on CD right now are there any plans to press it to vinyl?
Gui:  We just signed
with Bilocation Records to release a double 12” vinyl version of Tibetan Monk
that will be out soon.
Does DOMADORA have
any music that we haven’t talked about yet?
Gui:  Yes we do, you
can go on our YouTube channel Domadora heavypsych to check out live videos of
our Antwerpen (Belgium) or Rennes, France shows.  You’ll find a lot of other things as well and
even surprises if you the take time for it.
With the release
of the recent album are there any other releases in the works or on the horizon
for DOMADORA at this point?
Gui:  We have enough
material to do a second album, but we don’t have any time with the future shows
ahead, and we have no money.  Maybe we need
to find a producer.
Where’s the best
place for our international and overseas readers to purchase your music?
Gui:  At the moment,
you can only buy our CD from our Bandcamp page.
What about our
poor U.S. readers?  With the recent
international postage rate increases I always try my best to provide our
readers who are separated by great distance from bands with as many possible
options for purchasing the music as I can!
Gui:  We will keep you
posted, our vinyl might be distributed by a US label.
And where’s the
best place for our readers to keep up on the latest news from DOMADORA like
upcoming shows and album releases at?
Gui:  I think it’s on
our website and or on our Facebook page.
Does DOMADORA have
any major goals that you’d like to accomplish in 2014?
Gui:  To keep on
playing more and more music.
Belwil:  Many gigs and
money to record a second album.
What do you have
planned, if anything, for the rest of the year? 
With the New Year rapidly approaching do you have anything planned as
far as touring goes for 2014 yet?
Belwil:  We have a few
shows planned over in France and we’re waiting for some others to be confirmed.
Do you all enjoy
touring?  Do you spend a lot of time on
the road?
Belwil:  Life on the
road is amazing because you always discover new places and new people, but
sometime it’s really exhausting, you know?
I heard about an
upcoming show that you all are playing with Monkey3 who I interviewed a while
back and seriously dig (Interview here), but you guys are going to be playing
Earthless’ “Sonic Prayer”.  How did that
idea come about?  Is the performance for
any special reason or simply because, like me, you all just love
Earthless?  I know more and more bands
are playing one off shows with other bands. 
Are you going to be performing Sonic Prayer alone or together on-stage
with Monkey3?
Belwil:  Yes that show
was in December.  We played the Sonic
Prayer
album live; “Lost In The Cold Sun” and “Flower Travellin Man”.  It was good and some people say Domadora is
the French Earthless.  Why
Earthless?  Because they’re our grand
overseas cousins!  
Who are some of
your personal favorites that you all have had a chance to share a bill with?
Gui:  I would say
“Bill” Murray.
In your dreams,
who are you on tour with?
Belwil:  Edith Piaf
and my father.
Do you have any
funny or interesting stories from live shows or performances that you’d like to
share with our readers here?
© Clélia Lejeune
Belwil:  Yes at the
first Domadora concert in Paris, we had to close a theater festival and the
organizers were afraid of us because they had heard our big sound during the
soundcheck.  They even tried to cancel
our show.  When we started playing, there
weren’t many people in front of us, but I remember suddenly looking up and
finding the room full of oddly dressed people disguised as horse people,
elephants and humans with pig heads.  It
was surreal with the ambience of the place, which was an old circus tent.  All of this mixed with our psychedelic sound,
it had the feeling of a dream or nightmare.
© Clélia Lejeune
Do you have a
preferred medium of release for your own music? 
With all of the possibilities available to artists these days I’m always
curious why they choose and prefer the particular methods that they do.  What about when you are listening to and or
purchasing music?  If you do have a
preference can you explain a little bit about why?
Belwil:  We believe
that good sound, authentic sound, alive sound, comes from analog methods
first.  That’s mechanics.  It’s palpable, you can touch it with your
fingers you know?  Then when listening to
music, vinyl is the best format, the warmest most authentic.  It cracks and is imperfect, it’s more like
life really.  Nothing is worse than
perfection!  I think…
Do you have a
music collection at all?  If so can you
tell us about it?
Belwil:  I recovered
all of my parents rhythm and blues vinyl from the 60’s 70’s as well as all the
bands who played at Woodstock.  I love
this time.
I am a second generation
music collector and grew up around what I thought was a fairly massive music
collection until the last few years when I have met some people with real
collections ha-ha!  None the less there
is something entrancing and magical about physical albums for me.  Having something to hold in your hands,
artwork to look at, liner notes to read, it all serves for a brief and rare
glimpse into the mind of the artists that made it and make for a more complete
listening experience; at least for me. 
Do you have any such connection with physical releases?
Belwil:  Yes I
completely agree!  I much prefer physical
releases.  As I said earlier, it’s more
authentic and alive.  You can touch it,
it’s hot.  Digital allows you to have a
lot more, but it’s so impersonal.
As much as I love
my music collection I couldn’t ever really take it with me on the go.  Digital music has taken care of that problem,
and when teamed with the internet has exposed me to a whole world of music that
I would have never otherwise heard of; amazing bands such as yourselves!  But with the good there’s always bad and
digital music is rapidly changing the face of the music industry as we know it
to say the least.  As a musician during
the reign of the digital era what’s your opinion on digital music and
distribution?
Belwil:  Yeah digital
music allows you to access more material and thus discover more artists, so
that’s good.  But after that, you must go
farther and find the true sound of these bands. 
For that you need to acquire the vinyl and if it’s possible, see the
band on stage.  So digital is a good
thing to a certain extent if it helps you get in touch with the music, but you
have to get more involved from there.
I try to keep up
with as much good music as I possibly can and while the internet might be a
wonderful tool for finding new stuff, nothing beats a good old recommendation
for me!  Who should I be listening to
from your local scene or area that I might not have heard of before?
Belwil:  I can advise
you friends of: Bright Curse some Frenchies from London, Tommy Foster from
Paris and The Black Matter from Paris.
What about
nationally and internationally?
Belwil:  I personally
see no border, I was born on Earth so the Earth belongs to me.  I’m at home everywhere.  I piss on administrative boundaries and the
people who see a threat abroad. 
Different cultures are consistently interesting and music is the
international language I think.  Actually
I know, because I’ve done that.  You can
travel around the world and talk to anyone using music.
Thanks so much for
taking the time to make it all the way through this, I know it wasn’t short but
hopefully it was at least fun for you! 
Is there anything that I missed, or that you’d just like to take this
opportunity to talk about?
Belwil:  Thank you for
doing this and thank you for being so curious, open and passionate because we
understood from your questions that you’re a passionate person, so it was a big
pleasure!
DISCOGRAPHY
(2013/2014)  DOMADORA
– Tibetan Monk – digital, CD, 2×12” – Self-Released/Bilocation/Kozmik Artifactz
Records
Interview made by Roman Rathert/2014
© Copyright http://psychedelicbaby.blogspot.com/2014
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