Mini-Interview with Modsdive

Modsdive is a band I’ve been a fan of from the very start. I’ve been trying my best to keep up with their activities from afar and was plenty excited when debut album The Stasis of Humanity was released in April. Deciding it was time to catch up from our interview last year, I sent off another set of questions to Youn Sung Hoon, who kindly took the time to answer them as soon as the date of the first album showcase was settled:

modsdive_albumshowcase

What have you been up to since the summer?

Our band started a full-fledged activity at the beginning of last summer. It was a very busy start. We had gigs every week, participated in numerous band audition programs such as Sang Sang Madang Incubating Program, Ssamzie Sound Festival Program, CJ Azit, etc. and we also participated at the 2012 Zandari Festival just to show the world about us. Finally we started recording our album in January this year and released it at April 4th.

 

How did you pick songs for the album?

We had to select which songs were going to be included from the 15 songs we had. Two things had to be included.

First, the songs should have a consistent feeling from the first to the end. We thought of it as if we were making a 54 minute full-length film.

Second, the songs needed to have Modsdive’s feeling all over and be able to be expressed in live shows at the same time. We could have used some tricks and overdub various sounds to make it more complete but we just wanted to exclude all that so that they were perform-able in live.

So after all that process, we came up with what we have now.

 

How was the album produced?

Making a first album is a very exciting work because it’s kind of a chemical reaction between our different instruments. Also we could experiment with unforeseen parts that we didn’t notice while live.

We started recording our drums at a separate studio and for the rest of our instruments, we had to use Apollo 18‘s rehearsal room and take our computers and mics while it was empty to record every night before the public transportation ended.
Actually it was a tough work because we couldn’t monitor our sounds very well as it was a rehearsal room instead of a studio. We just couldn’t hear the sound if it was good or bad or if this was the sound we had in mind, so we had to listen at home and try with different settings next day and so on.

It was 100% self-produced so we didn’t have or couldn’t use a lot of money and we tried our best to make it from whatever we had. But at the end, it was a great learning experience and we are sure that our next project will be much better.

 

What are your plans for the rest of the year?

First, we are planned to have our showcase for our first album the stasis of humanity at Salon Badabie on June 1st with our dearest bands such as Toyshop, Romantiqua, Apollo 18, and Juck Juck Grunzie as our guest bands. After that, we are planning to gig more often and try to participate in big shows like summer festivals.

Our biggest objective is to be known outside our country and have tours around the globe. Finally, we are going to start to work on our next album at the end of this year. So it could be out this winter or the start of next year. The next album should express more various and unique spectrums and we are expecting it to make us more enthusiastic for ourselves.


 

If you’re in Seoul on June 1st take care not to miss Modsdive (and all the other excellent bands) at Salon Badabie. It’s bound to be a fantastic evening. For an idea of what it may be like, here’s “Monster” and “Xi’an” performed at Salon Badabie during Toyshop’s first birthday part:

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