What inspired the name of the band? What are your influences and are they the same as when you started out?
The name was taken from Einsturzende Neubauten; Kollaps had its first show pending and we needed a name very quickly and I loved the record at the time. What is interesting about our name is that for the longest time I despised my decision and have felt plagued by the Einsturzende Neubauten references and comparisons however recently I feel like it is a name that we have grown into. It is a sound that we have grown into that the name very accurately captures and in the end the band has its own story and history now that the fans recognise as completely singular and idiosyncratic to Kollaps.
How do you approach songwriting?
It has varied over the years however the recent album, Until The Day I Die, I wrote completely on my own ad also recorded and mixed the record myself. So there was a lot of solitude; so much so I did feel like I was losing myself in the album and I enjoyed that process very much compared to the previous methods of going into a studio.
I wanted the new record to depict my surroundings and be a direct reflection of my world view. A lot of the record was inspired by Catholicism because I had recently moved from Australia to Switzerland and there is a lot of heavy catholic imagery here and social catholic ideals that are not present in Australia. There are crosses and such atop mountains and I found this all very authoritarian which influenced the sound of the record a lot; I also was inspired by the ideas of condemnation, redemption, and kind of mixing this into my bleak worldview. You can see a lot of this in the video for “I Believe In The Close Fist” and indeed hear the references in the track itself.
Why do you write the songs that you do?
It is an inner compulsion. I feel like I don’t have much of a choice in general. Being a musician is a nonsensical life, and being a non-musician that creates music is a more absurd existence still. Regarding the music being industrial; it naturally comes out. I would have no qualms about abandoning the genre in the event that I felt a natural inclination to create something else however when I’m writing music it realty just naturally pours out to be negative, harsh, bleak however the title track on the new record, Until The Day I Die, is just a live recording of myself and an acoustic guitar… So I do occasionally vary up the approach.
How do you decide what songs to perform live?
Kollaps decides this collectively as a band. We just move things around in a setlist until it feels natural and flows easier.
What plans do you have for the future?
I’m going to record and release some more records and do my best to avoid contracting HIV.