[MUSIC INTERVIEW] THE ETERNAL – Obscured Horizons Interview

Subculture: Well, listeners, the last quarter of this year is going to be a very, very big time for The Eternal. Of course, their brand new album, Obscured Horizons, is about to be released. And they’re also heading out on the road as well with Amorphis for a massive Australian tour.

To tell us a little bit more about this brand new album and, of course, the tour as well, we’ve actually got Mark from the band on the phone right now. So welcome to the program, Mark.

The Eternal – Mark: Happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Dave.

Subculture: No worries, mate. Now I’ve got to start off by saying congratulations on this album. This is an absolutely sensational album. So let’s go right back to the beginning and tell us a little bit about what it was like when you first started working on this album. Did you have anything you wanted to hear on the album?

Did you have any influences that were coming through? What was going through your mind when you first started working on the album?

The Eternal – Mark: Well, I mean, we started it pretty much as soon as we mixed our last album, Skinwalker. And we had a bit of downtime because we were working on, you know, setting up the release and the new record deal for the band around the time of Skinwalker. So we actually… Um, just started demoing and, you know, if you, if anyone is in the know, we, we took on a couple of Finnish members around that time, which was, uh, Jan Reckbergering and Nicholas Etelavori and, um, Basically, as we started writing, everybody just started submitting demos, which for me was a new experience, being the primary songwriter of the band for most of the band’s history.

So I don’t know if it was influence as such, but it was collaborative, and everyone just started putting in stuff. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. So all of a sudden, I had just a shitload of songs, including my own, to work on, and we ended We ended up with about 15 tracks and I guess what really shaped Obscure Horizons is that we, the label asked us if we’d release an EP earlier in the year, which we did, which was called Celestial. And we basically were able to really split the material we had up into two different sort of packages. And I think that really helped sort of, I guess, refine the concept of what became Obscure Horizons.

Subculture: So I was going to talk about it later, but you kind of touched on it now. Bringing in the new members from Finland, how did that happen? Did you already know the two guys that you brought in, and how did that all come about for you?

The Eternal – Mark: Yes, so obviously both of those gentlemen are associated to Amorphous. Jan is currently still in Amorphous, and Nicholas was previously in Amorphous for 17 years. So we toured with Amorphous back in 2014. And we kind of befriended the guys a bit. And, you know, it was kind of a weird situation, really. You know, we’d hung out a bit and I’d gone over to hang out with them at Loud Park in Japan and just hanging out. And we were on touring. So we all just ended up hanging out. And it just so happens when we got back to Australia, COVID kicked off. We basically lost a drummer, and then shortly after, our long-term bass player was having his second child. So it just turned out, we asked Yarn, hey man, you’re on tour, you want to come and hang around and work on this album? And then he just got so involved, before I knew it, he’d joined the band.

And then we thought, well, why not go two for two? So we reached out to Nicholas, see if he’d want to play on the record, and Just kind of evolved from there, really. And it’s been a massive… You’d think it’d be difficult with two members being here and two members being abroad, but it’s actually remarkably cohesive and we’re really good at kind of working remotely and we definitely get time to work together face to face. So it’s actually been the sort of most creative period as a complete lineup, I would say, for the band.

Subculture: Yeah, I guess it also helps with the touring aspect of it as well, because like you said, having two members there and two members here, you’ve kind of got a base if you guys need to go to Scandinavia and they’ve got a base here as well. Have you found that part of it easy?

The Eternal – Mark: I mean, yeah, we went over and did a tour with Cemetery Skyline last year in Finland, which was a real blast. So, yeah, I mean, having a foot on European soil definitely doesn’t hurt. And it also gives a different perspective to the music. I mean, whether you really think about it,

I mean, culturally we’re quite different than Finnish people. And, you know, so it just, and our music, our idea of songwriting, melody, you know, the way we approach things is quite different. So, yeah, I mean, it’s a whole other perspective and it’s definitely given us some, I mean, we’ve always had this associated with Finland since the band started. We’ve always been on Finnish labels and things like that. But I guess it just kind of solidified it. But, yeah, really, yeah, it’s great. Like we have, you know, A foot in the ground over here. And we really love the cultural differences we share. It’s always entertaining.

Subculture: Do you feel personally that the listener will be able to pick up on those subtle little differences on this album?

The Eternal – Mark: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I definitely think there’s some more European influences in some of the melodic approach. And yeah, I mean, the guys are very… Yarn’s a record producer, I’m a record producer. We’ve recorded and mixed it ourselves as well, which is worth noting. The whole thing is in-house.

I think it’s definitely a step in a Probably taking what we did in Skinwalker where the guys kind of joined but some of the demos are already done, I guess. But this is like completely from scratch together and I think it just really takes all the things we were trying to kind of start to piece together and it’s kind of really solidified it in a more streamlined package, I guess.

Subculture: Definitely. You mentioned before that with the new lineup it seemed like there was some prolific songwriting going on. Do you think that was because There was a bit of a rejuvenation with the new lineup. And for you personally, what did that do for you with your songwriting? Did you find that you were being more prolific in that time as well?

The Eternal – Mark: Yeah, I mean, like it was just like we really get excited talking about production and music together. It is a rejuvenation of the band. Obviously, when you’re driving a ship for 20 years, sometimes you hit the rocks. I always kept it going because it’s just part of who I am.

I’ve always been in The Eternal my whole adult life. It did rejuvenate me getting other songwriters involved. In a way, It felt refreshing because I could relinquish control. I mean, everything kind of still filters through me because I kind of sing on it and I’m the founding member of the band, but ultimately I found… this ease in opening myself to letting other people contribute more, which is, it’s just been really, so I get really excited when I get a new demo from one of the guys, like, how can I put my stamp on this, you know, so, yeah, and for me, yeah, like, I want to, you know, write great songs as well, so, you know, we’re all throwing stuff into the hat and, I don’t know. I think rejuvenation is a good word. And I’d say from Skinwalker, Celestial and now Obscured Horizons, it’s really been a really, you know, if you think about 2024, we released Skinwalker and we’ve already had Celestial out in January and now we’ve got an album out in September. So it is definitely a very prolific time for the band.

Subculture: There’s some very deep themes explored on this album as well, including Disillusionment, Fractured Identity. Tell us a little bit about some of the themes that you wanted to tackle with this album, and how do you feel that they come to the fore when you were working on the album?

The Eternal – Mark: So, I write all the lyrics, and I’m always trying to, I guess, not necessarily… We started as kind of a doomy… More doom-influenced fans. So, you know, as I was younger, the lyrics were a bit more of that kind of doom and gloom vibe, which is cool. But then we definitely started writing from… Always been a bit of a personal perspective, but I started to bring that into more of the realms of reality. And I guess every album kind of ends up being a little bit of a theme, and I don’t really think about it, whereas the theme of Skinwalker was kind of this, you know, dealing with narcissism and people that don’t present themselves as they really are and things like that. And this one was really more personal, again, because it was really about some major changes I was going through in my own life. You know, just changing my mindset, you know, I stopped drinking, all kinds of things just changed in the realm of… And during the lyric process was when I was going through all these sort of mind, you know, resets of my mind, I guess. So, you know, and I feel that there’s actually kind of a lot of hope in a lot of the lyrics.

I think you can approach things from a melancholic way, but still sort of, you know, paint a little bit of a… A little bit of a hope that we’re trying to head somewhere. Even if we’re feeling down people, we want to get to somewhere better. I know bands who generally do darker music don’t necessarily go from that perspective, but for me, I guess that’s where Obscured Horizons is. It’s like the actual song itself is don’t let the things around you obscure your horizons to getting to a better place, I guess. Yeah, there’s lots of changes in my In my mindset, in my life, and I documented it all through the lyrics.

Probably the last song, Awaken, is when that really kind of took shape. And then I guess that concept kind of goes through the whole record.

Subculture: Do you find it helps you to sit down and write about, like you talked a little bit about writing about narcissism and narcissists. That’s something that I went through in my life where I realized there was someone in my life who was a A very, very dangerous narcissist. And sometimes listening to lyrics can really help the listener.

But do you find as well that it also helps you to be able to sit down and kind of let everything out with these lyrics?

The Eternal – Mark: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s my therapy. And, you know, I went through the same thing with a narcissist that got me when I was weak, you know. So, yeah, I mean, it is. It’s cathartic. It’s therapy. It’s about releasing things and moving to the, you know, the next stage of things. And what I hope is that, you know, someone who’s feeling in a kind of a shitty place can listen to The Eternal, maybe delve a little bit deeper and look into the lyrics and maybe, you know, Maybe they can associate that, you know, maybe I feel some of the shit that they’re going through, but also that, you know, we can kind of get through it if we clear ourselves of the things that are holding us back, you know?

Subculture: Definitely. Now, you’ve got the tour coming up as well, of course, in late September. How are you feeling about heading out and playing these tracks live, especially with your good friends Amorphous coming along for the ride as well?

The Eternal – Mark: Yeah, so obviously it’s an interesting one for our drummer because he’s doing double duties. So he’s doing Amorphous and The Eternal. And yeah, we’re bringing in around four songs from the new record. And yeah, it’ll be the first time we play them. And also, you know, being that we don’t live in the same country, rehearsal is always an interesting thing. But we’re very prolific at rehearsing by ourselves and Kind of getting together and bringing it together over a rehearsal or two. So, yeah, I mean, it’s going to be great to get these new songs on stage. You know, we’re really excited about this record.

We think that it kind of really represents where we’re heading. And we’re also going to obviously delve into Skinwalker and the albums before that. Obviously, we’ve got like eight records. So, you know, we’ll be definitely trying to cover some of the other material. And, you know, it’s just a… We really like the Amorphous guys and they’re really down to earth. It’s going to be a really, I think, cohesive tour. It’s just the two of us, we’re kind of sharing the sound crew. It’s going to be a really good sounding night of sort of moody, dark metal, I guess. So yeah, it’s a really exciting way.

I mean, the album comes out a couple of days before, so really exciting.

Subculture: I was actually going to ask that about the set list. Is it getting harder to put together a set list these days because you do have so many great tracks in that back catalogue?

The Eternal – Mark: Well, yeah, I mean, obviously we want to play stuff that Jan and Nicholas feel comfortable as well. And they like to, you know, Jan’s pretty good at delving back in and, you know, still reminding me to put in some old songs, you know, which really… You know, it feels good to me.

It feels good that the new guys sort of still go, hey, Mark, you know, you’ve got all this back catalogue here as well. Yeah, so, yeah, it is hard. Obviously, we, you know, when you’re doing sort of a set like the Amorphous one, you’ve really sort of got to maybe focus on the songs people kind of know.

So, you know, we delve into sort of the more known songs from the earlier records, I guess. And obviously it’s a challenge to also work out how we’re going to bring some of these new songs to the live arena because we do a lot of production work on our music.

We love creating textual elements and depth within the sound. So, you know, it’s always a challenge to look at how, in what way are we going to approach bringing it live as well. But, you know, it’s still nice to, you know, delve into some of the older tracks.

Like, Jan actually added a couple of older ones to the set. So, you know, I’m like, okay, I’ve got to remember how to play this.

Subculture: So… Mark, I guess to finish off, because we’re running out of time very quickly, what would you like to say to people out there who are about to sit down on the day of release and listen to Obscured Horizons in its entirety?

The Eternal – Mark: I mean, I hope some people do that. And, you know, I would say that we’ve really gone… Like, you’ll find this album clocks in at 47 minutes. It’s a side A, side B… You know, kind of vinyl mentality that we approach for it. And I just, you know, I hope that you take time to sort of go beyond the surface, although it’s kind of a more streamlined approach from us in a way, even though there’s still some big epic kind of proggy things going on and darker stuff. I think it takes more than one listen.

So get your headphones on and really delve into some of the deeper elements of the production and You know, I think it’s the kind of thing where you want to pull out the lyric book and, you know, really, I think if you want to get the most out of it, you really need to sort of delve into the, you know, like the old days. Put on your headphones and read the lyrics and get amongst it.

Subculture: Definitely. And did you have a special message that you wanted to give to people who are heading out for the shows as well?

The Eternal – Mark: Yeah, look, come up and say hi. We’ll always be hanging around afterwards, after the show, so come out and say hi. We hope we can, for those of you that are already fans of the band, we hope we please you with the set list and we’re looking forward to getting out there and seeing you all.

It’s been a while since we’ve been to a couple of places like Brisbane and Sydney. It’s been a few years, so yeah, we’re definitely looking forward to it.