Ten Questions to ... Peter Smeets (Ground Nero)

 

For those who subscribe to the theory of a new Goth/Post-Punk Revival, a distinct third generation of bands launched in the digital era employing technology not available to previous artists, She Past Away’s debut digital EP of 2010 is often cited as the starting point. The movement really gathered pace in the middle of that decade, with 2015 seen as a pivotal year in Europe when the potential for a genuine scene became reality. Not only did She Past Away release sophomore set Narin Yalnızlık and Then Comes Silence unleash their seminal third album Nyctophilian, but new bands began to emerge with a darker, more intense sound. From the former industrial heartland of the Limburg province of Belgium came young turks Whispering Sons’ debut EP Endless Party, and the same region also gave birth that year to one of the most interesting and highly respected projects on the current scene, Ground Nero.

Unlike most artists of the current revival, Ground Nero is a new band consisting of members who were also active in the original scene, in their case the world-renowned coldwave movement in Belgium in the early/mid-1980’s that gave rise to EBM and ultimately rave culture. Whilst respectfully paying tribute to their own origins and to their contemporaries across the English Channel from that decade, they seek to create a post-punk “wall of sound” using twenty-first century technology to create a new gothic aesthetic.

Their first two EP’s, Beyond (2016) and Scales (2018) defined their distinctive signature sound, an atmospheric collage of pounding bass, mesmeric guitar shards, metronomic drum machine patterns, swirling keyboards and guttural angst-ridden baritone vocals. The opening chapter of the band’s history was completed with the release of critically acclaimed debut LP Divergence in 2019, this blog’s album of the year and a record which saw their fanbase swell significantly, aided by rave reviews for their multi-media live shows as festival bookings accumulated.

It seemed only natural that, after Then Comes Silence, Ground Nero should therefore be the second band to face “Ten Questions to …” on an individual basis, because like the self-styled "Swedish captains of post-punk”, the Belgian band is so much more than the sum of its talented parts.

It is fitting that the first interviewee is Peter Smeets, the guitarist and keyboard player with the band, who is also the primary songwriter. My thanks to Peter for his detailed responses to my questions.

Ground Nero’s releases are available via Bandcamp, and their activities can be followed on Facebook. Interviews with Peter P (bass) and Gwijde W (vocals) will follow shortly.

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 1.     Although Ground Nero formed in the mid-2010’s, you’d all been involved in music for many years. When did you personally first get interested in goth/darkwave music, and which bands/artists most inspired you?

For me, it started at university, so when I was 18, and I guess that the first band that really struck me was Joy Division. Before then, I had been playing some heavy rock and metal. But Joy Division definitely led me into the coldwave & postpunk music, soon followed by Siouxsie, Killing Joke, The Sisters of Mercy, Cocteau Twins, X-Mal Deutschland, etc. And these are still the bands that inspire me today. Some of them don’t exist anymore but some, like Killing Joke keep on inspiring me.

 2.     Before Ground Nero you were involved in a band called Von Durckheim. Can you tell us a bit about them please? Were you involved in other projects as well?

 Yes, that was in 1983, and we did a few interesting gigs and festivals, including one with Siglo XX and Red Zebra. But it didn’t last as we were all planning different things at the time. I was involved in some smaller things but nothing worth mentioning.

 3.     How did Ground Nero come about? How did you meet Peter and Gwijde and decide to form a band?

 A few years ago, I got the idea of starting all over again, so I looked out for musicians to form a band, which is basically not a problem, but finding musicians for darkwave and gothic rock is not that easy, especially when you are looking for people who have a similar background i.e. who were part of the initial and authentic 80’s dark wave and postpunk scene, which is quite different from what was made afterwards, e.g. in the 90’s. 

It all started off when I met Peter, our bass player. That was the moment when Ground Nero was born. We started looking for a singer who also had his roots in the 80’s postpunk and coldwave scene. That’s how we found Gwijde, who had been vocalist in Portrait Bizarre in the 80’s.

 4.     Your huge guitar sound is an integral part of the appeal of Ground Nero, and is sometimes compared to that of Geordie of Killing Joke. Are you pleased by such comparisons?

 Sure, I am most honoured. Geordie is one of my most important “mentors” if you like. With his special way of playing and creating sounds he evokes atmospheres and in doing that, he is unique. If you listen to 10 guitarists, you will immediately recognize Geordie as he sounds like no one else. I am not trying to copy his style or sound or anything like that, but I follow the philosophy of creating atmospheric sounds that build a song. More as a songwriter I will look into each instrument’s functionality to fill in its part to create such atmospheres. And sometimes, I will play the guitar in a rather restricted way, so only where it really adds to the song, just a few notes, no more no less, whereas in other songs, I will create a wall of sound with it.

 5.     Can you tell us a bit about your guitar set-up? Which pedals and FX do you prefer?

 Before I turned to Gretsch guitars, I was mainly on Gibson Les Paul and SG. Don’t get me wrong, they are great guitars, but in order to be able to create the sounds I have in mind, I need hollow body guitars, with a great, massive resonance, coming from the body. You don’t need this if you play metal on a high gain amp, but for the 80ies sound I am looking for, with loads of delay, chorus, flanger and other modulation effects, a hollow body guitar is perfect. My first Gretsch was that aspen green G4520T, which is still great, but after that I got my White Falcon Billy Duffy signature, which is my dream guitar, with customized high output pickups and a number of other special modifications requested by Billy. It’s the best guitar I ever had, but you really have to work on it. The Les Paul was a lot easier to play. Previously I had 2 rigs in parallel, both with identical Mesa Boogies, which were vintage amps from the 90ies, linked to 1x12 Boogie cabinets. Each of them had their own pedal boards and they were linked by means of an ABY-switch, so I could either play rig 1 or rig 2, or both together, to create that room-filling wall of sound. But if you are touring, it’s a lot of material to carry around and the Boogies weigh a ton. So, therefore, I have switched to Fractal Axe Fx, which is a great amp modelling system, also used by Metallica and other bands. It allows me to choose from hundreds of amps and speakers in combination with all possible guitar effects you can imagine…and it’s all in one single flightcase. For each and every song, I have created a dedicated “patch”, which means a set up of 2 amps + 2 cabinets and a dedicated effects loop. Each gig, I am using about 20 – 30 different amps and speaker cabinets. You can imagine what this would mean if you would have all these things on stage.

 6.     Unlike many darkwave bands, your guitar sound is very varied: for example on the track Alacrity on the Divergence album, you range from metallic chugging to a melodic, lyrical solo that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Pink Floyd record. Is this a reflection of the breadth of your own musical taste?

Many guitarists want to create their own specific, and if possible, unique, recognizable sound. For me, it’s the song that dictates me where my guitar sound needs to come from.  Sometimes, I start working on a song with the guitar, sometimes I get a bass line from Peter, but sometimes it can also start with synths or even a drum rhythm. The guitar sound is then selected in view of the song and its part in the song. So, therefore, my guitar playing will be quite varied, and this of course is supported by the technology I am using, by means of the Axe Fx. Alacrity is such a song, that evolved in a direction that wasn’t planned in the first place. The arpeggiator synth was a strong lead, that formed the opening for the heavy guitar to fall in and to build up for the heavy metal-like riff in the verses. The Gilmour-like solo? Well, we have been discussing this over and over again, as we always wanted to stay away from typical rock-like soloing, but after having it re-worked multiple times, we kept it in, as some pre-listeners liked it so much. At our gig at Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig, I even played a faster, more metal version of it, just for the fun of it. Apart from that, David Gilmour to me is one of the greatest guitarists ever, and when I practice, I often play his solos, like on Comfortably Numb. Same with Slash, another great guitarist.

 7.     You are also responsible for the keyboards/sequencers which adds an extra layer which helps to build the trademark Ground Nero “wall of sound”. Which bands influenced your keyboard style?

Actually, I don’t know, but sometimes I find myself playing synth lines and sounds, that I only recognize after having them recorded. I now understand, how people when creating music are often criticized for copying things from other artists, but you know, it sometimes happens when you follow a certain chord progression, some melodies run out of it automatically, without really knowing that this has already been played and recorded by someone. As with the guitars and other instruments, I select the synths and their sounds in view of the song. So I am never restricted to any specific sound or style of synth. The same with the soundscapes we are using. It’s the atmosphere of the song that dictates the keyboard style.

 8.     How do you go about writing songs? Do you start with a melody, a rhythm or a lyrical concept?

As I said, it can start from a guitar riff, a bass line, a synth melody, even a drum rhythm. We don’t have any rules. But often it happens at night, when I am sleeping and then I have to get up immediately and start playing and recording, or it is gone by the next morning.

 9.     For all Ground Nero tracks, a news footage montage video is made and projected behind the band at live shows, adding to the atmosphere at your gigs. Who makes these films?

Up till now, I have made them myself, and it all started from the idea to create a complete thing, video and image projections that support the content of the song, again creating the atmosphere intended by the song. We wanted to present an audio-visual concept to the audience, that was complete, round and supports and visualizes the story what is told in the song.

A nice add-on, which we discovered after the first shows, are the nice photographs, that are made by the photographers, having these projected backgrounds. It takes quite a lot of work to make these videos, but it’s worth it and we don’t have the budget to pay professional video companies. And I see it as part of the overall creative work as well.

 10.  You’re playing the Autumn Shadow festival in Liege and have been announced as the second headliner on the Belgian stage for the Sinner’s Day festival which had been postponed until Autumn 2021, the same day as Fields of The Nephilim, Laibach and She Past Away are on the main stage, a sign of Ground Nero’s growing profile on the scene. Do you have any plans for new studio material or tentative plans for other live shows?

 Since our latest album Divergence, which was released last year, we haven’t stopped working on new material. We have quite a number of new songs and will be recording in the next couple of weeks. Pre-production is running now and again, diversity will be key, as we have been experimenting with a lot of new sounds. For next year, some surprises are planned as well…but that’s for later.