Lacrimas Profundere: In A World of Mystery and Darkness

Photo (c) Ntoy Photography

Lacrimas Profundere: In A World of Mystery and Darkness

Although Lacrimas Profundere is about to celebrate their 30th Anniversary as a band next year, their brand of exotic dark metal remains as compelling as ever.  Their latest album, How To Shroud Yourself With Night is their second endeavor to feature vocalist Julian Larre, and it’s a thrilling auditory adventure well worth seeking out.  Whether it’s Julian’s impassioned vocals, Oliver Nikolas Schmid’s majestic guitar reveries or the tremendously tight assault force of bassist Ilker Ersin and drummer Dominik Scholz, Lacrimas Profundere present the listener with an intensive melancholy experience that tantalizes the senses.  Highwire Daze recently interviewed Julian Larre to find out a whole lot more about the glorious world of mystery and intrigue that surrounds Lacrimas Profundere.  Read on…

Is there any overall story or concept behind the How To Shroud Yourself With Night album title?
One of the things that I like the most about art is the fact that people can see a single piece of art and they can have a very different way to take it into their life.  How To Shroud Yourself represents to me something very creative – it’s some sort of coverage of this creative entity where you are mostly alone and going through some stuff in your life. I did this analogy about being in your room in the middle of the night working on a piece of art – working on a song or a text or something like that – and just getting very creative out of all the negativity there might be in the world. For me, it’s something related to creativity mostly. For Oliver – we were talking about this a few days ago – for him it’s probably more about the dark side and the emptiness – the melancholic side of humanity, I guess. So, I think at the end of the day, it’s like a coalition between all of this. But I’m very excited to see what people actually think about it and how they take it into their life.

Let’s talk about a few of the songs on the album and what they mean to you. A Cloak Woven Of Stars is the video they sent out on the press release. Tell me a little about that video and that song.
The videos were actually very challenging. I was actually working on the video for the newest single that’s supposed to come next week – To Disappear In You. But with Cloak, we had a massive process with the videos because as you might know, I actually live in Finland and the other guys in the band are all around Germany basically – so it’s kind of hard for us to get together. So, we managed to get together in Munich one day, and we actually shot the performance for four videos already. For the last two videos, Curtain and To Disappear In You, I was shooting some extra scenes in Finland. But as challenging as it was, I think that with Cloak is like the gate to (our previous record) Bleeding The Stars. That record was a very important change in the Lacrimas story and career. But Cloak is basically about opening that gate to a brand-new chapter of the band. It’s more about freedom – we’re very happy that we’re able to develop into different musical directions right now. Oliver is very happy about it. And for us, it was the perfect single to open this new chapter. It’s way darker. I think it’s pretty much the blood brother of Bleeding The Stars. It’s that gate, to me, to this world of mystery and darkness that represents How To Shroud Yourself With Night.

And you actually mentioned the next song I’d like to discuss – To Disappear In You. Tell me a little about that song and what it means to you.
You’re going to get to see the video very soon. What I tried to do in there – especially over the last two videos – it’s this duality in a person – like a part in yourself that dies and another part that is born after death with a different concept about life – with a different perspective – without some of the fears that you might have had in the past. It’s kind of like going through all of that. In the video, I keep evolving the story with this character that I was showing in Curtain – and it’s pretty much about this moment when are able to take it all out – to let go. To Disappear In You is like this constant battle within yourself – which is something that I think that many people can relate to. It’s this constant battle and how this concept in life is always changing – and the more that we grow and look at things in a different way – and things that we used to hate, we don’t hate them anymore. And things that we used to love, we hate now – and all of that is included in parts of ourselves. So, it’s kind of this very introspective journey.

This new album is your second album with the band. When you joined the band in 2018, they were already celebrating their 25th Anniversary. How intimidating was it to join a band who already had this big back history of 25 years?
That’s a funny one, because I’m still figuring things out about myself and try to understand how I feel sometimes the way that I feel. And many people are telling me – like tomorrow for example we’re playing M’era Luna – the second show I ever played with Lacrima back when I joined the band was at M’era Luna – and people were constantly asking me, “Hey, aren’t you nervous about standing in front of 25,000 people and coming in as the third singer after this previous guy?” To be honest – no – I didn’t feel nervous at any point, and I feel it has a lot to do with my personality. One of the things that I had very clear when I joined the band was that I wanted to do myself. It didn’t matter how much I had to the duty to cover the previous years of Lacrimas – I did not want to get stuck on that. I think it’s very important to keep on developing myself artistically. I’ve been changing my vocals a lot throughout the years. I’ve been learning very different techniques and I’ve been learning quite a lot about production. So, I never felt intimidated to be honest at any point. I don’t know if that’s normal or not. I just never felt nervous. When I’m onstage, I’m actually at one of my most comfortable places mentally that I can ever be. And I don’t really mind if there’s 25,000 people – 5 people in front of the stage – or 50,000. I mostly joined because I like the guys. Oliver is nice person. Dominik is as well and pretty amazing. Ilker, I love him as well. So, I would be lying if I would say I felt intimidated at any point. Not even with the critiques some people might have about the emotional connections they might have already with the past with the other singers. “When I was young, I used to listen to this and that. But please don’t change it!” We kind of have the approach the music and to art and to life in general. But it’s not an issue for me – I just wanted to do something new. I just wanted to keep developing myself artistically and help the guys to reach the sound that they wanted to reach previously, but they couldn’t for any reason.

Photo (c) Ntoy Photography

So, you joined the band in 2018 – the first album that you were on appeared in 2019 – then the pandemic appeared in 2020. How frustrating was that to suddenly have to stop and were there any shows cancelled at all?
It was horrible! It was terrible. I was talking to Dominik not too long ago about actually we were touring in 2019. We’ve already been together like four years or so, but we actually got to tour together in 2019 – so this new lineup we’re basically one year fresh together, because we didn’t get to do so many things. Talking about concerts that we cancelled – there was one tour that was especially painful for me to cancel, because we were going to do this Latin American tour – we were going to go to Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru – to many countries very far. So that one was very painful to cancel. And of course, the overall affect for how long it was going to last – we didn’t know what was going to happen next. But to be honest, the positive thing about it is that it made the record better – and I’m so happy that things happened the way that they happened, because the record right now is way better than the record we would have put in 2020. Because the record we had in 2020, we were just about finished and tracking the final vocals – but it just didn’t feel right – that next step after Bleeding The Stars. For me, it’s very important to do something powerful, meaningful – something that would represent a challenge for me. I changed the singing technique in many of the songs etc. The Bleeding The Stars Tour in 2019 was very successful – it was the most successful tour that Lacrimas has done. And it was terrible – we had so much momentum- and then it was silent.

You have another band outside of Lacrimas called LESSDMV. Tell me a little about that band and the current happenings.
LDMV is basically my solo project. Back in the days I was playing with my brother – I was playing with my best friends – but I kind of quickly started noticing that I am extremely obsessive when it comes to music, to art, and to work. I’m a workaholic basically – I don’t take holidays – I’m always doing something related to my projects. So, I just quickly realized that it was not going to work to be with my friends – even though I love them, and I had a blast playing with them. We were not going in the same direction, so I started this project on YouTube called LESSDMV. It was then alright for me to go harder and faster, because I felt that I needed to do a lot while I was young. I’ve been working on all of this since I was 15, so LDMV represented that opportunity for me to sail and get to where I wanted to get. If it wasn’t for LDMV, I wouldn’t be here today – and if it wouldn’t be for the people who support me in LDMV – all my LDMV community – my LDMV army – I wouldn’t be able to do this. With LDMV I don’t have any pressures – I am completely free – I’m an independent artist with LDMV. I have my Finnish people – the ones who I play with in the band. I just put out music when I want to put out music. I put out music when I feel it was that next step I wanted to give. LDMV is just art for being art – that is what I love about LDMV – that LDMV represents something way bigger than music or just the band. It’s way more. LDMV is actually kind of an old project by now – and it’s my life.

And do you have any messages for your fans here in the States?
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart – to all of the people in the US have been supporting Lacrimas or myself individually – to anyone who has related with our project – and being so patient – for being there waiting and hoping that we’re going to get to go to the US. In fact, one of our close followers from the US is going to come to our headliner tour in Germany. I see this incredible happening about people travelling from the US to Germany to watch the show. So, thank you so much to each one of you – and we’ll keep working day and night to keep on rising and having the chances to go there – and we’re going to get to see you soon!

Line-Up:
Julian Larre (Vocals)
Oliver Nikolas Schmid (Guitars)
Ilker Ersin (Bass)
Dominik Scholz (Drums)

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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