French alternative rock outfit Klone have been setting stages across Europe ablaze over the past couple of years as they have drawn enough attention to find themselves appearing alongside artists such as Devin Townsend, King’s X and Helmet. Now the band are about to drop their seventh album, titled Le Grand Voyage, an album that is already being likened to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon.
“When we first talked about the title, Le Grand Voyage, we decided that it was about looking inside,” explains the band’s guitarist Guillaume Bernard as he chats to HEAVY Mag about the brand new album. “It is something very, very personal. It is something that you can look at, like the lyrics on the album, and read it and then interpret it to something in your own life. It is hard to talk about the lyrics sometimes because they are abstract. I hope everybody will listen to the music and let it take them on a trip, you can put it all together in your head. Even with the artwork it took us awhile to find something that fit with what we had in mind. It was something that helped us to finish the album though because we chose what we have now and after that we were able to sit down and write the rest of the songs. With the artwork there was a lot of symbolism and it was great way to get ideas to write the songs.”
“With the title though Yann (Linger – the band’s vocalist) wanted a title in English and I liked the meaning of the title but I didn’t like the way it sounded,” he continues. “I remember one day I was laying on my bed listening to the album and I was thinking about the title and I thought about how I wanted it in French and thought people would still understand it. The words are very similar in French and in English so I thought everybody would understand it. I told Yann that I thought it would be better and sound better in French and he was little afraid and thought maybe we should call it The Grand Journey but I think everybody understands it.”
With such an interesting lead up in the album’s early days I just had to ask Guillaume what the recording process of the album was like. “We had so much work to do before we went into the studio,” he says. “In the day leading up to it I was walking around with my computer to complete songs and to record some things so I was always programming things on the computer and then testing things with my guitar… i was just trying to find a good sound. Then after that I sent my completion to the rest of the band and sometimes we speak about it. It was different this time because it was just me, myself and my computer.”
The different recording process this time around is obviously something that has really worked for the band as a lot of early feedback about Le Grand Voyage has seen the album compared to the brilliant Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd. I asked Guillaume how he feels about such a comparison. “It is a great reference for us,” he says with a slight laugh. “Because when I was young my father had this album at home. I just remember the artwork at first and I always used to look at the artwork and ask a lot of questions when I was young and when I listened I used to feel like it took me to another world because it was special… very special. It is easier for me now to listen to it and understand what they were trying to do and we are very happy that people have compared Klone to Pink Floyd because they are the biggest progressive rock band in the world… so I think it is a great thing.”
You can listen to our full Klone interview on Spotify.
Le Grand Voyage is out now.
