On September 9th 2004 Craven Screaming played in Tivoli de Helling in Utrecht (NET). After the show Metalrage.com spoke to singer Sander and bassist Rob.

Can you tell something about the career of Craven Screaming up till now?

Sander: We’ve been playing in this formation for 1,5 years now. Before that we had a different bass player for 7 years and were playing under the name Ignorance. We recruited Rob, built our own rehearsal and recording space, wrote some new songs and started to take things more seriously.

What do you personally consider as a highlight?

Sander: The show in 013. We played the ‘Kleine Zaal’. We really rocked the place that night.

Your music sounds really varied. Where do you get your inspiration from?

Rob: It basically is all alternative music. It started with Nirvana, Pearl Jam but also metalbands like Pantera. Currently we’re inspired by Cave In, not only because of the music but also because of their mentality. Truly guys who worked for it and reached the top by making good music, not by kissing people’s asses. Our musical interests are quite the same. Of course there are some exceptions; I really like The Mars Volta while Erik (guitarist - MR.) is not into them at all.
Sander: Though we listen to a lot of those bands I don’t really recognize their influences in our music. Besides, it’s not easy to give our style a name. Though people always tend to pigeonhole things our style is pretty indefinable. We just play what we feel at that moment.

The two new songs you recorded are far more melodic. Was this done on purpose?

Sander: Yeah that’s definitely the direction we are heading in at the moment. The clean singing is something I have been doing since only two months, but it’s definitely something I want to get better in.
Rob: I think were more and more evolving into a rock band, though the influences are there we are not metal, emo or hardcore. Craven Screaming sounds much more varied than most bands in those genres. In the past, Ignorance was just plain hardcore, but now, as our musical tastes change, we make different choices. I now even have a CD of Coldplay at home.

You sing with three of the four band members. Do you also write lyrics together?

Sander: No, I write the lyrics. Though I like writing about love and relationships I am sort of stuck in this subject. I don’t know why but somehow it always comes back to this one thing. I’m working on finding a new style of writing. Rob is also writing some lyrics, so perhaps we’ll use some of his in the future.

How do people react to your new songs?

Rob: More than positive! We discovered the less-is-more principle. We used to try to fill up all spaces in a song. Now we know that emptiness can do a lot for a song too. The critics also hear the progress. I think we’ve always taken our criticism seriously. I appreciate it much more when people truly give their opinions instead of just pretending to like it.

What are your plans for the year to come?

Sander: We’re going to focus on a full length album. We still have to write a lot of songs, and we aren’t satisfied quickly. Sometimes after a period of two months writing we decide to just get rid of a song if it’s not good enough. Besides the writing and recording we’re trying to get as much live gigs as we can. For instance we’ll be playing de Melkweg together with The Spirit That Guides Us in October.

Tonight you played with Try Drowning, Zone and Textures. Can you give a short comment on each of those bands?

Rob: Try Drowning are friends of us. We’ve already played six times with them, they were also present on our release show. Cool dudes to hang out with. From Zone, Ditmar is the only band member I know. Their music is not really my cup of tea. Though I used to listen a lot to bands like Pantera, Metallica and Slayer it’s not something I would buy today. And Textures, I mean, what can I say..? There’s only one reason why they get such great reviews and that’s because they are plain good.

All right last question, are there any last words you want to say to the readers of Metalrage.com?

Rob: We regret it that, in spite of the fact that we really take our music seriously, it’s hard to get things arranged. I hope that people will find out that, when they go check it out, they’ll notice that the underground is still boiling over with talent. There are a lot of new things happening so keep your eyes open.