Interviews: ITUS

On this new occasion, we have had the opportunity to interview the  Doom Metal band ITUS from Canada. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name, you planned it or came out just like that?

A couple of years ago whilst in the studio recording with our old band, Reinier had eaten too much Chinese food at lunch and the couch in the studio was so damn comfortable. Reinier passed out immediately upon finishing lunch and sitting on that couch. Someone said ‘he has the Itus’. Not long after, Reinier and Brandon realized that was the perfect name for this project.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

Reinier has been pining for years, maybe even decades about wanting to work on Doom Metal songs, but the bands he was involved with were centered on death metal, groove metal, and hardcore. One day Brandon started to really dig doom metal as well and delving into bands like Electric Wizard and Sleep really brought it home. Under the working title, ‘Bluntcrusher’, Reinier and Brandon began to work on Doom and Stoner songs.

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

We were previously bandmates in another project.

4. Each band member favourite band?

Reinier's favorite band is a tie between Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard. Brandon’s favorite band is Tool.

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

Life’s been busy for both Reinier and Brandon in the last few years. A lot of ups and downs and personal experiences influence both Brandon and Reinier in their writing. Brandon will go through melodies and pick interesting ones to explore for songs, while Reinier will offer notes and suggestions until Brandon has nearly finished writing a song. Then when it’s time for lyrics, Reinier takes the steering wheel and submits his work to Brandon for the same sort of notes and suggestions process. Collaborative and streamlined are two fantastic ways to describe the writing process. Reinier and Brandon just tend to see eye to eye with their writing processes.

6. Where was your last gig?

Itus has not yet performed live as we originally intended for this to be a recording project. We played live with our old band but it has been a few years since we’ve played live.

7. Where would you like to act?

We plan to be playing live across Ontario and Quebec this summer.

8. Whom would you like to feature with?

We’d, of course, love to be featured with bands who influenced Itus creatively such as Electric Wizard, Sleep, and Windhand to name a few. Given the 90’s sounding vibe we’ve been going for with Itus, we’d love to play with all kinds of metal bands, in all ranges, big or small.

9. Whom not?

We are completely open to the idea of sharing the stage with bands, artists and musicians from any musical genre. Metal and rock are obviously the ideal spheres for Itus, but who knows where the winds will take us.

10. Any of you has ever suffered from stage fright? Any tip for beginners on how to beat that?

Earlier on in his time doing vocals with bands, which is nearly half of Reinier’s life now, he did experience stage fright here and there. It was never so serious that it prevented him from performing. Once the music is going, thoughts outside of the music at hand matter little to him. A good practice to help with stage fright is simply warming up before a gig, stretching and breathing deeply.

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

There are a lot of bands who inspire us. Monumentally for Reinier, it’s Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard but there are also some key old school death metal bands who play into his style and approach like Morbid Angel, Deicide, Obituary, and Suffocation. Brandon also draws heavily from the core of doom, through Sabbath, Electric Wizard, Sleep and others but he is personally influenced by other psychedelic and progressive sounding bands like Tool and Deftones.

12. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

We haven’t received any outrageous requests, YET. We’re hoping once we start traveling and playing this summer that we’ll have a better answer for this one! 

13. What do you think of your fans?

We are fresh on the scene and are building the foundation of our fanbase. We couldn’t be more grateful to those who have helped us to spread and promote our music in the short time Itus has been active. To us, ‘Fans’ are the lifeblood of all music, and bands or artists (big or small) feel the absence as keenly as they might feel the support of fans.

14. What do you think of our site?

We find that Breathing the Core is an excellent website for discovering new music. It’s easy to navigate and better organized than many sites like it.

15. Something add?

We are releasing our first EP, containing 5 original songs, on Friday the 13th of March. But that’s not all. We plan to continue making music videos for each song on this EP, while at the same time we are working hard on our next album release which we hope to pull together for the end of this year.