A little over four years ago, when Miami’s Floor reunited for a couple shows to coincide with the release of the 8CD box set, Below and Beyond, on Robotic Empire, I was fortunate enough to interview guitarist Anthony Vialon about the band’s getting back together for what seemed then to be a very limited run. Now, as they prepare to release their new album, Oblation (review here), next week on Season of Mist and embark a day later on a cross-country tour that will place them squarely on the other side of the line between a “reunion band” and a working one, it seemed only fitting to follow-up with Vialon about Floor‘s progress these last several years and how they got to where they are.

Because when they first booked three gigs back in 2010 in Florida and Georgia, the going impression — I think on the part of the band as much as fans — was that was it. Then the response they got was huge enough that it turned into a few more shows, and a tour, and then some more shows, and it kept rolling on until next thing you knew, they had been picked up by Season of Mist and streaming new material. It’s been a few years getting to this point, but for Floor — the trio of Vialon, guitarist/vocalist Steve Brooks (also of Torche) and drummer Henry Wilson (also of House of Lightning) — the progression seems to have been natural, one step taken at a time, building momentum as they might otherwise with a series of crushing bomb-string riffs.

Certainly that seems to be the method on Oblation. Set in the shadow of Floor‘s by-now-legend 2002 self-titled, what could’ve easily been a project doomed from the start — and not in the good way — has turned out to mark not only a successful return on the part of the band, but a creative evolution that gives a sense of where they left off and where they are now. Songs penned and constructed by Vialon, Wilson and Brooks like “Rocinante” and “War Party” call to mind the unabashed pop hooks of Floor‘s first run, while the eight-minute “Sign of Aeth” takes these elements to places they haven’t yet gone, so that Oblation isn’t nostalgic, but looking forward.

Doubtless a good part of Floor‘s legacy will remain linked to the self-titled, but in talking to Vialon yesterday, that only seemed like something for the trio to be proud of. Oblation releases in the EU and elsewhere tomorrow, April 25, and is out in North America next Tuesday, April 29. Floor begin their tour April 30 in Miami and will finish in Atlanta on June 1 (dates here). In the interview, Vialon discusses writing for the band again, the response the reunion has gotten these last few years, his affinity for Rush, and much more.

Enjoy the Q&A after the jump, and thanks for reading.

When did you start writing for Oblation? When did you get into the process of putting the songs together?

Well, we got back together on the reunion tours for the release of the box set, the Below and Beyond box set on Robotic Empire. Those few shows, the audience had grown so much, because of Steve’s success with Torche and the internet. We’d had a cult following, even in the ‘90s, a small cult following.

It built up modestly and we had real serious fans, but then the band broke up and that was it. Steve went on with Torche and he’s had some success with it, and because of that and the internet – people hearing about this band that Steve had been in, plus getting access to music they didn’t have access to before the internet – when we did the reunion shows, the crowds were so much bigger, and people were singing the songs and knowing the lyrics and it was great.

We kept doing some more touring with Henry, who’d been our drummer for years. We went out, the three of us, and the shows were great, but it got to the point where, doing this for a couple years, Henry was really the one who was like, “Look man, if we’re gonna keep touring, we have to do a new album. We can’t just keep going out, playing songs from the self-titled. We gotta do something more,” and Steve initially was not receptive to the idea. For whatever reason. The way he put it was he didn’t want to mess up the legacy of the band, I guess because the self-titled record got so much acclaim and accolades over the years, some people are like, “Ah, it’s the perfect record!” that if we tried to do something else, it would take away from that.

I wasn’t so sure. He said, “Look man, you wanna do a new record, write some songs.” I took some time, wrote about 20 songs and ideas for songs, took them to Henry – just did a quick guitar recording of them – and two weeks later was back here and Henry had beats for everything. That was a good sign. He was into all of it.

We did another rough recording and sent it to Steve to see if he was interested, and when he heard what we had come up with, he was like, “Oh yeah, we’re doing this.” So he then contributed some – he wrote and had a few ideas and everything – and we started getting together and really mapping everything out and there it is. And that becomes the new album.

How was that for you, going back and writing for Floor again? Was it strange for you at first?

It’s been an enjoyable thing the entire time. Because after the band… There’s no other way to put it, I was kicked out of the band, and then after that, not long, the new lineup, Henry wasn’t feeling it and the band disintegrated, so Steve took those four songs that were being worked on at the time and that was the first Torche record. Henry had a band, Dove, his band. 2005 he dismantled it and built it back up again. Now he has a new album with his band House of Lightning. Steve had Torche, and I just stopped playing music for years.

I’d pick up a guitar every now and then, but it’s like, “What’s the point? I don’t have a band. I’m not writing songs for Floor anymore, there is no more Floor,” and then a few years ago, I met a friend here where I live who was from my old stomping grounds in Miami. I had no idea he was living here all these years, found out he was – his name is Mike Perez – and he was like, “Man, let’s get together and start jamming.”

So I was just sitting in my car one day at a traffic light, and all of a sudden it was like something got turned on in my head and I started hearing music again. Raced home, turned on a recorder and started writing all this stuff. Some of it Floor material. For whatever reason, I was still just in that mode, and it just kind of came together. When it was time to start writing material, I already had some. It’s been great. The whole thing’s been great.

Did you ever think you’d be back in the studio with Floor?

No. It really was over. It took some time. I was real bitter about it for a very long time, then it just kind of gives way to indifference, because I knew that it wasn’t as if Steve and Henry kept going on with the band and me not being part of it. There was none of that, because the band was done.

But when Andy [Low, of Robotic Empire] wanted to do a box set, Steve and I had to get together, and there’s a lot of water under the bridge, you know? It had been years. No need for being hateful or anything else. That was a lifetime ago. It came together pretty quick. It took a couple years before we started thinking about doing a new record. I gotta be honest. Back of my mind, after the reunion tour, it was already on my mind, “God I wanna do a new album” (laughs), but I just knew Steve wasn’t receptive to it at the time, and I knew Henry wouldn’t have a problem with it.

But yeah, secretly all along I hoped we could do more, because when it ended, we had just done the self-titled record, and we thought we had captured lightning in a bottle. It was something new. We had never really heard something like that before, and when it came out, the response was positive, but there just weren’t enough ears. It was still a relatively few amount of people.

We’d do a tour and there’d be some people there already into it, but I guess it took like 10 years for the rest of the world to catch up to the self-titled record. That’s really the way I’ve been looking at it, and hopefully it won’t be another 10 for them to catch up to the Oblation record.

The audience is different now. I feel like a lot of people caught on to different kinds of heavy, like what Floor was doing, in a way they wouldn’t have been able to do before finding it online.

Definitely. We’ve noticed that our audience, it’s a wide spectrum. We have people that are our age, have been around, into the band for pretty much as long as we’ve been a band. Then there’s younger people coming out, some of them not even really born when we first got started. That’s a trip. But it’s all good, because everybody there is really into the band. We don’t have a lot of people just showing up and not there to see us.

There’s nothing like when people start singing along to song lyrics you penned. I still smile onstage when it happens. I can’t help it. It’s still the greatest thing. And people that were children when the self-titled record came out are there and participating in it. It’s very rewarding. Where we’re at now, we should’ve been when the self-titled record came out. But it’s alright. As long as it’s happening now, it’s okay.

Is there a difference for you between how you feel about Floor now that you’re a working band – record coming out, on a label, touring to support it – and how you felt when you first got back together and you all were exploring the idea of doing this thing again?

When we first got back together, it really was like, “Alright, the clock’s running on this. We’re doing these shows, and…” each time we went out, it felt like, “Well, this is probably it. We’re gonna do this and then not go back out again.” There wasn’t talk of doing a new album – again, in the back of my mind all along I was secretly hoping for that, but didn’t bring it up for a while – so every time we went out, I guess we made it seem like, “This is it,” because that’s the way it was.

There was no intention of going beyond whatever tour we were on at the time. Each time it was like, “Alright, last time. Enjoy it.” That we’re doing it again, having a new album out and a tour, I’m very grateful for that. No other way of putting it really. Sincerely grateful to be able to do this again.

What changed? What made you guys want to keep going with it to the point where it came time to do a new record?

It was Henry. He really put his foot down on it. He felt that we were going out, doing shows, and people were only going to come out so many times to see us playing the same material. We played most of the self-titled, a few of the older tracks, and that was it. And, you know, we’d be going out once a year and people would come out and see the same thing and they wouldn’t keep coming out, doing that.

The crowds slowly start to diminish, like, “I just saw this band doing the same thing.” That was the beginning of it, Henry just not wanting to keep going out playing the same material. Then from there, it just evolved. Steve, we kind of posed the question again, “Are you cool with doing a new album?” and I guess he finally saw the logic in it and he said, “Alright, write some songs and we’ll see what happens,” and here we are. New album. New tour coming up, and it’s all great.

I guess that’s my next question. How do you feel about the album coming out, about touring again and doing Floor as a working band?

Again, very grateful. The album came out, we’re real happy with it. It took a lot to get it where were happy with it. There’s a lot of time invested, and we didn’t want to release something that sounded half-assed, and with the self-titled, we had gotten this acclaim over the years – again, the “perfect record” thing – with just how it sounded, and we didn’t do that again. I guess that was the thing. People were probably wondering, “Alright, self-titled record was 12 years ago. It was great. They can only go down from here if they try to replicate that.” But I think we exceeded it.

The new album, it has the same sound and feel of the self-titled record because of the tuning and the writing style and Steve’s vocals, but it’s just an evolved band and evolved record. It’s the next step in the evolution from the self-titled record, and I think we did alright. We did a good job getting that across. And being able to go out and play some of these new songs and everything, just really looking forward to it.

We’d done a few shows last year where we were playing a few of the new songs. People had never heard them before so of course they’re not going to be able to sing along with them or anything, but people were coming up like, “The fourth song you did, that was a new song, right?” and people were stoked to hear it and the anticipation of people wanting to hear the record, well, now it’s here. It’s released in Europe I think on Friday and then it’s released next week in the States, and we begin our tour the day after. Our record release will be in Miami on the 30th of this month.

Other than people coming up at shows and seeing some reviews, have you had any sense of the response to the album yet? I know it’s early.

It’s streaming. The way it was handled was that starting about a month ago, I think, or a little over a month ago, the label would put a single song streaming for people to hear, and the response was a lot of, “I can’t believe it!” That was a big response, that we actually recorded a new album. People were thinking that was never gonna happen, so rumor became fact and then a couple weeks go by, the label would put another song streaming.

Everything’s been positive, and all the reviews I’ve seen have been positive, even the odd one that may not be as fired up as all the other ones, still, I haven’t seen anyone totally unhappy with the album, and that’s a good sign. I think the people that are fans of the band and fans of the self-titled record are gonna like it. It’s us. It’s the sound that we, I guess, created. Up to that point, heavy bands with melodic vocals, someone actually singing – we had our influences, but I think we really developed this sound. I guess you’d call it “doom pop” or whathaveyou. I think we’ve been the originators of that style.

Is there any song or any part of the album, any of the material, you’re particularly looking forward to playing on tour? Anything you’re particularly attached to?

We really love all the songs. We would never put anything on a record that we didn’t feel 100 percent deserved to be on it. But that said, yeah, there’s a couple songs and sections that, for whatever reason, are – not saying I like the songs better than any other – but are a little more endearing. Like “Sign of Aeth,” really. That’s an ambitious song for us. It’s nearly eight minutes long, and the subject matter of the song means a lot to me. Just the way it all came together. That’s one of the songs that I probably listened to more than other ones. “Rocinante” was another one. Lyrically and everything, it’s an emotional song for me.

I’m trying to think… I mean, again, love everything. Love the opening track, “Oblation.” Last year, when we were touring, we would open the set with that song, even though people hadn’t heard it before. When it was written, it was intended to be an introduction, whether to the album or a show, it really reflects the band fully. It’s got the hook and the bomb-string and all that.

It really comes together, and I think it’s a great way to introduce the band, and from there you can go anywhere, “Scimitar” or “Rocinante” or whatever. All the songs have something about them that I love, but “Sign of Aeth,” it’s a nod to Rush. When they started doing their epic songs, “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” was their first attempt at doing an epic piece. We’re all huge Rush fans. And also they mention in the lyrics, “sign of aeth.” Do you like Rush or do you hate them?

I have nothing against Rush, but I’m wary of calling myself a Rush fan to Rush fans.

That’s alright. It’s alright. Well, they have this song on their second album, “By-Tor and the Snow Dog,” and one of the lyrics is “sign of aeth,” and that’s where – that and this book by Thomas Burgoyne mentions it, and there’s also another nod to Rush in the song “Rocinante,” because the ship that they’re traveling in at the end of A Farewell to Kings and the beginning of Hemispheres is called the Rocinante. So a couple nods to Rush on the record. Yeah, love all the songs, but “Sign of Aeth” and “Rocinante,” there’s a real emotional connection to those songs.

Can you talk about putting “Sign of Aeth” together, about writing that?

I had these riffs like, “This riff will follow this riff” and so on, and it was already a pretty long song. It didn’t have an intro to it, and Steve was able to, the first riff that opens it up – it’s kind of like a blues riff, but that single guitar there, by itself, the effect that’s on it, it’s real ominous. It takes the song to a slow build-up, and when it breaks from that riff, I had put all these riffs together and Steve was able to also take what I had, and there’s a little pass midway through the song, the song just kind of stops and goes into a slow, really beautiful, doomy riff. He took what I had and he slowed it down.

That was his idea, to play it at that speed, and it was one of those times when it happened, that was a magical moment. We looked each other in the eye. There was like a glint of, “Oh man, that is awesome.” That was like the old stuff, how it used to be back in the day when we’d come across something new and hear it and we’d just know that that’s it, that is so fucking perfect. So there was that connection that I had with Steve on that particular song. It had been a long time since that happened.

And then, lyrically, had to come up with something that I felt… I don’t want to be preachy, and our songs are open for interpretation, we do leave them open for interpretation, but I do like them to have an underlying theme, and the song being so epic for us, wanted to have a real epic feel and something positive at the end of it, going through all this and then in the end, something beautiful happens.

Anyway, Henry was able to – at first, he felt it was like a run-on sentence. That’s the way he put it, because you know, nothing repeats, there’s no real chorus or anything, it’s just section, section, almost like a classical piece. But eventually he started to pick up on it and was like, “Yeah, okay.” I was like, “Man, it’s like ‘By-Tor and the Snow Dog’ or ‘Stairway to Heaven!’” Again, it’s one of my favorite pieces, ever. That we’ve ever done.

Whether or not we play it live yet, don’t know. We don’t know what songs we’re gonna do off the new album. We get together starting tomorrow, and our first show I think is next Wednesday, the one in Miami. As to what we’re gonna play on this tour of the new stuff, not sure. Maybe we’ll play that one. I don’t know though. At some point, though, we’ll be able to play everything, so that way we can change things up. Coming up with a setlist live, it’s important. You don’t just grab a bunch of songs and play them. You gotta string them together to where it’s like the whole set is like one long song. Right now, yeah. Until we practice them and see which one’s we’re most comfortable with and what really flows – we’ll have that figured out by next week, before we go on the road, and if there’s tweaking to be done after, that’s no problem.

I know obviously with Steve splitting time with Torche there’s a whole other consideration, but do you know what your plans are for after this tour?

Yeah, Torche has a record coming out this summer. Henry’s House of Lightning record, Lightworker, just came out on 4/20. He invested so much into that record. I love it. It’s also one of those things that, it’s novel. Haven’t really heard anything like it before. Total shredfest, and he’s singing on it. I think he did an awesome job. I think the response – for anybody who really loves shredding riffs, they gotta love it. It’s just a nonstop record. Runs over people.

What we might do after this tour, not sure, but again, Steve has Torche. I’ve already started working on new songs for another album, and Henry’s already got a recording of some of the stuff I came up with. We’ll just have to see after this tour how well things go. Hopefully there’s still a real interest in the band that we can keep on going, because I would love nothing more. But we just gotta see how everything plays out. But yeah, I’ve already started working on stuff for the next record (laughs).

Well, that way you have it. Just in case.

Yeah, right (laughs). That way, Steve, because he lives in San Francisco and because of his time constraints and everything, a lot of it’s already worked on and he can step in and add to it. It’s the way we’re doing things now.

Floor, “Sister Sophia” from Oblation (2014)

Floor on Thee Facebooks

Oblation preorder on Floor’s Bandcamp

Floor at Season of Mist

Tags: Anthony Vialon, Floor, Floor Oblation, Florida, Miami, Oblation, Season of Mist

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2014 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.