5 Questions With... is your chance to get to know a new or up-and-coming band. The tech metal group Subversion are from the UK and recently released their second album Animi. Guitarist Kai Giritli introduces us to his band.

Give us a brief history of Subversion.
We formed in 2008 due to constant harassment by someone on MySpace to form a band with him…he really liked the tunes I was making and obviously I ended up caving, thanks Jae!


It took a while to get the members we needed, we were totally unknown and there weren’t that many musicians around that played this sort of stuff at all. Needless to say we managed to get our first solid line-up and churn out Lest We Forget in 2010.

Everything was really flawed, however. People would turn up late to practice, not turn up at all, not contribute to writing anything, and not pay their way. It was really tough, so it fell apart not too long after our Euroblast appearance in 2011. All these issues drove me up the wall. Yup, it was my fault, and I openly admit that. I really screwed up.

However, a little while later, I can’t actually recall when exactly, I started having the bug again, writing "Novation" as a standalone track and really digging it. I missed the guys and it had been almost a year or so since we were together and we ended up reforming. Unfortunately, the same problems resurfaced. This time it was different, though.

People left as they couldn’t commit the time due to work etc, others were softly booted as they had the time but didn’t turn up anyway.

Before we knew it, it was just me, Sean (Moxom, guitar) and Rich (Lawry-Johns, bass). We started auditioning drummers and by then we had a sweet demo (now "Catalyst") to pitch to people. Ben (Atkinson) was the guy to take the throne. Suddenly we were a different machine all together.

We continued looking for a vocalist, this is where we nabbed Karl. He was a great guy, pretty angry, but had a lot of charisma and stage presence. It was all looking sweet, so we put together a quick EP (Transcend) of two new songs and two old revamped songs from our first album and smashed that out for free at Xmas 2013 so people could hear what we were like with the new lineup.

We now had interest from Rogue Records America too and struck a deal. Things were looking sweet, but good ole ‘Subby luck’ struck again and a lot of personal stuff hit Karl hard and he caved.

It was really hard, and at a time when we thought we were back on track too, our new label was definitely not very happy that we lost yet another member so soon after signing either. This didn’t stop us though, we are a bunch of business heads and we just kept looking.

Ben really struck gold when he approached a guy about auditioning for us. This turned out to be Jay Shields. The sound we had been searching for vocally was right there, his charisma was through the roof and he really knew how to govern a crowd.

This is where it really hit the fast lane, we spent the whole of 2014 writing and recording the rest of Animi under the radar, a few little shows here and here we are today!

Describe the songwriting and recording process for Animi.
I tend to get writing spurts in waves, I can go for ages without anything, then suddenly I get a sweet idea in my head and I set it upon myself to lay this down and show the guys at practice. It kind of goes from there.

Ben freestyle drums over it in various ways and we get a basic idea of structure in our heads.A lot of the time I just hum the whole thing and try and figure it out on guitar. (laughs) Because of the way recording software is so readily available, we spend a lot of time on ProTools jamming out various riffs and drum patterns and connecting them together in different combinations to see how it works.

We could spend ages on an intro that sounds huge, then hit a brick wall on where to go next with it, leave it a few days mulling it over in our heads, then boom an epic idea comes to mind that just comes so naturally and feels right.

When I get back in the studio, I decipher what’s in my head on to the ProTools session and listen back to how it sounds. Eventually this leads to a whole song. There is no telling what the first idea could be either.

Vocals are always heavily in mind when we write; It never felt natural for me to write a whole song instrumentally, and then slap vocals on top. Instead it always has an idea of the rhythm of vocals that will overlay the track. I find this heavily influences how you gel the whole thing together and stops me from being a total instrumentalist guitar wanker. Never overcomplicate for the sake of impressing musicians is our motto. Unfortunately, we also enjoy playing/writing music that is mainly associated with EXACTLY that sort of listener…oops.

Tracking is a weird one, as we kind of record as we write. Not sure that makes sense to many people, but it happens that way for us. Half way through the album, we had a lot of half songs with half vocals, half drums, half synths all done and ready to a mixed level. Obviously, we go back and rejig it all at the end to get the best sound but we never really have the usual affair of “write it,” “play it loads,” “record it in studio,” “mixing” and “mastering.”

How has your sound evolved/progressed from your debut album?
Ever since Lest We Forget, I have always wanted that really clean cut, clear, polished sound…I love it! I highly rated the production on Threat Signal’s first album Under Reprisal back in the day and I highly rate the production on Volumes’ No Sleep today. Obviously I failed miserably with production on Lest We Forget, but people still liked it and even miraculously loved the sound.

With Animi, I feel I finally got to grips with it. I really spent a lot of time on learning new methods for getting a really big/clear sound. I think I hit the nail on the head in terms of what the band wanted it to sound like.

What has been your most memorable Subversion live show, and what are your upcoming show/tour plans?
I think the most memorable in my opinion would be our album launch back in 2010 at the Underworld in London.  It was sold out I think, and we had TesseracT with us that night, plus the crowd was mentally reactive. I remember feeling so nervous leading up to it as it was such a big deal for us. Needless to say, it went off big time and we gained a lot of new fans.

In April, we are embarking on a UK tour with our brothers in No Sin Evades His Gaze. These guys are nuts, so it will be a mental experience. It is also our first ever tour. We are currently working on another tour later in the year, near the end of summer most likely. Oh and we have a few festivals coming up this year. Currently we have been confirmed for MammothFest with some more confirmations hopefully coming our way soon.

Anything else you'd like to mention?
I’d like to say that we feel pretty proud right now, having brought Subversion back out of the ashes and nurtured it in to what it has become today. We have all matured as people over the years and  hope that shows on the new record. For anyone checking Animi out for the first time, thank you, and we really hope you dig what you hear and come to a few shows this year.

To the old fans whom have been with us since 2008, we owe you an apology for the long wait, and hope you accept this apology in the form of our new album. You guys have been through it all with us and we cannot express our gratitude enough.

 (interview published March 14, 2015)