KARNIVOOL – Through Hell

Apr 06, 2026   »   interview   »   U2603

text: Valachi Samu   
»   photo: Courtney McAllister, Tobias Sutter

One of the most defining bands of Australian progressive rock, Karnivool, returned after thirteen years of waiting—their fourth album, In Verses, was released on February 6, and their European tour will begin in April. Guitarist Andrew Goddard and singer Ian Kenny talked about creative risk-taking, personally inspired topics, the creative process, as well as the emotional layers defining the new chapter of the band in response to Valachi Samu's questions. So, after thirteen years, you have finally released your fourth album. It is absolutely incredible, cathartic, brutal at some points, beautiful in others, and everything in between. How are you feeling, and how has the response been so far? Ian: “The response so far has been wonderful, for fans of the band, and everyone who is interested in what Karnivool does, it’s been overwhelming, a lot of positivity, a lot of love, so it’s been wonderful, very cool.” Drew: “Feeling good, and relieved. It’s been a big process of letting go of all of the stuff that’s happened in the last thirteen years and sending it out into the world.” Musicians often say that a song is never truly finished, but it must be let go at some point to be released, and then of course it can still evolve when playing live shows. But having had so much time, it can also be a double-edged sword and you can overthink every little detail, especially with how complex your music is, I am sure you have had like 10 different versions of each song. And you guys have already performed a prototype version of Aozora back in 2015, and then Animation and Reanimation in 2016. Then in 2021 you released All it takes as a single, but not the other songs. After working on these songs for such a long time, why was this the right time when you felt you were ready with them and the album was finished? Drew: “A number of factors. It was the right time for everyone to be able to have the means to do it, the time frames, everyone’s financial abilities to do it full time in the lead up to the recording to finish up some of the songs. And we weren’t working on it the whole time, we put it down and picked it up a lot. After touring the Asymmetry record in 2014, we started working on the new songs, and we had the foundation for most of the new songs in some form by about 2017. And then we just sort of chipped away as the years went on, but there were all sorts of other things we were focused on, other jobs and other projects, and kids coming into the equation. I moved out into a different town in 2020 for a bit of a life change and there were some other projects out there too, so it was a slow and steady thing. So yeah, it was pretty easy to overthink things given that amount of time. Ian: “We wouldn’t recommend taking thirteen years hahaha.” Drew: “I recommend taking the time and doing it right, but yeah there was a point where it started having a negative effect on our lives, on our mental health. It got to a point where Karnivool was giving me problems, and the only way to solve it was to finish the album. And it’s always a big sleuth - it’s a mixture of trying to find the logical way truth but not overthinking it and relying on your intuition. But we got there and it’s surprisingly cohesive after thirteen years, and it doesn’t sound overthought somehow, even though there was plenty of that.” It is definitely very cohesive, for example the trio of Animation, Conversations and Reanimation sounds like one piece divided into three parts. Drew: “I’m glad you noticed that because yeah, those were all sister songs. The original title for Conversations was ‘Suspended Reanimation’, ‘Suspenders’ was its nickname for a long time until we got to Conversations. Probably a slightly better title haha. I think Reanimation came first and those three notes in the beginning of that track were sort of the amino-acids in a melodic sense that we ended up building from. And there was a while where were working on sections and trying things that could have been part of either of those three things, so that was a bit of a challenge.”

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While reading through the lyrics, I noticed that the overarching themes are about emotional numbness, a sort of desperation and resignation, a want for escaping, soldiering on and trying to find the light in the darkness. Can you talk a bit about what inspired the emphasis on these topics and the lyric-writing process—is it a group effort, or Kenny are you writing the lyrics by yourself usually? Ian: “It usually ends up being a group effort to a point. I write a lot of it, but I think it’s important that people in the band can put their pieces in, that’s what makes it feel like Karnivool, and it’s always good to hear ideas out, because sometimes it’s better than what I’ve got, honestly. I think the record is a reflection of what it was like to pursue this record for 13 years. We went through a hell of a lot as a band and as people in the creative pursuit of this thing. And it cost us at different moments our heart and our soul, which we never really lost, it was just taking pieces bit by bit, but in that dark, there was a hell of a lot of light, a lot of inspiration that just fueled us on to the next point. A lot learnt and a lot shared while finding this record, but it was a challenge man, it wasn’t easy.” Drew: “Yeah the resignation is an interesting word…” Ian: “Mhmm yeah it is, isn’t it?...” Drew: “There was definitely a lot of that, and like you said soldiering on despite the challenges is just a general theme that goes through Karnivool’s music. The lyrics initially come from Ian’s subconscious flow state, and he’s just responding to the feelings that are in the notes and chord changes of the music. So something like ‘feeling alone in a crowded place’ was never actually that lyric, there was a mantra that just sounded like it in response to that rhythm, and things just build from there, and it’s usually a surprise what the songs are actually saying and how it matches up with the music. For Remote Self Control I came up with the foundations, the drums, the chords, the vocal melody, and I had that one line with ‘Remote Self Control’, which I didn’t really know what it meant at the time, it just sounded cool, and then Ian went and took it in the direction that he did, which is a sort of controlling of your own thoughts and patterns from a dissociated place. And that’s the nature of collaboration to me and there can also be too many cooks in the kitchen, you know there were a lot of good contributions but there are others where I remember I changed a couple of Kenny’s lines which I regret now where it’s like ‘damn, it should have been that!’. So I’m still coming to peace with that, but you know, you win some, you lose some.” Ian: “I think that lyrics are not always about the best line but the ones that will make you feel and will leave you thinking. There are very important lines that come along when you’re finishing the song, some of them you hold on to and you carry through with the whole build of the song because they need to earn their place. They can stitch the whole song together, even though you may not know it until you get to the end.” The lyrics of Salva are extremely intimate and it feels like a final farewell, and it’s a perfect track to end the album. With lyrics like “there is no place I’d rather be but I’ve got to go, I’ve gotta run away.” it seems like a resignation, an accepting yet declining of the way things are. But it also seems to be a kind of purification with the line “let the sea wash away everything so I can begin to breathe”. It has some hopefulness, maybe a chance for something new. What does this song and the lyrics mean to you? Ian: “Mhmm… That’s an interesting one. That is a reflection on the self-preservation of having to step out of the Karnivool world because at so many points it just didn’t make sense, and it was just costing too much for everyone at different points. So finding that safe space and letting go in those early parts of that song and having to let go of something you love. And there’s a lot of loss there, and as the song goes on you find it again. The first lyrics of that song I actually wrote after a marriage breakdown, and originally the lyrics were about ‘staring at the ring in your hand’. Anyway, it was all about losing this entire world that I had built in my head that I thought was gonna work, and then it just came crashing down. And it’s weird that my other huge relationship that I have had in my life for almost twenty odd years is Karnivool, so for it to land in a very similar emotional space, I found fucking fascinating, I was like ‘Wow’. It’s crazy how the parallels were drawn there, but yeah, it’s about self-preservation and just trying to save yourself. But as the song progresses, as you may feel, it does turn a corner, and at the end we’re found again and we’re winning again.” Drew: “There is an acceptance there as well…” Ian: “Absolutely, yeah.” Overall, how do you feel about the album, and do you have any expectations or hopes for what listeners would feel or think after listening to In Verses? Ian: “It’s been a crazy thing. Drew and I have been talking about this a lot, that Karnivool is one of the toughest things we’ve had to pour ourselves into, but it’s the most rewarding thing as well. So that term ‘double-edged sword’—we’ve died on that a few times and resurrected ourselves. And we’d do it again, it’s just the nature of what this thing is, as we understand it more and how we can do things, it can be this crazy fucking mountain you’ve got to climb. You feel like you’re climbing forever, and you can’t see the top, until you’re like «oh shit, there’s clouds, and is that fucking light? Oh yeah that’s sunshine, and oh shit, you’re at the top!»” Drew: “And I feel like that’s still happening even after we’ve finished the album, there was quite a gap between recording the last thing and then getting the completed link in our dropbox, I was gonna say CD but that’s not really how it works anymore hahaha. And then showing a few friends and the point of it being born into the world is still part of the process - understanding the songs and what we’ve created, and how it fits into the setlists and my life. And when it’s out there it’s just something completely different. I’m loving seeing the reactions that, hopefully, it’s helping people. I think a lot of musicians and artists like to think that we’re helping in some way, that there’s a service that we can provide that goes beyond entertainment, you know, that it could be therapeutic for some people, seeing those reactions has given me the most joy.” Ian: “And to further add to that, like with Salva, we’ve recently done a lot of shows around the country and been speaking to a lot of people and there’s a lot of chatter online too with people saying ‘so, you’re still going to continue as a band right, like this feels like a goodbye song?’ and I was like ‘oh wow, if it’s hitting you like that and making you feel like that, I guess you’re picking up the sorrow and the loss in it, but we’re like no no, we’re still here, we’re still gonna be a band, it’s all good’ hahahaha.” I heard that the ending section of Salva with the bagpipes was inspired by the Dune soundtrack written by Guthrie Govan and Hans Zimmer, so I went back to listen more closely and I’m not sure if it’s a combination of synthesizers and heavily affected guitars mixed in with the bagpipes. What inspired this epilogue, and how did you create these tones? Drew: “Yeah, Guthrie had a bit more influence on the album than just the Reanimation solo. I heard an interview that Hans Zimmer did with Rick Beato where he was talking about the Dune soundtrack and getting complimented on the bagpipes and he was explaining that that’s not actually bagpipes, that’s Guthrie Govan with an IR impulse response that’s essentially capturing a sound, and Guthrie did that with a violin. And he does this at a point in the show with The Aristocrats where he plays guitar and uses that tone with volume swells, and it sounds amazing. So, when I knew that was possible, I had the idea early on for the bagpipes, and it had this Highlander sort of vibe at the end where we thought that would be magic. So I got in touch with Owen Thomas, Forrester Savell’s assistant, he found an Axe FX patch, and I laid down the idea with the ‘guitarpipes’. And one of the components of this patch was a synth block. So I put down the drone part, and did a little pentatonic line that I thought a bagpipe would do, and then we sent it over to Grant, the cousin of the other guitarist in the band, a great bagpipe player, and he jumped on the opportunity and recorded that in his own home studio. So when we do it with real bagpipes in a live environment I’m looking forward to how that sounds.” I love how song-focused the guitar playing is in Karnivool, there are never any guitar solo sections for ‘showing off’, it’s more about adding textures, layering, creating an atmosphere, and serving the emotion of the song. Who are your influences as a guitar player? Drew: “I’ve been more influenced by songwriters than guitarists. Johhny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien from Radiohead are a couple that come to mind, some of their inversions and the chords that they use are not necessarily jazzy, but I haven’t heard of a rock band that uses like third inversions, and stuff like that is what I find really interesting. That’s the sort of stuff that I love, chord progressions that are unusual, or there’s some kind of voice leading, and it is about playing to the song. I mean having said that, there’s also Angus Young, Brian May, Dimebag, Frederick Thordendal. Even Eric Gales, I saw him on Rick Beato the other day, and wow, I mean that guy’s just instantly in my top guitarists now. It’s like the guitar is a vessel for his heart. Guthrie as well, he’s technically ridiculous, but he’s got the ‘feeling’ thing as well, I think that’s the magic thing, and I don’t think I’m a great guitarist but I’ve got a great imagination and I focus on composition. I know my strengths and play to that. That’s why we asked Guthrie to play on Reanimation, it was like ‘this needs a lit more than I can do’. It was an honor to have him. I guess it’s like George Harrison asking Eric on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, ‘alright, let’s get Eric in’.” The In Verses tour starts in April. It must be exciting to play a setlist with new songs. Which date are you waiting for the most, apart from the first one? Do you have any favourite venues or cities which you like to visit? Ian: “Uhhm… I’m totally NOT pulling up the dates right now as we speak, oh wow, look I found them that’s crazy! Drew: “It’s been a long time since we’ve been in Poland, so I’m looking forward to getting back there.” Ian: “We’ve had to upgrade the venue in Poland, it’s been kind of blowing up, which is amazing. There are some places in France that we’ve played that were pretty fun shows. The Roundhouse in London, I’m looking forward to that one, it’s such a historic and incredible venue, and the Academy in Manchester, we’ve had some amazing shows there as well. I’m really looking forward to getting in front of these people again and having new stuff to share and new stuff to say. It’ll be as thrilling for us as it is for them, it’ll be very cool. Drew: “Germany is also a very fun experience, and I’m also looking to getting up to Sweden and seeing my cousin who lives up there in Västerås.” Ian: “Also, fun fact for you, for a fellow Hungarian, the first time we ever got some real direction for Ghost, the song that opens the record, was at a session on tour through Europe, we were in Budapest in a studio, and we came up with the beginnings of Ghost at that time. And we had such a fad time in Budapest, what a beautiful part of the world. The two halves split by the river, what a beautiful spot. Oh man, and we went to these bathhouses and were sitting there with these old guys, and like a 200 year-old man, we were all sitting there having a chat, having these hot, hot baths, it was so good! I can’t wait to get back there!”

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